THE APP FEST : CHAPTER 6
PHNXpiyush | Omegatglul

START

I stared at the glowing screen, completely paralyzed.

“Read it,” Maya commanded. The rage drained out of her voice and left something colder behind — the tone of a professor dealing with a student who still didn’t get the assignment.

“Passenger Mode? What is this!?” I stammered. My voice cracked into a pathetic squeak. “Didn’t you send a swap request? If you’re in here… where is Olivia? Is she in my body back at the dorm?!”

“No, Travis. Olivia is right here.” Maya’s tone was sharp and impatient. “She’s asleep. Suppressed. Kevin pushed a live update to the app. It’s not just swapping anymore. She must’ve pressed accept on my Possession Request. The app just… forced her under.”

I stared at the phone, my mind reeling.

“Forced her under?” I repeated, hollow. “Wait. You just… took her? Without a swap request? Without her saying yes?”

“Yes,” Maya said.

A cold shiver ran down my spine. The app was already a terrifying invasion of privacy, but this wasn’t a game anymore. If Kevin could push an update that let you take someone without real consent… it was a weapon. Anyone on campus could be knocked out and piloted like a drone. My stomach turned.

Maya noticed. A flicker of genuine unease crossed Olivia’s features. The academic confidence wavered for half a second.

“Honestly, it’s terrifying,” she admitted quietly. “I don’t understand how it works. I study psychology, not bio-digital engineering. It’s impressive. And it’s creepy as hell that a line of code can hijack someone’s neural pathways and put them to sleep without asking.”

“So she’s just knocked out?” I asked. “You did that to your best friend?”

“Yes! I did it so she wouldn’t wake up in a messy boys’ dorm and have a massive panic attack!” Maya snapped. Then a weird flicker of distraction crossed Olivia’s face.

She looked down at the tight brown crop top. Her hand pressed flat against it, fingers spreading over the curve like she was checking if it was real.

“…This feels incredibly strange,” she muttered. “Olivia always bragged about these things being massive. Looking down at them from her own perspective? They don’t feel that much bigger than mine.” She frowned, squeezing once before catching herself and dropping her hand. “I think she just wears better bras than I do.”

I just stared …