Emi Acquires A Couple Of Rubbers.

10:29 am Sunny Day Mall Floor 6 – Wet “N” Antics Offices

Restricted Product Testing suites

With the Restricted Product Testing suites' door locked behind her Emi’s immediate panic ebbed away as she padded quietly along the carpeted corridor. Emergency had been her escort, adrenaline her companion, but now, as her steadier breath reclaimed the rhythm of calm, strategy took their place. Savouring a brief respite, she glanced into a small storeroom, its contents far less thrilling than the company’s usual flamboyant products. The room offered up rows of neatly arranged swimwear, life jackets, and water accessories.

A pair of brightly coloured rubber pool sandals with secure straps caught her eye. She slipped them on. She debated changing her clothes altogether, her top half was a complete mess and slowly disintegrating but time was still a factor so she settled on the footwear and wondered back out into the short corridor of the Restricted Product Testing Suites.

Thankfully the offices were more or less deserted this weekend, Keiko being one of the few members of the department in today. However, there was one individual that Emi wanted to speak to that she did know was in this Saturday that being Milo Danvers the lanky 27-year-old Digital Product Engineer. He was a little bit of a recluse rarely venturing from the Restricted area and Emi truly hoped that he had remained true to form today and hadn’t been to the main office.

Milo was lead engineer responsible for design and support on Wet “N” Antics products that had a digital component. It had surprised Emi when she had first joined the company (as it often surprised most people) that Wet “N” Antics even had a major digital product component. Most members of the public saw the company as a provider of water guns, swimming pools, swimwear and so forth. In fact, digital technology was core to many of the company’s most profitable ventures. This included automated rides at theme parks; smart water slide control system’s that allowed water flow to be managed and monitor the safety of riders through weight and motion sensors; smaller items such as waterproof fitness trackers and many more.

There were four doors on each side of the corridor and a final door ahead of her. Emi headed to the fourth door on the left of the corridor, the Wet “N” Antics Digital Products Suite. She wondered whether she was taking too big a risk. Afterall Milo was friends with Kyle Thompson from IT and if by chance Milo had decided to visit Kyle this morning and had acquired a Pass…Emi shuddered at the thought of being bred by the lanky Milo or heaven forbid the repulsive Kyle. Ethan was a proverbial prince on a white horse by comparison.

But no, the risk was acceptable for the reward Emi had in mind, and Emi had always had dubious impulse control and a high-risk appetite. And anyway, if Milo had been out in the main office, she was sure she would have seen him amongst the initial carnage.

She paused outside the door and peeked in through the long narrow glass slit. Inside she could just see Milo wearing large sound muffling headphones. His characteristic rounded shoulders were hunched and he was working in front of a dual monitor set up, his fingers dancing on the keys like a pianist in a trance. Emi breathed a sigh of relief. No way Milo would be calmly working away if he had access to a Breeding Pass or even knew about what was happening.

Emi took a second deep fortifying breath and pushed the door open and entered the Digital Products Suite. Milo, his figure hunched with the silent intensity of deep concentration, didn't even register her entrance, his noise-cancelling headphones effectively sealing him in a cocoon of solitude.

As Emi closed the door behind her with a soft click, twin heads popped up from the far side of the room like curious meerkats and flashed Emi identical smirks. Hina and Suki, the eighteen-year-old Digital Product interns. The sisters were over from Osaka, Japan for their summer internship having turned eighteen the previous Winter. Their appearances were as striking as they were similar, with sharply cut, shoulder-length brown hair framing delicate faces, and their expressions alive with a mischievous glint.

Hina's attire, hung loose over her slim frame, her legs tucked into capri-denim shorts that emphasized her nimbleness. She wore a tee-shirt featuring bright renders of some cartoon Emi didn’t recognise. Suki (the older by ten minutes) leaned into the corporate penchant for vibrancy more overtly, donning a neon-green sleeveless tank top cut at the midriff and matched with a daringly bright orange skirt that showed altogether too much skin. On any other day of the year if ‘Alaska’ Sayaka saw them dressed like this she’d virtually cane their hides for breaking company policy.

But then again maybe not? Being the nieces of a Senior Director back home had granted the sisters an enviable position for the summer and no small degree of latitude. Their playful, attitudes often veering into the disrespectful and perhaps even spiteful. It had often irked the more serious-minded staff at Wet “N” Antics but what could they do with the twins protected by influential family back in Japan?

Right now though the twins’ eyes were agleam with barely contained hilarity as they appraised Emi's dishevelled state. Emi offered a tight-lipped smile to the girls as she beelined for Milo's secluded workstation, trying to ignore the twins' piercing gaze and the intensity of their entertained whispers.

"Emi-san, modelling the 'post-slime slip and slide' collection today?" Hina quipped in English, a language they had been practicing with gleeful abandon all summer. "A new fashion statement perhaps?" Suki added, her eyes dancing with a cruel sort of mirth that sent a ripple of irritation down Emi's spine.

Emi's smile flickered, her professional poise warring with rising annoyance. "Actually, it's a prototype fabric that dissolves on contact with lotion—It will be revolutionary in company clothing," Emi quipped, trying to defuse their jest with her own humour despite the sting.

“Or maybe she had another liaison with Grant?" Suki whispered to Hina turning her head away from Emi but purposefully loud enough to be heard, her innuendo hanging thick in the air. Hina and Suki exchanged a glance and giggled, the sound light and tinkling, like the chime of delicate bells. They quickly returned their attention to the pile of user interface sketches they were supposed to be sorting—an assignment they frequently punctuated with whispered jokes and doodles.

Emi was glad of keeping the banter with the twin’s brief and especially glad the teenagers hadn’t asked the more obvious question of how she had made it into the Restricted Product Testing suites in the first place. Emi approached Milo's workstation and tapped a finger lightly on his desk. He remained oblivious. She tapped again, this time with a bit more insistence. No reaction. Emi rolled her eyes and reached out to gently nudge one of Milo's headphones back, breaking the seal of his musical fortress.

"Milo, you in there?" she asked, her voice tinged with urgency.

Milo started, nearly jumping out of his chair. He swivelled around, pulling off his headphones and blinking at Emi as if she were an apparition conjured by his intense coding sessions.

"Good, you're here," Emi said with relief.

Milo's eyes, wide behind his glasses, flicked between Emi's shredded attire and the phone she held out to him. "Emi, what happened to you?"

She waved off his concern with an assured smile. "Well, that’s part of it actually a Wet 'N' Antics product testing session gone awry. But please MIlo, I need a big favour," she implored.

"What kind of favour?" Milo asked warily, his eyes momentarily darting to the smirking twins who had now paused their work again to eavesdrop on the unfolding drama.

"Can you help me unlock this phone? Fast?" Emi flashed Keiko's phone. "It's kind of a matter of corporate life or ****," she added, half-joking, half-serious.

“Why do you have Keiko’s phone?” said Suki innocently. Before Emi could deny it, she added “I recognise the cover.”

"And is that Keiko's skirt you’re wearing?” Hina interjected.

Emi's mind raced faster than a Wet 'N' Antics water slide as she found herself cornered by the twins' probing queries. She could feel the walls of her hastily constructed story beginning to dampen under the sisters' scrutiny.

"You're one to talk about dress code, Suki," she glanced pointedly at the skimpy outfit Suki wore. "Besides, Keiko and I are about the same size, and she was kind enough to lend me this after a little... accident with the prototype fabric. As for the phone,” Emi quickly continued, seizing the moment before the twins could interject any further, "actually, Keiko couldn’t remember her pass code and is indisposed at the moment. She had to get something straight between her and Tyler from sales.” Emi sounded unconvincing even to herself but the sight of the muscular African American man pounding poor Keiko in the pool was all Emi could envision at that moment.

The twins had sceptical looks on their faces, but before they could interrogate the Assistant Business Manager any further their phones gave a series of loud alerts and they simultaneously became engrossed with the latest notifications from LINE. At that moment Emi had never been gladder that this generations teenage-girls were addicted to social media.

Emi turned to Milo, but before she prepared to press him on unlocking the phone, she noticed what he was working on. One of his monitors had an image of a woman’s vagina and judging from the interface and tool bar next to it this wasn’t porn but actual company work. The other monitor seemed to be a testing ground for some kind of mobile app which Emi intuited was for a vibrator.

“What is this, Milo?” Emi said her curiosity overtaking her concerns about Sayaka and the rest.

“Uhm.” said Milo his cheeks turning a shade of red, “well I really shouldn’t be saying but the company is planning on starting a line of remote water-resistant adult toys. They can be controlled directly or remotely via app.”

“Really?” said Emi cocking an eyebrow. She had no idea the company was this far down the road of wanting to enter the Adult Industry.

“Yeah,” said Milo shifting uncomfortably, “only Keiko knows really. Even Yumi hasn’t been told yet.” Milo nodded towards a small white cardboard box on his desk that Emi had assumed were for headphones, “it’s the only prototype in the office. Arrived from Japan this morning.”

Emi breathed out. In any other circumstance this would be the defining news of the day, the week or perhaps the year. But today it was essentially minor gossip. “So,” she said keen to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand while Hina and Suki were distracted with their phones. She leaned in closer to Milo, dropping her voice to a more confidential tone.

“So, about Keiko’s phone—time is a bit of a luxury I don’t have right now, Milo. Can you help me out?”

Milo, still flustered from revealing too much about the new project, nodded, taking the phone from her hands. “I can unlock it, but you need to understand... if Keiko forgot her passcode, I have to wipe the device. That's the company protocol for security.”

“Oh,” said Emi, “that isn’t going to work this time. I tell you what? As Assistant Business Manager I’ll cover for you with any protocol issues.”

The twenty-something nerd had a strained look on his spotty face, “It doesn’t really work that way,” he said **** to take the device she was proffering to him.

“It could work that way though,” Emi said, putting one hand on his arm and leaning forward, strategically allowing one of her partially exposed breasts from her tattered blouse to hover just inside Milo’s eyeline. Milo gulped as a few stray drops of lotion dropped onto his lap. “Oh, sorry about that,” said Emi softly, her hand wiping away the errant splattering and casually making its way up to Milo’s crotch.

Milo nodded dumbly and took the phone with shaking hands.

“Oh also, disable any internal passwords Keiko has as well,” Emi said brightly and smiling sweetly. She cast a quick furtive glance back at the twins, who were now absorbed in their own world, their fingers tapping away furiously as they engaged in what was likely a flurry of gossip and reactions on LINE.

Milo minimised what he was working on and plugged the phone into his desktop and set to work with deft fingers, navigating the phone's security settings with the precision of an expert. Emi, meanwhile, edged away to prevent the twins from overhearing any more of their exchange. She casually drifted towards the interns’ desk, her eyes on the teens but her attention fixed on Milo's progress.

“So, into any good gossip on LINE?” Emi asked, mustering all the nonchalance she could. The question had the desired effect; both twins lifted their heads, their social media reverie momentarily interrupted.

“Oh, just the usual scandals,” Hina said with a sly grin, her thumbs still scrolling.

“Don’t tell me, another pop idol caught kissing a fan?” Emi asked, playing along with idle curiosity.

Suki rolled her eyes at the older woman’s attempts to engage, “something like that.” Emi at twenty-seven was already kind of lame to the teenager.

“Sounds intriguing,” Emi said with feigned enthusiasm, backing away slowly and returning to Milo’s station just as he finished up.

“All done,” Milo announced to the room at large a little too loudly for Emi’s taste. “The phone is unlocked, but you owe me an explanation later, and I mean it, Emi,” he said with an assertiveness that surprised Emi.

Emi beamed at him, relief washing over her. “You’re a lifesaver, Milo. I'll debrief you on the whole absurd saga later, I promise.” As Emi turned to leave her heart jumped slightly when Hina not looking up from her phone said, “Emi-san you didn’t really answer why Keiko needed you to come into the Restricted area you know? It’s completely against company policy.”

Emi’s cheeks flushed, her poise slipping at this entirely reasonable challenge. She didn’t have a reasonable answer for the petulant teenager so the only response was a wholly unreasonable answer.

“Listen to me young lady some of us are trying to work here!" she said, her tone as acidic and as managerial as she could muster while wearing a short pool skirt and a rapidly disintegrating blouse. “There are only a few months to go before we transfer back to Japan and we all need to pull together and put in our best, to be loyal to the Company. Sometimes that means helping colleagues in unusual circumstances. What it does not mean is wasting your time on your phones and questioning your superiors. If you have forgotten Hina, then let me remind you that I am the Assistant Business Manager in the office and you are a summer intern!”

The twins, momentarily startled by Emi's assertive rebuke, exchanged a quick, sheepish glance before turning back to Emi, their smirks fading into contrition. "Sorry, Emi-san," Hina muttered, her tone laced with surprise rather than full remorse, not used to being on the receiving end of such a scolding.

"Yes, we didn't mean to question you," Suki added, echoing her sister's sentiment in a similarly subdued voice. Their apology was brief and perfunctory, a reflex born of their cultural upbringing.

“It’s fine,” said Emi eager to be out of the room, but as she turned to leave, she heard Suki muttering to her sister and just loud enough to be heard, “I wonder what our uncle would think about the conduct of the Business Managers in America?”

“Apparently some Japanese women do things differently once they are in the United States, wondering around half naked,” said Hani.

That last comment did it. Emi would have been happy to let the twins disrespect pass and let them be, safely isolated from the Breeding Day in the Restricted Product Testing Suites. But even hinting at bringing Emi’s conduct to the attention of her seniors in Japan sealed the twins’ fate in Emi’s mind. She hadn’t knocked Sayaka off her perch just for two brats to sabotage her climb up the corporate pole. But if they returned to Japan knocked up then their uncle could hardly question Emi’s own conduct!