HOSTEL
Chapter Thirty Eight — Terms of Service
Now
Berlin was fucking cold.
The temperature itself was bearable; Rebecca, a proud and prepared Midwesterner, hardly noticed the dip in the thermometer. The wind, on the other hand, began to press itself into her back the moment she emerged from the U-Bahn. It was as if the entire city had tired of her presence and was now rudely shoving her along, as eager to be finally rid of her as she was to be rid of it.
“We’re almost there,” Mistress offered, hoping to raise their spirits a bit. They’d been walking for far longer than expected.
“It’s gotta be close. Did you see a street sign anywhere?”
“You’d know if I did,” said Mistress.
Good point. Still getting used to this, Miss.
We’re going to have to have a looooonnnnng talk with Celeste about this when we get home.
Rebecca rubbed her hands together, grateful for her thin gloves but wishing she’d packed her heavy mittens instead. She scanned the busy boulevard for an out-of-the-way corner or shop entrance to duck into; anything to get out of the wind for a few seconds. But she wasn’t the only one who didn’t mind the winter cold. Bismarkstraße bustled with shoppers and strollers for its entire length. And while Rebecca and Mistress both agreed that total strangers were unlikely to take much notice of the package they were tasked with delivering, it wasn’t a given. The less hassle they encountered along the way, the sooner they’d be done with the whole thing.
“Not like I’m going to have much in the way of privacy ever again, huh?” Rebecca allowed herself a smile.
Mistress ignored her. “Over there, look! Column. One of those advertising column things Emily was talking about.”
They passed the Litfaß and immediately took shelter in its shadow, letting the wind blow past harmlessly on either side. Rebecca took advantage of the moment and stripped off her glove, biting the tip of each finger one by one until she worked her hand free. “Mmmphkay,” she said, glove still dangling between her teeth. She juggled glove and phone until they were in the proper order. “Mmm. So we turn right in two blocks, and then head up until we’re almost at the park. If we hit the park we’ve gone too far.”
“Fuck, it’s coooold.” The word itself made them shiver violently.
“Twelve below, according to the bank clock.” Rebecca’s exposed hand was already turning a distressing shade of pinkish-red. She pulled on her glove and jammed both phone and glove into a jacket pocket. “So that’s like…
“…like ten Fahrenheit?”
“Fuck. And that’s not including wind chill.” She waved a fist at the wind to make her point.
“Okay, we can do this, Rebecca. We can do this! But… let’s hide here for a little bit. I’m sure our package isn’t going to mind one bit.”
“Not that she has a mind.”
Leslie was the girl’s name, or at least the name she currently answered to. Whether she arrived in Berlin with that name was something only Alice knew for certain. Whether she’d ever be anything other than Leslie ever again was anyone’s guess. She was Leslie now, for better or worse.
“For better,” said Mistress. “She doesn’t even notice the cold. Must be nice.”
“Leslie!” Rebecca tugged at the girl’s jacket. “Get over here! Put your back against the column before you freeze to death.” She brushed the girl’s long auburn hair away from her pale face. What little color was originally in her cheeks had long since been sapped away by the chilly air. “Where’s your hat? Don’t you have a hat?”
“Yes, Rebecca,” Leslie replied through chapped lips. She fell silent. Rebecca watched the girl’s chin quiver as her body fought to recognize the cold her mind had been commanded to ignore. Alice was good at her work, and Leslie’s teeth refused to chatter.
“Did you leave it at the hostel?” God, she felt like a mother bringing a child to the bus stop. This is why there are no children in our future, Miss.
“I don’t remember. I will forget and obey.” The mantra animated the pretty redhead, who pulled away from the Litfaß and stood fully erect. “I must always forget and obey. Forget and obey. Forget and—“
“Enough,” Mistress commanded.
“Yes, Rebecca.” She sank back against the column, eyes fluttering before sinking halfway. To anyone walking by, Leslie looked like a tired girl who was underdressed for the weather. Beautiful, but maybe a little spacey. Even the young men strolling by paid little attention to her.
“This,” Rebecca sighed, rolling her eyes, “is why mind control is bullshit. See this? It’s like herding a… a… a goat or something. Impossible.” She braved the wind for long enough to peer out to their right, where a placard on a corner building offered the promise of being a street sign. “I don’t know why all of these people have such a fucking hard-on for it. Nothing but a pain in the fucking ass.”
“Well, in twenty minutes or so we’ll be back to being small-time hypnotists instead.”
“Mmmhmm. You know how much I want to drag Leslie back to our hotel and reprogram Alice’s bullshit right out of her, right?” She blew a puff of icy condensation away from her face. “That’s rhetorical, of course.”
Mistress stared into the girl’s eyes. They were wide and empty, a pale blue that reminded her of Alice. “They’d find her eventually. That’s the sucky shit part about all of this, Rebecca. Nobody gets free. We’re probably the only people in Berlin who have ever pulled it off.”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. She thought of the girls in the hostel, all under her hypnotic control. She could have set them loose. Wiped their memories and sent them home. That had been the plan. That was part of ‘pulling it off.’
Instead, Celeste and Mistress enslaved them, sealing their fate. They were all clones of Leslie, now.
The promising placard turned out to be a faded business sign. “I wish this stupid city had actual fucking street signs like back home,” she groused, allowing herself a moment to picture herself back safe and sound in America. Pizza, cheap beer, Celeste and Emily and…
Celeste. Goddammit.
She frowned and took Leslie by her chilly fingers. “Come on,” she said, as much to Mistress as to her mindless thrall. “It’s down this street, I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, Rebecca,” Leslie droned.
Mistress said nothing.
Then
They’d been expecting some paper, not an entire ream of it, but their brainwashed bartender was far too deeply entranced to make those sorts of fine distinctions. She delivered the package to them on a brown serving tray, bending down just enough to flash her tits at the entire table.
“Your paper and pen, Alice,” she said, her voice a curious mixture of dullness and joy.
“Thank you, Grace!” Alice peeled a few sheets from the stack and set them beside her. “You really are a lovely woman.”
Grace wiggled her ass like a happy puppy. “Yes, Alice. I am very lovely. I am very beautiful when I am this deep in trance.” Her eyes sparkled. “Would you like me to go back to the bar, Alice?”
“No, dearie. I’d much rather have you here for the moment. Rebecca has me outnumbered at the moment.” She glanced at Megan, her would-be assassin. “Here, stay on a bit.”
“Of course, Alice.” Grace took up a standing position to Alice’s left, one perfectly-toned arm draped across the back of the booth. The dazed smile remained painted on her face.
“Do you know what’s funny about all of this, Rebecca?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s funny about this.”
“Oh, but I disagree, dearie! Now, if you’ll recall, it was your idea to have me hypnotize dear Grace here for you.” Alice looked up at her toy with pride. “You were just out to get your hole, mind you. Turning girls into your puppets like an evil mind controller. But Grace changed everything, didn’t she?”
It was a fair point. More than one, really, and Rebecca reluctantly conceded them. “Yeah. Grace flipped the lights when all of us were trapped in the office.”
“More than that, dearie! Grace was the reason for the lights! I’d been meaning to find a good test subject, and you allowed me to saunter off and find one! Mind you, the thought crossed my mind about using them to brainwash you and Celeste instead, but your Emily brought Edwin into this whole mess and… well, all’s well that ends well, I say.”
“So let’s end this well.” Mistress lifted a ballpoint pen from the serving tray and held it like a tiny spear. “We make a little contract and we go home. Deal?”
Alice held up her hand. “I want you to always remember that you sent me to this club not because of altruism but to serve your own needs. Because you were a proper mind controller at that moment, Rebecca. Remember that well. It’ll come in handy the next time you find yourself in a tough spot.”
Home
“Okay.” Celeste placed her hands on Zoe’s shoulders and pointed her in the direction of the couch. “Go over to the couch, take off all of your clothes, and then sit down. Wait for me. Hear nothing and think of nothing.”
Zoe nodded. “Yes, Celeste.”
“Such a sexy little trance voice! Mistress is going to love you!” The brunette could barely contain herself, especially now that they were safe at home base and away from prying eyes. In pure secret agent fashion, she’d gotten her target all the way back without encountering a single concerned face. Zoe’s phone, now unlocked and resting inside Celeste’s jacket, hadn’t buzzed all night. Her own phone only held a cheerful text from Emily: Didn’t see you leave! Hope you had a fun night! XOXO EM
Plop. Zoe’s jacket joined her scarf on the floor. Both smelled of the cold, wet world outside. Celeste wrinkled her nose and tried not to think about the blackish-brown dirty snow stain Zoe’s boots were likely to leave behind. “Do you work out a lot, Zoe?”
Plop. “Every day, Celeste.” The girl steadied herself against the couch and wiggled out of her pants. She had the tight ass of a girl who knew how to care for one. Plop.
“You’re cute under all of that winter gear.” Responsibility gained the upper hand for a brief moment, and she thought again of that ugly carpet stain. “Hey, put all of your clothes and your boots on the coffee table. I don’t want the floor getting wet.”
“Yes, Celeste.” The blonde finished stripping and deposited her clothes as instructed. She bent over and retrieved the rest of her outfit from the floor, giving an appreciative Celeste an even better look at her bare ass. Mission accomplished, she stood stock-still in front of the couch, staring into space.
“I’m going to brainwash you tonight, Zoe. You’re going to love every second of it. It’s so hot and sexy to slip deeper and deeper under my control.”
“Deeper…” A faint hint of a scowl appeared on her lips. “I… I…”
“Deeper and deeper, Zoe. Because you’re a hot, sexy, confident girl who knows what she wants. And what she wants more than anything is to be completely, and utterly, brainwashed.”
Letting the confident girl take charge of her own reprogramming was a trick straight out of Rebecca’s playbook, and one Celeste had never even considered before Berlin. Until Rebecca had used it to reprogram her. Zoe took to the idea immediately, her dull eyes brightening as she imagined herself getting exactly what she wanted. Girls like Zoe always did. “Yes… brainwashed… need to… brainwash me… I want… I want… want to be…”
“Brainwashed,” Celeste finished for her, smiling as Zoe shuddered and let out a tiny gasp. “Completely and totally under my spell. Totally and utterly brainwashed. It feels so good, doesn’t it? So good to be mindless and brainwashed.”
“I want… I want…” Zoe was starting to take air in thick, greedy gulps. She placed both hands on her perky tits and began squeezing them. “Want to be… please… I want it NOW.”
That last part, delivered with all the snootiness of an impatient and entitled brat, made Celeste snicker. “Oh, you will be. Starting now.” She snapped her fingers. “Drop ten times deeper, Zoe. Ten times deeper into trance.” Snap. “Deeper now.” Snap. “Ten times deeper.”
“Hnnnnn.” The bratty face smoothed into blissful emptiness as her eyes slid closed.
“I wish that Mistress were here to see this!” God, she would be so fucking stoked right now! After all, who needed Berlin? Alice was too small. Why settle for a dinky hostel when there were dorms and dorms full of beautiful young women just waiting to be enslaved? Mistress could have five slaves or ten. A hundred or even a thousand. No one could stop her. Alice tried and failed. Everyone tried and failed. Even I tried and failed..
“God, if I’d only thought of this back in Troy, you know? I could have had ten hot girls waiting for Mistress. Had them all transfer here.” She meant it as a joke, but Zoe said nothing in response, and the words refused to stop circling her brain.
She reached for Zoe’s phone. “Let’s see how many hot friends you have, Zoe. Sink deeper for me now. Deeper and deeper. The more you say it, the deeper you’ll go.”
“Deeper and deeper.” Her head sank. “Deeper and deeper.”
“Blah, guy, guy, older guy… family… ooh, this girl’s cute!” Celeste’s eyes sparkled. This plan was going to end extremely well. “Nice fashion, nice tits. This one’s a keeper.”
“Deeper and deeper,” Zoe agreed. “Deeper and deeper.”
“Okay, here we are!” Rebecca looked up at the old whitewashed apartment building, half-expecting to see her targets glaring down at her from an upper balcony. Hissing and yelling and throwing flowerpots at her head, or worse. But it was too damn cold for balcony-sitting. “Gemüsestraße. Number sixty nine.”
“Nice,” Mistress giggled.
“Stop.”
“Sorry.”
“One last chance, Miss. We go upstairs, we kick the living shit out of both of them, then we take Leslie back to our hotel and rip all of those puppet strings out of her brain. Then we call the fucking cops on Alice and run like hell for the airport. Deal?”
“And then we spend the rest of our lives hiding out as nuns in a Canadian convent so that Alice can’t find us and have us killed. Sweet!” Mistress marched to the front door and, before Rebecca could even think to protest, began pushing the buzzer for apartment 540. “We’re going to go through this and we’re going home alone. Fuck Berlin and fuck Alice. Okay?”
Rebecca liked her plan much, much better, even if it meant trying to imagine Celeste’s sexy body forever lost beneath a nun’s habit. “Okay.”
Mistress leaned into it until the buzzer button threatened to collapse into the wall behind it. Finally, the speaker crackled and barked.
“Wer ist es?” The voice was annoyed and gruff, the predictable response of someone sent running to the entrance intercom because some maniac downstairs wouldn’t stop pressing the buzzer. “Hallo? Wer ist es? Fucking delivery kids, I swear…”
Mistress took a deep breath. “Hello Edwin. It’s Rebecca Sanders. Remember us?”
“Who is the most important person in your life?”
Zoe’s eyes were huge and unfocused. “Mistress Rebecca is the most important person I know. She’s my everything.”
“Good girl.” Celeste curled her finger and toyed with her subject’s clit, eliciting a happy gasp in return. “And who is the most important person in your entire world, Zoe?”
“Mistress Rebecca is… nnnnn, yes! She’s… yes…. nnn… the most… the most important person in my whole ffffffucking world…”
“Good girl.” Celeste waited for the squealing and squirming to end before continuing. “Remember, you can’t come until you answer allll of my questions correctly. Can you do that?”
“Y… yes… Cel… Celeste.”
“And why is that?”
“Be… because Mistress Rebecca wants me to obey you.”
“Good girl. You’re almost there. But not there yet.”
The Edwin that emerged from the elevator looked nothing like the cowed and humiliated man they’d left in Alice’s hands just a few months before. This Edwin carried himself across the lobby with a confidence verging on arrogance, face held high and eyes growing darker and narrower as he closed the distance between them.The lobby door was only a few steps away, but Rebecca suddenly felt like she was ten miles underground.
He charged up to her and dug his hands against his hips. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, just dropping by.” His eyes darted between her and the mesmerized redhead. “Selling Girl Scout cookies?”
“Selling girls, anyway.”
“Pfft.” He returned his gaze to Leslie, studying her as if Rebecca had brought him a bicycle or an old record player to buy. “I have plenty of girls, Rebecca. If you’re looking for some kind of finder’s fee, I suggest you try one of the less successful outfits in this city.”
Yep. That’s confidence. Fuck. It knocked them both back a bit, seeing Edwin like this. At the very least, Rebecca had expected someone a bit more… beleaguered. Weary. Edwin was neither, and that made him dangerous.
Thankfully, Mistress jumped into the fight. “Oh,” she said, curling her eyes to exude just a hint of slyness. “I think you’ll enjoy this one a lot. I heard you were in the market for a beautiful redhead with a great bod and an empty mind.”
She crossed her arms. “Trouble is, Emily’s already spoken for. So let’s you and me get the hell out of this lobby, and find someplace private where we can talk about how we’re going to solve that little dilemma.”
He looked at her, but his eyes were soon drawn once again to Leslie. He mentally undressed and redressed the redhead a few times before throwing up his hands. “Fine. Fine! You can come upstairs. But you’re not to say a single fucking word to Mandy, understood? I don’t want you to even lay eyes on her.”
“That’s fine. We have nothing to say to her anyway.” Mistress brushed past him, eager to get to the elevator. A hand landed hard on her shoulder and dug in, slowing her to a halt.
“Oh no,” said Edwin. “Do you think I’m going to get into an elevator alone with you two?” He jerked a thumb to his left. “We’re taking the stairs. Fifth floor. You go up first, I’ll follow.”
Predictable, I guess. We’d have said the same thing probably. Mistress pulled the handle and tugged the stairwell door open, hoping against hope that it would be locked. I’m way too fucking tired for this shit.
Rebecca craned her neck until she could see all five flights looming above her. “Stairs,” she muttered. “Always with the fucking stairs.”
“Now. My terms are these, Rebecca. Hear me out before you go blurting out interruptions, like you’re prone to do. One, you are never, ever to come back to Berlin. Not on vacation, not for university, not even passing through the transit lounge on your way to Krakow. I’ve half a mind to keep you out of Germany entirely, but I’m feeling quite cheerful today, so I’ll pass on that demand.”
“I’ve had my fill of Europe, thanks.” Mistress drummed her fingers on the edge of the table, trying to appear unmoved by Alice’s demands. “And Emily still thinks that she’s already seen all of those castles.”
“Lovely! Do stop drumming your fingers, dearie. Now for item two, you turn will Megan over to me, for my own exclusive use, as compensation for chasing Hannah away.”
That one stung more than the first. Rebecca and Mistress had no intention of ever crossing paths with Alice again. Hypnotizing the bubbly, friendly, innocent Megan only to throw her to the wolves…
“Is there an issue with that, Rebecca?”
She bit her tongue, releasing it only long enough to blurt out a hasty “no, Alice.” Then she but down again, hard enough to make her wince. I’m sorry, Megan. But what was one more brainwashed girl out of dozens? Hundreds, perhaps? Even now, Alice’s Three Horsemen were busy rounding up a new batch of victims. The more she has, the less each one will get used, she reasoned, even if that didn’t seem to be particularly likely.
“Good! And three, most importantly of all, you and Celeste shall maintain your veil of secrecy regarding this… situation. You’re not to tell anyone of what goes on in this club, or in my hostel. You are resolutely forbidden to warn anyone not to come here, whether in person or as an anonymous commenter online. I will find out about it, Rebecca. So don’t bother being clever. Not even a one-star review, am I clear?”
“I agree to those terms.”
Alice, ever the professional, had written down each demand as she spoke, writing in a large, flowing script that took up two pages. At the bottom of the second page she drew a horizontal line, then passed both pages to Rebecca along with a pen.
She signed without reading the text. If there was a trap hidden in there, she preferred not to think about it. Alice was usually a woman of her word. “Here. Now my terms.”
“Thank you.” Alice folded her new contract and drew two new sheets from Grace’s stack. She tapped her pen against the table. “Shall I take notes?”
Rebecca didn’t bother to reply. “Rule number one. You will never try to contact myself, Celeste, or Emily at any time, for any reason, in any way.”
“Fair enough.” She added Rebecca’s words to a fresh page, the pen skipping and bouncing one dents and grooves in the table beneath it. “I’ve even less interest in seeing you than you have in seeing me, Rebecca.”
“Two. You will not brainwash anyone from my town. I know you ask us where we’re from when you first hypnotize us. So if you do that to a girl and she says ‘I’m from DuPage, Illinois,’ you bail out. Snap her out of it and tell her that there’s no room at the hostel.”
“Well now!” Alice feigned shock. “I simply can’t make exceptions based on geography! Suppose she’s traveling with friends who aren’t from DuPage, Illinois? Am I to lose them, too? Because I certainly can’t send one off and keep the others.”
“How many ‘passwords’ do you sell each week? How many guests do you personally welcome to your hostel? You’re telling me you’re going to miss a few now and then? There were thirty of them in the hostel when I was there, and that was less than a week’s time. So no, you don’t get to keep the others.”
“Fine.” She stabbed at the page, then reached for the second sheet. “Mustn’t… keep… others… send them… all… away.” She dropped the pen and held up two fingers. “Anything else strike your fancy? You’ve only two terms to my three.”
“Yeah. I have one more. Number three, you’re going deal with this Edwin problem once and for all.”
“Oh, now you’re making it too easy for me, Rebecca.” She grinned. “I plan on it.”
“Stop right there,” he commanded.
They reluctantly obeyed, although Rebecca made sure to show her displeasure at being ordered around. It was best not to push Edwin’s haughty confidence even further off the scale. They waited patiently as he approached his own apartment door, turning the knob and easing it open.
Amanda’s voice immediately spilled out into the hallway like an incoming tide. She was in the middle of an argument with someone, pausing and barking out statements in rapid succession. “No, that’s not what you were told.” Pause. “She’s there to fuck you, not to do your fucking laundry.” Pause, shorter this time. “No, no, NO! I didn’t go through the trouble of brainwashing her so you could nearly lose her while running an errand, Hans. You… no!”
Rebecca looked at Edwin, who was visibly cringing. She couldn’t help but feel a tiny very, very tiny bit sorry for him. This was the Edwin she remembered.
He stepped into the apartment for just long enough to make contact with his wife, then beckoned them to come closer to the front door. He hung from the edge of the doorframe, forming a screen between them and the interior. “Your timing’s impeccable. It’ll give me something to listen to besides that for five minutes.” He cracked a smile, then smothered it. “So you wanted to talk? Then talk. I have no idea what the hell you’re here for or what you’re talking about.”
“Long story short? You called my best friend on the phone and tried to brainwash her into flying back here to become your little fucktoy.” Mistress was no slouch in the confidence department, either. “Or did you forget about that?”
“Assuming I did, and I didn’t, your first thought was to hypnotize some other girl and fly all the way to Germany to hand-deliver her?” His eyes shot daggers. “I’m calling bullshit on that one, Rebecca Sanders.”
“Leslie is a tourist.” Mistress placed her hand against the small of Leslie’s back and nudged her forward. “Here for a few days, ready to be filled with whatever sick little fantasies you want to stick in her head. Call her Emily, if you want. She won’t mind. The real Emily is safe and sound at home, far away from you.”
“And thoroughly deprogrammed,” added Rebecca. “So don’t get any ideas. It’s over.”
He began to say something before stopping, perhaps unaware of which lie to trot out in response, or whether to bother lying at all. Behind him, Amanda continued.
“I don’t… listen, Hans… I have another call coming in. Do NOT leave her alone in your apartment! In three hours her programming… yes, three hours… her programming will be up and she’ll leave on her own. I… goodbye, Hans.”
Edwin glanced over his shoulder, stepping out into the hall and half-closing the door behind him.
He looked at them and scowled. “No.”
“No what?”
“No to your offer, Rebecca.”
Mistress scoffed at that. “There’s no ‘no’ in this, Edwin. You get Leslie, you don’t get Emily.”
“Do you think I’m that much of an idiot?”
Don’t say it don’t SAY IT, Miss!
Thankfully, Mistress held her tongue as Edwin plunged headfirst into full-on ranting.
“Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’m just going to… you show up in Berlin out of the blue, straight from America, and you make a beeline for my apartment. You have no way of knowing where I live and yet, here you are, with a girl who’s clearly been mind-scrubbed well beyond anything you’re capable of.”
“Edwin…” The suggestion that she wasn’t ‘good enough’ stung hard, as it was meant to. “If you just listen for a second…”
“You’re full of shit, Rebecca. I know exactly where your little Manchurian honeypot came from, and you can tell Alice to go to hell. Tell her if she thinks she can send a mole or a spy into my business, then our deal is off. Immediately.”
“I don’t care about your deals,” said Rebecca. She meant it. “I’m here about my own deal. And that deal was to walk over here, offer you Leslie as a substitute for Emily, and that’s that. You don’t want her? Fine.”
She drew the redhead to her and wrapped her arm around the girl’s waist. “I honestly don’t know if she’s a blank slate or not. Or if she’s been programmed to do anything.”
Rebecca… Mistress grumbled.
Rebecca ignored her. “Maybe she’ll just spy on you. Maybe she’s here to kill you. Maybe she’s here to suck your dick and make tons of money for you. I don’t care, Edwin. I’m getting out of the mind control business today. For good.”
He laughed. “Good luck with that. I thought you were supposed to be getting out of the business months ago? And yet here you are, same whiny little pain in the ass as before.”
It was meant to be another zinger, like the snide comment about not being good enough, but Rebecca was through with being insulted. Her anger boiled over into the tone of her voice. “And here you are, twirling your mustache like… like… ugh.”
Edwin leaned back until his ear was even with the crack in the open door. His eyebrows darted up as he strained to listen to Amanda’s conversation. Her argument had apparently ended; they could barely hear her now. “Mandy’s winding down,” he concluded. “That means our meeting is over, Rebecca. I have a deal with Alice and I don’t have a deal with you, so my advice to you is to watch your back.”
Now
Bzzt buzz bzzt. Buzz buzz bzzt.
Amanda resisted the urge to toss her little burner Vodafone across the bedroom. “I can’t even get ONE hour of nap time. Not even one!” She glared at the phone. Voicemail was an option, but that was how contracts were lost and opportunities were missed. Clients, even loyal ones, wouldn’t hesitate to shop somewhere else if Amanda couldn’t procure them their preferred hypno-slave right now.
Nap time would have to wait, again. She scooped up the phone and held it to her ear. Her fingers squeezed it hard enough that she half-expected it to crack and crumble under the pressure. “Hello, Amanda here.”
“Amanda! Sorry to bother you, again, but…”
Hans. She leaned against the bedroom door and lightly tapped her head against it, wishing for a world in which careless idiots like Hans didn’t exist. “What is it now, Hans? I told you, give her three hours.”
“I know.” He sounded apologetic, at least. “But I wanted to say… well, I’m a paying customer, Amanda. I’ve given you and your husband a lot of money over the years. I deserve to be treated better. So what if I sent her to pick up my dry cleaning? It’s my right as a customer!”
This was a perfect time to let Hans have it with both barrels, to chew him out over the phone until he was too broken to even think about being so sassy and demanding. Customer is always right, my ass! But she was tired, too tired to fight, and she settled for “the customer gets to spend an entire day fucking the most beautiful, unattainable girls on the planet.” Her mouth curled into a snarl. “If you want a girlfriend, Hans, try Parship or LoveScout.”
“Actually,” Hans lowered his voice. “I thought you’d say something like that. So I asked one of your competitors for a second opinion. Want to know what she suggested?”
This was worth fighting about. Amanda sat down on the bed and angrily swept her free arm across the covers, sending throw pillows and her half-finished paperback tumbling to the carpet. “If you think for one second that I’m going to care what—”
“She said… that all good girls are mindless slaves who obey Alice without question.”
“—what some… one… sayssssss…”
The rest of her argument evaporated. Her eyes slid closed as the trigger erased her mind. Her lips began to move, slowly and with purpose. “I am a good girl who obeys without question.”
“Alice has something she needs you to do for her.”
“Yes. I obey.”
Edwin’s vague threat was their cue to turn around and walk away. To return Leslie to Alice, or to take Rebecca’s suggestion and spend the afternoon back in Mitte deprogramming the girl as best they could. But Rebecca held her ground, digging her boots into the hallway carpet. “One last thing, Edwin. Then we’ll go.”
Her comment seemed to catch him off guard. He leaned against the doorframe. “I don’t have time for one last—”
“You’re all the same, you know that? All of you—Alice, Arthur, Amanda, you… always scheming. Always fighting. Always threatening people. I can’t even show up at your front door with something I know you want—a hot redhead you can brainwash and control—because you’re too paranoid. Because this isn’t about mind control, is it?”
She took the redhead by the hand. “Leslie, you’re a stripper in a club. Do a sexy dance for us. Now.”
“Yes, Rebecca.” Before Edwin could protest, Leslie began to twist and sway, a sultry smile on her lips. Her eyes burned twin holes into Edwin’s face as she slowly unzipped her thin jacket.
“See this?” She stepped back to admire Leslie, who dropped to her knees as she pulled her sweater over her head. “This is what we all wanted when we started. Getting hot girls to fuck you, to do anything for you. Nice and simple, right? None of this secret agent Action Force stuff. Not trying to be a fucking crime boss, Edwin.”
“News flash,” he said. “Those of us who aren’t on amateur hour can do both.”
She tapped Leslie on the head. “Freeze. Blank and mindless. Hear nothing but the sound of my voice. Obey.”
Leslie stopped instantly. Her back was arched beyond any reasonable expectation of comfort, but Rebecca’s words were her reality, and she maintained her awkward pose. “I obey.”
Let’s just go, Mistress pleaded.
But Rebecca couldn’t. She had to do this. “Do you remember the first time you ever hypnotized someone? Do you remember how incredible it was, watching her eyes start to get glassy and distant? The way her mouth opens just a little bit? We all remember our first subject. Mine was named Missy. Hotter than shit girl I knew back in high school. Who was yours?”
He made a show of rolling his eyes, but behind the theatrics, Rebecca could see the gears turning. She’d hit an unexpectedly vulnerable spot.
“My wife, actually,” he said after a moment. “Mandy. A long time ago.”
“I’m asking that because everyone acts like that’s not enough, you know? “Hypnotizing just one person.”
He sighed, loudly. “It’s—“
“Everyone in Berlin wants to hypnotize everyone, I get that. But why? Why isn’t one enough? Why can’t you just settle for a hot, mindless slave, someone who wants to be your mindless slave, with all of the wild crazy sex and knowing that she’ll never leave you?” She patted Leslie on the head. “When was the last time you actually enjoyed dropping someone? Thinking about fucking her, not about what she’s worth on the open market?”
Edwin’s grip on the doorframe tightened. He imagined himself sending Rebecca away, triumphant and smug in seeing his former enemy slink away, her mission a total failure. Alice’s mission too, for that matter.
But Rebecca’s words hung like stale smoke in the hallway, surrounding him, sticking to him. They represented something that Edwin, in his long career, rarely if ever encountered. An actual offer. Not one based on a catch, or an expectation, or a desire to come out ahead. No, this was an actual offer, born of empathy and sympathy and a genuine desire to help. It was based on the very sort of common sense principles that most mind controllers abandoned early on. An offer that he now grasped and examined, turning over and over again with mental hands.
He could do it. They had the money. Certainly no one in Berlin would miss them. Amanda really, really, really needed to get away from it all, away from the constant arguments, the battles on the phone, the scheming to get ahead. Always scheming. Always fighting.
They could buy a nice cabin in Alberta, with enough money left over to fully furnish it and live a nice simple life together. Just the two of them, starting out again, embracing under starry skies and making love in front of a lusty, roaring fireplace. They would spend their hours watching the world pass them by, talking about things like the birds at the feeder and the thickness of the ice at the local pond. No more fighting with the Russians about broken brainwashing equipment. No more experimenting with killers-for-hire.
“I’m getting out of the mind control business today. For good.”
For a moment, the offer rested in his hands. The chance to be the man he’d always imagined himself to be. A good husband. A good man. A confident and successful man who had everything he needed or wanted in life. A man ready to grow old and drift into blissful obscurity.
And just as quickly, the moment passed him by. His gaze, and with it his soul, hardened.
“Pathetic.” The word dripped from his lips like poison. “Is that why Alice sent you here? To convince me to quit? Tuck my tail between my legs and just let her have it all? Are you fucking kidding me?” The thought of Alice dancing on the grave of his hard-earned success quickly displaced Rebecca’s utopian vision from his mind.
“I could kill you where you stand,” he snarled. “I should have Sandra hunt you down and gut you, Rebecca. You and your little whore.”
Rebecca matched his stare. She didn’t move an inch. “You won’t, though.”
“I don’t need to. Because you’re small-time, Rebecca. You’re nothing. You’re a nobody. A failure. In six months I won’t even remember you, because by then I intend to be running this city. Every brothel, every network, every slave, every brainwashing room and every controller. I’m on the cusp of greatness and you want to dump some hippy lovey-dovey… sappy… bullshit on me?” His anger crowded out his own words, forcing him to pause. “Go… go sell that crap to Alice, because I’m not interested.”
“I tried. She’s just as blind as you.”
“She’s nothing like me. She thinks she’s top of the woodpile, and she’s not. You think the sun shines out of her ass? Tell her that she can’t touch me, and she can’t touch my wife. If she’s smart, she’ll listen to you and leave town.”
Rebecca lowered her head in defeat. She thought, of all things, about Blade Runner. “Then we’re stupid and we’ll die.” It was one of Emily’s go-to quotes, usually uttered when they were about to hop a questionable-looking bus or wander the back streets of an equally questionable neighborhood. To Emily, it was another way to say “never say die,” a thing best said when hurling oneself into the gaping maw of a dangerous unknown.
But Edwin wasn’t about to gamely tackle a new challenge. He wasn’t about to take the bull by the horns and wrestle it in the name of good fun and great times. He was nothing but a prisoner in a cell of his own making, a prisoner who might be called to his execution at any given moment. She’d opened his cell door only to have him slam it shut in her face.
“We’re going,” Mistress announced. “Leslie, you can move again. Put your sweater and jacket back on and come with me.”
“Yes, Rebecca.”
Rebecca was happy to let Mistress guide them all back to the elevator, and to freedom.