He tries to hide his arousal

Walking into the Director's office, you made just the slightest tweak to his mind. Not to add anything that wasn't already there, but just to bring his baser instincts to the fore.

It certainly had the intended effect. Clear signs of sexual arousal showed in Reginald Brooks's posture as you walked across the large office. Your breasts bounced and your ass swung from side to side, while muscles moved under skin in a way that kept his eyes moving constantly, taking in your entire form. It wasn't necessary to look into his mind to know what he was thinking.

"Hello, Director," you said, taking a seat across from him. You made sure that your bosom heaved with every breath.

"Dr. Ternion," he replied. "I see you are continuing to experiment with your unique abilities."

"As I can," you said. "I must be cautious. After all, I only have the one body."

"Caution is commendable, especially when that body contains some of Hideki's most valuable assets, but I would have expected a report on your preliminary findings at least by now."

"My research has not progressed far enough to make any such report meaningful."

"Well, that is an issue, is it not?" Dr. Brooks leaned back. "And add to that your unexplained absence. No notice, no leave. For a newly-hired Assistant Director that is certainly not a mark you want on your employment record."

"Personal matters detained me," you explained. "I don't see that it's any of your business, or Hideki's, what I was doing. It was a private affair that arose suddenly and I was unable to inform anyone at Hideki in advance."

None of that was really true, of course, at least as things stood. If you wanted to, you could alter history to put in the proper notice and clear up the matter. But you weren't going to admit to having become all-powerful and you would rather see what the Director would offer to have him paper over the issue.

"As I said, an unexplained absence. Between that and a lack of any substantial progress on your research, and the fact that the setback that your absorption of Tina and Lina represents to our joint efforts with the military, I'm afraid you may be in quite a bit of trouble once word percolates to headquarters." The Director shook his head.

"Are you suggesting, Doctor, that I should not have integrated Tina and Lina into myself? They were sentient, intelligent beings who made the choice to request absorption of their own free will. That was their decision to make, and who am I, or you, or anyone else to deny them that?"

"I am suggesting, Doctor," he replied, "that if you wish to remain here, and especially in your current position, that you should make all efforts to replicate at least Tina and Lina, and, if possible, Zoe Hildebrand and Chloe Walker, as soon as possible. Research on those projects, especially Project Quicksilver, is a high priority and has stalled due in part to your actions." He leaned back. "And, of course, there's still the matter of being unreachable yesterday."

"Are you suggesting that I might require your assistance to retain my employment?" you asked.

"I am suggesting that our agreement may have to be extended once more." There was no question what he meant. "I should very much welcome the opportunity to be... inside you again."

"That agreement was never meant to allow--"

Reginald cut you off, as you expected. "And I haven't had the opportunity to be hands-on with you since your integration with Project Quicksilver. As you said, it would be improper if you were to head up the research project into yourself. I will allow you a degree of latitude in determining the course of the research but I must insist that you submit yourself for regular examination." He smiled. "Now would be an opportune moment."

"As I said, Director, I have been handling a private matter. I must insist on some time before I submit to such inspection."

You'd formed cameras, completely invisible, in the corners of the office before entering. They had almost everything you needed.

"You've had time, Assistant Director Ternion," he said. He stood up, looking down into your cleavage, clearly expecting you to stand and undo the button. "Now, will you allow me to conduct my research?"

"I will not allow you to **** me, if that is what you are asking."

Reginald's face started to turn red.

"Nor will I allow you to penetrate me, or ogle me, or suggest that I should submit to such treatment. And besides, how is it improper for me to lead the research into myself? I am the only being of my kind. Only I can truly understand myself."

The Director stalked around the desk. "We had a deal, Juno," he growled. "I can still end your career if you go against me." He put a hand on your shoulder.

You swatted the hand aside. "I'm afraid, Director, that it's your career that will be ending, one way or another." You gestured toward the ceiling, where the cameras had just become visible. He looked at them, then turned back to you, even angrier.

"What is this?"

"As I said, Reginald, only I can truly understand myself. Only I can fully determine the limits of my capabilities. Creating cameras from the nanites that infuse my body and rendering them invisible to the unaided human eye is quite simple." For just a moment, you disappeared in front of him, only to reappear a moment later with a handheld photo camera at your eye. "Say cheese."

You caught his look of combined rage and bafflement.

"The video clearly shows that you suggested permitting sexual harassment, molestation and **** as a condition of my remaining employed at Hideki Labs, and admitting that you had done so in the past. You admitted to a willingness to falsify records in exchange for such obscene treatment. And when I refused, you attempted to **** yourself upon me." You shook your head. "I think this leaves you with a simple choice, Director: resign quietly, or be fired once the Board sees this."

"And if they need someone to corroborate the video account," Kazumi Ishida piped up from where she was standing against a wall, having just turned visible, "I can certainly provide it." At the Director's baffled look, she said, "Juno was experimenting with whether a thin coating of nanite-infused slime would suffice to bend visible light around an object."

"You set me up," he said accusingly.

"It was you who attempted to take advantage of me," you pointed out.

"If I go down, Juno Ternion, I'll pull every string I have to take you down with me."

"I don't think so." You laughed in his face, changing your clothes from the revealing lab coat and G-string underwear to more formal business attire as you had been initially been wearing after promotion. Your exaggerated curves were still obvious underneath the outfit. "As you said, I contain the results of both Project Inside Out and Project Quicksilver. Further, I did not make any threats or imply retaliation. I think you'll find that I am far too valuable an asset for Hideki to discard."

"You threatened to show that video to the Board," he pointed out.

"That wasn't a threat, Director. This entire meeting was livestreamed to them." You glanced over at the phone on his desk. "Now, are you going to wait for the call, or will you submit your letter of resignation now?"

Reginald stalked back around his desk and sat down.

"Better start writing quickly," Kazumi said, smiling. "That call could come at any time."

--

"So," Kazumi said, sitting where you had been only an hour ago, "how does it feel to be the new Director of Hideki Labs?"

You sat in Reginald's old chair. You'd reduced your body somewhat from the form you'd used to entice the disgraced Dr. Brooks into going too far, but you were still noticeably curvier and more muscular than you had been, though no taller.

"Considering what else I am, I doubt the Peter principle will be applicable to me as it was to him."

Kazumi chuckled. "You can come by Hideki Tech and leer at me any time."

"Just leer?"

"Well if you want to do anything more, it probably shouldn't be on the clock."

"Good thing I can stop the clock whenever I want."

"What would happen if I tried to pause time?" Kazumi asked. "I know it's something I can do now, but do you freeze, too, or would you just end up in a frozen world for a while until one of us decides to resume things? Could be kinda awkward for me, depending on what I was doing."

"I'd freeze too, at least, my conscious awareness would," you said. "Sort of."

"What do you mean?"

"As soon as you unfreeze everything, I'll know exactly what you did, and I could alter it if I wanted to. But even while you've got everything frozen, my... essence, if you like, would still be the fundamental basis of everything. You wouldn't be able to do anything of which I absolutely disapprove." You shrugged your shoulders. It was harder than you had expected to explain everything about yourself to someone who hadn't fused herself with reality. Everything you were saying was so intuitively obvious to you that expressing it in a way Kazumi could understand was difficult. "That includes keeping everything frozen for too long, especially once you don't really need it. So don't go thinking you can just stop the universe and waltz around in it forever."

"Please," Kazumi said. "That would get boring."

"You might find it pretty boring to keep working here, what with all you can do now."

Kazumi shrugged. "It's only boring if I take easy shortcuts. All you did was give me the ability to do just about anything I please, and make me immortal. I don't just know everything the way you do."

"It's less that I know everything and more that I'm constantly deciding what's true and what's false," you said. "Even retroactively. Thankfully it's something my subconscious just handles on its own but if I wanted to, I could dictate the entire past, present and future states of the universe with a thought."

"So you just ignore what your subconscious is doing, kinda like giving a computer a program and letting it run in the background?" Kazumi said, trying to understand.

"An oversimplification," you said, but Kazumi nodded agreement, "but that's more or less the basic idea. There's a few things I've decided are actually impossible, and a few things that need a conscious decision on my part, but by and large I let things go on as they always have."

Kazumi nodded.

"What are you going to do now, though?" she asked. "After all, you could just fix everything with a thought, if you really wanted to. No need to go through the whole research-and-development hassle for you, either."

"No," you agreed, "but I don't want to have to be actively involved in everything. Hideki was producing adaptive gels and biopolymers before I existed, and now it's a matter of perfecting them for production and leasing."

"Leasing?" Kazumi asked.

"Leasing," you confirmed. "The nature of both is that sentience is positively correlated with effectiveness. A minor scrape only needs a little intelligence in the bandage or gel, but complete neck-down paralysis would pretty much require copies of Zoe and Chloe for full healing. I'm not going to be in the business of selling intelligent beings, Zumi. Leasing for specific purposes, and only if the bandages and gels agree to treat the patient."

"What if they take to a patient so well that they want to fuse fully, the way Zoe, Chloe and Emily did?"

You grimaced. "Full fusion isn't necessary for proper healing from ordinary injuries. That was part of the original designs because of their intended use on Emilia King in the hope that it would mitigate the effects of the curse on her. With such afflictions no longer possible, there's no need for the feature to be included. I'll admit that I don't especially like deliberately removing functionality--it feels like I'd be lobotomizing those beings, I guess--but it's not necessary."

"So what are you going to do? Just poof a bunch into existence?" Kazumi asked.

"That would make Hideki entirely reliant on my continued active goodwill," you pointed out, "and would potentially lead to questions I don't feel like answering. I'd rather just create the conditions under which research can succeed, and ordinary production can then proceed apace. I'll offer the occasional 'insight' from time to time, but there's a good team here and I'm confident they can solve most of the problems on their own."

"And then what? I can already see other places where you might have to get involved. Proper communication with these new beings, for instance, especially any that don't have vocal capability."

"Which would be most of them. I don't intend to make very many that can treat an entire human body at once." There were still some old prototypes that you'd have to sort out. They didn't deserve to be locked in cold storage forever, but you weren't yet sure what to do with them. "I'm sure the Board will approve the funding for a full software development team. After all, the applications would extend beyond communication with sentient Hideki assets. Imagine treating an injured animal who could give you feedback the way a human would. Or even getting direct mental feedback from a human undergoing a surgical procedure requiring anesthetisation."

The concept wasn't unheard-of, you knew. Before you'd absorbed all magic, there were people who had the ability to channel other consciousnesses into their bodies, though not at will. Most viewed it as some sort of curse, and while a handful had put it to good use, the ability left them **** to malign actors ruining their lives with essentially no legal recourse. Make it voluntary, though, and it could be put to other nefarious uses. So you'd decided simply to be rid of it.

"I imagine that will require a very specialised team," Kazumi said. "You're not just talking about software development, but neuroscience to figure out how to translate electrical impulses into intelligible words."

"There's a few old experts I'm confident I can entice to the project. They have, let's say, some personal experience with the matter."

"Let me guess, one of those magical things you decided won't work any more," Kazumi said.

"What I taketh away, I giveth in another form."

"For the most part, anyway. Ultimately we're all still limited by what you decide is possible."

You shrugged uncomfortably. "All I wanted was to be left alone, Zumi. I wanted to be unique, I didn't want people trying to study me in order to replicate me. I didn't want to be trapped in a lab somewhere while people tried to unravel me back into five beings, if they even could. But the pursuit would never have ended unless I could **** it to end."

"So you took over the entire universe because a handful of people would have kept hounding you."

"I'm not saying I'm any sort of saint. What I did was selfish and vain, I admit that. That's why I'm trying not to interfere."

"You've given Emilia King two genies who can do pretty much everything you can, and you've also let me do almost all of that, too. How's that not interfering?"

"Because to the extent that I distrust either of you, I can ensure that you don't do things that I'd dislike. Neither of you is going to be particularly inclined to make sweeping changes to the world, especially when you know that what you can do is my gift which I can withdraw at any time."

"It always comes back to power and control, I guess," Kazumi concluded.

"The world runs on power and control, like it or not. I just happen to have the most power and the most control."

Kazumi clearly wanted to change the topic. "On another note, where are you going to live? I don't imagine sleeping here holds much appeal."

"I converted a former King Enterprises warehouse into a nice little cottage for myself, on that mountain overlooking Spiral City, as I said. That's where I intend to live. After all, I'm literally only ever a thought away from the labs." You paused. "You could move in, if you want."

"Living off the grid?" Kazumi said. "Not likely. You know how attached I am to my technological toys."

"And you know that we both don't need a grid any more."

"True." Kazumi thought for a moment. "I'll give it some thought," she promised.

You nodded.

"I should probably get back to work," she went on.

You knew what she wanted to ask. "Don't worry. Nobody will think it strange if you're somewhere you maybe shouldn't be given where you have or haven't been before. It just won't register on their conscious minds. You can come and go from your workshop as you please."

Kazumi nodded and focused. A moment later her chair was empty.

A moment after that, so was yours. You'd left directions to continue research as usual, and besides, you had someone else to visit.