“Hey Tom, did you just send a set of simulations over to the server farm?” The message pops up in Tom’s chat window, minutes after sending the latest batch of work off for processing.

“Yep, did I set it up wrong or something?”

“Not exactly - it checks out, but it’s totally overloading the whole system. Every other job is stuck in the queue right now. What the heck is it?”

“I’m running a stress model on a new thermal drill - part of the new Europa probe.”

“Well, it’s basically tied up everyone else’s work for the next 19 hours… I think we’re going to have to cancel it for now.”

“Shoot, sorry - it’s already behind schedule, but if it’s breaking other stuff, I’ll wait until the weekend.”

“If you have any more crazy calculations to run, I heard there’s some new program for you working-at-home folks to help run your sims locally. I don’t really know any details, but I’ll send you the link when I find it.”

“Thanks, I’ll check it out.”

A few minutes later, a link to an internal form shows up in his inbox. “Computation Assistant Technology application, interesting…” He clicks on it, and a multi-page form pops up on his screen. The first few questions are benign - what’s the need, what’s your current computer setup, who’s your supervisor.

The last few pages, though, are very different. “Why the hell do they want to know my relationship status for a computer upgrade? Weird…”

The final questions are consent to do some house modifications and equipment installation. “I guess they’re installing some kind of massive computer in here? If they’re paying for it, and it saves me time then cool.” He hits the last section of the form, and quickly scrolls through a gigantic user policy agreement, barely reading the overwhelming legalese as he skims through. He hits submit, and it fires off somewhere into the corporate network.

A few days pass, and Tom forgets about the form, figuring it either went nowhere or got stepped on due to budget constraints or something. His work backs up as he waits for the weekend and the chance to take control of the server farm, and by Thursday he’s totally blocked from any more progress until the results come back. He kicks his feet up, and says to himself “I guess i’m gonna have a rough next week, might as well relax a little while I can.

Just as he closes his eyes, he’s startled by his phone ringing, nearly flipping out of his chair before catching himself. “Hello?”

“Tom?”

“Speaking”

“Hey Tom, we got your form for the CAT installation, are you home?”

“CAT?”

“Your data assistant. You submitted the form a few days ago, and we’re on our way over to set it up.”

“Oh cool! Thanks!”

Tom hangs up and immediately runs to his bedroom, his normal work-from-home uniform of bathrobe and pajama pants not being appropriate for company. He throws on some acceptable work clothes, and soon after the crew is at the door.

The crew of four, each carrying a massive crate, pile into Tom’s apartment and immediately go to work breaking open their respective boxes. All, that is, except for the last crate. This one looks vastly different - instead of a fancy cardboard box it’s some kind of high-tech plastic cube. It’s marked with various caution symbols, and has a digital display on the front with a series of graphs and numbers constantly updating. The top of the crate is a segmented dome, hinged to flip around and backward.

One of the workers asks, “Tom, I need to set up the interface to your computer, can you take me to your office?”

“Sure, follow me.” The installer sets a strange-looking flat disc on the side of his desk. It's about 8 inches in diameter with a raised connector in the center. A massive set of cables on the back of the disc hooks into his work computer, filling every available open port.

“That’s a weird piece of kit, so the computer plugs into that?”

“Yeah, that’s the connection for your assistant. Did you read the documentation?”

“I may have skimmed through parts of the agreement, but I never got a manual…”

“Oh. You’re gonna want to download and read that. Although I’m sure you’ll figure it out quick. Anyway, I gotta head back to the next install - time is money and all. Enjoy your new CAT!”

By the time the software is downloaded and installed, the rest of the crew has already left, their jobs completed. A mysterious gadget was left sitting on the kitchen counter, looking like a combination of the disc from the desk but with a couple more connectors, and a square blender jar mounted on the side like a high-tech smoothie machine.

In the center of the living room is the strange cube, the display still tracking something and the slight murmur of a motor humming somewhere inside.

Curiosity takes hold, along with the natural tendency to just figure stuff out instead of doing a bunch of reading, and Tom sits down in front of the box. Looking it over, he sees the only obvious button, clearly labeled “OPEN”.

“Simple enough. Must be some really expensive kit in here. I guess if they’re replacing a whole server farm with this thing it’s gotta be pretty pricey.”

“Well, here goes nothing.” He hits the button.

The cover whips open, only slowing down at the very end to avoid smashing itself on the back of the crate.

“Oh what the hell!” Tom jumps up, shocked to see a young woman, or at least a young woman’s head. Her neck continues down into the crate, but there clearly isn’t enough room for someone to be sitting in there. Her eyes are closed, and she seems to be sleeping. Or deactivated. Or something.

He approaches again, now both freaked out and curious. He looks over the mysterious woman, someone roughly his age and very pretty, her straight brownish-red hair cropped to just short of the top of the box. As he looks her over, the display on the front lights up, and the lines on the graph start to move upward rapidly. The woman’s eyes twitch slightly, and suddenly open.

“Oh hi! Tom? I’m Lilly! I’m your new CAT!”

“Woah shit! Wait, what?”

“I’m your new Assistant! I’m here to help you out with work stuff!”

“Lilly? I’m confused. I really should have read the manual…”

“Oh! That’s no problem, I can explain. Could you pull me out of here though, it’s a little chilly in this hibernation box. There’s a handle on each side of me.”

Tom crouches down and looks around the inside of the crate, and sees a round rim at the top of the box, with a fold-down handle on each side of the edge. He grabs ahold and pulls up. As he pulls the handles, a gray cylinder emerges from the crate, only slightly larger around and slightly taller than Lilly’s head.

The cylinder, apparently containing whatever’s left of Lilly, is nearly featureless other than a small indicator light, currently glowing green. He sets her down on the nearby kitchen counter, his hands shaking slightly. He takes a couple steps back.

Lilly looks up at Tom, with a hopeful expression. “So this is me, sorry about freaking you out. I’m surprised you didn’t get more info on us, the CAT program is a pretty big deal.”

“Sorry, I'm still extremely confused. Also I’m not sure I believe what I’m seeing. I definitely have some questions though.”

“For sure, I’m all answers. I’ll start at the top. Some researchers found out that the human brain, with a little modification and training, is really good at solving certain problems when hooked up to a computer. They got some volunteers to try it out, myself included.”

“So you volunteered for this?”

“Yeah, but initially I was still fully me, just with a datajack stuck in my head. While in the program, I got hurt really badly. With so much time and money invested, they did their best to save me, but eventually I ended up like this.”

So you’re a person then, not a robot or something. How are you still alive? I’m sorry. I’m still kinda in shock.”

 “Inside my case I have some partial organs, and some artificial stuff. It doesn’t take much to keep me going, so everything is pretty small. They also found out that with less of me, my work got better as more brain power could be redirected to solving stuff instead of maintaining a body, so it was a two birds one stone kinda situation.”

“How does this arrangement work then? I assume you’ll need me to take care of you, and in return you help me out with work?”

“Yep, that’s about the scope of it. I get to hang out with you and be a human supercomputer, and you just have to plug me into the nutrition machine on your counter and the waste handler they set up in the bathroom daily. A shower every once in a while wouldn’t hurt either..”

“Oh yeah, if you want to go out of town or something, or I need to get picked up for maintenance, you can throw me back in the crate. It’ll knock me out and put me into a kind of hibernation, and I can hang out in there for like 5 days before it gets sketchy.”

“I don’t think I want to do that, that seems a little inhumane to treat you like an appliance.”

“Oh thanks! I knew when they matched us up you’d be a good partner. Anyway, clearly they thought you needed my help. What are you working on?”

“I have a bunch of stress models to run on some parts for the space probe program, and they’re sick of me absolutely blasting their server farm.”

“Oh, that sounds pretty juicy. Want to give me a test run? I’m pretty impressive.”

“Sure, do I just set you on that thing they set up on my desk?”

“Yep, The connector is on the bottom of my case.”

Tom reaches out and grabs hold of the sides of Lilly’s container, and carefully picks her up. He walks her over to his desk, and gently sets her on the connector disc. She clicks into the port,  and the light on the front of her case slowly blinks green.

“So that’s it?”

“Sorta, you need to kick off the job, and instead of running it on the server you run it on me.”

“Seems simple enough.” Tom opens up the modeling software, and clicks the “Run Simulation” button. The box pops up to select the target, and he picks the ‘CAT Controller Interface’ from the dropdown menu.

 “Oh yeah, I might act a little weird during the run. Turns out, having your brain hijacked feels great. Like really really good. So I’m gonna be a little bit of a mess while it’s running, don’t freak out or anything.”

“Interesting… Thanks for the head’s up. Ok - 3, 2, 1, here we go.”

He hits ‘Run’, and Lilly immediately makes it obvious what she meant.

“Oh fuck!” She gasps and her eyes roll back, her head tips backward, and she thrashes around in some kind of extreme bliss, although her motion is limited by her reduced form.

At first, Tom startles at the outburst, but quickly realizes that she’s clearly enjoying herself. Although it’s fairly awkward to witness after only knowing each other for mere minutes, he’s also a single guy watching a woman appearing to have a massive orgasm at work. Not exactly workplace appropriate, although in this case, it’s already way beyond the normal work-from-home experience. He glances over at the job status, and it’s already 25 percent done.

“Damn Lilly, that’s fast! Are you ok though?”

Her head rocks to the side, and she quietly moans, panting and looking off into the distance with half-closed eyes. Her head twitches, and her eyes roll back again as the progress bar on the computer hits 50 percent.

Tom looks back over to Lilly, and notices a bunch of her hair flipped forward, covering one of her eyes and getting caught in her mouth. She’s clearly in no state to fix the issue, and he’s not sure how she would take care of it anyway, so he decides to help out. He hesitantly and carefully moves his hand in, to move the stray hair out of the way.

As his finger gets close, her out-of-control movements bring her lips in contact with his finger. Her mouth opens slightly, and his fingertip slips inside. In her half-conscious, fucked-up state, she involuntarily sucks on Tom’s finger for a moment as he quickly pulls his hand back.

“Oh, sorry!” He blushes slightly, both from embarrassment and excitement. Just then, the progress bar on the job hits 100 percent, and the results appear on his screen.

Lilly slowly calms down, catching her breath and trying to compose herself.

After a few moments she says to herself, “God damn I love my job..”