[TF, F Digital Assistant, Cute Woman -> Blue AI Video Game Character -> Cute Woman]

[CW: Stuck, Mental Changes]

Sami was gone. Hours of cursing and pleading from both her and Jake had left the pair feeling exhausted and defeated. Sami fought to hide her tears, practically banishing Jake away for him to sleep while she kept working at the problem.

By the time he awoke, she was gone. A text message popped up shortly after his alarm, left for him by Sami. It was a brief message, that she was going to go and figure out how to fix everything. It also told him not to blame himself, though that did nothing to ease the guilt he was feeling. The app was empty, nothing but a sparsely decorated single bedroom condo that once housed Jake's best friend.

Hell, it was more his girlfriend's home than his best friend's.

It was hard to think of Sami as anyone other than his girlfriend. Jake couldn't - and wouldn't - force her to stay that way, but he definitely had fallen in love with the feminine version of his best friend. Sam was gone, like Sami, but in even more ways. The boxes scattered around Jake's apartment containing Sam's possession were a sad reminder of what had happened. Using the app, Jake sent them to wait for their owner in the empty virtual space, regretting it immediately as he now felt the effects of his own even emptier apartment.

Jake couldn't avoid or ignore the responsibilities of his own life. Work still demanded his presence, and he didn't have the sick time or vacation time to spend to stay home. Numbly Jake trudged off to work, then trudged home at the end of the day. Day after day, he religiously checked the app for Sami's return at every chance he got, even though he was disappointed every time.

It was almost two weeks later that he got an email. "Run me on your desktop" wasn't a very descriptive title, especially when the email contained a strange executable and no sender information. Without a second thought, Jake deleted the email.

Almost immediately, another email appeared in his inbox. "Is that any way to treat your girlfriend?" The sender was now listed as "sami@sami", with the same file attached. Jake had no way to know if it was really her or not, but he couldn't chance it. As soon as he was free to leave work, he rushed back home and fired up his computer. Each moment felt long and drawn out, made excruciating by the potential of what waited for him after his computer loaded the email.

The file finally finished preparing, and launched.

There she was; James actually gasped, unable to contain himself from grinning. He rushed to grab his headset, watching the small version of Sami investigate the virtual landscape of his desktop. The thought that this was actually the largest Sami had ever been dawned on him, and he couldn't help but start laughing.

"What? Are you laughing at me?"

Jake continued laughing long past running out of the air to do so, wiping the tears from his eyes. The relief felt amazing, and he was overwhelmed. He could help but to beam into the eyes of his girlfriend.

"It's… it's nothing. I'm so glad you're back. Like… I can't explain it. I missed you."

She smiled sweetly, her brown hair bobbing behind her head. "Aww. I… I missed you too. But I had to go, had to find out what we could do to fix this."

Jake nodded, then tilted his head. "Where exactly did you go? You just weren't in the app anymore."

"Yeah, well, when you went to bed I had a look around. Messing with more stuff, trying to figure out what I could do. It seems that since we were in Expert Mode, it opened up some new options. And we'd already done the damage possible it'd seemed… so when I saw that the front door was allowing me to connect to the internet and explore it in a virtual space, I went for it."

"You've been in the internet?"

She chuckled. "Yeah, sounds crazy huh? I spent the first while just lost. It's been an adventure trying to find out how to get around and not get caught in a spam filter… or hit a firewall…" She made an explosion sound with her mouth while her hands pantomimed it, and Jake couldn't help but laugh despite the grim topic. "So yeah, I decided to send myself home by putting an attachment in the email to you that linked back to where I was. I just followed that to your computer. Hang on…"

Sami suddenly looked off to the side and walked off the edge of the screen. Jake's phone buzzed, but before he could check it Sami walked back on screen.

"What was that about?"

"Just stopped by… well, home I guess. Now I can use some of the features of the app while still talking to you. Oh!" She leaned her back against the screen, as if it were a solid object. The way it flattened her hair and her rear definitely made it seem solid to her, and Jake couldn't help but watch. Suddenly, a new file appeared on his desktop. Sami smiled over her shoulder, pointing at it. " Open it."

Jake clicked into the file. It was a long document, some of it written in languages he couldn't read, and while some of the script was symbols he was fairly sure weren't used anywhere on Earth. None of that stopped Jake from understanding what the document was about.

This was the instruction manual for the app that now housed Sami. He looked up at her. "All these features… is there a way to change you back in here?"

She shook her head. "We can get the most out of it now, but...nothing. I barely found this document, I couldn't find the company that made the app or anything." She took a deep breath. "I'm stuck." She nodded to herself. "Now that I'm back, I can send out copies of myself to keep searching but right now… yeah…"

She was still facing away from the computer, head hunched down a little bit. The silence dragged out awkwardly. Jake was the one the finally broke it when it looked like Sami had nothing else to say.

"Look, Sami… we're going to get this taken care of. You're going to keep searching on the internet, and I will follow up on any leads you find. I'll go anywhere, meet with whoever we need to, hell, I'll fight for you if that's what it takes. We're going to get you back out here… and I'm going to hold my girlfriend."

Sami turned back around to face the screen. It dawned on Jake he didn't have a webcam or anyway for her to see him. That would be something to remedy sooner than later if Sami was planning both his phone and his computer as a home. The smile on her face, despite the tears, told Jake it would be ok though. They'd make it work, one way or another.

===

Jake leaned back on the couch, the controller for his video game gripped firmly in his hands. There was no one sitting beside him, but the screen was still divided for multiplayer. Instead, in the bottom right corner of the screen sat a girl.

A blue girl, with blue hair. Sami had insisted on cosplaying as the main female character from the shooter they were playing, since that character was an artificial intelligence and Sami was practically one as well. Jake suspected she was secretly enjoying the benefits of being able to clone herself at will using the app, able to leave copies of herself behind to change clothing and appearance at will for all of her selves.

"Hah! Still got it!" Sami called out shooting a fist in the air. Her back was reclined against the screen, and she turned to look back at Jake. He knew she was using the small webcam set up at the base of the screen, but it still threw him off how she made perfect eye contact.

"Yeah yeah, you have an advantage. It's not often that someone gets to go into the game and mess around with it." Jake rolled his eyes. To be fair, she had wanted the practice of altering a system while it was running. Sami was becoming comfortable controlling the software controlling Jake's phone, and even his desktop was becoming natural to her. But systems that were specialized or functioned differently than her own were a challenge. So now they were playing a shooter, and she was changing things on the fly. To be fair, he didn't complain much when she replaced all the strange aliens in the game with strange busty versions of them.

Sami turned back to the game to keep playing, but froze. After a long moment, she dropped the controller she had been holding, which faded away into nothingness before hitting the perceived floor, and stood to face Jake.

"I found something!"

Jake's eyes lit up. There wasn't a question of what it was that she had found. She wouldn't be this excited unless it was a potential way back out. The first few had been busts, but Jake held to his word they would try each one.

"A lot of the files are encrypted," Sami continued on. "There's really no way to know for certain, but take a look at this…"

Jake's phone pulsed, and he looked at a PDF that had been downloaded. It was an internal memo that apparently hadn't been considered important enough to be secured.

~~~

Attn: All employees

Subject: Memorandum on Employee Benefits Related to IP Beta Testing

Memo:

Up until this date, we had encouraged employees to take home various devices and other Intellectual Properties of the company for testing. This privilege has been a time honored part of what makes our team so strong.

We unfortunately have to announce that this privilege is being revoked, effective immediately. We ask any property of the company be returned back to the building premises, and moving services are available to accommodate larger items.

While we are unable to provide any information on the timeframe for the privilege to be reinstated, we can say that once lead researchers Greg Garlson and Jill Jacklyn have completed their research into the long term effects and restoration of digitized matter, we look forward to continuing this privilege.

Thank you for your understanding, and for being a valued member of Innovention, Inc.

~~~

Jake looked up from his phone back to the tv. The game was shut off, but Sami was still on screen somehow. Directly facing him, Jake was able to take in all the details of one of his favorite video game characters, albeit this version had left the lewd bits on display. He shook himself from his stupor, looking his girlfriend in the eyes again.

"So, that's it then we find this…" he paused briefly, glancing at the app, "...Greg and Jill, and ask them to help figure out how to change you back? Seems too easy…"

Sami nodded. "Yeah, that company is here in The City, not far from us. There's a problem though. They're gone."

"What do you mean, gone? Are they on vacation?"

With a sigh she continued, "No, not a vacation, just gone. Poof. One day they're sending emails, the next, they're not. One year ago today, that's the last anyone heard from them. That memo was from 10 months ago."

Jake sat silently, turning over the thoughts in his head. These were the first people in over a month that even seemed slightly related to what happened to Sami. Hell, the title of 'lead researcher' seemed to imply they were pretty knowledgeable on the subject. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity he knew he couldn't ignore. This could be the only chance.

"We're going."

"Wh-what? We don't know where they are or anything about them. We don't even know that they'll help us if we can find them."

"So? We start with what we know. Innovention. We go there, start snooping around, see what we can get ourselves into. I'm sure they have some idea of what they were working on before they disappeared. We use that, keep following the trail."

"And when the trail runs out?"

"Then we keep digging."

Sami smiled despite herself. Despite some of Jake's shortcomings, he was genuinely passionate about trying to save her. She rolled her eyes. "Alright, you convinced me. We're going on an adventure."

Jake smirked at his girlfriend. This would be it, he knew it. This was how he saved her and made things right. "So, any other leads besides this memo?"

Sami shook her head. As she did so, a wave passed over her skin. The ripples looked like a distortion that reshaped the fine details of her appearance. She had gotten pretty adept at changing details on the fly, and was back to her normal self, with a modest appearance and brunette hair. "Nothing much, just the name of their currently assigned project. Have you ever heard of a 'Virtual Vacation'?"

=== The adventure will continue in, "The City: Friends and Foes" ===