The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I want to thank everyone who’s read this far for the clicks and humouring the glut of Quaranteam content.

Thanks again to Corrupting Power for his support and blessing, and to the other QT-verse writers; BreakTheBar, OtterlyMindblowing, SilverRyden, BirchesLoveBooks and RonanJWilkerson.

I’m also starting a Patreon now as a result of the support here. If you want to tip me or get a little extra access and a say in what I’m working on now, please take a look. I’ll be using it for the early release of chapters of a 2nd spin off of Corrupting Power’s work; If I’m Honest—Picture Perfect

https://www.patreon.com/AgathonWrites

October 22nd 2020

Evie’s tongue flicked and teased at the stud crowning Farah’s clit, causing the sportswoman to moan into Nia’s mouth as she tried to keep up their kiss. There was a sharp gasp and colourful string of curses as Farah pinched at Nia’s nipple, tweaking it with just enough force that Nia keened her head back, struggling against the sharp twist of pleasure even as Ethan drove into the sodden mess of her cunt from behind.

Ethan lay back on the bed, idly watching the video playback on the room’s tv, a chorus of cries and groans drifting out from the speakers. The plan had been for he and Farah to spend the night alone after she woke up from imprinting, with Nia staying in Evie’s old room, but it was clear now that most of the advanced plans they’d made for the new arrival had well and truly been ripped up. Quite how Nia and Evie had ended up with them had become a bit of a blur, along with most of the rest of last night. It might have been Farah’s suggestion? That seemed plausible anyway, given the fervour with which she’d thrown herself into really meeting her new teammates.

Riding her crotch against Evie’s face, Farah glanced at the camera. It kept pulling at her attention and she caressed herself absently, even as Nia leaned in and nibbled at her neck.

What was clear, as mid morning sunlight tried to force its way through the curtains, was that filming things had definitely been Farah’s idea. Sarah had decided one of the cameras could be moved later, leaving it behind in her rush to find Lukas, allowing their presenter to indulge in the exhibitionist streak she’d seemingly just discovered. It hadn’t been a huge surprise when Evie had played at shyness before quickly getting on board, but how readily he’d got into the idea had been. The only one with any sort of reticence had been Nia and yet…

“Fuck yes,” Nia blathered. Ethan set his hand where her neck met her shoulders as he pushed her face down into the mattress, the dull smack of her raised arse against his thighs audible on the recording as they fucked. “Fuck me like you own me, show the camera how much of a greedy bitch I am for you. God I feel like such a fucking whore like this.”

She ran her mouth until she came without Ethan, not needing the extra push from his release to find her own. She strained, back arching, pushing against his hand, her body attempting to uncoil its tension as she trembled. Ethan however pinned her in place and Nia found the resistance wonderful as she was left unable to do anything other than tug and tremble against his weight. He always seemed to know exactly how rough, how controlling, she wanted him to be and she helplessly surrendered to him.

Ethan’s mind strayed to what Rhys had said, about those bonded to him finding gratification in his desires. Maybe there was some truth to it? But then, if there was, it was hard to see the look of bliss on Nia’s face and feel like that was something he should start trying to deny her.

A nude Farah wandered from the bathroom, hair slick, the contours of her muscles picked out by moisture from the shower she’d just taken. The rest of the morning was theirs, with Nia and Evie both having to reluctantly excuse themselves early for Project business and he was grateful for a chance to spend some more time with her where sex didn’t need to be the only priority.

“Did you get to the part with the strap-on yet,” Farah asked as she joined him, the warmth of her body leaning against his, and the mattress gave a small creak, as if it was still protesting at what they’d subjected it to the night before.

Evie rode Ethan, the bed bouncing beneath them. She wasn’t paying much mind to exactly where the camera was and, more often than not, all that could be seen of her was the curl of her back and the rise and fall of her taut backside, punctuated by the occasion peak of the buttplug she was doing her best to keep inside herself.

“I think this is still a little way off that still?” Ethan had only been half watching in reality, straying to his phone frequently, fielding messages from Lukas and waiting to see if Aoife had messaged him back and assuaged his guilt. “Running less hot now?”

‘Running Hot’ was the term Project Upstart had fallen into using with each other for the seemingly superhuman libido the vaccine could leave them with. Nia had told him that Gemivax was for a slightly different production run to most of what the States were using, tailored to the European market, and that anecdotally those effects were managing to be even more pronounced here than on the other side of the Atlantic. Ethan had nothing to directly compare to, but based on the reports he’d seen before being vaccinated it definitely felt like Nia and Evie’s appetites were far in excess of what was meant to be expected. And it didn’t seem like Farah had exactly managed to ‘cool off’ entirely from the initial heat either.

“A little? Maybe, I’m not exactly in a rush to stop feeling like this,” she grinned at him, inviting him to stoop in and kiss him. As he did he felt her hand find his crotch, idly starting to jerk him off beneath the sheets.

It wasn’t long since Evie had been the one eating Farah out, and now it was the other woman’s turn to return the favour. Farah eased herself into place between Evie and Ethan, leaning down to flick and lap her tongue across the point where cock and pussy met, fingers working all the while to masturbate herself.

Nia recovered enough to rejoin them, unable to keep herself out of the fray. Her eyes made contact with Evie’s seeing the strained bliss on her features, and she cupped the younger woman’s face, kissing her like a lost soulmate.

Ethan couldn’t help but close his eyes and grunt a small exhalation, cock over-sensitive still, getting a familiar, easy laugh from Farah.

“Don’t worry, I know it’s been through a lot. I’ll go easy on it,” she said, in a way that didn’t leave Ethan entirely convinced. Her attention then strayed back to the screen where Evie and Nia were enthusiastically making out. “Those two are really something, huh?”

“They really are.”

“They’ve made this way less intimidating than I thought it could be. I was worried how I was going fit in and measure up.”

That took Ethan by surprise. “You? Intimidated?” Farah had a profile beyond any of them and ready charm to match. She was successful across two fields, confident and gorgeous. The idea that she could be intimidated by another woman wasn’t something that had crossed his mind.

Farah’s head emerged from between Ethan’s legs and she pried Nia away from Evie, stealing a kiss from plush dark lips, her tongue demanding recognition. Nia returned it, already with almost as much affection as she had shown Evie, before beginning to kiss her way down toned desi skin.

There was a moan as fingers glided up inside Farah, and Nia purred just loudly enough for the recording to pick it up. “Don’t tell me I’ve got another greedy little cunt demanding my attention.” Farah groaned at the sensation curling up inside her, then giggled, and dragged Nia backwards, leaving Evie to pump her hips against Ethan on her own.

“Yeah? Of course I was.” Her hand kept stroking him below the sheet and her attention lingered enough on the playing video as they spoke that she needed some sort of outlet for the arousal it was keeping smouldering. “Not only was I walking into whatever you three already had going, but I’m just an idiot from Bradford who smacked a ball around and doesn’t know when to shut up. Evie and Nia are smart, cultured, privileged. It was easy to feel that they’re a world away from someone like me.”

He was frustrated he’d missed that. They could have done more to realise how imbalanced the dynamic Farah had been walking into was. And he could certainly sympathise with her seeing the strengths of others seeming stark compared to her own, especially with the similar working class backgrounds they shared. It was the next thing she said however that truely caught him off guard.

“And it’s not like you’re much better.”

“Me? You were intimidated by me?” Ethan’s disbelief was plain in his voice. There was nothing remotely remarkable about him in his mind that could let someone feel that way. “You’re not serious?”

Evie cried his name as she rode him, overwhelmed by just how incredible one person could make her feel. “Ethan…fuck. How do you do this to me…Please. I don’t ever want you to stop…” Her back was to the camera but even so it was obvious how her body pulsed, clenching and unfurling in small eddies of pleasure. Juices smeared his thighs, her enthusiasm painted damp on the sheets below.

Farah nodded before resting her head against his chest. “When this all started and your name came up I asked around about you. Turns out that we’ve got a lot of acquaintances that are acquaintances of each other’s acquaintances. There’s only so many degrees of separation you can get in the media, and you know what I was told?”

“You’re here, so I’m guessing it can’t all be bad”

That brought a chuckle from her, and an eager little squeeze of his cock, her ministrations increasingly insistent. “The only bad comment I got was that you sometimes overthink things, but other than that…You work in our industry and there wasn’t a single axe anyone was looking to grind. I got all these emails about how great you were to work with, principled, hard working, kind. About how you caught important things no-one else did. They built a pretty big pedestal to put you on.”

He wanted to argue that that was just how everyone should be seen. “Whatever they told you, I’m just a person.”

“You are.” Farah placed a kiss upon his chest, then suddenly stopped stroking him. There was a brief flicker of disappointment, until a long, powerful leg swung across him and she moved to straddle him. Her pussy accepted him effortlessly, and she groaned as he filled her. “But you’re one with a fucking amazing dick.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Ok, you definitely haven’t completely cooled down yet.” The view on the tv wasn’t bad, but the one on top of him was every bit as compelling, and he gave a long exhale as he took in how perfect she felt and how much her body demanded attention; from the heft of her chest to the boldness of her tattoo and piercing, to the provocative, gleeful smirk she was fixing him with. “And besides, if anything I’m the one who should be intimidated by you. You’re…”

Farah gave her hips a roll and shut him up with a kiss. “Mmm…yeah, we’re definitely not talking about how I’m a big impressive sports star,” she said as if the statement was ridiculous. “I have a hard enough time feeling like I measure up to how people see me already without you starting too.”

“Fair,” Ethan replied. “Besides, you’re a little hard to argue with right now.”

There was a yelp of half-hearted protest as Nia took Farah from behind. Nia hadn’t mentioned before that she’d brought a strap-on with her to Taymont, but as she’d produced it it had become abundantly clear that she had come prepared for at least some of the world of sex and lust they found themselves in. Ethan’s attention was still being demanded by Evie but as the black woman’s hips jerked roughly forward he had found himself wondering just what else she had planned for.

The toy slung from her hips disappeared to the hilt with a single motion inside of Farah and the athlete murmured something inaudible to the camera, earning herself a sharp swat across the one of the cheeks of her ass from Nia in response. Farah braced herself, eyes bunched shut, and moaned as Nia fucked her.

Ethan’s hand stroked Farah’s thigh, and his hand lingered where a patch of light drifted through the curtains and illuminated the large tattoo that decorated her smooth skin. Slowly, his fingers traced one of the assertive black lines of the stylised lioness, the head peering out from a bold circle of petals that surrounded it, designed into the form of a stylised lotus mandala.

“I got it after my first test match for England,” she explained. The lion was the emblem of the national team and it wasn’t a huge leap of logic to connect it to her career. Even so, the huge note of pride that lifted up in her voice made Ethan glad she wanted to spell it out.

“And the flower?”

“I’m not a great daughter, and I’m an even worse muslim,” the smile that came with that half of the explanation was considerably more wan. “I guess this was the one way I could find to pay some sort of respect to that side of my heritage. Mum absolutely hates it though.”

“No accounting for taste,” he tried to reassure her, but decided against probing further. They still barely knew each other after all, and unpacking difficult relationships was probably best not done while she continued to ride him, sextape playing in the background. Instead moved his hand to play with her piercing, drawing a pleased moan as it rubbed against her clit. “So, I bet she doesn’t know about this then?”

“Oh God no.” She closed her eyes and pressed even more firmly against him, grinding upon his cock. “That was…mmm. That was for me. You might have noticed this but people in our industry don’t have the best track record when it comes to sexualising women. I got drunk and had it done after an argument with one producer who kept commenting on my wardrobe. Something about wanting to feel like I had control over my own sexuality I guess?”

“You don’t seem the sort of person who’s exactly shy about how you look.”

Farah preened for the camera, eyes locked fervently upon it as Nia continued to thrust. She arched her back, leaning up against the other woman, and groped her own body, delighting in how her tits bounded on the viewfinder with every stroke. Burying itself eagerly between Farah’s legs, Nia’s hand worked with her hips, offering the occasional suggestive glance at the glinting piercing that perched above sodden lips.

“I’m definitely not. Honestly, I’m pretty big on enjoying attention. I just always hated the idea of it being someone else in charge of how people see me. It’s one thing for me to do or wear something because I want to, another because I’m worried some old white dude will fire me if he doesn’t get what he wants.” Ethan could understand that, the ingrained sexism and harassment of his industry was something that was always meant to be getting better, but since he’d started never did. If anything good was going to come out of the pandemics then the sudden shock to the gender imbalanced system that was now on its way would be one of them. The sound of Farah’s moans playing over the speakers got louder, and she pawed at her own chest in response, her own intensity creeping up. “You know I’d actually been toying with making an Onlyfans account before Upstart came calling, with how much work’s dried up.”

That did come as a small shock to Ethan. The insight into who she was didn’t bring judgement, he admired how casually open to her own desires she was. Rather it was another wake up call to the fact that the woman he was familiar with on his tv was just a shallow approximation of the needs and wants of the very real one on top of him.

“You’re serious?”

“Sure. Once sport stopped I wasn’t exactly getting many other offers on the table. I was bored, starved for attention, stuck alone in a flat with my money running out feeling like my career had ended overnight.” Suddenly there was a little more urgency to Farah’s movements, and an increasing eagerness on her face.

Ethan closed his eyes, letting himself sink further into sensation. “What stopped you?”

“The thought that I might burn too many bridges if something else came along…like this.” She leaned in, practically lying on top of him, as they fucked, the lazy conversationalism from when they started having shifted very much to Farah chasing release. Even if she kept talking as she did. “And if I had I probably wouldn’t have been here, losing my mind over how good you feel…although with hindsight, getting filmed yesterday…that’s probably put wanting to do it in a new perspective…”

Dark brown eyes, drunk with arousal, looked straight down the lens. When Nia had realised how much Farah appreciated the camera she had moved them both forward, half hanging her victim over the edge of the bed so that her body loomed full within the frame, filling most of the screen. She was a mess of flushed skin and unkempt hair, sweat and gasps, cunt gloriously full…and she never loved how she looked more.

Ethan groped her ass, gripping her to control her speed, pressing her against himself with every thrust as if it might let him get even deeper inside her. Farah moaned, close enough that he could feel her breath warm and ragged against his neck. Her nails curled against him, close to breaking the skin in unintended scratches across his chest.

And still she kept talking, disinhibited, running her mouth for her own gratification. And while he still wasn’t quite able to tell where it was coming from, it would be hard to deny what her words were doing for his own arousal arousal too. “Mmm…maybe I just get off on being looked at.”

“Oh shit…fuck me…” Farah gasped for words as Nia pushed her to her limit. She watched herself on the viewfinder, and her pussy clenched around the toy. “I look like such a slut.”

“Maybe I like the camera knowing how much of a bad little slut I am…”

“More…Nia…I’m so close…”

“How much I want people looking at me. Crave their attention…”

“Make me feel like a whore.”

“Fuck. It would be so good to just let go. To let everyone see what I am. How hot my body looks while you’re inside it…”

“Please…Nia. I need it to see me come.”

The sounds of her approaching her climax on the video sang around the room, and she quivered on top of him. “Please tell me that’s getting you as close as it’s getting me?”

Ethan simply managed a small grunt of affirmation, and the barest of nods.

“Good, because I really want you across my face right now.”

She surprised Ethan slightly as she abruptly rolled off him and he somehow managed to push himself up on his elbows to accommodate her. Eagerly Farah’s hand massaged him, his cock twitching, wonderfully sensitive as she lent down to position herself in front of it. The vaccine’s effects on women were well documented, but had left out just how effortlessly those Ethan was paired with would be able to get him off, biologically hardwired to their touch. His eyes eased shut, and she spent him with stroke after stroke.

He slumped back against the pillow, and realised Farah had done the same, her own climax in concert with the moans from the tv.

Farah came hard. Hanging off the edge of the bed her body coiled, tensing and shaking as Nia slowed and pressed a deep thrust into her core with every unsteady wave of pleasure. Somewhere behind them Evie was coming too, body obscured by Nia’s but the cries and moans of her climax were unmistakable.

It was a moment before Ethan regained enough of himself to open his eyes again, prompted by the satisfied laughter alongside him. He was surprised by just how much of his seed was across her face, lurid against her dark skin, smattered across her cheeks and chin, streaking down to her tits.

“...oh shit that’s so good,” she managed through breathless gratification, chest bouncing with heady little chuckles. “How are you even able to still come that much?”

“Pretty sure the vaccine’s doing most of the work there.”

Almost absently she reached down to give his dick a further caress, finding it still somehow hard as she did. “You know I think this thing might be my new favourite thing in the world…not that the person it’s attached to seems bad either.”

“I’ll take that, I think?”

He lingered in looking at her, taking in the view for just long enough to prompt her to speak again to tease him. “You know a picture would last longer?”

If Ethan had thought Farah was joking, she disabused him of the idea by reaching across to pluck his phone from the table beside the bed, and insistently pass it to him. She lay back, posing playfully, taking clear enjoyment in the camera’s attention. It was as he was preparing to take a third picture however, that a message notification interrupted his phone, and prompted him to swear.

Aoife hadn’t initially responded to his attempts to apologise to her for missing their movie night a couple of evenings earlier, and Ethan had sent her another message that morning. Contrite, he had promised to do whatever he could to make time for her whenever she was free. Now she had finally replied, but had done so with an image of a cartoon bear, angrily flipping the bird at the screen. It was a very Aoife-like response, and didn’t leave much ambiguity about how angry she was at him. Guilt kicked him, hard.

“Shit,” he repeated, leading Farah to sit up and reach for something to clean herself off, quickly noting the feeling in his voice. The sounds of sex continued to drift, intense and unrelenting from the tv, another round starting almost before the last had even finished. Farah found the remote and switched it off as she wiped away the last of his cum. The mood had shifted and she eased a reassuring hand onto her new partner’s shoulder.

“What’s up?”

Ethan rubbed his face. “I’m pretty sure everything thats going on with the Gemivax means I’ve just fucked things up with someone who matters a lot to me.”

It had been so easy to get swept along with things with Evia and Nia, and now with Farah, his focus no longer entirely his own following the vaccination, attention constantly fighting to alight on anything other than the women now paired with him. The idea that Aoife’s feelings had slipped from his mind far enough to hurt her really stung however. She was, he realised, his best friend, and he owed her far better than he was being allowed to give her right now.

“Can you fix it,” Farah asked.

“I don’t know. She’s pretty good at staying mad at people.”

Farah slipped an arm around him and listened as he told her about Aoife. He explained the easy friendship they’d fallen into at Taymont, and their mutual attempts to support each other. And as he spoke he realised just how much he’d been holding up to share with her. Farah was considerate, but she was naked and gorgeous, too close up against him both physically and in his thoughts. She was too much a part of the complicated world of the last week that he still needed to unpick. Things with Aoife were always simple. And the Scottish girl would be able to cut through it all with an easy joke or insult, effortlessly puncturing his attempts to overthink.

Lips pressed against his cheek as Farah finished letting him talk. “Talk to Nia about how much you can include her?”

“There’s a few massive caveats with that you realise?”

“I do,” she smiled. “But I can already tell that you’re the sort of person who can’t just carry this shit around either. If this matters to you, Nia needs to know about it.”

She slipped from the bed, stretching her arms above her in an arch of lean muscle as she tried to give Ethan his space. Pausing, she looked to see where in the room her clothes had ended up, not having paid them any mind since the day before.

“And besides,” she continued, fetching her bra from the floor. “If you’re half the man I’ve been told you are, you’re going to find a way to make it up to her. We’re due at the studio at 1, right?”

He nodded. They were due to meet early that afternoon at Studio 3; Team Knight, Dr Armstrong and Rhys and his own new recruits, Lukas and Team Kaminski, ready to review footage from Scotland and London. It was still a few hours away at least, long enough for him to feel like he should be doing more than simply fucking the time away.

Clearly it was a sentiment Farah shared but knew she couldn’t keep if she stayed. “In which case I’m going to go and get a workout in, or I’m going to end up riding you again.”

Ethan watched her dress and leave, finding himself in an increasingly rare moment of being left alone with his thoughts. Picking away at the lingering sense of guilt again he groaned to himself, and looked back at the angry cartoon bear sitting accusingly at the top of his messages. He knew it was going to take being honest with Aoife to keep things right between them, and until he was sure he could manage that, he was left with gestures. But a gesture was still something. Opening up a browser tab he quickly keyed in ‘pokemon plush’ and began scrolling through the results. It had been decades since he’d played the games himself, and most of the designs were new to him, but he knew enough about Aoife to know one thing, she liked the green ones. Settling on a small turtle creature with a leaf sprouting from its head, he hit send on the delivery, hoping whatever a Turtwig was it would leave her a little less upset at him.

Pain wracked the man’s face as he coughed, struggling for air between each laboured splutter. It was hard to tell how old he was, cheeks gaunt and cavitated, his skin so brittle that it was easy to imagine it simply flaking off him in a single pale sheet. He looked at the camera with hollowed out eyes, scared and pleading.

Disquiet filled the room, imposing itself with a heavy weight upon the members of Project Upstart as the footage rolled. The footage from their counterparts in London and Scotland had arrived by courier that morning, a hard drive bundled up with a police escort as a last minute change of plans with Aoife tried to get their satellite uplink back online. They had known what to expect, had known what their sister teams were working on, but foreknowledge barely made things easier. And as they watched the pandemic had whiplashed from abstract to painfully concrete, coaxed into reality with pictures and steady voiceover commentary.

“...difficult decisions are being made up and down the country. Like the one made here at Western General Hospital near the end of September. With services stretched and mortality rates climbing the choice was made to consolidate active care at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, leaving the city’s second hospital to cater exclusively to the dying…and to the dead.”

The camera panned down the corridor of a repurposed hospital ward, the beds removed to make space for rows of white sheets over motionless shapes on the floor. Capacity in places like Edinburgh had become a question not just of who could be treated, but where to put the increasing numbers that couldn’t.

Ethan felt a steady staccato vibration through his chair, and realised that Nia was absently drumming her fingers again, beating out her agitation while her face remained impassive. He reached over, taking her hand in his own, and earnt a silent squeeze back in return. They sat with Farah and Evie, Team Knight huddled together protectively as the video played on the large wall mounted monitor, something mirrored by the members of Teams Kaminski and Barclay. Only Laura Cooper sat apart, the governmental official perched near the laptop that was running things, unflinching with a school mistress-like sternness.

They were now twenty minutes into what was a very early edit of the broadcast that was being primed to show the unthinkable to the country, following a speech by Prime Minister May, and it was only getting harder to watch as it went on. It was still full of placeholders for changing statistics and unfilmed footage, but the shape of things was clear to see already. Their sister teams were going to try and cushion the blows at first, and let the shock of events domestically and globally land, before drawing any of the less gentle details into sharper focus.

Segments drifted from familiar shots of hospitals and PPE clad healthcare workers, to patients gasping in isolation rooms, only cutting away to spare the viewers their final bloody and exhausted expirations. Everything Ethan had learnt about DuoHalo to that point had been horrific but it was only at that moment sitting with the others in Studio 3 that he had allowed himself to realise just how much of a brutal and ugly disease lay behind the numbers.

“Across Edinburgh at the Hospital for Children and Younger People…”

The voiceover continued, and Ethan felt his breath hitch briefly as the atmosphere in the room lurched with a nauseated anticipation. The remote for the display sat within his reach, and a glance at Evie’s horrified expression was all he needed to move for it.

“I think a few of us could do with a break,” he said, reaching to hit the power button before the file could keep playing.

There was a collective exhale. More than a few weren’t quite ready for that it seemed. One of the worst details they’d had been given about DuoHalo was how little mercy it had shown anyone between the ages of 11 and 17. The science on what, exactly, made it so deadly to adolescents was apparently unclear, but around the world the reports were the same, mortality for the cohort was almost 100%. Being told that was one thing, but seeing it was another, and Ethan found himself glad that at least they weren’t the ones having to handle the footage. How do you bring yourself to keep staring into the face of 25 million people dead in the UK alone and not manage to look away?

Laura briefly looked at him with displeasure from behind wire framed glasses, irritated by the abrupt stoppage, but relented as she took a moment to also read the room. She had a reputation for being focused and humourless, but there was a limit to how much people could cope with. Even Rhys had been stirred out of his tabloid cynicism and he disarmed Ethan with the seemingly sincere tenderness he used to check on Kayla, the petite video editor who was the latest addition to Team Barclay.

Several of those in the room, including Evie, quickly got up to go and get some air. It was Ethan’s natural inclination to go after her, to want to make sure she was ok, but Nia stood first. She released his hand, and placed her own on his shoulder, reassuringly easing him back into the chair he’d half risen from. “I can check on her, don’t worry.”

He realised Nia was possibly eager for a chance to smoke herself, to manage her own stress, and he let her go with a nod.

“We’ll debrief on that section in 15 minutes and decide how to proceed with the rest from there,” the dark skinned woman announced authoritatively to the room and the numbers of those who remained dwindled to a handful.

It was only once Nia had left that Rhys suddenly felt confident to speak forthrightly, and Ethan found himself amused that the other man wasn’t willing to do so with her in the room. The journalist leaned back in his chair, posturing, and spoke loudly as if those left had been demanding his opinion. “Right, so there’s no way we can just keep this to ourselves until the Yanks are happy, is there?”

“What are you talking about Rhys,” Lukas sighed. The Pole was a good deal more tolerant of Rhys’ attitude than Ethan. And given Lukas didn’t seem to have punched the southerner, Ethan had to assume Rhys had thought better of making his offer of trade to the other producer. But even then Lukas’ exasperation showed.

“What I’m talking about, is our duty as journalists” Rhys continued, stretching out and placing smart brown shoes on the nearest desk. Next to him, his partner, Dr Armstrong sat, a slight, perturbed frown crinkled beneath neat blonde bangs. She gave him a look, and he pushed on regardless. “I don’t know what it was like for you chaps covering sports, but I take my professional ethics extremely seriously. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed but things don’t exactly sound like they’re getting better out there.”

Ethan was fairly sure Rhys didn’t understand the concept of ethics beyond whatever he needed to justify to himself inside the next five minutes, but he did have to concede that the other man did have one point. The data they were suddenly getting, both from the other teams, but also from Westminster through Evie and Laura, was far from encouraging.

The UK reportedly had done well initially, managing to go into lockdowns early and buy themselves precious breathing space from both Covid and DuoHalo. But it was increasingly obvious to those in the know just how predictably any early advantage had been squandered. The death of the Prime Minister might have put the fear of god back into those in power now, but Ethan had seen the direction the graphs had been tracking and heard the mutterings of ‘worst in Europe by Christmas’ every time mortality figures came up.

It seemed to him that a couple of particularly unflattering British characteristics had come to the fore to undermine them. There was the low level cronyism, so institutionalised that no-one was ever willing to call it corruption, with the government falling back into old habits of unearned contracts and nepotistic deals once they saw the profit to be made. It meant the UK had been sailing blind for months now, relying on DuoHalo Tests and PPE gear made by companies no better equipped to provide them than Palisade Services was to run Taymont Hall.

What was even worse however was the complacency, the peculiar British ability to look at issues and disregard them as something that happened elsewhere, not here. If anything the initial successes had done them no favours, leaving people convinced that failing to deal with the pandemic was a problem reserved for places like China and Italy. And by the heat of the summer months everything had become so lax that from the top of government down to the smallest village that they were wandering into disaster.

Terse looks from Lukas and Laura met Rhys as he waited for a response, prompting him to push on. “The Americans want all of this kept quiet until they decide they’re ready. But how long is that honestly going to take them, weeks? A couple of months? What right do we have not to be honest with people?”

“You tabloid boys just don’t like having a story you can’t break,” Lukas said with a dismissive wave of a hand. “To not be able to put your name to the byline.”

“Well, frankly, yes,” Rhys admitted with surprising candor. “But I’m a little insulted if you think that’s all this is. People are going to die between now and then, and some of those will be because they’ve not heard the truth they need to hear. How many people would change how they act if we told them?”

It was Laura’s turn to interject. The government official was pushing her fifties, but wore it well, even if there was the suspicion her dark hair was at least partly dyed, and there was a certain intensity to her exacting disapproval that suited her. She stood from her perch near the laptop, straightening out her blouse and began pacing the room as she spoke. “Please don’t presume we haven’t done the numbers on this. Additional compliance would bring the R number down, yes, but it’s much less than what we would lose if the Americans decide to hold back their support. At the rate things are moving we’ve got estimates that every week we delay rollout could mean an extra 50 to 100,000 deaths.”

“So you expect us to just lie by omission to people,” Rhys continued, voice rising slightly before pointing at the screen. “To know all that is happening and we are intentionally keeping them in the dark. About what’s happening to their loved ones. Christ, have you seen how many teenagers are dead?”

Ethan hated that he could see Rhys’ point. This didn’t sit well with him either, it felt bad enough that he hadn’t told Aoife and yet this was the same decision scaled up several million times over. Even so, his gut told him that Laura was right.

“And just what do you think the alternative is then,” Laura asked. “To take it on ourselves to leak it?”

“There’s a storied history of whistleblowers speaking when power won’t.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “Stop being ridiculous and thinking with your oversized ego.”

Emotions were already running high and as the pair began to bicker back and forth the conversation quickly felt like it was tumbling past spirited debate and into outright argument. Rhys once again proved that he was not the sort of man who enjoyed being spoken back to, and his remarks kept becoming more cutting, attempting to wither Laura down to size, before Ethan managed finally to interrupt.

“Look, Rhys,” he said, tone firm enough to cut across the pair before instantly trying to find something more considered. “I respect where you’re coming from with this but I think there’s another thing we might be missing here.”

“By all means, enlighten us,” the southerner half-snapped back.

“This isn’t just about breaking the news, it’s about breaking it the right way too. We can’t just tell people about DuoHalo without also telling them about Gemivax. And we can’t just tell people about the vaccine without making sure they’re going to understand what we’re telling them. If you go to the public without that you might as well just be telling them the world is ending, and that’s not honesty either. And just think of how much chaos that’s going to cause on top of everything. Maybe it helps to think of this more as doing our due diligence. We can’t give them half a story. And we can’t condemn them to no hope either.”

Hope, Ethan had come to realise, was the entire point of what they were doing now. He had spent the rest of his morning trying to start arranging how they were going to conduct interviews for their own broadcast, and each person he’d spoken to had quickly started to share stories of how the vaccine was pulling them through. From the subjects in the early drug trials the RAF had conducted at one of their bases, to the producers in the US he was trying to collaborate with, it really was clear that the serum was helping people find light in the middle of overwhelming bleakness.

He saw Rhys’ expression falter slightly, a moment where it seemed like he might have won through while still wondering if the journalist’s stubborn refusal to be wrong was about to kick in.

“Oh come off it Ethan,” Rhys said, continuing his protest. “We can do with a little less of the paternalism. You’re saying that because people can’t be trusted we have to make choices for them?”

“We’re making choices for them whatever we choose to do.” Ethan replied.

“Do you actually think that or are you just parroting what Nia is telling you? I’m all for strong women but have a bit of self respect, man.”

“Rhys…”

“I know we all act like it but if someone died and made her queen I mustn’t have gotten the memo.”

An odd, unpleasant heat prickled across the back of Ethan’s neck at him using Nia’s name against him. It wasn’t like him to get defensive, but then he was in uncharted territory for how he felt about a lot of things. Slowly he made himself breath. He knew Rhys was simply digging for a response, but that didn’t make him want to bite back for Nia’s sake any less. He took a beat, and forced himself to measure each word as he said it.

“I’m going to have to ask you not to talk about her like that.”

Ethan felt the muscles of his jaw tense as Rhys went to talk again, only for the older journalist to be stopped by Armstrong.

The blonde doctor reached over to understandingly place a hand on Rhys’. She leaned closer to him, lips murmuring at his ear before lingering with a kiss on his cheek. The sincerity with which she showed affection to Rhys surprised Ethan, and he watched as the veil of bravado fell away with a gesture. Suddenly the southerner seemed less a braggart, and more an oversized schoolboy, acting out rather than dealing with the vulnerability he had to be feeling

after what they’d just watched.

Part of Ethan managed to feel sorry for him. It was easy to forget that Rhys had to be struggling with what they were dealing with just as much as the rest of them. That he likely had people he cared about who had been swept up in this too. But he was also well aware that the man wasn’t the sort to want other people’s empathy, blustering through feelings as something to be confronted rather than accepted. Rhys seemed to lose himself to the kiss for a moment, hesitant, before glancing about the room at the three others watching him.

“Right, fine,” Rhys wavered, fighting to keep the mask of entitled indignation from slipping fully. “That was possibly over the line.”

The apology was grudging, but Ethan accepted that it was the best he was going to get, offering Rhys a nod of acceptance.

Still, Rhys rose from his chair, and looked to make an obdurate retreat with a resentful grumble. “Still, since you’ve all decided already I seem to be wasting my time here. Just because we’re done with this now doesn’t mean it’s a settled issue.”

Ethan said nothing and watched him huff towards the door, followed by Armstrong, left unsure whether the statement was a threat or not. And despite whatever compassion Ethan had he would still rather have not been left with the coarse knot of anxiety that they would have to keep an eye on him from here on.

It was Laura that spoke first as Rhys left, blowing her cheeks out and swearing in Ethan’s presence for the first time.

“What a prick.”

The file was still there when Aoife tabbed back to it, exactly where it had been ten minutes ago, and ten minutes before that. It shouldn’t be there of course. She should never have copied it in the first place, and she should definitely have fucking deleted it already, but of course she was too much of an idiot to do that, and so she kept returning to it, picking at it like a scab.

Even before the vandalism of the satellite uplink it had been getting increasingly hard for her to ignore that something was up. On the surface of course Taymont Hall’s operations were carrying on as normal, overstretched staff doing their best to broadcast the same inane content they had for months, with Aoife putting out the same old fires to keep the same old news going out every evening. But she wasn’t stupid. She’d noticed the requisitions for equipment she wasn’t getting back, the massive spike in the use of their secure channels and how the two suits from the government suddenly had their fingerprints on anything she cared to look at. She’d noticed the mysterious new faces on site no-one was telling her about or how Lukas hadn’t been involved in a production in weeks. And then there was Ethan and how…no. Fuck Ethan. She was doing anything but thinking about Ethan right now.

It was like she could see the outline of something going on right in front of her, huge and imposing, but that she was only managing to skirt around the edges of. And the longer it had gone on and the larger the shape of things seemed, the more her frustration and curiosity had started to shift to genuine unease. It wasn’t like Aoife was in a good place anyway, but it meant once she felt like answers were on offer, it hadn’t taken much of a push to act foolishly.

That morning, she hadn’t long got back from trying to help Nat salvage something of their uplink when the courier had arrived. Diligently tailed by a police escort, they’d come looking to hand off a secure harddrive and with Aoife being the acting systems engineer it made sense that they’d come to her. The issue was that she hadn’t been expecting the delivery. And she definitely didn’t recognise the name that it was marked for, Project Upstart.

The right thing to do on finding herself in that situation was to message Lukas, find out who the drive was meant for and discreetly pass it on without asking questions. And in her defence she had done that. Eventually. Less justifiable was that she had hooked up the drive to look for herself first, dumping several gigabytes worth of encrypted files to her own computer, stashing them away alongside saved memes and far too much hentai.

Blinking at her, the cursor sat waiting for an unknown password, the decryption key the only thing standing between her and understanding what the hell was going on. The prospect itched at the back of her mind, knowing insight was a few simple keystrokes away. And yet if anyone found out about this then being fired on the spot was probably massively optimistic.

Her hand hovered over the files, and she willed herself to hit delete, but couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she settled for simply closing the window and going back to attempting to source replacement cables for the dish, knowing she would be back again in ten minutes.

And ten minutes after that.