Another lane of communication opens

Molly stared at the pop up on her phone trying to figure out what it meant two more messages quickly popped in.

Device found online

Communication with device established

Downloading saved routine to device

“Um, I think Paul’s Gadget just came online,” Molly announced to the team.

“Oh,” Xane commented, “that might mean you can try to get his attention!”

“Maybe,” Molly said a bit perplexed. “There’s a lot of dialogues I haven’t seen before.”

“What’s it saying?” Nico asked.

Molly read off the messages to them, “do you know what it’s doing or what ‘routine’ it's talking about?” she asked.

Everyone seemed to look to Xane for his expertise. “Hey, this is my first exposure to a Gadget,” he responded defensively, “I just disassembled and reassembled the physical components and made sure they work. I only took a cursory look through the app.” He then deflected, “don’t you have more experience with the device, Molly?”

Molly looked sheepishly at the group, “I was usually more on the receiving end.” Katie stifled a chuckle and shook her head at her friend.

A chime from Molly’s phone announced another message:

Device executing saved routine

“What ‘saved routine’ could it mean?” Molly asked a bit exasperated as she read the message to the group.

“I’ll see what I can find in the manual,” Xane volunteered as another chime came from Molly’s phone.

Molly looked at the screen and panicked a bit as she read off, “I know this one: ‘Warning: device battery very low! Charge soon.’ It says it's at 5% at the moment.”

“Well, that should last for a while; its communication was pretty efficient as long as the motors aren’t running it should last almost an hour,” Xane replied absentmindedly as he was looking for routines in the manual.

“CRAP!” Molly bursts out grasping everyone’s attention, “it says 3% battery already.”

Xane’s eyes went wide as he knew the motors would almost all have to be running to chew through the battery that fast. “Um, for the device to come online it either had to connect to a WiFi or bluetooth of a management device, do you think he could be nearby?”

Molly got excited that maybe he was near home and looked to the front door hopefully, “I don’t know, maybe so.”

“Look at the Gadget’s GPS indicator,” Xane recommended.

“It’s what?!?” Molly asked Xane in shock.

Xane was a little surprised she didn’t know that because he thought Paul said she had it for years as it was supposedly a key feature. “Um, if you look at the device’s properties there should be a location menu and a map should pop up where the last recorded location was.”

Molly quickly fiddled with the app dismissing the alerts and warnings and found the setting. There on the screen was a map with a flashing red dot right near the club. ‘That’s how that bastard knew where I was! Fucking Bill!’ Molly screamed in her head.

Katie looked over her shoulder and saw the map with the dot indicating nowhere near the house, but she did recognize the major roads, “where is that?”

Molly nearly jumped as Katie asked her as she was so lost in remembering how the Gadget had been used on her in the past and was basically like a tracking tag; she wondered if the other girls knew too. Molly finally realized what Katie had asked and simply said, “it’s the club.”

“Well, he’s still at the dungeon then?” Katie asked.

“Maybe,” Xane interjected, “it may just be the last location and hasn’t updated yet. What’s the time stamp say under it?”

Molly looked back to the phone, “it says it was last updated a 15 seconds ago.”

“Odd,” Xane said a bit perplexed, “they don’t have an open WiFi there do they?”

“No, they don’t allow...” Molly started to explain when her phone dinged again:

Battery level critical!

“Shit! The battery is at one percent!” Molly exclaimed and looked to Xane, “you said it would last an hour!!” Her phone dinged again.

Routine execution complete

Device offline

“FUCK!” Molly exclaimed. “I think the Gadget just died,” Molly said as she read off the messages to the group. “What happened?” she asked Xane desperately before getting up and pacing a bit frantically, “Damnit damnit damnit!!!”

“Sec,” Xane said as he was searching through the Gadget support articles to get a crash course in routines. “Huh,” Xane says impressed not even realizing he vocalized his impression.

“What?!? What is it?” Molly asked exasperated when Xane didn’t explain his findings and just kept staring at the screen.

Xane missed that she was even paying attention to him but glad to see she stopped freaking out for a moment to focus on him, he tried to keep her attention with an explanation, “apparently with the app, you can run through a routine of various intensity and patterns, save it, and uploads to the cloud. If the device is online, it will download it and run it immediately, but if its offline it will run it when it gets on the Internet.” Xane was impressed that this much technical thought was put into a sex toy.

“What fucking routine?!?” Molly asked frustratedly.

Xane was pretty sure it was from her messing with it earlier, but he tried to deflect to another aspect as he was sure she wasn’t interested in hearing she may have had a hand in it, “regardless of what routine, it wouldn’t have gotten it if it hadn’t come online or connected to a device on your account. If you’re sure there isn’t an open wifi there, are you sure he doesn’t have his phone there?”

Molly was sure that she saw his phone in her purse, but with **** hope she was wrong she bolted up to get her purse and double check. Bringing her purse back to sit next to Katie for support, the group could see her visibly shrink and become crestfallen as she pulls out another phone, “fuck! This is definitely his.”

“If there is no Internet for it to connect to, it shouldn’t come online unless there’s someone else’s phone on your account there,” Xane stated flatly as he tried to contemplate some other way for it to work.

Realization hit Molly’s eyes as she realized who’s account it really was and she swallowed deeply, “oh shit.”

Everyone turned to Molly as they realized she had a revelation. Katie finally broke the silence as they could see her darting her eyes around, “what is it?”

“fuck,” Molly mumbled to herself, “it's gotta be him. He said no one else had it.”

Katy was trying to figure out what Molly was rambling about, “what is it, hun? Does he have another phone or something?”

“No, not that I know of, just the one but that’s all he’d need,” Molly kept uttering despondently as she stared into nothing at the floor.

“But that is Paul’s phone, Molly. How can it reach three towns over?!?”

Molly looked up at the mention of Paul’s name perplexed why Molly was asking about Paul’s phone that she had in her hand. “It can’t it’s right here, but He could be there.”

Katie was worried that her friend was suddenly losing it, “of course, Paul’s there, hun. But how does that work with his phone here?”

“Yes, Paul’s there but He could be there too, and His phone could be the one the Gadget connected to,” Molly rambled on.

Katie was almost getting frustrated at this point, “Aren’t we talking about Paul here? ‘He’ who, Molly?”

“Bill,” Molly finally uttered her realization.