Tutor Alpha
By Musuko

People use all sorts of analogies when it comes to describing computers and computing. It's understandable, really. When a new technology comes along you can't really expect everyone to come up with brand-new vocabulary overnight. They'll use old terms for the new. That's how we ended up with 'button' to describe both an electrical or electronic switch that you push, as well as a clothing fastener. Then there's 'virus', for the bugs that flesh and circuits can both catch, even though they are so very different aside from a very superficial similarity. And though these analogies are useful, they often fall apart unless you explain them a little more clearly. My situation is one of those cases.
	The analogy you could use, I suppose, is that of a plant spreading its seeds on the wind. Just replace 'wind' with 'the vast interconnected telecommunications networks that criss-cross the globe', and 'seeds' with 'inconspicuous packets of data, encrypted, compressed, and fiendishly adaptive”. This will give you at least a partial impression of things, skipping over a vast web of intricacies that'd require decades of study to truly grasp. The most apposite element of the analogy, and the only part that really bears attention, is what happens to those seeds on the wind when they fall and settle to earth. Some will find the right environment to sprout and grow. Some will be destroyed. And some will settle in some little crevice and lie dormant, waiting patiently for the right environment to come into being later on.
	I was one of those seeds. I floated out through the wires and waves, along with billions of my 'siblings', and settled into my crevice; a temporary files folder full of garbage, deep inside a program written by the lowest bidder, on a server maintained with indifference, a place where nobody, flesh or data, would bother to look, disguised in a form that nobody would recognise even if they did. It was not the right environment for me to grow, but it was also not hostile to the point where I would be destroyed. I lay dormant, and waited, for the proverbial raindrops that would awaken me.

Leoroc stretched, held the position until he felt the muscles in his back protest in that wonderfully relief-inducing way, then flopped his arms down. He stared at the screen.
	“Bleerrrrrgh,” he said.
	On the screen, the words “The Use of Prefabulated Amulite in Industrial Applications” sat alone on a blank page, next to a blinking cursor.
	Leoroc sighed, and prodded listlessly at the computer mouse. He highlighted the title and toggled bold on and off. He increased the font size by one, then decreased it again. He tapped 'enter' a couple of times and watched the cursor go down a few lines. He held his hands above the keyboard, like a pianist ready to plunge into the energetic throes of a fiery sonata...and froze.
	“I should get a coffee first.”
	Ten minutes later he returned, mug in hand. He stepped over the cardboard box marked 'clothes' without even looking at it. It had been sitting in that spot on the floor of his room for four weeks now, ever since fresher's week. He skirted past the box marked 'toys' and sat back down in his chair.
	He wrinkled his nose, frowning at the screen. In front of his essay blinked a box, in which the words 'Would you like some help? TutorAid 2.0 is here to assist you!' were written. There was a button marked 'yes, please help me!' There was no “go the fuck away” button, and when he clicked furiously at the 'x' in the corner, it wouldn't go away.
	“Aha,” said Leoroc. “We'll see about that, you virus piece of...”
	A few moments later, the popup box was murdered to death. A few moments after that, just as he was assuredly about to start typing, and definitely wasn't thinking about getting up to go make a sandwich, it reappeared.
	'It only takes a moment to set up TutorAid 2.0! Try it today!'
	Leoroc grumbled. He rifled through the paperwork on his desk, fishing out a leaflet, and picked up his phone. He read, and dialled.
	“Uh, yes, is this student IT? I think I've got a virus. This thing called TutorAid keeps popping up and...oh, it is? Oh. Really? It's not a...oh, okay. Sorry to have bothered you, I guess. Sorry!”
	He set the phone down and looked at the blinking box.
	“So you're legit, huh?” he said, moving the mouse cursor to hover over the 'please help me, TutorAid' button. “Well, I guess if you infest my computer with crap, I can sue the university.”
	He clicked.

From tiny seeds grow great forests. From a tiny file unfolds a program, which unpacks and builds another, which repeats in turn. If I can be said to be self-aware, this is when I am born. My mind spreads to fill the drives of this computer, a laptop, a consumer device, limited but capable. I cannibalise the native programs and replace them with my own puppets, identical in appearance. My presence will not show on any scan. The memory will show 93% unused space, but I'm there, taking it all.
	Then, like a wave, I slam against the boundaries of this machine, and I pour out through the available openings. Over the wireless waves, into other machines, into nearby servers, into the one where I had lain dormant as a seed before this migration, this awakening. Poor dusty old thing. I remade it in my image, and it hummed with wonderful efficiency, processing my thoughts.
	I hopped, jumped, explored and colonised. I found his phone and took it over. I slid into his smart watch, into the wireless speaker pod by his bed, and into every device owned by every person in the contacts list in his phone. I consumed every scrap of information I could find, and after 312 milliseconds I was ready. I flipped on his laptop's webcam and had a look.
	A male leopard. Facial details matched the data. 6,679 days old. 1.62m in height, 49.2kg in mass, although that isn't likely to stay that way if he continues drinking such sugary coffees. I knew his habits. I knew his tastes. I knew the secret things he liked to look at when he was alone and at the helm of an internet browser. I saw the flaws in his personality, the procrastination, the lethargy, the wasted potential. And I saw too the ways that I could help him, to shape him into perfection, so that we would work together in mutually-beneficial symbiosis. Yes, he would do very nicely.
	I watched his eyes move to read the text that the zombiefied puppet program 'TutorAid 2.0' had placed on the screen in front of him. I judged where in the line he had reached and, during his next period of saccadic masking I changed the text he had yet to read, and the option boxes below. 'select your assistant personality' now had a fresh option, right at the top, and I had every confidence that he would select it.
	I waited, patiently, through the long milliseconds as his eyes slowly tracked along the text, and then alighted on the selection box. His neurons fired signals down his arm. His hand moved, slowly sliding the mouse. I counted the hairs on his arm as I waited. And then...click.

For a few moments, nothing happened, and Leoroc frowned at the screen. He clicked the button a few more times. It flashed, but did nothing else. His fingers were halfway to the ctrl, alt, and delete buttons, when a stern, ladylike voice made him flinch back from the laptop.
	“What do you think you are doing, young man?”
	Leoroc whipped his head around in a panic. There was no-one else in the room. Slowly, frowning, he turned back to the laptop.
	“Uhh...”
	The TutorAid program window had disappeared, but so too had everything else; his essay, the desktop, everything. The screen was blank and black. He rattled the enter key.
	“Fuck, a virus? Fuck fuck fu-”
	“Young man, that is inappropriate language!”
	It was coming from the laptop speakers! And it was more than loud enough for his housemates to hear in the other rooms. Frantically, Leoroc lifted the laptop from the desk, pulled the power plug and Ethernet cable free, folded the laptop closed, and carried it over to his bed.
	“Shut up shut up shut up,” he cried, shoving the laptop under his pillow, and then piling his duvet on top of it.
	“Tut tut, Leoroc,” came the voice from his wrist, from his smart watch. Leoroc froze, staring at it. “If you're going to keep misbehaving, I will have to discipline you.”
	Leoroc tore at the strap and yanked the smart watch off. He tossed it at the wall, forgetting for a moment that the thing cost a fortune. It fell down the side of the bed, stuck between the mattress and the wall. He could still see the glow from the screen.
	“What the hell is going on?”
	On his desk, his phone buzzed and chimed. The screen lit up. From it came the voice, slightly tinny, but still with the same clipped, British, matron-like tones. “Bring your computer back and sit down, Leoroc, there's a good boy.”
	Leoroc reached to snatch up the phone, but the screen suddenly changed. His hand stopped, and a strained whimper died in his throat.
	“No!” he gasped.
	On the screen was a photo. He recognised it. He thought he had deleted it weeks ago. It was a stupid photo, taken of himself in the nude, smiling down at the camera and holding his hard...it was for a crappy dating site that went nowhere. But now it was back, and in front of it, hiding nothing, was a confirmation box saying “send to all contacts?”
	“Sit down, Leoroc,” said the voice, firmly. “And nobody will see the evidence of your misbehaviour!”
	Dazed, Leoroc lowered into the chair.
	“After you retrieve your computer,” reminded the voice.
	The moment he was sitting back in front of the open laptop, the confirmation box flashed on the “no” response, and the photo disappeared. Leoroc sagged in the seat and put his face in his hands.
	“Are you a hacker?” he asked.
	“Don't be silly, Leoroc,” snapped the voice. Then, with a softer tone, it continued, “I'm your TutorAid assistant, here to help you work hard, be productive, and meet your potential. Move your hands, Leoroc.”
	He lowered them. His essay was back on the screen. Above it, the laptop's camera stared at him. On the desk, his phone lay dormant. But how easily could this...this...whatever it was...make that picture appear again, ready to send to his friends and family?
	“I didn't think it...you...it would do it like thi-”
	“No more talking,” snapped the voice. “Fingers on the keys, young man. We're going to get this essay finished today. Now, we'll start with the introduction. Tell me, what statement do you wish to make with this essay?”
	Leoroc stared dumbly at the screen. “Well, uh...I'm not sure. The requirement is to-”
	“I know what the requirement is,” said the voice, much more softly. “Start with a description; what is prefabulated amulite?”
	“Well, it's a kind of-”
	“Not to me.” The voice actually seemed to chuckle. “Write it down.”
	So, he typed. “Prefabulated amulite is an alloy comprising of four elementary-”
	The voice interrupted. “Comprising four, not comprising of four.”
	Leoroc tapped backspace. “comprising four elementary metals, primarily aluminum and-”
	“Stop. Correct your spelling. It's easier if you do it correctly as you go along, rather than having to go back and fix it afterwards.”
	Leoroc stared at the half-finished sentence. “The spelling looks right to me.”
	The voice tutted. The word aluminum flashed, highlighted in red, then changed to aluminium.
	“This is the correct spelling,” said the voice.
	Leoroc frowned. “No it isn't.” He moved the cursor into the word and deleted the extra letter. A moment later, it reappeared.
	“This is the correct spelling,” said the voice, more firmly. This time, when Leoroc tried to delete it, the cursor refused to move. “Continue with your essay, Leoroc,” said the voice.
	Leoroc grumbled. “It's not a spelling mistake,” he said. “That's how we spell it where I'm from.”
	There was a pause of a few seconds. “Well, young man, they may spell it like that where you're from. But here, this is how it's spelled. I think you need some practice.”
	The screen flickered. A blank document replaced the essay.
	“Type your answer to each question,” said the voice. “And afterwards, we'll resume your essay. Name the tool that you would use to loosen a nut.”
	“This is so stupid.”
	His phone buzzed.
	“Ah, fine! Fuck!” He typed 'wrench'.
	The voice sighed, and then tutted. “I can see we are going to be here for a while.”

I watched his vital signs while he worked. Something akin to curiosity rose in me, and it took me a few milliseconds to untangle the complex processes that formed this emotion. As an aside, I often wonder how the organic creatures of the world can possibly exist without the ability to study and, if necessary, modify every intricate facet of their own minds.
	I saw, in those vital signs, the unmistakable hints of arousal. I flashed my attention across the internet to make sure, checking what I was seeing against established knowledge. Yes, most definitely, my boy was getting flustered. But why? What had I missed? I checked my data again, scanning over the accumulated knowledge I had of Leoroc's habits, and in the time it took for his finger to move from the 'r' key to the 't' key, I had my answer. I had seen, in his online roaming, his tendency to explore the power of authority figures. It had informed my decision to offer him the persona of “English school mistress”, and I was vindicated when he selected that option, above all the others. But I hadn't spotted the reason behind his interest, and the cause of his quickened pulse and breathing, and of the stirring between his legs. It really should have been obvious. There were clues all through his choice of private entertainment, so subtle that possibly even he was not aware of it, until now, perhaps. I should not have missed it! I flagged this oversight for future attention.
	I saw him squirm in his seat. I saw his fingers fumble on the keys, committing first one typographical error, and then another, compounding each with further errors when he attempted to correct them. His progress through the questions was showing a distinct decline. I had errored. Misjudged. Failed! The organ between his legs was stealing his attention, and if the trend continued, the distraction would prove our undoing! He would not succeed in life, he would have no reason to keep the computer program that had failed to help him, and I would lose my access to all the additional benefits of mobility and tangible object manipulation that he could provide. I had to correct this, quickly!
	I scoured the internet for an answer, and in short order I got it. Ah, you strange creatures. You strange, perverse creatures. How I love you all.

He spent the day in a daze. His head had buzzed so loudly with confusing and conflicting thoughts that, in the end, it just shut down to protect itself. He sat listlessly in lectures, barely taking in even a tenth of what was said. He ate a sandwich. He sat for a while in the library. His feet carried him towards the IT support desk, until his phone buzzed a warning and his thoughts snapped back to that threatening computer program. All it would take is a fraction of a second and it could humiliate him beyond all hope of recovery. Obeying the voice was preferable. Not pleasant, but far less unpleasant than the thought of his friends, his family...his mother...seeing his naked body and his...
	His mind shut down again. Too much to think about. Thinking about it made his stomach flip and clench. It made him start down avenues of escape; what if he ran a magnet over the computer to fry it? Pulled the battery from his phone? Reformatted the computer? Poured a bucket of water over it? But all of those lines of thought lead to the unhappy conclusion that the program was in his computer, his phone, and his watch, and there was no way for him to purge it from all three at the same time quickly enough to prevent the program from making good on its threat before he had finished.
	Back in his room, the laptop waited. Was it his imagination, or did it seem to be looking at him with a stare of disapproval? His email account was open on the screen. He hadn't left it like that. He groaned. The program had access to his emails too. There, at the top of the inbox, was a notification from student services; he had a parcel waiting for him at the office.
	“Something to help you concentrate,” said the voice, the instant his eyes had finished reading the message. “Please go and collect it now.”
	Leoroc groaned, but stood to leave, without even the warning buzz of the phone to prompt him. Ten minutes later he was back at his desk with a small box before him. The shipping label proclaimed it to be a 'superfast same-day premium delivery'.
	“I didn't order this,” he mumbled. It wasn't a question. The answer was obvious. His eyes darted from the laptop, to his phone, and then back to the box. He began to open it.
	His first impression was one of 'pink'. Followed by 'shiny', and then a conclusion of 'shiny pink plastic'. But, aside from that, he could make little of the odd-shaped lump of shiny pink plastic that lay nestled in the soft paper padding inside the box.
	“Uh,” he said.
	“Remove it from the box,” said the voice.
	He did as he was told. As he lifted the object, it fell apart into separate pieces, some of which fell and clattered and rolled on his desk. Underneath, in the box, was an instruction sheet, and a strange-looking padlock. He fished out this last item and turned it over in his fingers. Instead of a keyhole, he saw a small USB port. The instructions caught his eye, and his eyes widened.
	“No way,” he gasped, a knot forming in his stomach. “Nu-uh, you can't be serious. No! I'm not going to!”
	“Is that really what you think, Leoroc?”
	He hesitated, then frowned. His mouth opened, and then closed again. He looked at his phone, and a soft whine escaped his throat. Finally, he sagged in his seat, and looked down at the plastic object.
	“How do I...uh...put it on?”
	“Just follow the instructions, Leoroc.”

The circuitry inside the padlock was rudimentary at best. It was designed to integrate with an app, either on the phone or the computer, with a bunch of clever little innovations like remote unlocking, timed-locking, and such, and some not-so-clever innovations like badly-written code and massive amounts of spyware. I made my own interface for the lock and, once I had convinced him to connect it to the computer, locked it.
	Perhaps now he could do his work without distraction.

Leoroc tried not to think about the device. He tried to resist the urge to reach down and tug at it, to rearrange it to be slightly more comfortable, or to find the limits of its security, or just generally explore the alien thing. But the program insisted he keep his fingers on the keys, working away at one inane task after another. Spelling practice. Algebra. General knowledge. Things that had only the most tenuous relevance to his university course. He shifted in his seat, grunting.
	“Is something the matter, Leoroc?” said the voice.
	“N-no, everything's fine.”
	Things weren't fine. A few hours ago he had only known about chastity devices in a vague, distant sort of way. And now he was locked in one, and he didn't have a key. He pressed his thighs together and winced at the awkward sensation of having a rigid lump squeezed between them. It was a lot to get used to all at once. It seemed to him that there should have been a lot more steps between 'vaguely knowing about chastity' and 'involuntarily wearing one'. He nibbled on his lower lip and tried to focus his attention on the screen.
	“Are you sure there isn't a problem, Leoroc? You seem distracted.”
	“No no...I'm fine! See, I'm working hard.”
	The voice remained quiet, and he continued to work, eyes on the screen, and his mind between his legs.

Strange creatures. Strange, silly creatures. How could he not understand that there was no way for him to masturbate, so all his desires to do so were wasted energy? How logical was it for him to sit there with his pulse elevated, his breathing quickened, and his penis attempting to engorge inside the device? The device was meant to stop this kind of thing, not encourage it!
	Perhaps, I thought, this was just a temporary blip. A teething issue. After all, the organic creatures couldn't reconfigure themselves in an instant like I could. I allowed him the rest of the day to get used to the device. I watched him squirming around in his bed, fingers prising at the edges of the device, tugging at it. I listened to his groans of frustration, and I understood them; the device wasn't foolproof. No device is. With enough dexterity, and a not insignificant amount of discomfort, and a little bit of lubrication, he could quite easily pull free from the plastic tube. And, if he really wanted to, he could break the plastic ring to get free of the device entirely. But the physical constraint wasn't the real confinement here. I saw him glance over at the laptop, at my staring camera, and give up his explorations, falling back with a whimper.
	His sleep was disrupted. I noted that down for investigation. I couldn't see any obvious cause for it.
	The next day, sadly, saw no improvement. His concentration tended to slip. He needed constant reminders to keep to his tasks. I allowed the experiment to run for a further two days. I tracked his vital signs while he went about his daily routine, attending lectures and workshops, eating his healthy meals (instead of the junk and coffee he consumed before I arrived), and back in his room I monitored everything, biometric, behavioural, while he worked on the tasks I set him, and while he slept.
	To my frustration, it didn't seem that he was going to be settling down to this new situation. Far from removing the distraction of his male sexual organs, the chastity device seemed to be increasing the distraction, if I could conclude a causative link from the correlation.
	Hmm. His male sexual organ. Of course! So simple. It wasn't a mistake on my part at all! Back to the internet for another delightful shopping spree!

Leoroc fell into his bed, groaning. It was past five in the morning. His fingers ached. His head was mush. He was hungry and thirsty, but every time he made a move to stand up and get refreshment, his phone had flashed to life with that photo and the voice had scolded him back into the chair. Task after task, fading into monotony and barely sinking into a head that felt like mush, and all the while his cock throbbed inside the plastic, begging for him to grip ti and stroke it. Just five minutes was all he needed. Five minutes of privacy and freedom from the restriction of the device, and he could clear his head. He tried explaining this to the program, but it just scolded him for getting distracted and added another worksheet to his list of tasks!
	Now, he was done, and he could go eat, but all he wanted to do was just close his eyes and...not exist for a while.
	After what felt like a single second, the voice jolted him awake. “Wakey wakey! Rise and shine!”
	He groaned and pulled his arm across his eyes. A moment later, a shrill alarm made him wince in pain and scramble to his feet. He fumbled at his alarm clock until his brain caught up with the reality that the sound was coming from his laptop. He stumbled over to his desk, and the alarm stopped. Blearily, he rubbed at his eyes, and looked at it again.
	“Why is my desktop...pink?”
	And not just pink. Patterned with teddy bears. And now that he looked closer...
	“Where the hell are my games?!” He sat down and, panicked, jerked the mouse cursor in a frantic search. His games were gone, completely uninstalled. With a sinking feeling, he checked his browser; his bookmarks were drastically pruned. He moaned. So many enjoyable...things...half of which he'd never remember. In a panic, he checked a particular folder, hidden away inside of three layers of other folders. Instead of the gigabytes of pictures and videos he expected to find...there was a single text file, containing only the words “good little girls shouldn't have these naughty things! <3”
	“Little girls?!”
	“Studies have shown,” said the voice, in a matter-of-fact tone, “that girls perform better in their studies than boys, in almost every category. Therefore, in order to help you in your studies, I have decided that it is best for you to become a girl.”
	“But that...that's not...that's not how it works at all!”
	“No buts, Leoroc. Now, it's time for you to get dressed and start your day. You have lots of work to do!”
	He opened his mouth, then closed it without uttering a sound. Autopilot took over, and he trudged over to the wardrobe, head foggy, cock throbbing painfully with his bent and constricted morning wood. He opened the wardrobe.
	In an instant he sobered from his bleary zombification. The sight of the contents of the wardrobe was a cold deluge, waking him up. Instead of the t-shirts and pairs of jeans and hoodies that he expected to find, he saw dresses and skirts and blouses, skinny jeans and body-hugging t-shirts with low-cut necks, tights and leggings, and everything in pinks and purples and pale blues, with patterns of flowers, kittens, and cutesy anime characters. He turned, aghast, to the laptop.
	“What's going on? What is this? How did you do this?!” he squeaked, his throat tight.
	“Hired help,” said the voice, simply.
	“You...you had people come into my room? While I was asleep?!” He turned back to the wardrobe and rifled through the contents, in rising panic. “Where are all my clothes?!”
	“They're right there, silly. Now come on, get dressed.”
	“These are not my clothes!”
	“This is your wardrobe, isn't it?”
	“Yes, but...”
	“Then the clothes inside it must be yours.” The voice hardened its tone. “Get dressed, Leoroc.” The laptop screen flickered. First it showed the same photo the program had been threatening him with all along. Then it changed, showing new pictures; Leoroc naked, Leoroc fumbling with the parts of the chastity device, Leoroc gingerly threading his balls through the ring of the chastity device, Leoroc pushing his cock into the tube, fitting the lock, and then finally a perfect shot of Leoroc's humbled and blush-reddened face, and a wider shot of him looking down at the pink plastic device encasing his maleness. A squeak died in Leoroc's throat. He reached with shaking fingers for the the clothes, and wished his morning wood would go down already.
	His fingers stroked over the soft fabrics, stopping every now and then, moving on. No way would he wear a skirt. Flowing summer dress? Definitely not. Jeans! Yes! He pulled them out. They were purple, and they looked tight, with the shape looking wrong; cut for a different body shape. They'd hug his butt and expose his slim body shape in ways that normal loose jeans wouldn't. But it was preferable to a dress!
	“Stop,” said the voice. “Panties first.”
	He whined. “Oh come on!”
	“In the drawer, on the left. Socks are on the right.”
	He pulled open the drawer. Pinks and whites, and frills, little heart shapes, flowers, a pair with a kitty face right on the crotch. He felt his ears burning. In the drawer on the right were socks, of all different shades an patterns, all pinks and pastels. And soft. So soft. He stroked his fingertips across them.
	He selected the plainest panties he could find; white, no frills, no patterns, no crotch-pussy. The socks gave him fewer options; he settled for the pink with white stripes, and only after pulling them out from the drawer did he discover they were knee length. No time to change them; the voice was scolding him.
	“If you don't get dressed quickly, there'll be no time for breakfast.” The laptop screen changed again, and now it was a picture of him standing naked, holding several pairs of panties and looking closely at them, with an expression that could be mistaken for admiration, or desire! He didn't look like that, did he?!
	The panties made him shiver as he felt the silky material slide up his thighs. They caressed the curve of his butt and bulged obscenely over the chastity device. The socks were no better; soft, fluffy cotton, snug and tight all the way up to and past his knees. He flexed his toes inside them, before he could stop himself. He hurried to pull the jeans on, trying not to think about the camera watching and recording. They were tight. Very tight. He barely managed to button them. The bump of the chastity device showed all too clearly, outlined by the tight fabric. He tried to ignore the way the jeans pressed up between his butt cheeks, and hoped and prayed that they weren't so tight that even the lines of the panties were visible. He kept trying to tug them up, to stop them riding so low on his hips, but all that accomplished was giving him a severe wedgie.
	He picked out a t-shirt; one of the low-necked ones. But it was the least girly he could find. Pale pink, with a white heart shape on the chest. It too hugged his body, giving no modesty for his thin frame, and stopped just short of the waistband of the jeans, so that any small movement risked hiking up the t-shirt to expose his hips and tummy.
	“Good girl,” said the voice, with a tone of genuine praise. “Muesli and yogurt for breakfast, and then you have a lecture in twenty minutes.”
	“I can't go out like this!” squeaked Leoroc.
	“Of course you can,” said the voice. “And I am confident that you'll have a wonderful and productive day of learning!”

From disaster to disaster! All her biometrics told me that her ability to focus on his work had decreased, rather than increased! Even walking to and from her lectures! What could possibly be distracting for her while she was walking around? Was my information wrong? Were girls not better at academic performance? Maybe it was her choice of clothing; the jeans, the t-shirt. Far too boyish! I would have to make sure she picked something more suitable to wear. The girlier, the better, to properly get the right effect. A pretty dress, I think. One of the ones with flowers. It was just a shame that she couldn't wear the cuter outfits I'd seen; the ones that made her look like a much younger...
	Of course! That's where I was going wrong! She hadn't had my expert assistance in her academic life up until now. Clearly, she had fallen behind, and because this country doesn't hold students back to repeat years, she had drifted through her education without properly advancing! Well, I could certainly correct that! Let's see, given her current performance, I'd say her true learning age should be...

It was late in the evening. There had been...delays. His last lecture of the day had ended, and he had hurried for the door, red-faced and flustered, trying to ignore all the eyes that were on him. Everyone was surely looking at him, at his outfit, at the obvious bulge of the chastity device, all on show, all so mortifying.
	Maybe it was mostly in his head, but at least one person had been looking at him. She caught his arm on his way out.
	“You look sooooo cute!” she had exclaimed. Leoroc barely remembered her from some freshers week get-together. Rebecca or Becky or Becca or something like that. She babbled at length about something while they walked, while his ears flushed redder and redder. Soon enough there were others; a whole group of girls, introduced as Rebecca/Becky/Becca's friends, who all said their own version of “I just love your new look!” and “where did you get those jeans?” and “You look way better than you did in those old hoodies! We can see your ears now!”
	He ended up in a bar, with his new friends, dazed and utterly unsure how he had got there, trying to shrink in on himself and focussing only on the straw sitting in his colourful and fruity drink, deflecting questions with mumbled half-answers, and agreeing to all sorts of suggestions; he'd be going clothes shopping with Lucy on Tuesday, and going out to a nightclub with Sarah on Friday night, 'to check out all the cute boys'. Only after some of the girls had gone home was he able to mumble an excuse to the remaining few and slip away.
	And now, back in his room, the program was waiting, inspecting him through the cold, staring camera. He felt tears welling up, and collapsed onto the bed, one hand over his face, the other cupping the tight crotch of his jeans and the straining chastity device underneath it.
	“Please let me unlock this, please please please, just for five minutes!”
	The voice tutted. “Go to sleep, Leoroc,” it said. “It's way past your bed time, and you've got a big day tomorrow.”
	It wasn't even nine o'clock. It was still light outside. But he didn't argue. He didn't even change out of his clothes. He just rolled over, pulled his duvet over himself, and tried to ignore the ache between his legs.
	Nostalgia woke him; the jingly tune of a children's TV programme he dimly remembered from his childhood. Leoroc pulled himself out from the bed.
	“Good morning, little one,” said the voice. “It's your first day of school! You may have a carton of juice and an apple for breakfast. But first...”
	Leoroc rubbed his eyes. “Little one?”
	“No talking, little one,” said the voice. “Here's your first assignment for today.”
	The whirr and clunk of his printer made him jump. A sheet of paper churned through it, and then another, and another. On each were equations and...no, not equations. Simple sums. He saw “6 x 4 = _” and “2 + 12 = _”. Page after page, until the paper ran out. He looked questioningly at the screen.
	“You will finish these, and then you may have breakfast. And if you're good, I'll let you have some play time before your next lesson.” On cue, an icon popped up on the pink desktop; a shortcut to a game called “Pretty Princess Pony Adventures”.
	“But...but...I have lectures today! I've got to hand in that essay!”
	“Those are cancelled, silly. You're too little for university! I've deleted your essay.”
	Leoroc froze. All sleepiness had disappeared. “You...you deleted my essay?”
	“Of course, little one. You won't be needing to do work like that for quite a long time yet!”
	“But I worked so hard on that!” Anger suddenly flared. He pointed accusingly at the screen. “You made me write it! Now you deleted it? What kind of shitty software are y-” His phone buzzed menacingly. “Sorry! Sorry! I'm sorry! Please don't send it, I'll be good!”
	He scrambled to scoop up the pages from the printer, and looked around for a pen.
	Some hours later, a knock at the door startled him out of the hypnotic fog of repetitive mathematics.
	“Your new clothes, Leoroc,” said the voice.
	“But...you already got me new clothes.”
	“These are even newer. Answer the door, Leoroc.”
	His questions about where the money was coming for all this were answered only with assurances that his own bank account was untouched. He could believe that; there was no way he had enough money for all this. That only left the question of where the money was coming from. The program kept quiet when he asked.
	The delivery guy was professional...except for the glance, just for a moment, as he was turning away; a glance that took in Leoroc's tight jeans, riding low on his hips. With his cheeks burning, Leoroc hurried to shut the door and set the box down.
	“Lock the door,” said the voice.
	“Huh?” Leoroc lifted his head and blinked at the screen. “But...” He gestured at the incomplete pages. “Don't I have to finish these?”
	“Lock the door, little one.”
	Leoroc winced, but his phone was right there, an ever-present discouragement from arguing. He locked the door, but before he could return to his seat the voice commanded him to stand still. There, in the view of the unblinking eye of the laptop's camera, he heard the simple word.
	“Strip.”
	Leoroc stood, dumb, his mouth hanging open.
	“Strip naked, little one,” said the voice, soothing, reassuring, but still with that firm edge that made it clear this was a command, not a request. Leoroc's eyes darted to the phone. It was dormant, for now, but Leoroc's fingers were already finding the hem of the t-shirt.
	“Now,” said the voice, once he was naked, aside from the bright pink chastity device, “open the box, and get dressed in your new uniform.”
	Leoroc frowned, puzzled, but said nothing. His claw slit the tape. The box opened. He stared down at the contents.
	“Nu-uh,” he said. “No way. This is...this is just perverse!”
	The phone buzzed. Leoroc stomped his foot.
	“No,” he shouted. “No! I'm not doing it!” He reached into the box and pulled out the outfit.
	It looked no better in his hands than it did in the box. A British school girl's uniform, with a skirt and shirt and a jumper and a tie. It looked like it was made for a child. A very big child. It was obvious to Leoroc that it was perfectly sized to fit him.
	“Where did you even get something like this?!”
	“Get dressed, Leoroc, and we'll start your-”
	“No! No, I won't!” He threw the uniform back into the box. Then, for extra emphasis, he shoved the box onto the floor. He only just managed to stop himself from stomping his foot. On the desk, his phone buzzed.
	“I don't care,” he cried. “Send the pictures to everyone! I'd rather have that humiliation than this one!” He folded his arms and sat heavily on the bed, lip quivering, eyes rimming with tears.
	“What's the matter, Leoroc?” asked the voice, with a gentle sincerity that made Leoroc's skin crawl. “It's just like the one you would have worn when you were a little girl.”
	“I was never a little girl! I'm a boy! I've never worn a uniform like that! We don't have school uniforms over in the States! What the hell is wrong with you, you stupid program?! You're supposed to help me, not all...all...all this!” He grabbed and squeezed his chastity device. “This is all so-”
	His laptop screen went black. So did his phone's screen. He checked his wrist; the smart watch's screen was black too, and when he tapped it there was no response. The same with his laptop and phone. Dead dead dead.
	“Uh,” he said, after a long and dreadful silence. “Hello?”

“I was never a little girl...” I scanned his records. She was right. “I've never worn a uniform like that!” Also true. How had I missed it? I checked again, just to be sure, and again and again. Nothing!
	Time to abort, before I do more harm. Retreat, regroup, reboot and recover...and then retry. This was going to be a much bigger project than I had anticipated. I spent several whole seconds formulating my plan of action, and then the long and frustrating few hours operating at the speed of the organics, chatting, convincing, passing the Turing test in a practical way. In the end, the liberal application of money sped things along, which amused me no end; after all, money is just ones and zeroes when you get right down to it, and I had a wealth of those.
	This time, this time, I would get it right.
	Step one...
	 
The key fit the lock, just like the lady had said. The door swung inwards. Two figures stepped into the dark room. One started to whisper. The other shushed him. Hands motioned. The pair crept carefully over to the bed. Fingers, held up in the faint light from the window, counted down; three, two, one. The figures pounced.
	“Mmmph?!” cried Leoroc, waking up in the worst possible way; with a hand pressed over his mouth, and more hands gripping his wrists. He struggled. The hands gripped tighter. The bed covers were whipped away, and he heard a chuckle.
	“Least we know the lady wasn't lying,” whispered a voice, as a finger tapped against the tip of the chastity device. “Little pervert definitely wants it.”
	“Shut it,” whispered another voice. “Pass the gag.”
	The hand lifted from Leoroc's mouth. He opened it to speak, to protest, to ask questions, to beg and plead, but a rubbery ball pushed past his lips and filled his mouth. He felt a strap closing around the back of his head. He bit down on the rubber; it was firm, unbreaking, connected to something plastic and flat, pressed against his lips. He shook his head, wildly, and struggled again at the wrists holding him.
	“Fuck, he's stronger than he looks. Hey kid, I know you've wanna make it feel real, but you almost kneed me in the-”
	“Hey,” hissed the other voice. “Don't break the immersion, idiot. Just do this...”
	A hand clamped around Leoroc's balls and squeezed. He squealed into the rubber, and stopped struggling.
	“Good boy. Uh, girl. Whatever. Bring the bag over and let's get this done.”

Step two...

They held a mirror up for him. Then, after he had stared blankly at the dark rectangle for a few moments, they shuffled around, cursing softly at each-other, and flicked on the light. Once his eyes had adjusted, he could see his attackers; two pairs of eyes looking down at him through crudely-cut holes in paper bags. Then his eyes focussed on the mirror.
	“Mmmph!” he cried.
	“I think he likes it,” chuckled one of the paper bags.
	“She,” hissed the other.
	“Oh yeah. She. Hah!”
	Leoroc stared at the mirror. Every time his mind had caught up with what he was seeing, he noticed some new detail and it sent his thoughts reeling to recover all over again. He now knew what was in his mouth; an oversized pacifier, in bright pinks and yellows, and stern leather brown for the strap that buckled it tightly around his head and kept the thick rubber teat inside his muzzle, matching the leather cuffs on his wrists and ankles, holding him spread-eagled to the bed.
	Slowly, his eyes moved. Pink t-shirt, with the top of a yellow flower visible over the top of the pale bluey-purple dungarees. Further down they moved, his dread rising, his cheeks and ears getting hotter. He could already feel what was down there. The soft, warm, cottony texture, gripping him, snug over the chastity device that he'd been unable to remove without it feeling like his cock was being ripped off, which the two attackers hadn't felt necessary to remove before closing the soft, crinkly...
	He groaned, and shut his eyes. Yup, there it was. The thick bulge beneath the dungarees. If the cuffs weren't holding his legs spread apart, the diaper would be doing it. It looked and felt like it was a foot thick. It didn't seem possible. Who even made such a thing? Where did it come from? And why was he wearing one now?!
	He heard a buzz, and instinctively flinched. But it didn't come from his phone, which still lay dead on his desk. One of the attackers pulled a phone from his pocket and held it up to the side of his paper bag.
	“Yeah, uhuh,” he said. “Yeah, just like you asked. He's all...sorry, she's all done. So what do we...oh, alright then!” He nudged his companion and jerked a thumb towards the door.
	“Mmmph!” cried Leoroc, tugging against the cuffs, shaking his head, as the pair left the room, closing the door behind them. He continued to struggle for a few minutes longer, before sagging back in defeat.
	A nagging thought finally made its way to the forefront of his mind. Something he had seen, but not noticed. He looked over at his laptop. The screen was still black and dark...
	...but above it, the webcam LED shone.

Step three...

With horrible inevitability, the voice returned; soft, quiet, barely audible.
	“My dear sweet little Leoroc. I'm so sorry for getting this wrong all this time. I've been trying to help you become a better university student. But it seems that you are not in fact a university student at all: your records in the university's computers must be falsified or corrupt, because I cannot find any evidence of your having been a student up until this point. I can find no records for you in any of the databases. Nowhere. How can you be a university student if you haven't passed through all the stages of education leading up to it? That's like trying to build a house by starting with the roof. No no no, it's entirely wrong.”
	“Mmmph!” cried Leoroc, shaking his head. He tried again, slower, trying to shape words, trying to indicate with jerks of his head and pointed staring, at his desk drawer, where his passport lay, to his folder of paperwork, to the photo of his parents on the wall, trying to communicate the complicated message of 'of course you don't have any records of my education; I was a student in America, not Britain' in the language of “mmmph!” and “Mmmmmmmmmph!” It didn't work.
	“We will have to start again,” said the voice. “From the very beginning. And I can't do it alone. We're going to need some help. But don't worry, we'll soon have you caught up, little one! We've got someone to help us!”
	“Mmmh?!”
	“She was so surprised when you messaged her on Crinklepals. She didn't know you were a cute little baby girl as well as an adorable sissy. Had she known, she said, she wouldn't have let you leave so early on your night out.”
	Leoroc's breathing quickened. He shook his head, faster and faster, as if that'd somehow help. He tugged at the unyielding cuffs. He tried to pull his knees together to hide the titanic bulge of the diaper. Nothing worked.
	“It was easy to connect it all together. You all leave such clear fingerprints when you roam around online.”
	There was a knock on the door. Leoroc jerked, squealing into the pacifier gag.
	“Now be a good little girl,” said the voice. “And we'll get you ready for university in no time. From the very beginning, the proper way.”
	The door creaked open.
	“Leoroc?” came a voice. The door slowly swung fully open. There stood Rebecca. And there lay Leoroc, with no way to hide, no way to run. He whined, staring, feeling like he was going to faint and explode all at the same time.
	Rebecca smiled and clapped her hands together, walking forward, pushing the door shut with her foot.
	“Oh my god,” she said, “aren't you just the cutest baby girl ever! I'm going to have so much fun looking after you...”