Keeping Kate Safe.pdf
Keeping Kate Safe
Kate Bishop had just signed a lease on her new apartment in New York City. It was nearing the end of her first summer after high school graduation and she wanted her own place to live in the city while she attended college.
Kate and her mother Eleanor were sharing dinner in her mother’s penthouse. Eleanor brought out a large casserole dish filled with baked mac & cheese and set it on the table beside mounded platter of garlic bread.
“Jeez mom, this is a lot of food. Are you expecting company?”
“No sweetheart, it’s just us. I wanted to have one last special girl’s night before you go off and leave me.”
Kate rolled her eyes, scooping cheesy pasta onto her plate.
“I’m just going across town, mom. It’s not like I’m running off to join the Avengers…”
Eleanor knew, however, that it was her daughter’s deepest dream to do just that. Ever since she had seen Hawkeye and the rest of those costumed crazies in action back in 2012, when Kate was just a little girl, she had become obsessed.
“I know, I know. It’s a mother’s job to worry, you know? Anyway, eat up. After dinner I’ll let you pick the movie.”
Kate dug into her mac & cheese hungrily. Having been a very active youth and teen, she had always had a healthy appetite. Her numerous hobbies of archery and martial arts, combined with a youthful metabolism, kept her relatively thin.
Eleanor had only a salad herself, with a small piece of garlic bread. She smiled warmly as her daughter ate. When Kate’s plate was clean, she helped herself to a second mound of pasta without prompting, and grabbed a couple more pieces of bread.
The second helping disappeared only slightly slower than the first, and Eleanor sipped her wine and made small talk while Kate mostly focussed on eating. When she had finished again, Kate leaned back in her chair and exhaled contentedly.
“That was great, mom. If you cooked like this every night, I might rethink moving out.”
“You don’t want some more, Kate? There’s plenty left…”
The younger woman hesitated only a moment before nodding, letting her mother heap her plate with cheesy pasta once more.
While the two women watched Love, Actually for the umpteenth time, Eleanor’s mind churned. It was a dangerous world out there, and even with the massively successful security conglomerate she ran, there was no way to be sure her daughter stayed safe. Eleanor started scheming as the trite love stories played on screen. She began putting together mental lists of contractors to call and systems to set up.
***
Several months later, Kate was once again at her mother’s penthouse for their weekly Sunday dinner. Eleanor had been sending groceries and even some fully prepared meals to Kate’s apartment, and the combination of her mother’s generosity and the buffet-style cafeteria meant that Kate had put on the “Freshman Fifteen” and she wasn’t halfway through her first semester.
“More soup, dear?”
Without waiting for a reply, Eleanor filled Kate’s bowl of rich cheesy broccoli soup for a third time. In truth the soup was much more cheese than broccoli. Kate hesitated briefly, feeling the pinch of her waistband as it dug into her bloating middle. The smell of the delectable soup won her over though, and she dug in with gusto.
For her part, Kate’s mother was completely oblivious to the way Kate’s tight black top could not disguise her budding love handles, or how her daughter’s pants looked fit to burst around her growing ass. All she saw was her darling baby girl, well cared-for and protected.
As Kate slurped her soup, Eleanor watched as her headstrong, adventurous daughter’s eyelids grew heavy. Before the bowl was empty, Kate’s head slumped to the table as she passed out. Eleanor had drugged her daughter.
***
Some time later, Kate woke up in a small room. It didn’t look like a cell, but it essentially was. She was laid in a large comfortable bed, and could see a large desk with a computer terminal, and bathroom fixtures in the corner. The room was immaculately clean, and had no windows.
“What the– where the hell am I?”
An intercom clicked on “It’s my saferoom sweetheart.”
“Saferoom… what? But why?”
“I got a tip there’s another alien threat on it’s way. I think it will be focussed in Africa but I want to make sure what happened to your father doesn’t happen to us.”
“What, you just want to hide? When people are in danger?”
“People are in danger all the time, Kate. You’re not a hero, and protecting my family comes first.”
Kate fundamentally disagreed with this position, but it was a worn out argument by now. Her only chance was to try and escape.
“Well, why aren’t you in here, then?”
“I just have to sort out a few things and I’ll be right back.”
“Sort out… what thing?”
Kate’s mom did not answer. Kate got up and sat at the desk. She tried to use the computer, but it was set up only to allow her access to online classes from her college, all outgoing communications were blocked. A panel in the wall opened and a set of robot arms placed a platter of warm cookies on the desk next to her. As she tried to bypass the computer’s locked down interface, Kate grabbed a cookie and bit into it with frustration.
***
Eleanor just had one last component to make sure that her saferoom could run properly even if she were locked safely inside with her daughter. Her employer, a very dangerous man, had secured a bit of of Stark Tech AI. It had been left at a dead-drop for her, and not a moment too soon. Eleanor pulled a manilla envelope from a small locker at the bus station, and returned to her building, walking fast but trying to appear calm.
Emerging from the elevator, Eleanor crossed the spacious penthouse to a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Tilting back a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, she watched the bookshelves retract to reveal a reinforced steel wall and vault door that led to the saferoom.
A panel beside the door had ports, and Eleanor pulled the envelope from her jacked and retrieved a small data drive and inserted it into one of these. A progress bar appeared on the display as the program uploaded.
When the progress bar on the transfer reached about 60%, Eleanor started to feel strange. Her eyes went a little wild and she held up her hand to look at it. Within seconds there was a spray of dust where Kate’s mother had stood.
Inside the saferoom, Kate was busy acquainting herself with the computer interface. In the span of an hour or so she had become less fixated on hacking her way out of the terminal and was growing more calm. The tasteless powder mixed into the cookies had a strong calming effect, and Kate now wanted nothing more than to relax and maybe get a head start on her first batch of classes. And maybe a second batch of those cookies.
***
For the first six months that Kate spent in the saferoom, all her food was dosed with compounds to make her calm and compliant. An unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your perspective) side effect was a strong appetite stimulant.
“Ready for dinner sweetie?” The wall speaker squawked.
“Sure thing mama, I’m starving.”
Had anyone been able to see Kate, they would say she was by no means “starving.” The lounge leggings she wore were skin tight around her swollen hips, and her button-down pajama top was straining against belly and boobs as she sat in the wide, accommodating chair at her desk. Kate was focussed intently on the lesson she was watching, and had a platter beside her that held only a single brownie, sitting among the crumbs and the remnants of many many brownies which now resided in Kate’s bloated tummy.
As the robot arms set a pan of baked ziti large enough for a family of six on Kate’s desk, the lesson completed and the display changed to the opening scenes of a familiar movie. Not bothering with a plate, Kate slid the pan in front of her and began to scoop fork-fulls of saucy pasta into her hungry mouth.
“That’s a good girl. If you finish it all, you’ll get dessert.”
As Kate scraped the last of the pasta into her mouth, her belly pressed into the edge of her desk, and the buttons on her top creaked in protest. The last mouthful slid down her throat, and all thoughts of inconvenient wardrobe were overridden by the promise of the sweet sugary treat to follow.
“Good job, sweetie.“ The voice spoke as the robot arms retrieved the empty pan. ”Would you like cheesecake, or pie?”
Kate watched Julia Stiles going through an awkward meet-cute on the screen, and drummed her fingers on the tight, rounded surface of her barely-clad stomach.
“Maybe… some of both?”
“Of course dear, coming right up!”
The AI which Eleanor had stolen was not a very advanced version, it was one of the early prototypes of what eventually became Jarvis. But it had enough learning algorithms to process all of Eleanor’s files when it was uploaded into her smart home and saferoom computer system, and the AI adapted itself to match the woman’s voice and speech patterns. It also took over and and continued what it saw as Eleanor’s most recent project.
Just like the woman herself, Eleanor’s stolen AI would do whatever was necessary to ensure that Kate Bishop would never go out into the dangerous city streets and become some kind of vigilante “hero.”
In the first few weeks of her captivity, Kate often asked “her mother” when she was joining her in the saferoom. The AI kept Kate distracted with drugged food and lame excuses until she stopped asking.
Between the relative simplicity of the AI, and Kate’s gradually increasing appetite, both bot and young woman were kept busy. While Kate slept, the AI spent its nights fabricating new clothes for her growing body. During the day, Kate spent every waking moment taking virtual classes or watching movies. All the while, the AI pampered and fed her. The AI was not oblivious to Kate’s increasing size, but prioritized its main directive above all else.
Inside the saferoom, a panel opened again to deliver both an entire pie, and an entire cheesecake. Kate burped softly and ran a hand over her swollen middle, feeling the straining buttons of her shirt. “I don’t think I can eat all of this, Mom.”
“That’s alright sweetie, we’ll keep whatever you don’t want as leftovers for tomorrow.”
There were no leftovers, and Kate’s shirt lost two buttons.
***
Eleanor stood in her penthouse, now facing a wall of books.
“Why is this closed?”
She pulled on the Roald Dahl book again, and the saferoom door was revealed. Eleanor punched in a code, and for her trouble received only an error beep.
[Access Denied] Eleanor heard her own voice report from the panel.
“What the hell?”
[Access Denied] The voice repeated.
“What do you mean access denied? This is my saferoom!”
[Access to this facility is restricted, for the safety of Kate Bishop.]
“Kate Bishop is my daughter, open this door this instant.”
[Accessing data on Eleanor Bishop. Working.]
Eleanor waited. She heard the whirring of a small elevator which had had installed to deliver supplies to the saferoom system from a drop in the building’s lobby. Before the computer responded again, she heard the supply elevator running again. Somehow the device was running almost constantly, even though she knew the saferoom had been fully stocked that morning. What on earth was going on?
Finally the computer spoke.
[Eleanor Bishop disappeared in “The Blip” five years ago.]
“The Blip? What the hell is that??”
[Working. Displaying known information on the event referred to as “The Blip.”]
Eleanor’s eyes grew more and more wide as she read about the hijinks those damned Avengers had caused with their meddling and vigilantism.
“Alright, I’m clearly not gone, or dead, or whatever. Now open this door!”
[Working…] Eleanor heard the supply elevator running yet again. [Eleanor Bishop identified.]
Unseen bolts in the vault door clicked into place and the massive slab of reinforced steel slid open. Eleanor stepped into the saferoom to receive her third shock of the day, and by far the largest. Literally and figuratively.
Reclining on the double bed was her daughter. Or at least, Eleanor was pretty sure it was her daughter. The young woman in the bed was still wearing dark leggings and a buttoned sleep shirt, but the garments were large enough to keep Hulk modest. Kate’s hips spread wide enough for three of the daughter she had carried into this room. Her breasts were each larger than her head, and rested heavily on a belly that filled Kate’s lap to her knees. Robot arms extended from the ceiling and were dropping chocolate tarts into Kate’s mouth every time she opened it for another.
“Oh –gulp– hey mama! –nom– You’re here at –chomp– last! Did you –nom– come to take me to –mmm– graduation?”
Eleanor’s jaw hung open as she looked from her enormous daughter to the vault door she had just stepped through. Kate was not going to be going out in the streets to fight crime any time soon. Eleanor doubted her daughter could even fit through the door. If she could even stand.
Eleanor pressed a hidden button and the vault door slid closed behind her. She climbed onto the bed next to her overfed daughter. She was close to falling off, and made a note to have a larger bed fabricated.
Eleanor plucked a tart from the tray and fed it to Kate, patting her daughter’s mountainous middle.
“What movie are you watching, sweetie?”