The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Ellen clutched the hotel bathrobe around her as she stumbled, barely out of her sleep, towards the door. It took a few goes to focus her eye through the peephole.

“Ysss?” Being jolted out of REM sleep by the sudden pounding on the door had left her far from coherent.

“Ms Parr? Could you open the door, please?” A foreign accent, which was unsurprising here, but quite good English. And they knew her name. She squinted, but all she could see was someone dressed in white.

Fortunately, her basic instincts were still operating well enough to cover her safety; she carefully set the door on its limiter before cautiously cracking it open.

“Ms Parr. We have reports of an avian flu outbreak in this hotel. Several floors are affected, including this one. You need to come with us.”

“What? Now?” The report had jolted Ellen out of her remaining sleepy state. She blinked, realizing that the person she was talking to was wearing a one-piece hazmat suit with respirator. No wonder they had sounded odd. They were holding up some kind of official identification, but it was hard to match up their photo with their mostly-obscured face.

“Yes, now. Please wear these, and nothing else.” The man pushed two plastic-wrapped packets through the narrow gap in the door. “Get ready now, please. We will be departing as soon as possible.”

“Ummm... okay...” Ellen took the packets and closed the door. First things first; she headed to the bathroom where she splashed water on her face, took a pee, and quickly brushed her hair out. She returned to the small living room to examine what she’d been given.

The packets contained a all-in-one paper suit with hood, KN95 mask, and short one-size-fits-all boots. Apparently these people were quite serious.

Sighing, Ellen changed into fresh underwear before pulling on the suit. It was a little large for her, but manageable. She squeezed her feet into the boots, grabbed her purse and the mask, and waited by the door.

Whoever this was, was clearly in a hurry. She only had to wait two minutes before another sharp knocking on the door. This time she allowed it to open all the way, pulling on her mask as it opened.

“Give me your wrist.” The man pointed to her right arm.

She reluctantly lifted it; the man wrapped a pre-printed plastic bracelet around it, and clipped it with a tool. There was a hiss, a whiff of burned plastic, and the bracelet shrunk to finger tightness on her wrist.

“You must leave that.” The man pointed to her purse.

Ellen dug her heels in. “I need my passport, phone, hotel room card, and credit card—at least!”

“We will take care of your identity, and we will communicate the quarantine to your company.” This clearly was not the first time the correspondent had been faced with this question. “Leave it. Now.”

Ellen sighed, and dropped the purse back onto the table. She managed to palm her credit card, at least, before exiting the room.

“Down to the end of the corridor. They will direct you from there.”

She followed the directions, joining two other suited people as they exited their rooms. The masks and hoods made it impossible to see who was underneath, but she thought she recognized her colleague Belinda’s height and stride.

“Bel? Do you know what’s going on?”

“No idea,” Belinda admitted. “I’m a bit scared, honestly. I know avian flu happens here, but I always thought that it was more of a rural thing, not in the middle of the city.”

“No talking!” A white-clad official at the end of the corridor directed them around the corner to an elevator, where another official was holding the door open. They were ushered inside, joining three other people, then the official entered and set the elevator to descend.

“Assholes,” Belinda muttered, under her breath. Ellen had to hold back from giggling.

The elevator went all the way to the basement, and they were beckoned out to find a minibus with heavily tinted windows awaiting them. An official at the door used a hand scanner to scan the barcode on each of their wristbands, then directed them to seats.

Once full, the bus pulled out of the hotel garage and headed down the highway. Ellen was moderately familiar with the city roads—it was the third time she’d visited on business—and realized that they were heading roughly west, past the ring road and out to the countryside. As far as she knew, though, there were no major towns out in this direction for quite a way. She regretted leaving her phone behind—at least she would have been able to figure out where they were going.

The officials ensured that the journey proceeded in silence—when two of the passengers started conversing, even in quiet voices, they noticed and abruptly demanded that they stop. Ellen exchanged looks with Belinda—as best they could in the circumstances.

Perhaps two hours after leaving the city, the minibus pulled off the country road they had been following, and drove up to a gate. Ellen couldn’t decipher the wording on the signs by the gate, but the symbols accompanying them left no doubt that this was not a place for the casual passer-by to visit. The officials showed their credentials to the guards through the driver’s window, and the gate was pulled aside to allow them through.

After following a winding road through trees that were starting to shed their leaves, the bus reached an open area surrounded by a second, taller fence. Peering through the tinted glass, Ellen managed to make out rows of small cabins, each row separated by a paved road.

The bus stopped, and the officials gestured for them to exit. Ellen winced at the temperature outside—the paper suit was not particularly insulating, although it was good enough to keep most of the wind off. They were lined up outside a gate in the second fence.

Two guards opened the gate, and another official beckoned them through. They obediently trudged along the road past the cabins; Ellen could now see enough to guess that there must have been about a hundred of them, in five main rows, plus some other buildings a little further away. It looked as if the camp extended beyond those buildings, but the angle made it hard to be sure.

The official stopped abruptly by one cabin, and the line of people came to a halt. He pulled a scanner out of a bag , and beckoned the first person forward. With his scanner, he scanned a QR code on the door of the cabin, then the person’s wrist code. He then opened the door, gestured them inside, and closed the door behind them.

The same happened at the next five cabins, then it was Ellen’s turn. Reluctantly, she offered her wrist for scanning, then entered the door. It closed behind her with a solid ‘click’.

She pulled off her mask, by now fed up with its interference with her breathing, and looked around. It was not much of a holiday home. There was a bed, a very small bathroom with sink, shower, and toilet, a small seating area with a table, and a twelve inch flatscreen TV. The windows were frosted glass, opaque. There was a small kettle, some green and black teabags, and a few bowls of instant noodles, but nothing more. A clock on the wall showed the time—it was just past 7am. At least the cabin appeared to be well insulated; it was pleasantly warm, especially after the trudge through the cold outside.

The one unusual appliance was fitted to the wall next to the door. After some experimenting, Ellen figured out that it was a pass-through bin—someone could put things into the hatch outside, then rotate it to make them available to Ellen to pick up. However, the mechanism was locked, and clearly designed to only to be used from outside.

She noted a laminated card on the small table, and examined it. There was a message in several languages, but the only one she could read well was English:

“Welcome to Quarantine. Please remain in your room unless we come to fetch you for screening, which will happen between midday and four pm each day. Dispose of your protective clothing in the bin and shower; we will issue fresh clothing for each excursion. ”

No information on how long they were going to be here. Oh, well.

She found a clean white t-shirt, panties and shorts on the bed, and gratefully peeled off her suit, tucking it and the mask into the integral waste bin in the corner of the room. After a shower, she turned on the TV, surfing through the channels. It was a fairly standard set for the country, although the only English-language programs were domestic, not foreign. No obvious news channels.

Sighing, she selected a channel showing a subtitled rom-com, curled up on the seat, and waited.

A metallic ‘clank’ startled her, as she was finishing a bowl of noodles and soup. She turned to see the pass-through bin rotating; as promised, there was a fresh suit, mask and boots, along with a note in English and the other languages:

“Be ready in ten minutes”.

She visited the bathroom, then changed into the suit and mask. Promptly at the ten-minute mark, there was a knock at the door, and it opened.

Ellen stepped out, blinking in the afternoon sunlight. The official outside scanned her wristband, then directed her to the rear of the line of suited figures behind him.

They passed back along the cabins, picking up the last few people as they went, then he led them around a corner and over to one of the larger buildings at the edge of the camp. Ellen was grateful that the day had at least warmed a bit, and was not too uncomfortable in the suit, although the inability to compare notes with Belinda was frustrating.

Inside the building, they were steered into a line along one wall. A nurse’s station guarded the door leading into the rest of the building. The three nurses there were masked, but not wearing the biohazard suit that the officials had been wearing up until now.

The first person in line was beckoned forward. One nurse lowered the suit hood and slipped it down far enough to expose the person’s shoulder; the second swabbed a spot on the upper arm, and administered an injection; the third scanned the person’s wristband and made a notation on her keyboard. The person was then re-hooded and sent through the door, and the next in line brought forward.

Ellen meekly stepped up when it was her turn. The injection didn’t particularly hurt, but she didn’t like the disinterested look in the nurses’ eyes. The fact that there was no attempt to explain what was happening wasn’t encouraging.

In the next room there were two rows of seats. A second door led further into the building, but was currently closed. An official in a mask gestured for her to sit in the first available seat, next to the other people who had been processed before her.

Ellen decided to risk saying something. “Ma’am, what’s going on? How long will we have to be here?”

“No talk.” The woman glared at her. Ellen debated pressing the point, but thought better of it.

The rest of the group eventually filed in, filling the seating. They sat in silence for what felt like half an hour.

Finally, the second door opened. Two women in blue scrubs and masks entered, took the hand of the first seated person, and pulled them to their feet, before escorting them through the door. Two more followed them and collected the second person.

It took about five minutes before it was Ellen’s turn. She was firmly pulled to her feet, and belatedly realized that something was wrong; she was unsteady, and needed both women’s help to walk in an approximately straight line. They guided her through the door—and then she realized that things were much more wrong than she had thought.

This long, narrow room had a line of small cubicles along one wall. The first few had their doors closed, but in the next one Ellen could see a woman, naked, being secured to a chair by their two attendants.

“What...?” She found it hard to complete the thought. Whatever she had been dosed with was seriously affecting her brain.

Her attendants efficiently removed her paper suit, and steered her into the next cubicle. She was completely unable to resist as her naked body was placed onto the chair there, and straps applied to hold her in place—indeed, without the straps she would have found it hard to stay sitting up.

One attendant attached a pad to each side of her neck. The second placed a pair of headphones over her ears, and tightened them in place. They then backed out of the cubicle and closed the door.

There was a hum in her ears, and the light in the room started to oscillate in brightness. Ellen’s vision was starting to spin. She knew something was terribly wrong, but the humming was now different in each ear, and it was starting to scramble her thoughts even more.

Desperate for distraction, she strained against the straps, but they had been precisely applied and had no give to them. The light was oscillating faster now, and there were spasmodic flashes of pink mixed in. She shook her head, trying to displace the headphones, but to no effect.

There were words coming through the humming now, and although she couldn’t make them out, she knew she shouldn’t be listening. In a flash of inspiration that broke through the drug’s haze, she stuck the inside of her lower lip between her teeth and bit.

The pain briefly took her out of the mind fog, making her gasp. Salty blood started to leak into her mouth, and she gratefully let it dribble down her chin. The sounds in her ears were still loud, but—somehow—she was able mostly to shut them out. Occasionally nibbling at her injured lip with her teeth managed to cause enough pain to keep herself awake.

Suddenly the lights brightened, and the sounds diminished. She looked up, blinking, to see her two attendants open the door. Her headphones and restraints were removed, and they helped her to her feet.

She managed to look around as she left the cubicle, although her mind was still foggy. All the other cubicle doors were still closed. For some reason, she was the only one who had been removed.

The attendants guided her out of the room, down a corridor and around a corner. One of them knocked at a door, then opened it and gestured for her to enter.

Ellen didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t the four-foot-six immaculately dressed lady, smiling at her from behind small round glasses, who was sitting behind an executive desk.

“Have a seat, Ellen.” She gestured to the seat in front of the desk, and Ellen’s attendant helped her into it. Belatedly, Ellen realized she was still naked.

“Some water? It’ll help clear your mind of the drugs.” She poured from a jug into a plastic beaker, and Ellen cautiously took it, sipping. Sure enough, cold filtered water. She swallowed some more, and the clear, precise nature of the woman’s English started to become apparent. This person was very familiar with discussions with English speakers; what’s more, she was, apparently, sharing a lot about what was happening to Ellen.

“You’re a very determined lady, Ellen. It’s quite rare for our guests to be able to resist the reprogramming.” The woman beamed at her, and Ellen decided to take the opening.

“Guests? Reprogramming? What are you doing to us? Why are we here? Who are you?” She gulped more water, and the woman topped her beaker up.

“You can call me Chun.” The woman sat back in her chair. “As to the ‘why’... well, I suppose you could say this is about loyalty. Loyalty to the Party. We are always concerned about disloyal thoughts in the middle and upper class, and so installing programmed loyalty is an ongoing effort. We have maybe two hundred people being processed in this facility at any one time, and by now many tens of thousands of our graduates spread throughout the country. And, of course, abroad.” She gestured at Ellen. “The business hotels are a ripe orchard for us to pluck from, and our ongoing struggle with avian flu has turned out to be remarkably helpful as a cover for the several days necessary to complete the reprogramming.”

The water was helping to clear Ellen’s mind, and a thought occurred. “While I appreciate the exposition, why are you telling me this? Am I going to disappear, never to be seen again?”

“Disappear? Oh, my dear, why would we do that?” Chun shook her head. “No, you will be particularly valuable to us, given your company’s existing and planned business deals with our country—and others. We need you safely back in your home country.”

She pressed a button on her desk, and the door behind Ellen opened. Chun rose to her feet, and Ellen reluctantly followed. Her two attendants were waiting outside.

“Please come with me, Ellen.” Chun made it sound like an invitation, but one look at the attendants made Ellen certain that it was not an offer that could be refused. She followed the tiny woman down the corridor.

There was a heavy door at the end, and Chun gestured for them to go through into the small space behind it. Once the door had closed behind them, another one opened in front, and Chun led them into a gloomy-lit room.

Peering around, Ellen was alarmed to see two women secured firmly onto tables, their naked bodies lit by bright spotlights above. A third table was empty, and the attendants made it clear that she was expected to lie on it. With no other option, she obeyed, and they started to clamp her limbs into place.

“Have you ever had acupuncture, Ellen?” Chun asked brightly. Confused, Ellen just stared at her. “I don’t know if you are familiar with the theory of qi, the energy flow through the body? Well, acupuncture works by shaping and directing the flow of qi. Of course, it’s done in a very measured and limited way. We have adapted it for our purpose to produce a much more general and stronger redirection in the body, aligning it with our needs.

A figure moved out of the shadows between tables. As they came into the light next to Ellen, Ellen could see that it was a woman, dressed in a green smock and apron, with her head covered with a hood that showed only her dark eyes.

“We call her, ‘The Aligner’,” Chun said, proudly. “Her expertise in controlling qi in her subjects is unrivaled.“

The Aligner stood next to Ellen’s head, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. She then removed a very long, thin needle from a jar, and bent over Ellen’s bare abdomen. She felt precise, delicate fingers probing her skin—then a sharp prick on her hip, followed by tingling numbness. Apparently satisfied, the Aligner reached for another needle.

Ellen watched fearfully as twelve more needles were precisely inserted under her skin. Her body was starting to feel very strange. Then the Aligner opened up a small case and removed an oddly curved and pointed metal tool, holding it up to the light to examine it critically.

Ellen tried to wriggle away as the tool descended towards her pelvis, but the clamps held her firmly in place. She winced as the cold metal touched the lips of her sex and started to spread them.

The Aligner released the tool, leaving it fixed on Ellen, and walked away to the other tables. Ellen became aware of soft moans coming from that direction.

“And now, we wait,” Chun smiled.

Nothing happened, other than the tingling, for a while. Then Ellen started to get a most peculiar sensation from her abdomen. It was as if someone had pushed a stopper into a faucet—she felt like something was backing up inside her, increasing the pressure gradually.

“What...?” The pressure feeling started to spread, and now Ellen found it hard to talk, as if there were an elephant sitting on her chest. She gasped quietly, finding that she could still breathe, but words were stubbornly refusing to leave her mouth.

Chun was still smiling at her, patiently waiting for something. Was she going to explode? The pressure build-up seemed to be reaching even her fingers and toes. Nevertheless, the only external sign of what was happening was a slight tremor of her hands.

Ellen was almost becoming hysterical internally—she wasn’t in pain, but the pressure sensation was overwhelming her—when the Aligner returned. Coolly, she plucked a single needle from Ellen’s belly, then took a curved tool and fitted it into a gap in Ellen’s lower ribs. Then she pressed.

Ellen screamed—a high, shrill pitch that she could never remember making before. As if someone had shaken up a bottle of Coke, then suddenly sliced off the lid, the pressure within her fountained out, all funneled through her sex. It was like straddling a waterfall—Niagara Falls, even! Her body convulsed against the clamps as something like a distilled orgasm spread through it. Even when she thought there could not possibly be any more, it—and she—kept coming. For over a minute her body shook, and her mind recoiled under the unprecedented strength of climax.

As her vision and sense returned, she saw that Chun was still next to her, and still smiling.

“There, you see, Ellen? Some simple redirection and channeling of your qi. Of course, the Aligner has studied and practiced for many decades to be able to achieve these effects.“

A new scream, laced with pent-up desire, split the quiet of the room. Chun looked over to the table from where it came, and laughed quietly.

“I’m so glad you have others with you in Alignment, Ellen, so you can get an idea of what is coming. They are, of course, much further through the process than you are, at the moment.”

The Aligner adjusted two of the tools fastened to Ellen, and reached for a fresh bunch of needles.

“I’ll leave you in the Aligner’s very capable hands. But don’t worry, we’ll see each other soon.”

The Aligner leaned over Ellen’s face, and the girl gasped. The Aligner’s eyes were black—not just the pupils, not even the iris, but the whole surface of each eye. Ellen could see her terrified face reflected in those two dark mirrors.

Cool fingers probed along her temple, then came the prick and tingle of another needle...

Chun returned to the room an hour later to find Ellen the sole remaining subject. Her body was festooned with the long thin needles, though the Aligner was starting to remove them. Ellen herself was barely reacting, eyes locked on the ceiling lights, and body trembling under the restraints.

Chun gestured to the attendants accompanying her, and they started to loosen and remove the clamps holding Ellen to the table. As the Aligner cleared each area of her needles and tools, the attendants started to gently sponge the perspiration, and occasional drop of blood, from Ellen’s skin.

Finally, Ellen was prepared, and the attendants guided her trembling body off the table to a standing position. She was obviously uncertain about what had happened; her eyes were slowly oscillating to-and-fro, and her attendants had to hold her arms, gently, to keep her on the level.

“You seem to be well aligned, Ellen!” Chun made a notation on the clipboard she carried. “I think you’re ready, now. Let these ladies take you for re-programming.”

The two attendants carefully steered Ellen out of the room, and through a short corridor to a second space. This one was much less well lit, but as she entered Ellen could make out a few metal frames, from each of which hung a sling. The nearest one was empty, but a cluster of women stood around it, clearly waiting for Ellen.

“Hello, Ellen. I am Lai.” A taller woman, apparently the group leader, stepped forward. Her English was more accented than Chun’s, but still clear. “You must be tired. Why don’t we have you lie down?”

The invitation was very compelling, and Ellen gratefully allowed herself to be placed in the sling. Her arms were carefully moved away and secured at her sides, and her legs supported in straps that hung from the top of the frame.

“Just a scratch, Ellen...” Something sharp pricked at her neck, and there was a brief moment of dizziness, but it passed quickly.

“Let yourself relax, Ellen. Let us help you.”

Small, warm, slick hands started to massage her breasts, abdomen and legs. Ellen gave a small sigh, and shivered as a particularly artful pair of fingers traced around her nipples.

“Doesn’t that feel good, Ellen? You need a rest, don’t you.”

The massaging proceeded in silence for a few minutes. Ellen stared up at the dim ceiling, letting herself sink into the experience. She didn’t realize it at first, but her mind was starting to go fuzzy, and she started to forget where she was.

“That’s right, Ellen. Let yourself go. Why don’t I cover your eyes?”

A soft blindfold was placed across her eyes, and tied in place. The focus of the massage started to shift, and small fingers stroked along the edge of her sex, making her giggle inadvertently.

“You like that, don’t you, Ellen?” Lai sounded amused. “Let me put on some music.”

A pair of headphones came across Ellen’s ears, shutting out any remaining sounds from the room. Soft music was playing from them, though in the background there was a quiet but insistent beat.

A warm, soft tongue intruded briefly into Ellen’s sex, causing her to gasp and shiver. The background beat in her ears started to increase in volume, and it—or something else—was making her head spin. Ellen vaguely knew that something was wrong, that she should be doing something, but her body and mind felt so “in place” that it was simply impossible for her to make a move to change it.

Now words started to come through the headphones, spoken low but insistently. Stunned by the manipulations of her body and mind, Ellen gazed into the blackness of the blindfold, and let them flow into her consciousness—for she could do nothing else...

3 months later

The bell on the shop door tinkled, and a well-dressed woman entered, approaching the counter.

“Hello, I’m Ellen Parr. I have an appointment for... acupuncture?”

The clerk consulted her appointments book. “That is correct. Thank you, Ms Parr, I think we’re ready for you now. Let me get someone.” She picked up her desk phone and spoke a few sentences that Ellen didn’t understand, paused, then replaced the handset. “She will come right up.”

Ellen carefully seated herself in one of the cheap IKEA collapsible seats, nestling her purse in her lap, and waited as instructed. It was a surprisingly short time before an older lady popped into the reception area with a smile, and an enquiry:

“Ellen? I am Hansa. Welcome! Please come with me.” They descended a narrow set of stairs to the shop’s basement.

Outside, a woman in a cheap business suit was apparently inspecting the window display of the clothing shop opposite. A closer observer, however, would have determined that she was viewing the window at an angle calculated to let her see the brightly lit interior of the acupuncture shop reflected in the glass. She watched with interest as Hansa, whom she knew to be the shop’s owner, greeted Ellen and took her to the back of the store, out of view.

Ever since Internal Security had detected Belinda, Ellen’s colleague, gaining access to some of the confidential corporate systems—and using software exploits which were way, way out of her league—they had gained great interest in what, exactly, had happened on that foreign trip where the two women had apparently been quarantined for nearly a week. They hadn’t been able to finger Ellen for any specific intrusion, but they were experienced enough to know that it might well have happened already, before they started looking in detail.

Belinda and Ellen had had discreet tails ever since, with tracking devices carefully hidden in their coats’ lining, and the fact that both Belinda and now Ellen had visited this particular store, one week apart, in an entirely different city to their normal travel, had the agent—and soon, her superiors—raising their eyebrows. She made a discrete note on her phone, and then slowly walked down the street.

Inside, Hansa led Ellen past a set of treatment rooms, then down another, even steeper and narrower set of steps.

“Watch your head, my dear,” Hansa chirped. At more than 6 inches shorter than Ellen, she had no particular difficulty negotiating the passage, though Ellen had to bend her knees somewhat.

They passed a door marked OFFICE, and ended up in a barely-lit treatment room.

“You know what to do for Alignment, don’t you, Ellen?” Hansa took Ellen’s coat and bag, and stood back.

Ellen, staring ahead as if in a trance, slowly removed her clothes, with Hansa folding and stowing them as she handed them off. Once completely nude, she lay on the table, staring at the ceiling.

“I’ll be back to talk with you once you’re Aligned.” Hansa made her exit.

There was a swish of robes, and the Aligner emerged from the shadows of one corner. Her black eyes were fixed on Ellen’s as she leaned over her subject. Unhurried and precise, the first needle slid into Ellen’s left temple...

Hansa sat in her office, checking the video recorder which she would use to record her extraction of information from Ellen’s Aligned mind. She smiled to herself as she heard the muffled screams of pleasure and frustration start up.

10pm found the agent at the back of the shop. She had had to wait for darkness to be able to climb over the access gate without people noticing. Fortunately, the weather had turned, and a cold wind had blown in a light drizzle of rain, so the potential observers were few—and they were hurrying home with their faces covered against the weather.

The agent had only rudimentary training in lock-picking, but it was sufficient. Whoever had installed the back door lock had apparently assumed that the gate would keep out the trouble-makers. It took only a couple of minutes of focused work to jam the lock’s pins in the ‘up’ position, and then a small screwdriver rotated the lock open without difficulty, and with very little noise.

She slipped in, slowly and noiselessly closing the door behind her before turning on her small, red flashlight. As expected, this was the utility room with a washing machine and dryer stacked opposite a sink full of sheets that were soaking in something bleach-like. She was much more interested in what lay below.

Slowly, cautiously, she advanced into the reception area of the shop. There were cameras installed, but they pointed outwards—obviously, intended to deter chancing smash-and-grab criminals. She had no difficulty skirting their field of view before descending the stairs into the basement, following the path she had seen Ellen take earlier in the day.

The first basement floor yielded little—the treatment rooms were boringly similar, with no obvious sources of information, even when she switched her flashlight to its normal beam for clarity. However, as she descended to the second level, things got a lot more interesting.

The first door, unmarked, had a lock which caused her considerably more trouble than the back door. After ten minutes of work, however, it finally yielded to her tools—and she had the break in her investigation that she needed.

The room itself was small, barely sufficient for three people. Its centerpiece was a chair, constructed mostly of metal and affixed securely to the floor. A profusion of straps indicated that chair occupants were not expected to sit there willingly, and associated equipment to the side led to a series of probes whose shape left no doubt as to their intended location. A place for restful contemplation, this was not.

The agent took as many photos as she could within the confined space, then backed out and closed the door. Next up was the office.

Gratifyingly, the office presented a tempting target. Prominently mounted on one wall was a safe, with a tumbler dial.

The agent knew far better than to try to brute-force the combination, but knew how hard combinations were for people to remember, so she closely inspected the room’s desk. Its blotter pad didn’t show any suggested combinations, but she felt around the edge and pulled out a slide section—this, gratifyingly, had the code ‘54 – 87 – 45’ written near the top. Bingo!

The agent grasped the tumbler dial, and tried to spin it around to 54.

The dial got about half-way, then there was a “click”, and small spikes shot out of the dial in three directions. The agent cursed, releasing the dial, and inspecting her thumb and finger. Two rows of three holes, dotted with blood, showed where she had been caught.

She ignored the safe, and leafed through the documents on the desk, but they were all boring and business related. The desk drawers yielded nothing of interest. The computer at the side was password-protected, with no clue as to the password written anywhere.

She started to feel dizzy. Was it the injury? She had barely lost any blood. Nevertheless, it was time to go.

She made it out to the corridor before her legs gave way. The numbness that had started in her hand quickly spread through her body. Flat on the carpet, she felt her limbs give a final spasm before unconsciousness took over.

The agent was staring up at a dim light in the ceiling. It took a while before it occurred to her to turn her head—and then, she found that she could not.

The shop owner’s smiling face came into her vision.

“Hello! I am Hansa. What’s your name?”

The agent gazed at her, silent. Surreptitiously testing her limbs, she determined that she was immobile.

“Oh, come now. Just give me something to call you. It doesn’t have to be your real name.”

The agent licked her dry lips. “Alice. Call me Alice.”

“It’s so nice to meet you, Alice! I hope you are comfortable.”

‘Alice’ forbade from commenting.

“I must say, I am very curious why you were exploring our shop in the dead of night. An intense interest in the art of acupuncture, perhaps?”

Alice rolled her eyes. Bad enough to be captured and interrogated, but when the interrogator had a sense of humor like this woman, it was unbearable.

“Fortunately, we can accommodate you.”

A second face joined Hansa. This one was hooded, with very dark eyes that seemed to pierce Alice and look deep down into her soul.

“I suspect that you are suffering, Alice. Suffering from a misalignment of qi flow within your body. Let us help you.” Hansa smiled. “I promise you, my dear, there’s absolutely no charge for the service. Though I’m sure we’ll have a little chat later on, when you’re feeling more... Aligned.” Somehow, Alice could hear the capitalization of ‘A’.

Hansa moved back, and the hooded face moved closer. Alice couldn’t help but look into her eyes—and a chill ran through her, as she saw the eyes were black from eyelid to eyelid.

Sharp pinpricks, each followed by a tingling numbness, started to follow an arc around her right ear. Fully immobilized, Alice could only watch the hooded woman’s impassive face as her mind started to spin....

Hansa tightened the last strap, securing Alice’s compliant body into the secure chair. She stood back and critically surveyed her work.

Alice’s Alignment had her staring, unfocused, through Hansa. She hadn’t even twitched as the various probes had been secured into her intimate places. Hansa wasn’t surprised; she had enjoyed nearly an hour of Alice vacantly supplying the full details of her company’s security operation, without the faintest glitch of resistance. While she suspected that the Aligner would eventually meet a subject who would actually challenge Her, this was not that one.

“How are you feeling Alice? The medicine should have taken effect by now.” Hansa took a gentle hold of Alice’s head, and delicately rolled her eyelid up. She was pleased to see the wide-open pupil, showing how far Alice’s consciousness had departed.

“Very good. Well, I think we’re all set.” Hansa pressed a sequence of buttons on the equipment next to the chair, and Alice stiffened and moaned as electrical current surged through her nerves.

“I’m afraid you’ll find this a lot more intense than Belinda and Ellen did. Unfortunately we don’t have several days to layer the reprogramming onto your mind; we have to do it in one go, so we need a far stronger stimulus.

She picked up a set of headphones.

“Though I think that we do have time for a small addition. Wouldn’t it be nice if I gave you a new set of desires, Alice? If the only person who could satiate you... was me.”

She carefully placed the headphones on her subject, and ratcheted them into place.

“Sweet dreams, Alice.” The door closed behind her.

Alice’s scrambled consciousness was merely a spectator as the lights in the room pulsed, in time with the simulation in her body, and the voices in her ears rose in volume and in urgency...