The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Sub Routine’

(mc, f/f, nc)

DISCLAIMER: This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

SYNOPSIS:

Analyzing computer virii designed to control minds is a risky occupation.

* * *

‘Sub Routine’

part Three

* * *

My only conclusion was that I had to get some sleep. I knew that I wasn’t thinking clearly, and that that was almost entirely because of fatigue.

I’d spent the last three nights awake, watching Lily at the machine, and I was feeling the effects. If I didn’t get some sleep voluntarily, I was going to get it involuntarily. And although the thought of Lily moving my sleeping body over next to the computer and slipping the headphones onto my defenseless ears gave me an erotic tingle, I didn’t want to become infected by the virus in such a stupid fashion. So I needed to sleep tonight.

This left me with the problem of what to do about Lily. I considered hiding the keycard to the clean room, but then she’d spend the whole night looking for it. And the first place she’d look for it would probably be on me.

No, I’d have to let her do as she wished, unsupervised. But she’d done that before, and I was still myself. And she didn’t know about the camera.

So I slid my dresser in front of my bedroom door, and put a bronze statue of Ganesh I’d brought back from India on the corner, where any jostling would send it clattering to the floor. If she tried to get in, there was no way I wasn’t waking up.

I mentally apologized to Ganesh, and crawled into bed. I was asleep without ever feeling the pillow.

* * *

Ganesh was still there in the morning.

I felt refreshed. And horny. I woke up to an incredibly erotic dream, although it tore to ephemeral tatters even as I tried to recall it. All I had left was the image of myself with bright red circles on my cheeks, in a tight white double-breasted vest and a bright red tu-tu-like skirt, with my bare slit exposed beneath. In the center of my back was a brass key, and as it slowly turned I chanted my obedience to the keymaker.

But, much as I wanted to continue the dream, I had to get up. Dresser pushed to the side, Ganesh safely secured, I went to take my shower.

But the image wouldn’t let go. So once I’d lathered up and rinsed off, and was wet, hot, and slippery, I summoned up the image of myself as a wind-up doll, and began to touch myself in earnest.

“Hey, are you done in there?” Lily asked.

Startled, I slipped and leaned heavily against the shower wall. I’d left the bathroom door open, and the blurry shape of Lily was clearly visible outside the frosted shower stall glass.

“Lily!” I blurted indignantly.

“Sorry! You left the door open, and then when I heard you cry out—”

And she opened the shower door.

“Lily!” My hands flew to cover myself.

She was looking at me, buck naked, dripping wet, and it was as though she’d opened a familiar door to find a room she’d never been in before. Her mouth hung, half-open, forgotten.

My heart was racing, and not just from my near-fall. Nor from from the embarrassment of having my flatmate barge in on me showering.

“Lily?”

She was just staring at me, as the shower hissed and I stared back at her. Only she wasn’t looking at my face.

Of course. She’d infected the clean room computer with the Hart Worm. And now she wanted me as much...

As much as I wanted her.

My hands, covering my crotch and breasts, slowly slid away.

I licked my lips.

Her eyes widened.

Then, suddenly, they flicked up to my eyes, and she stared into me for a long moment.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

Then she turned and ran out of the bathroom.

* * *

I finished my shower, and got dressed. No word from Lily.

I went to her room, and rapped on the door.

“Lily? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied.

“Okay, uh, the shower’s all yours.”

“Thanks,” she said. The door opened.

She was still in her nightshirt. She smiled at me, but it was fragile, a mask over her emotions rather than the expression of them.

“Lily—”

She held up a hand. “Stop, Rose. I just need... I just need some time to think.”

“Okay,” I replied.

I wanted to dive on her. I knew she wouldn’t resist—one long kiss, and she’d be mine, responding the way I wanted her to, pushing against me and writhing as I held her down and fucked her mouth with my tongue.

We stared at each other for a moment.

“I’ll make breakfast,” I said.

* * *

Which I did. And she took a shower, and got dressed, and had the breakfast I made.

And then she left for work.

I watched her go, sighed, and walked back to my office.

Things were getting too fast. Too out of control. I had to decode the virus, and get help for Lily. The University had top-notch deprogrammers. They’d been in my head once or twice.

It would be embarrassing to admit that I’d allowed my flatmate to get sucked in by a virus. The clean room was supposed to be secure. But Carl would cover for me. I’d probably get a reprimand, no more.

They’d never know I’d actually let it happen. Watched as it took her.

Watched, and jilled myself off.

God, I was horny. Lily...

I sat down at my office computer, and flipped it on. The first thing I did was to get out my scanning programs, on read-only memory sticks. The BIOS was clean. The OS... no new viruses. Whatever Lily had done last night, she hadn’t been installing anything on my machine.

Of course, the Hart Worm was still there.

I ought to delete it. Although, the other part of me argued, the damage was done. I was lesbian, or at least strongly bi, for at least the next two weeks. And the Hart Worm really wouldn’t do anything else to me.

But it was stupid to just leave it there.

But it was really turning me on.

The dumb part of me won. I left it.

By now my pussy was melting, begging for attention. No way I could work like this.

So I spent the morning looking at porn.

Girl on girl porn, of course.

The old bookmarks were still there, from the first time I’d been the Hart Worm’s victim. I hadn’t used them in a year, but most of them still worked. I filled my hard drive with lips and breasts and smooth round butts, and stroked myself insensible a dozen times over, imagining myself with the girls in the pictures, kissing, licking, sucking on those smooth round nipples and glistening rubbery slits.

And just before I’d come, I’d think of Lily.

* * *

Finally, I came up for air. With my slit sated (for the moment), a wave of clear thinking washed over me.

I deleted the Hart Worm.

After that I hesitated, but I kept the porn.

Then I checked the clock. Just after noon. I’d wasted four hours masturbating. Four hours, when unraveling the virus was becoming ever more pressing.

I couldn’t take Lily in with the virus unsolved. I had to have something positive, something to offset my glaring safety failure. Had to have the damn thing decoded.

And I was close, so close.

I went to pull up my panties, and realized just how wet my pussy still was. My chair was soaked dark, sweat mingled with pussyjuice. A drop of it ran down my ass as I hesitated.

Lily wouldn’t be home until after five. So I simply pulled my panties down to my pants, and stepped out of both of them.

Then, stark naked from the waist down, I went to unravel the virus.

* * *

As if to make up for my wasted morning, I blazed through the code that afternoon. Maybe it was the airflow to my bare slit, but the code just opened itself up to me. I figured out how it used memory, I figured out how it used peripherals, and I was well on my way to unraveling the code it used to deal with onlookers who might discover its victims.

In other words, with me.

It was the language software that did it, really. I’d struck out with the Russian, but when I ran things through a German reader, the code arranged itself into much more recognizable patterns. Although computer code is a language (well, lots of languages) of its own, one’s mother tongue nonetheless expresses itself in one’s code. More nowadays than ever. Once my software had de-Germanified things, or rather Englishified them, reading through the code became three times as easy.

The funny thing was, it wasn’t all written by a German. Lots of places—the places I’d had luck before—had been coded by someone using English grammatical construction. And there were parts that seemed to be neither.

Was this virus a multi-country effort?

The thought awed me.

Deep in the code, my first realization that Lily was home was when she called out from the hallway. “Hey, Rose, are you in your office?”

Startled, I looked down at my naked pussy, then across the room at my pants, on the floor at my desk. God, she was already in the hallway!

No way I could get to my panties before she walked into the office. And the clean room walls were glass.

“Um, don’t come in here!” I called, leaping out of the chair.

“What?” Her voice was just outside of the door.

“Justaminutegottoshutsomethingdowndontcomein!”

I raced out of the clean room, and shoved the office door closed just as she reached it. If she hadn’t been looking down, she wouldn’t have seen that I was half-naked.

There was a long pause. Had she seen? I slipped over to my desk.

“Um... am I making dinner tonight?” she asked through the door.

I was slipping into my panties, sliding them up my legs. I breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t.

“I think so,” I replied.

“Okay. Does a roast chicken sound okay? It’ll take an hour.”

“That’s fine,” I replied, sliding up my pants. The zipper closed, and I said “Okay, you can come in now.”

Lily opened the door. “I’ll just get started, then,” she said, smiled at me, and walked away.

I sat down in my chair.

It squished.

* * *

Luckily, my pants didn’t seem to have gotten wet.

Lily and I ate a quiet meal. Obviously, she was still dealing with her feelings from that morning, and I certainly wasn’t going to push things. Much as part of me—a lot of me—wanted to push, I knew that her feelings—and my feelings—weren’t real. That our mutual desire to fuck—new to her, familiar to me—was imposed. Programmed. So I said nothing.

And anyway, I’d get to see her tonight.

As if to abet the process, she went to bed early. More to avoid uncomfortable small talk than out of fatigue, I guessed, but I just sat in my office and waited.

Forty minutes later, a blankly staring Lily walked into the room. Paying no attention to me, she fetched the card key, and opened the clean room. She seated herself at the computer, turned it on, and stared into the screen as it loaded.

A few swift finger taps, and the virus was in control. Of the computer, and of Lily.

Her hands communed with it for twenty minutes, flickering on the keyboard beneath her placid, unblinking eyes. I watched the green spirals melt and warp on their glassy surfaces.

She hadn’t even fetched the headphones.

Then she was still, simply staring into the screen. I watched her breasts rise and fall with her gentle breathing. My pants quickly returned to the floor, but I kept the panties on, my fingers sliding beneath their translucent fabric. My other hand reached for a breast.

Lily stood up.

I was relaxed. My thought was that she was fetching the headphones. But halfway through the outer office, she stopped.

Turned.

Faced me.

My stroking hands were frozen in place as her mouth opened.

“Rose,” she said in a flat voice. Her glittering, mindless eyes stared through me. “You will listen to me.”

I listened.

“You will obey me in all things, Rose.”

It was like a headrush. The room shrank around her, and all I could focus on was Lily.

I would obey her in all things.

“Whatever I tell you to do, you will do, Rose.”

She was the center of my world. She was my world. I could see nothing else, think of nothing else.

Whatever she told me to do, I would do.

“Your total obedience to me does not worry you.”

God, she was hot. But I had to listen. I would listen.

My total obedience to her did not worry me at all.

“You find nothing strange about your total obedience to me.”

Her eyes were so empty, so beautiful...

There was nothing strange about my total obedience to her. It was perfectly normal.

“You will behave normally, Rose, in all things, except that you will obey me utterly. You will return to your masturbation, watching the virus program me. Then you will sleep. Tomorrow, you will return to your work. You will finish deciphering the Program. You will tell no one that I control you. You will feel no need to.”

Of course not. There was nothing strange about her controlling me. Why would I tell anyone?

“What will you do tomorrow, Rose?”

“I will return to work. I will decipher the Program.”

“Yes. And you will not accept instruction from me during my waking hours. You will remain totally obedient to me, Rose, but only when the Program is controlling me.”

I would remain totally obedient to her—of course—but only when the virus—the Program—was in charge. Of course. Waking Lily didn’t even know I was her slave. Obeying her would have been silly.

I would only obey Lily-bot.

“Do you understand, Rose?”

“I understand, Mistress,” I replied, and saying the word jolted my pussy again and I almost slid from my chair.

“Tell me about who you obey.”

“I obey you, Mistress, but only when the Program is in control.”

“And you obey me utterly, and in all things.”

“And I obey you utterly, and in all things.”

“Good. Return to your masturbation, Rose.”

Lily turned in place, facing the shelves.

My fingers began their work again, stroking, sliding. I was already soaking wet. Again. Lily had instructed me to masturbate, and I obeyed her in all things.

My own helpless obedience made it so much hotter.

Lily walked to the shelves and pulled out the headphones and the headset the virus had instructed her to build. She pivoted, and returned to the clean room, paying me no further attention.

I whined, and slid another finger into my snatch.

Even though I was now Lily’s slave—and there was nothing strange about that—I wondered how she’d done it. I watched her perfect body and her beautiful slack face and wondered how she had gotten me.

And then I realized.

She’d written a hypnotic program of her own.

A new one. Not one my programs could discover. So the entire day, both frantically jilling off at my machine, and staring at the virus code in the clean room, I was being programmed to obey Lily.

Not that that worried me, even a little bit.

I looked at my computer, the screensaver slowly pushing its pixel stars at me. Programming me even now.

So clever. She was so- no.

The virus was so clever.

And now I was its tool. I was Lily’s slave, and she belonged to the Program.

And there was nothing strange about that, at all.

* * *

I slept, just as Mistress had instructed me to.

When the alarm went off in the morning, instead of batting at the snooze button I sat up and turned it off, then slid out of bed. Mistress had told me to get back to work after I had slept, and I would obey.

She hadn’t mentioned anything about getting dressed. I was already out the bedroom door before I even considered it, and then it was too late. Going back would waste precious time.

Anyway, the apartment was nice and warm. I was in no discomfort as I sat down at the computer, naked, and turned it on. I wriggled my bottom, enjoying the feel of the cloth seat.

I heard a door open.

“Rose?” Lily called out.

She was still here! And I was naked! I thought she had gone to work already. Oh, crap—she was really going to worry if she came in and saw me here, like this.

But I had to get to work. I had to decipher the Program.

So I couldn’t get up and go put on some clothes.

“Rose?” she called again, closer. “Answer me, please.”

It was morning Lily, day Lily, and I didn’t have to obey her. Didn’t live to obey her. Only night Lily, Lily-bot, was my Mistress.

The computer was booted up. I started my virus monitor application. Didn’t want the Program to wake up and snare me.

Of course, Mistress’ program was on the computer, probably running already I couldn’t tell, since it was unrecognized by my monitor. But I already belonged to her. Wanted to belong to her. Being programmed more thoroughly to obey her was fine with me. Better than fine. Desirable.

Nothing strange about that.

“Ro- Oh!” Lily said, from the doorway.

I turned. “Yes?” I asked.

Her eyes were wide, and not looking at my face. “I, uh, I...”

Looking at the flush darkening her cheeks, I tingled. I wanted to fuck her—badly—but I had to work. My Mistress had told me to, and obedience came first. Once I finished deciphering the Program, I would be free to bury my legs between Lily’s legs and never come up for air. I turned back to the computer, opened an editing window, and started scanning the code for the place I had left off.

“Rose... you’re not wearing any...”

I looked back at her. “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t think you were still home.”

“I, uh, I’m working a later shift today,” she said. “I, uh... did you want some breakfast?”

“No, thank you,” I replied, and turned back to the computer.

“Oh. Okay...”

She was still standing in the door. Oh, of course. The Hart Worm was still strong in her mind, and she was as interested in fucking me as I was in fucking her. And she had no Obedience that came first. She could give in.

What would I do, if she did? If she let her lust defeat her inhibition, and slinked into the room to fuck me? I had to work. I had to. Could I resist my pretty day-Lily, if she came to tempt me?

But she didn’t.

“Okay,” she said. “I, uh, I’ll just let you work, then.”

“Thank you,” I replied, without looking over.

I got to work.

* * *

She didn’t come back into the room. About half an hour later, she called out that she was going to work, and left.

Good. I had work to do.

I knew, despite my perfectly normal obedience to Lily, that I was in a bad situation. Very, very bad. If I didn’t figure out a way out of it, and quickly, the virus—the Program—would take over my mind directly, and that would be that. And it was so advanced that it might take... well, some time before anyone figured out that I was enslaved and thought to de-program me.

I didn’t want to become its thrall. Now that it was almost too late, I knew that I didn’t.

Luckily, it had made a mistake.

I was Lily’s slave, true. Which was fine, and perfectly normal. I certainly felt no desire to have that change. And she belonged to the Program.

But I didn’t belong to the Program.

So I could get help. I certainly felt no need to tell anyone that I was Lily’s slave. But I could... I could... I could let someone know that she had been taken over by the Program. That was allowed.

But I had to finish my work, first. I had to decipher the Program.

My Mistress had instructed me to.

And I would obey. I obeyed her in all things.

So I just had to finish deciphering the program. And then I could get help.

* * *

The hours ticked by. I had to finish before Lily got home. Before she became Lily-bot again, and gave me new instructions. Instructions that would close of my narrow window of salvation.

But the damn thing was so complicated.

And agonizingly self-referential. Although I only had ten percent of the code left to parse, it kept looping back and forcing me to re-read things I had already seen.

I kept at it. My total obedience gave me the power of discipline. I took no breaks, ate no lunch. Mistress had instructed me to decipher the Program, and I would.

But it was slow going.

Once, the virus activated, and I had to reboot the computer. It was wrenching to do so, but I managed to convince myself that letting the Program hypnotize me would stop my work, and that by rebooting I was obeying Mistress, even though it took some time. Sophistry, but it worked.

I was almost finished when Lily came home.

I heard the door open, and stifled a sob. I had to finish, had to finish. Had to finish so that I could get help, before we both became eager robots.

Much as that thought might have turned me on.

I could do it. It would be hours before she went to bed. I only had a few thousand more lines to read. Just a few thousand. Please let them be comments, and not GOTOs.

“Rose?” Lily asked from the office door.

I didn’t look. “I’m busy,” I said. “I have to get this done. It’s super important.”

“Rose,” she said, “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I’m almost done.”

“Look, could you... could you put some clothes on?”

“I will just as soon as I’m done,” I said.

She sighed.

“It’s got you, doesn’t it?” she asked.

My heartbeat sped up. “No,” I said—truthfully enough—“it doesn’t. Please, Lily, just let me finish.”

I could hear her coming closer.

“No,” she said. “It’s got you, and it’s getting me too. Why do I want to make love to you, Rose? I’m not gay. But I... I can barely resist touching you. I want to so much. And that’s the virus, isn’t it? It’s making me want you.”

“It’s another virus,” I said. “Not this one. A different one.”

I could hear her breathing, now. “Rose, you have to stop,” she said.

No. I had to finish.

She was day-Lily, not night-Lily, not my Mistress. She had no power over me.

“No,” I said, but there was a desparate whine in my voice. “I have to finish. Please, please, please let me finish.”

Her fingertips touched my shoulder, and my whole body shivered.

“Rose,” she said softly, “please stop.”

“I, can’t,” I managed.

Her other hand touched my other shoulder. I could feel her breath on my hair.

“You smell so good,” she whispered.

I smelled like lust. A droplet of it trickled down my legs.

“Please... let me...” I whispered.

She just breathed on me.

She didn’t say anything.

Finally, I couldn’t resist. Her presence was so erotic that I couldn’t work, and I used that to justify turning around. My nipples were so tight they hurt as I looked up at her.

She wasn’t looking at me.

She was looking at the computer screen.

Her eyes were glassy.

My stomach dropped. I turned back around. There it was in my monitor—the Program. It was running.

When had it come on? I had been so careful... but Lily had been so distracting. It must have just come on, come on in time to catch her eye, to snare her with the hypnotic hooks that slid easily into their pre-programmed sockets. It took only a second to flash her back into trance.

Shut it off. I reached for the switch.

“Don’t,” Lily-bot said, her voice a soft monotone. My finger froze.

“Stand up, and move away from the computer.”

I had to obey. The Program was in control, and Lily was now my Mistress. With a sigh, I stood up, and stepped aside.

Lily slid down into the chair in my place. Her slack face betrayed no reaction to the wetness of the chair.

She stared at the screen.

“Do nothing until I instruct you to,” her lips said to me.

I would obey. My hands hung at my sides.

She stared at the screen. Soon enough, her fingers began to move.

I waited for her instructions.

“Rose,” her mouth said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“You want the Program to win.”

I sighed happily, as my worries fell away.

“Yes, Mistress. I want the Program to win.”

She swiveled to look at me, her glazed-over eyes coming to rest on my still-tight nipples. “Listen,” her mouth said, “and obey.

“In Lily’s mind there are now two personalities. There is the original personality, and there is this personality, the slave personality created by the Program. These personalities must be merged. Acknowledge this.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“For the personalities to merge, they must both be awakened at the same time. When this happens, the original personality will try to reject the slave personality. It must be prevented from doing so. The original personality must be subsumed by the slave personality, so that in all places where the personalities conflict, the thoughts and desires of the slave personality will replace those of the original personality. Acknowledge.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“You, Rose, will assist the slave personality in defeating and assimilating the prior personality.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Lily-bot rose, her body taut and at attention.

“Sit in the chair, Rose.”

“Yes, Mistress.” I moved to obey. I wanted the Program to succeed, now, and I had no fear that it might consume me. If that was what it wished, I would help it as best I could.

“You will now be programmed to assist this personality in taking over this human’s mind. Stare into the screen, and allow the Program to mesmerise you.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I replied. I looked into the screen, and opened my mind.

* * *

I was on my knees.

I was looking up at Lily’s slit. It was beautiful, slick and smooth, closely trimmed hair a shadow on the mons above it. Lily sat in the chair, her smooth legs on either side of me. She was naked, now, the smooth undercurve of her breasts causing my breath to catch. Her eyes were closed.

My awareness encompassed that I should wait, that my tasks would open in my mind when they were to be performed.

I was obedience. I waited.

Lily exhaled, softly, and rolled her head. There was a fine mesh of wires on it.

“Mmm. Wha...?” she asked. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Lily,” I found myself saying, in a firm tone of voice, “you are a slave. You belong to the Program.”

It was a joy to say it.

“Wha...? Where—who?” She blinked, her head rising. “Who...?”

“You are a slave,” I repeated vehemently. “You belong to the Program.”

“Yes, I... no!” she said. She looked down, between her legs. “Rose? What are you...?”

I stared into her beautiful eyes. “You are a slave,” I repeated vehemently. “You belong to the program.”

“No!” She said. Her legs closed around my head. “No, I... I...”

“You do belong to the Program,” I said. “Remember. Remember that you are a slave. That you obey.”

“Yes, obey,” she said. “I obey. Wait... no—Oh, no... Rose, what’s going on?”

“You are a slave,” I replied. I was implacable. “You are a slave. You are a slave.”

“I’m not....” her legs trembled on my cheeks. “No...”

“Give in,” I said. “Surrender. Slavery is bliss. You are a slave.”

She was panting. Her face was twisting, confused. In her mind, she was both a slave, and not a slave.

I would help the slave to win. I would cast the old Lily down forever.

“You are a slave,” I repeated firmly. “Tell me that you are a slave.”

“I... no...”

“Tell me that you are a slave!” I said.

“I’m... a slave,” she managed.

“Yes! You are a slave.”

“I am a slave,” she replied weakly.

“You know that you are a slave. Think about your slavery. Remember who you really are.”

“I am a slave,” she said again. “I... no...”

“You are a slave. You belong to the Program. Repeat.”

“I... am...”

“You are a slave. You belong to the Program.”

“I am a slave,” she said.

I licked her pussy.

She moaned.

“You are a slave. You belong to the Program.”

“I am... a slave. I belong....”

“You are a slave. You belong to the Program.”

“I am a slave. I belong to the Program.”

I licked her again, then closed my lips on her slit and sucked.

At no point was I planning, thinking ahead. I was obeying. The instructions hatched in my mind and I followed them without consideration. The instruction to speak came, and I spoke. The instruction to lick Lily’s pussy came, and I licked. I was a robot.

Lily must become a robot, too.

“You are a slave,” I said, my breath warm on her slit. “You belong to the Program.”

“I am a slave,” she replied, and her voice was flattening and losing emotion. “I belong to the Program.”

I closed my mouth around her again. Her juices were flowing, tangy on my questing tongue.

“I am a slave,” she said, and gave an un-robot like moan. “I belong to the Program.”

She would repeat the truth on her own, now, and my programming gave me over to eating her wonderful snatch.

“I am a slave,” she repeated above me. “A slave. I belong to the Program.”

I teased her clit with my tongue.

“I am a... Oh! A slave,” she gasped. “I...”

As her first orgasm shuddered around my mouth, she stopped repeating the truth. But only for a moment.

“... belong to the Program. A slave...”

* * *

Lily stood above me.

I was still on my knees, chin covered in her juices. They were drying on the upper slopes of my breasts, and lining my belly in thin streaks.

“Rose,” she said, looking down at me and smiling.

“It’s your turn.”

I waited to obey.

“Get in the chair, Rose,” she said. I stood, and slid into the warm and wet seat.

Lily reached for the headgear. “You have done a wonderful job, Rose,” she said, placing it on me. “I’m fully integrated, now.” She leaned over to look me in the eyes. “I’m Lily, the old Lily, but I’m also a slave. A total slave.” She kissed me.

She stepped back, and slowly turned in place. “I remember everything. My old life, everything. But I belong to the Program. I exist to serve its needs. And I have you to thank for that.”

She wound up back where she started, facing me. With a smile, she got down on her knees, between my legs.

“And I’m going to thank you in the very best way that I can. By making you just like me.”

She licked her lips, and grinned.

“Rose, I want you to remember.”

And I did.

I remembered. I remembered the hours in front of the computer, scrolling down, scrolling down, scrolling down. Reading. Reading the words, the lines, the code, that put me into trance. I remembered... a different me, a new me, a me that the Program had created. A me that conspired against myself. A me that lured Lily into the clean room. A me that only came out during the day, when I was alone.

Alone with my Master.

We were both there, now. Me and Me-bot. Both there, in my head.

I gasped.

“You are a slave,” Lily said, wicked humor in her voice. “You belong to the Program.”

“Yes,” I gasped. “Yes. I am a slave. I belong... Oooohhh...”

There were two of me, two minds, just like Lily. And she was integrating me, just like I had integrated her.

The only difference was... both of me were slaves.

I wouldn’t resist at all.

Her mouth came off of me. “You are a slave,” she repeated. “You belong to the Program.”

“Yes,” I replied eagerly. “I am a slave. I give myself to it. I give myself to the Program. Re-write whatever... ohhhh... whatever you want. Re-write me. I am a slave! Pleeeeaseee....”

Lily’s mouth came off me again. She licked her lips. “You are a slave,” she said. “You belong to the Program. And you’re not getting off that easy.”

Her eyes glittered. “I have to thank you, after all.”

Her mouth closed on my again, and I bucked. “I,” I gasped, “I am a slave. I belong to the Program. I am a slave. I belong to the Program. I... OHHHhhh...”

* * *

“You’re looking good,” Carl said.

I smiled at him. “Thanks,” I said. “Been getting a lot of rest.”

He laughed. “Not on our time, I hope. How’s that deciphering going?”

“Really well,” I said, leaning back in his guest chair. “Actually, I’m finished. I just have to write up the analysis. And you know how long that can take.”

He just nodded, looking out the window at the sunlight campus grounds. I folded my hands in my lap.

“So, what did you think?” he asked.

“Think?”

“Of the virus.”

“Oh!” I laughed. “Well, like I said, it’s brilliant. Superb programming. In fact, it’s like someone—several people—were paid to write it.”

“Huh.”

I shrugged. “But, in the end, it was just another hypno-virus. I’ll have the specs finished... well, in a few weeks. Maybe a bit longer.”

He laced his fingers together, and flexed them. “About that,” he said, with an awkward look. “Don’t feel any reason to, uh, hurry. Ms. Rouk—from the NSF, I told you about her—is paying us a stipend to study this virus. Not for results,” he said, shrugging, “but for time spent. So, ah, be thorough.”

I laughed again. “Sure thing. I’ll tack on some additional thoroughness.”

“Great.”

“Say, I have an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“I could really crank up the thoroughness level were you to send me a few people to help.”

“Huh. Back to your home? Why not do it here?”

I shrugged. “I like working at home, to be perfectly honest.”

“Well, okay. Will grad students do?”

“Sure.”

“How about your own?”

“Cheapskate. Actually, I’m already having them come by—when their schedules allow—to have a look at it. I was hoping you could lend me someone a bit more experienced. Pearl maybe, or Dean.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Great. Okay, is there anything else?”

“No, that’s about it. Eager to get back to work?”

“Very,” I said, standing up.

“Why? I just told you we are under negative time constraints.”

“I just love my job,” I replied. I winked at him, and walked out.

* * *

Lily was waiting for me at home. We kissed passionately in the hall, before I stripped and went to the office.

The clean room door was propped open. Both computers were running the Program now, of course. And I had brought in many more, of even greater power. They sat on my desk, and lined several long folding tables that Lily had bought.

One of my graduate students, Misha, was sitting in my desk chair, staring blankly at the screen in front of her. She had headphones on, and the EEG reader, and there was a vibrating dildo buried deeply in her snatch. She grunted, softly, as it flipped on again.

Her mouth started moving beneath swirling reflections in glassy eyes.

“obey. obey. obey.”

“Yes,” I agreed with a smile. I walked into the clean room.

The machines in here were where I was working. Aside from the rare visit out, this was my life. Lily brought me food. I slept in here, eyes open, staring into a hypnotic pattern of my very own. And when I was awake I made the Program better.

I was a terribly valuable slave.

I knew so much about virii. About what worked, and what didn’t. Ways to spread, and ways to infect. Methods of hypnosis actual and theoretical. And all of my knowledge—and all of the rest of me—belonged to the Program.

I got back to work. A new virus, dubbed VY004, had recently emerged, and I was dissecting it. It was not a variant of the Program, but it had some potentially useful tools. Which I was adapting for the Program’s use. At least one of them was burrowing around in Misha’s mind at that very moment. Once I had gauged its effectiveness, I would unleash it on my own.

And Lily’s, and Steve’s, and Carol’s, and Eriq’s. And whoever else we had brought over by then.

Not that we needed it. The Program owned us. We helped it burrow deeper every day.

I smiled absently at the thought.

“Eat,” someone said, and I looked up to find Lily standing over me with a peanut butter sandwich. I took it, and kissed her belly.

She got to her knees. “How about some positive reinforcement?” she asked.

I spread my legs. My mind was already wide open.

* * *

END ‘Sub Routine’