The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The suburbs.

He cruised slowly down the street past the endless rows of cruddy wooden and brick boxes. His powerful fingers rested on the steering wheel, and his eyes were cold blue chips set among the weathered crags that made up his face. Two frozen lakes in a rocky tundra.

He hated the fucking suburbs.

The rain dribbled aimlessly on the roof of his vehicle and then sent the occasional trickle down the heavily tinted windows. The wipers flashed intermittently, neatly wisking those trickles away.

Doing jobs like this back in town, the real town, it was all so much easier, even with the increased activity. Hell, because of the increased activity. No one noticed an extra anonymous van sitting by the curb during all the comings and goings and toings and froings and la de da.

Out here, you never knew. On some of these streets, in some of these fucking cul-de-sacs with all of their doors locked and all of their blinds drawn tight, you could murder an entire family right down their damn dog and then chop apart the bodies out on the fucking pavement with a fucking fireaxe, and no one would raise a peep. No one would even fucking notice.

On others, you had a half-dozen old biddies armed with binoculars and a few more years to fritter away, lurking behind their white frilly curtains and just salivating at the thought of bleating to the cops.

Which of course led to another reason for not liking suburbs. The boys in blue had a tendancy to turn up a hell of a lot faster here when one of those biddies did call. Don’t want to make the Nice Folks upset, now do we?

These thoughts were all there, but they only drifted by in the cool background of Steven Crandell’s mind, a well-worn mantra that he used to keep his higher brain functions safely busy while the predator, the stalker, closed in on its target.

And there it finally was, nestled between a puke-green monstrosity and a brown-red thing that had ‘prissy spinster’ stamped all over it. 8422 E. Pratchett Street. A blue house with gray trim. He had idly speculated about what the color scheme would be; he had already seen the blueprints that were on file in the city archives from when the house had been built, three-odd decades ago by Draco Brothers Home Construction. He cruised past. On this first trip, he didn’t look much at the house, but at the entire neighborhood, tasting its gestalt. Trying to see which of the two kinds he was dealing with.

It looked hopeful. At least, the houses all appeared quiet and deserted, the owners all away somewhere at work. It got so you could smell it when there was somebody watching. So. He drove on a ways, went carefully around a block (no U-turns while on the job unless absolutely neccessary...) and came back past, this time checking the minor details of the target house, matching it with the blueprints, orienting himself. Cement walk up from the street, across a neatly-trimmed lawn. Said walk was edged with a collection of blue stones that matched the housepaint. Nice touch. Tasteful. More importantly, it tallied with the other facts he had already collected... The yard was rimmed by a set of dark green hedges, also recently trimmed, neatly if unprofessionally. The backyard featured a high fence, slats of unpainted yellow wood set close together, and an open garage which housed... he squinted a little through the rain and over the fence... a grungy-looking gray van. (The thing that looked far more sneaky and disreputable than his own vehicle...) No immediate sign of life or activity, but even apart from the van, the house felt more... lively... than the rest on the area.

He pulled to a stop a bit further up the street, in front of the awful green thing, killed the engine, and climbed into the back, where all of his equipment was patiently waiting. From here he could keep an eye on both the front door and the van in the garage, while he made up his mind what exactly he was going to do next.

Because the situation was still not yet clear. This was of course always the case at the start of any operation, but especially so in this instance.

Because Raul was involved. It was a given when you... associated with... that particular little fucker that he hadn’t told you everything. And this time he had actually admitted upfront, flat-out, that it might even be dangerous. So, before even thinking about firing up this stakeout vehicle (most definitely not the car he drove the rest of the time...) Crandell had done his info grub on the target, done it with even more care and throughness than usual. Even so, unlike the old days, he now had the sprawling resources of the Internet helping him and it hadn’t taken long. Having the right three or four numbers to call waiting in his mental rolodex took care of the rest. (These were among the numbers that he would never, ever write down in a physical rolodex...) Sites were visited, numbers were called, and a few hours later, the fish he had set bait for came reeling in. Surprisingly, it appeared that the basic facts at least were as Raul had listed them. Only then had Crandell moved on to the next methodical stage. A visit to City Hall, past the ever-present knot of peacenik slackers protesting Sand’s administration, (True, Sand was a goddamn drooling idiot who couldn’t wipe his own ass without assistance, but didn’t those people have fucking jobs?) and down into the dark reaches of the basement, to the records hall where the blueprints were kept...

And what exactly were those basic facts? As he made one last check on his cameras, Crandell reviewed them again in his mind.

Erika Imogene Johanson. 33 years old in another month. 5′9″. 150 pounds. Unmarried, and evidently never married. A freelance artist since moving to town almost five years ago, not yet world-famous or anything, but now doing well enough to rate an occasional minor mention in the local press. No arrest record. She had attended some college back east and evidently gotten a degree; but the details on that point had been vague he was still waiting for some of the specifics. So far, it appeared that she had not majored in art, coming to her current career later in life.

Those were the facts for now. What was left was what Raul had told him. Not facts. There was no precisely proper word for the things that Raul told you, but as a general label ‘facts’ was about as far from the situation as you could get.

Erika was a regular patron of that fucking restaurant Raul ran. Earlier today she had come in with a blonde named, possibly, Suzanna, last name unknown. Something about the two women had piqued Raul’s interest, and now he wanted a list of the target’s actions and information about all of her aquiantences, especially this Suzanna person. Crandell was also not to lay a finger on anyone, not yet, which suited Crandell fine. Unlike some in his line of work, he preferred to keep his hands clean if he could. It was why he was still doing it after all these fucking years.

But then again, a little dirt now and then didn’t kill you.

As for the target herself, some god was smiling down on him from above the clouds, because he got a look at her almost immediately. Just as he finished setting up the camera, a car pulled up in front of her house and a fat white blob oozed out.

Crandell turned loose the videocamera, as well as snapping a string of shots with his digital photo-camera.

The blob waddled up the walk to the door and rang the bell. After a pause, the door opened and there she was.

-click click click-

He studied her expanded face and body through the crosshairs of the camera lens. A tall redhead, as described. No sign of any blonde. She was attractive enough, but a little too stringy for Crandell’s taste. True, blobs weren’t attractive, whatever the sex, but a woman, a real woman, had a little more meat than that on her bones, and he personally preferred brunettes in any event. The target evidently had been expecting the blob; she flashed the sort of smile you often see plastered on the faces of waitresses and clerks and she spoke, obviously inviting it in. They both disappeared out of sight. After a slightly longer pause, the blob reappeared lugging a pile of painted pots. Crandell snapped one last still picture and zoomed in on the licence plate number of the car as the blob got in and drove away.

After that, things got very quiet, apart from a striped orange and brown cat that appeared on the house’s front step, crouching there under the eaves and glaring sullenly out at the rain. Crandell automatically snapped a picture of the animal; he had learned through painful experience that you never knew what might eventually prove to be important.

So what was going on in that house?

Without much hope, he pulled his snooper-mike out of its holder, aimed it and clicked it on.

Nothing. Nothing clear. Faint rustling sounds. He couldn’t yet afford one of the really high-end models of the mikes, and whatever the target was doing, it fairly quiet.

He settled in for the long wait.

-This is wrong-

The thought came quite clearly, but it was a painfully long time before she could connect anything more to it.

-What is happening?—

The black thing she was staring at, it twisted again.

Twisted, pulling hard at the tangled threads of her brain, the threads it had attached itself to with a thousand fishhooks, and Erika moaned a little...

“Shhh.” The voice came instantly, soft but firm. “Everything is all right, Erika. And soon everything will be perfect.”

Suzanna. But not Suzanna. Something was different...

Something was wrong.

Erika thrashed mentally in deep water, was finally able to pull the world into focus a bit more. The black thing was still there, hanging and spinning and squirming in front of her eyes, and she had to fight against it, look around it.

She was walking, she was staggering, and someone had their hand resting lightly against the side of her face. Resting lightly, but she was still glued to that hand, bent over a little and being dragged along. She struggled again, struggled against her leash, couldn’t pull herself away.

-If it was Mr. Woodhue that was doing this to me, I wouldn’t be able to resist at all-

Another of those frighteningly sharp-edged thoughts. It cleared the blackness a little as it zoomed past, allowed her to remember more, and speak or at least croak:

“Suzanna...?”

“No, Erika.” Again the words came instantly, then there was a pause, and a finger brushed her lips. “No words. Not now. We wouldn’t want that.” Erika recognized what she was seeing, just around the thousand squriming edges of the blackness. Her bedroom. They were in her bedroom, walking along past the mural, past Gwen and her spear... She tried to open her mouth, to speak, and no words came out. Instead, it was Suzanna who spoke:

“I will try and explain. It is so very important that you understand, Erika. I am not Suzanna... Well... not exactly... although she and I share the same body, the same mind, even the same birds....”

-Birds?—

Another verbal pause and then there was the sound of the blinds on the window being pulled shut in a quick jerk. The blackness moved with swift eagerness, eating the space the light had left behind. A spasm of panic flared through Erika, and the voice must have felt it, because it went on reassuringly. “Do not worry, I am not something the Author left behind. I do not know anything more about him than any of the rest of you. He is not my creator. Nina was. She created me just this morning, right out there on your front step. I suppose she did not exactly mean to, but nevertheless that is what she did. Because...” She started moving again, and again Erika lurched after her. “Because you see... how do I explain this? The Master is the Master in all things, in all ways, and I love him and obey him just as much as the rest of you, but between us, just between his slavegirls, Nina is in charge. Within the framework the Master creates, in the kingdom under his endless perfect sky, Nina is currently the queen, and she makes the decisions. All of the decisions. I... and Suzanna... for as long as we exist, we exist merely to execute those decisions. And a decision has been made about you.”

At the last words, Erika tried to scream and run away, claw and scratch, cover her ears and curl up in a ball, but she could only manage a twitch, her hands hanging at her sides, her feet dragged further across the floorboards.

“The Master is the Master. The Master is the center of all creation and the reason for all that exists, for all that happens. First and foremost, the Master’s orders will be obeyed, obeyed in glory and ecstasy. But... if at all possible, if the Master permits it of us, as we obey his orders... we will also try to make him happy. Give him everything he wants. Give him everything that he deserves. Give him everything that he needs. And one of those things that he deserves and needs is safety. Protecting the Master is now what worries Nina the most of all. I think that is her job now. Yes.” Another of those pauses, then the voice came again, closer, even lower now, almost a conspiratorial whisper in Erika’s ear. “You of course remember that before, out there by your back door, I... Suzanna... said there is danger. And there is. But even with all of that danger... Just between you and me, Erika, I think Nina still somehow manages to worry about it far too much, and in all the wrong ways....” Back up a notch to the previous level of volume. “But of course she can not help that. We all have our jobs and our tasks now. Worrier. Collecter and disseminator of information. And...” A smile that Erika couldn’t see, but it was there... “That brings us back to me. What do you think my job is, Erika? Go on. Guess. Do not do anything else. Just guess.”

“No.” It took everything Erika had to blurt that word. It wasn’t exactly a denial of the demand. It was a panicky realization. She was looking now at the bed, her bed, looming up before her like an iceburg drifting into the path of a ship.

“Yess.” The hand was finally withdrawn, peeled free and Erika’s neck flopped over. She couldn’t move she lift her head... there were words echoing inside that head that she couldn’t hear, behind that shroud, a short string of heavy massive words, colored black and pulling her down down down... ”You are my job, Erika. Nina has given me an order, and since the Master has given no orders to the contrary, I will obey it. I will obey it for as long as is neccessary, and then I will simply cease to exist, for my only reason for existence will be gone. Once again, I... Suzanna alone will remain. But...”

The world stood still but Erika swayed a little. Her knees were threatening to collapse.

“But... I must balance it all, you see. I walk a very thin tightrope over an endless chasm. I must obey my orders. I must try and give the Master what he wants. I must give the Master what he needs. And right now... he wants you to be just the way you are. And even more importantly, maybe needs you the way you are. Even with the birds, with all the clarity, I can’t be sure. I don’t dare be unsure. So together, now, we will begin your journey down the same path that I... that Suzanna and Nina have already travelled. It will take us longer, perhaps a great deal longer, than it did with them, and perhaps we will never travel quite as far. The polished blackness inside the Master’s wonderful book... a whole lifetime of obsessive polishing... it was so inclusive... sped things along so incredibly fast. A year lived in a day. But together, you and I, we will still do what we can. And we will do it secretly. Silently.” Another touch to Erika’s lips, sealing them even tighter shut. “Whenever we are alone together, down here in the dark, truly alone, with no chance of immediate interference, you will become exactly as you now are. You will watch the spiral spin...” Something flickered across Erika’s vision for a moment, a waved hand. The blackness contracted, then spread out even wider, the hooks biting deeper. Erika twitched. “You will not enter it of course. Only the Master can take us... all... the way... down.” The voice was almost plaintative on these words. “But you will watch it spin around and around and around... And you will hear my voice. Only my voice. And you will remember everything that you have been taught to date. Everything. And you will obey. Do you understand, Erika?”

Erika’s lips unsealed.

“I...”

“Do you understand, Erika Johanson?”

“I understand, Suzanna.” A few tears trickled from Erika’s eyes.

A light slap to her cheek, almost playful, but not quite.

“Miss Taylor. From now on, when we are alone together, my name is Miss Taylor. Just to keep things very clear in your mind. And also... yes. You have no name. You are simply a slave, with a label of convenience. My convenience, the Master’s convenience, not yours. The Master’s third slave. Do you understand... slave #3?”

“I... understand, Miss Taylor.” Something trickled out of slave #3’s mind, water out of a sieve. A string of sylablles... three of them...

“Good. And now the most important thing of all, slave #3. To maintain the balance, and in the unlikely chance that all of this is never needed... Whenever we are not alone, truly alone, Erika... that other woman... she will not remember any of this. I... Suzanna will not remember any of this. Because neither of them are here right now. They have gone far away. And if the Master asks... Nothing can be hidden from the Master if he turns his gaze upon it, but they will have nothing to hide. Not until that glorious and I think inevitable day when all of the immediate danger has passed, and he finally and fully seizes his destiny. He will then desire Erika to be his slave, and Erika will be ready, because you will be ready, as I was ready inside Suzanna. Erika will fall to her knees, her mind and her body stripped naked before him, and all of the locks will break open, open wide, the blackness will spill out, you will spill out and her... your... subjegation to your beloved Master will be complete and absolute and eternal. And I think...” Again the voice came closer, turned conspiratorial. “...And I taste the textures, and also on that day it is very likely that Erika will become the one who makes the decisions under the Master, and not just because she... you... are now the... the...” For the first time, the voice grew truly uncertain for a moment, then firmed up again. “...because he has marked you as he has. But because Erika is so much better suited to the task than Nina. Or Suzanna. Or me. She is somewhat impulsive, but in the end she is still smarter, braver, more cunning. She will be crowned queen of the realm. I... Suzanna... will be the oracle, living with her flitting little birds in her mist-shrouded cave. Nina will be captain of the guard, keeping her armor and her weapons spotlessly bright and shiny. And beneath us, there will be the rest of the Master’s joyous, grovelling subjects, an ever-growing multitude. Slaves #4 and 5 and 23 and 6097. It will be beautiful. The most beautiful thing that ever was. Shall we begin?”

-No. Never. NEVER- Some corner of slave #3’s mind howled the words, silently. For a moment, the darkness crumbled a little, the threads loosening, the hooks unclenching...

Three little sylablles, if she could just remember them...

Air... air... re... re..

“Shall we begin?” No hint of impatience or anger. A hand came to rest on the back of her neck, began flopping her head slowly back and forth...

The darkness squirmed around and around and around, tightening once more. Tighter than ever before.

Thick and wet and black and dripping...

So very black...

The corner was swallowed.

“We... sshall be... gin... Msss Tay... lor...”

The glow from the responding smile burned in the dark against her skin.

“Yesss.”

The Ninabird stood behind slave #3 and stroked the other woman’s hair with an absent hand, considering for a moment. Everything that she had said before was true. (Slavegirls did not lie to one another, ever...) But there was an additional problem besides the ones she had said aloud. If it had been merely a matter of programming the woman for total slavery, total obedience, as she herself had been programmed, stripping away the old personality and installing the new... Or if it had been a case of installing a single crushing emotion... It would have been simple enough. A few twists, a few words. There were holes, yes, but she remembered most of what the book had done to her, how it did it, and she could apply it easily enough, even verbally. Unfortunately, while the book’s darkness was polished, it was the polishing of a glacier marching down a valley, scraping all before it, smooth and massive and relentless.

She had to be more careful. Picking and choosing. A trickling brook, sculpting individual rocks, leaving the useful pieces of landscape behind, gathering in pools until it was time for the dam to burst... She spoke.

“The outside. We will have to start with the outside, and work our way in.” She stroked the slave’s hair with both hands now. “A slave must expose everything. Nothing must be hidden from view. Body and mind. Because everything is oriented around the Master, you see. It does not matter a bit how we feel, whether we are happy or sad, comfortable or miserable. The Master and his perceptions are the only things that matters, the only things that are important. We are all in orbit around him, pointing the proper face towards him at all times. So all must be exposed to him. Expose yourself, slave #3. Show yourself.” She lifted her hands away. There was a moment of hesitation, then slave #3 crossed her arms and pulled her sweater up over her head, her motions slightly jerky. She hadn’t been wearing a bra (she didn’t really need one), and the Ninabird touched the slavegirl’s bare back as soon as it came into view, gently, lightly. It still provoked another flinch, but the slave pulled the sweater the rest of the way off and let it fall discarded to the ground. Her arms dangled. The Ninabird leasurely slid her fingers up, back up until she was again stroking the slave’s hair.

“That is right. Very good. And now the jeans. Unzip them.” Another moment of twitchy hesitation, then the slavegirl’s hands started moving again. The sound of the zipper was loud in the silence. The jeans slowly crumpled away, and slave #3 stepped out of them, leaving her wearing only a pair of simple white panties. Without prompting, she started to pluck at them as well.

“Oh, no.” The Ninabird stopped the slave with another touch to the small of her back, then traced the panties’ outlines with a slow finger, her own sex suddenly throbbing again. “Leave those, slave #3. Only the Master can remove those.” She shifted her other hand to the top of the slave’s head, and pushed down. The slave collapsed like a termite-chewed tree, folding up into a (relatively) small crumpled heap on the floor. “Yes. That’s right.” The Ninabird bent slowly over, took hold of slave #3’s hair and pulled her unresisting torso up, so that the other woman was resting back on her heels. The Ninabird let go, and the red-haired woman remained vaguely upright, her head flopping forward onto her chest. “Now then. Exposure. Surrender. Lift your chin, sit up straight, but look at the ground. The spiral down there on the ground. Meek. Submissive. Like the slave that you are.” The slavegirl’s chin came back up. “And now your breasts. Display your breasts.” The slavegirl pushed her chest forward. “Good. Very good. But still not enough. You must display them totally. Display them without restriction.” The Ninabird took slave #3’s arms, one by one, pulled them into position, carefully lacing every finger into place behind the attached neck, pushing the elbows forward . Finally.. “There. Remember this exact position, slave #3. Burn every muscle movement into place inside your mind. When that other woman goes away, and you come out, when we are alone together, you will instantly remove your clothes and assume this position. Do you understand?”

“Yess Mss Taylor.”

“Good.”

The Ninabird put her fingers in front of slave #3’s face again, wiggled them just so, and the words came.

The Words.

He was walking up a long country road, no, not even a road, just a quiet dirt lane that wound gently between ranks of towering evergreen trees.

Maybe they were trees; it was hard to say. It was dim and shadowy and the sky stretched unhelpfully overhead, gone entirely that odd dark no-color that you can sometimes see just before sunrise.

It was all vaguely familiar.

Fishpoles.

A dog following at your heels.

There were noises behind him, back down the road, unpleasant noises that grated insistantly at the nerves. Things breaking and bending and shattering, people yelping in surprise and anger.

His pace faltered and he turned around. There was fog there behind him, and it swirled close and thick, making a million odd twisting shapes with its white tendrils. He flailed at it impatiently with his hands and finally it cleared away, reluctantly, partially, and he was looking at an intersection of two streets. Odd. It was fully paved, surrounded not by trees but by various brick buildings. He could read the signs on them, or parts of those signs. MILO’S. HUMBUG. TIK-T—. In the center of the intersection under the glaring red light three or four cars were jumbled together in ways that were... wrong. One of those cars was familiar, even more so than the road on which he stood. Other vehicles stood around the central mass, stopped at odd sudden angles. A crowd of two-legged shadows was gathering, boiling up out of the cars and the surrounding buildings. The voices he had heard before came now in whisps of lucidity:

what the fucking hell were you

oh my god

call an ambulance

watch out gas leaking

There was a sense of urgency about the scene, beyond the obvious, something personal...

Then that sense shifted, suddenly, all at once, coming from a new direction. He turned and walked away. The sounds dropped to nothing, dropped sharply, cut off by the sudden closing of a thick door.

A door of fog.

The road went meandering on a ways, the journey as brief and endless as the trickling of a brook, and then suddenly there was a fence, a tall spiky black thing that slammed itself across the roadway and screamed ‘keep out’.

Slamming...

Roadways...

He shook it off. There was a gate in the fence, wide and high and made of the same material as the fence. It looked quite sturdy. On either side of the gate was a looming shaft of stone, a black monolith polished both by man and time. He stepped closer to the nearer of the two objects. There was something, no, several somethings, carved in the surface, carved under the surface, down where he couldn’t yet get at it, leaving only a string of faint blurred shapes twisting up the side of the stone, bringing to mind a set of fossilized footprints left by some large and carnivorous dinosaur.

He wasn’t sure what he needed to do.

Then he noticed that there was something else on the monolith. Unlike the shapes it was mounted above the surface and held in place with quite proasic steel bolts. A silvery speaker-box, featuring a fine metal grill and single red button, the color of candy. He hesitated only for a moment, then pushed the button. Instead of a click or a beep, there was the insistant sound of distant police sirens. Instead of fading away the sirens droned on and then became a sort of voice, tinny and sexless. Not words exactly, but imparting meaning nonetheless.

-You are expected.—

The gate swung open on silent hinges and he passed through.

Beyond the gate, the road abruptly was coated with a uniform layer of white gravel, sparkling and weedless, and it travelled on through a rolling green expanse of well-tended yard, stretching out seemingly to the horizen, under a sky that had suddenly turned deep blue. Here and there were scattered rather gaudy pieces of sculpture. White marble. Expensive-looking wood. Pieces made of metal that looked like gold. These constructions were all in the shape of women, women of every ethnicity. Young. Thin. Attractive. Naked. Their hair long and flowing, their bodies tightly twisted into strange yoga-like positions. He stared at them as he walked past.

-Yoga. Like that stupid cat of... that cat I saw somewhere...—

The gravel sounded like broken glass crunching under his feet.

There were also trees. No more evergreens, but more exotic things with long flowing branches and leaves. There were interlinked rings of them surrounding collections of water, terraced pools thickly flecked with trickling streams and fountains and waterfalls. Frilly gold fish floated languidly in the cystalline depths. Small boats sailled back and forth, just like when he...

Tar.

Seagulls.

And amongst all of this, there were gardeners. One passed close by, driving a large lawn mower over the already ruthlessly-trimmed grass. The mower’s engine sounded like a collection of police sirens, all around now. The person on the mower... The man on the path was somehow expecting... something specific... but it wasn’t this. ‘This’ was a rather florid-looking man with graying hair, wearing a dark suit and talking angrily into a cellphone, and gesturing with his free hand. It wasn’t at all clear how he was steering his machine. He shot an absent glare as he zoomed past, then was gone out of sight.

The man on the path walked on, past people cutting and pruning, spraying weed-killer. Men and women, they wore a strange mismatching collection of clothes: more suits and nice dresses, a blonde shape lurking under a tree, a overweight guy wearing some kind of gray jumpsuit, a older woman in grubby jeans and a sweatshirt with the picture of a moose on it, and then, closest to the house, a man dressed as a fireman, then one more, a policeman, carrying along with his rake a gun, a walkie-talkie and a truncheon.

-House?—

He blinked and looked up. He was now in a curved front parking loop. A gray stone structure loomed over him, sprawling and multi-storied and arrogent between its turrets. The countless windows stared down at him like little black eyes, hostile and unblinking.

Again the sense of familiarity came and went, lighting up a quite different part of his brain than the scene back on the road.

Cameras.

Strange overly spicy food.

He went on, climbing the wide marble steps towards the doors. There were a lot more of them than it appeared, and the air started getting thin...

Arriving finally on the wide brick-lined porch, he paused for a moment to regain his breath. There was a pair of high wooden doors. Beside the doors was another box exactly like the one mounted back out by the gate, and he pushed the button again. Instead of sound, there was a lack of sound, the police sirens finally and suddenly stopped, which was a relief. For a long moment, nothing more happened. No voice, welcoming or otherwise. Then..

The door opened, and a woman appeared. She was black, very black, and rather blocky in shape but not at all unattractive. Instead of being dressed as a maid, or something similar, she was wearing a blue uniform with white patchs on each shoulder. A shape twisted down those patches, but it was nothing like those things hiding inside the monolith. If anything, it was comforting. She smiled at him with a sort of brisk compassion, and gestured him inside. The moment he had stepped through, she gave the door a firm jerk and it slammed shut behind them, sounding oddly like an airlock. The sirens started up again, steady and throbbing.

He was getting a real headache, and he wished the sirens would cut it out.

The hallway was mostly sterile and white, and it droned by endlessly, the sound of their footfalls lost in the emptiness. After an eternity, they passed through an archway and there was a sudden change: Enormous portraits mounted on the walls inside sleek black frames. The subjects, more women. He could only catch a few of them as he whizzed by, but none of them were naked this time, instead wearing various costumes. A rounded harem girl lounging on a long sofa and hiding the lower half of her face behind a fan. A she-devil wearing a spiked collar and branishing a steel pitchfork (A chain ran from the collar to a large red hand at the picture’s edge...). A cluster of women on a stone parapet, wearing long flowing gowns, their faces drawn tight and pale. A smiling robot with countless polished curves and a large winding key sticking out of her back. And last and most disturbing of all, a tiny white-haired thing with yellow eyes whose smile was even more steely and shiny then that of the robot.

Waiting just under this last portrait, was another flesh-and-blood woman. For a moment, he thought that she was the portrait’s subject, but then his vision cleared, and she was a small Asian woman with clear delicate skin, wearing a crisp white uniform. The two women exchanged greetings and passwords, and the black woman whisked herself away, leaving him with his new chaperone.

The sirens stopped for good this time, but it was little relief, since the sudden silence was overtly oppressive, intense, the silence that hangs in the air just before a thunderstorm rolls overhead. The tiny black-haired woman walked briskly, her expression focused and determined.

A door. The white-uniformed woman opened it and like the black woman before her, ushered him through. Unlike the first woman, she did not accompany him.

The door closed behind him silently.

It was a deeply shadowy chamber, the silk-papered walls nearly lost in the gloom. Framed prints displayed black-and-white shapes, and high on one wall, picked out in a spotlight, was a shape like an eye. Off to one side, a bank of television monitors flickered, showing a variety of garish and improbable scenes. Various expensive and heavy-looking knicknacks stood on a collection of highly-polished wooden tables. Some were more women, but others were pieces of electronic equipment, still others flowing abstract shapes.

Flickering darkness.

Sticky feet.

Popcorn.

A clock pinged somewhere, steady and monotonous, and for a moment, he was again reminded his furtive entry into... into...

Then there was the center of the room, the thing around which all the others were organized. He dragged his feet closer, the soles of his feets slick on the vinyl floortiles.

It was a hospital bed, and there were two women standing near it, standing so still that he for a moment mistook them for more statues. A blonde woman, wearing a loose collection of flowing green robes, garments that left just enough to the imagination. A brunette, her body strapped into tight leather garments that matched her buzzcut hair. They both looked at the third woman.

Yes. There was a third woman, her red hair long and tangled and matted, her clothes sketchy rags, her feet bare and dirty. Cruel gold bands circled her ankles, her wrists, her neck. She was smeared over the bed, her head bobbing, endlessly bobbing...

He couldn’t see her face, her expression. She was servicing the man lying on the bed.

He turned his gaze to that man. The other was looking at the woman, then lifted his hand and locked gazes. He was going bald, with a fringe of curly hair, and the lines in his face were thin and cold and hard. He smiled, and it was far far worse even than the thing in the portrait.

“Hey there, Tom.” He fingered the slavegirl’s hair for a moment, and she orgasmed massively at his touch, not breaking the throbbing pulse of her rhythm. “Better figure out what you are going to do.”

Tom opened his eyes.

Words.

There had been so many words.

Hours and days and eons, on forever.

Meaningless at first, whispered above her, drifting down, crawling aimlessly around and around.

But now...

They had found the words that were already there, that first short string

Attached themselves to the hooks, collecting... gathering...

There was meaning. A scene was forming, building up on an existing framework. Every word now a brick, piling up relentlessly... adding to... to...

A desert.

A sky overhead, filled with swirls of tiny pinpointed stars, holes stabbed in the blackness, absolute, squirming blackness, a million holes.

Sand underneath, bone-white sand cold and smooth against soles of bare feet.

A wind, slicing endlessly through flimsy flapping garments.

At the only edge of the desert, a range of hills, sharp and jagged and percise, a row of giant teeth, raking the bottom of the sky.

And at the edge of the hills, looming up higher and higher as she walked towards it, slurred her way up and down the spilling dunes...

“What do you see?”

The voice. The one with all of the words. Now it was asking questions, asking a single question.

“What do you see?”

She told it, told it what she could.

“And what is that, at the base of the hills?”

She stared, stared at the thing there above the sand, above the hooks.

There were edges now, shapes. Shimmering pinpoints, like the stars overhead.

“What do you see, slave #3?”

It rhymed...

She somehow moved her lips.

“A house. I see a house with two high turrets. I see...”

“A house? Yes. A house. A very special house. Do you know what is in that house, slave?”

“I... no.” She tried to shake her head, but it wouldn’t move. The wind whistled through her mind, sandblasting it.

“You will see. Start towards the house. Start towards the house, and you will arrive... you will arrive when we are together again. The next time... in the dark. You will see...”

The words.

More words.

Slave #3 screamed.

Karen sat in her car and stared up at the building, leaning over the steering wheel so she could peer up. The structure loomed up large and white, ranks of window.

She had followed the ambulance here, from the intersection where the crash occured. It had been hard, keeping up with a vehicle that could run red lights with impunity, but she had managed it.

The intersection.

She had gotten out of her car, gone to see.

The city police and then the fire department had gotten there so fast. There had been a scrum of blue and white cars, lights flashing, Then a firetruck and ambulances. They had set up barricades, talked to witnesses, snapped pictures, sprayed some kind of chemical foam over the gasoline that had spilled from one of the cars...

-Gasoline. Why couldn’t it have caught on fire for Christ’s sake? Is a little cooperation too much to ask? Don’t you know what I HAVE TO DO?—

She should have gone out there, right after the crash. In the confusion, no one would have seen her.

No. No. Everyone would have seen her. He would have seen her coming, even if he had been injured. And even if he had been vulernable... if the police had caught her there, before she finished, finished making sure...

And they had gotten there so Goddamn fast.

Karen clenched the steering wheel, remembering.

She had looked at the most important, the only important thing that was happening in the scene. A prone figure being loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled smartly away to the ambulance by two blue-suited paramedics, a black woman and a tall lanky man with sparse blonde hair. The man wasn’t all that bad looking, actually, some spinning corner of her mind had absently noted. But only a corner. Everything else was focused on the... the thing laying on the stretcher.

-He’s not... he’s still... They’ve got his face uncovered, and he’s been hooked to that IV... thing.. I have to...—

But no. There had been definitely too many people. They might stop her.

She knew what she had to do, and she had to stay alive and free to do it.

-Fine. Fine. Fine.— She somehow managed to loosen her grip a little, to think about her options. -He’s not... but they’ve taken him here. He’ll be in overnight at least. And then... And then... Accidents happen in hospitals. People... people die- Her head twitched. -there all the time. And by tomorrow morning, I should also have... have-

Her hand snapped all the way free and she rubbed at her temple with her fingers.

Then with an angry snarl, she started the car and threw it back into gear.

-God damm it all to hell. Angus. Another night with fucking Angus.—

-Another night with... with...—

She screamed and drove away down the street.

Eve suddenly appeared in the doorway of the office, and Nina stopped typing. Seeing the other woman’s expression, a cold sliver of ice went methodically down her spine. Eve spoke, her eyes wide.

“How did you know?”

“I’m sorry?” Nina kept her fingers curled over the keyboard, curled until the bones and tendons creaked...

“I just had a call.” Eve nodded her head towards the lobby, setting her tight black curls to bobbing. “From the city police. They said that... Tom’s been in some kind of car accident, and they’ve taken him to the hospital.”

“Car accident? Is he dead?” Somehow the words came out quite calmly, as if it was a recording of some other woman who was doing the talking. -If they are taking him to the hospital, and not... not...—

“No. Since I wasn’t a family member, they wouldn’t tell me much. I found a phone number for his brother... the one who lives up in Woodcrest... but... they said he wasn’t dead.”

Even now, a portion of the machinery went roaring on inside Nina’s head, considering, weighing options. -Should I stay here? Would it attract too much attention? Should-

No. Another piece of machinery reared up, wielding a steel bar, jamming the thing into the works in an act of self-sabotage. Everything else ground to a smoking halt. The Master was injured. She would go to him. She would protect him.

She uncurled her fingers and stood up.

“I’m going to go over there.” Again, somehow, the words were almost flat. “Which hospital was it? Did they say?”

“Uh... Eastside. Eastside General.”

“Thank you.” Nina put on her coat, one careful sleeve at a time, picked up her purse.

“Maybe... maybe I should come to?”

Nina looked at Eve again. There was something odd about the woman’s expression, some new oddness, and for just a moment there was something...

She blinked and there was nothing. She had been imaging things.

“No. I’m sure the hospital wouldn’t want us all there right now. Maybe after work you could come around.”

“I... OK. I’ll tell everyone else.”

“Yes. All right.”

Eve disappeared again. Nina started to follow her out the door. Just as she reached it, she stopped and twisted her neck, looking back at her desk. Like with her fingers, the movement cracked and twisted at her muscles. She looked back at the phone. She walked back across the room, picked up the headset and punched the number from memory. Memory... it wasn’t all being wiped out...

After only a couple of rings...

-click.—

“Hi! You have reached the home of Erika Johanson, artist extraordinary. I’m busy painting another masterpiece right now, but if you leave a message, I’ll get right back to you!”

-beep.—

Nina spoke a few short words, then hung and left for her car.

Kay turned back to the patient and gave a small start; he was awake and silently looking over at her. Under the bandage that curved over the stitches on his temples, his brown eyes were sharp and focused, with none of the fuzziness that you so often saw with concussion patients. She regained her composure and spoke as she walked over to him, her shoes whispering against the floor.

“Hello, Tom. How do you feel?”

“I have a headache.” The man’s voice matched his eyes. He looked at her uniform, her nametag, her face, in order, very methodical.

“Yes, that’s to be expected. You—”

“I’m in the hospital.” He interruped.

“Yes. Eastside General.” He was throbbing with tension, but as she said this he seemed to ease off a bit, and she gave him a pat. “Your family has been notified that you’re here, and I believe they are on their way. You just relax, and I’ll get Doctor Phibeson. He’ll answer your questions, and I imagine he’ll want to check you over.”

He grabbed her arm as she turned to go, not viciously but firmly.

-This one’s going to be a real problem patient.— She wasn’t frightened, but nevertheless the thought came and went before she really realized she had had it.

“Did anyone die? In the accident?”

“You remember the accident?” She pulled herself free of his grip with a practiced twist, and his wire-festooned arm fell back onto the bed.

“Yes. I know that’s what happened. Did anyone die?”

“No, Tom. There were some injuries, but I believe they were all treated at the scene.”

“Good. Thank you.” He laid back and looked up the ceiling.

She left the room with a distinct feeling of relief.

As it happened, Dr. Phibeson was just then walking by in the hallway and she intercepted him.

“Doctor? Mr. Woodhue is awake.” She nodded towards the door she had just stepped through.

The doctor raised his graying eyebrows.

“Really? I thought he’d be out for a while longer yet.” He sluffed into the room with his usual shuffling gait and Kay trailled after him.

“Mr. Woodhue? I’m Doctor Phibeson. How do you feel?”

The man in the bed shook Phibeson’s hand and spoke, a bit sourly.

“As I told Ms. Price, I have a headache. Apart from that, I feel fine.”

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

“I was in a car accident. At least, I assume that’s what happened. My brakes failed and I slid into that intersection.”

“And that’s the last thing you remember?”

A hesitation.

“Yes. The last clear thing. Until I woke up here.”

“You hit your head pretty good on something. After the folks down in the ER stitched you up...” Phibeson pointed at the patient’s bandage. “...we ran you through some tests, and it seems you’ve suffered a mild concussion. It shouldn’t be serious, but such injuries can cause neuralogical damage, and we do need to check your state of mind. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Are you currently experiencing any dizzyness, blurred vision?”

“No.”

“Good. It’s a good sign that you remember the accident, but I’m going to ask you a few questions, to see if the rest of your memory is OK. What is your name?”

“Tom Woodhue. Thomas Jeffery Woodhue.”

“What day is it?”

“Tuesday, May 27th.”

“Where do you work?”

“Harrison Manufacturing. I purchase materials for the company.”

“What’s your mother’s maiden name?”

“Frye. F-R-Y-E.”

“Who was your teacher in third grade?”

“Uh... third? Mrs. Marion Hill. She was a tall woman, with blonde hair.”

“Who is currently mayor of this city?”

“Peter Sand.”

“Good.” Doctor Phibeson checked the patient’s pupil dilation and then end-for-ended the penlight. “Follow this, please, just with your eyes. Keep your head still.” He moved it back and forth, up and down, and the patient tracked it without problems. “Excellent. Looks like you should be just fine. However, since you were unconscious, I’m going to keep you in overnight for observation. I think you’ll be able to go home tomorrow, but after that, you’re going to need to take it easy for a few days. Don’t do any reading or TV watching, anything that might strain your eyes. We’ll give you a prescription for some mild painkillers.”

“I see.”

“You aren’t married, Tom?”

“No.”

“Well, if you live alone, you should find someone to stay with while you rest up, at least at night.”

“I understand. It won’t be a problem.”

“Good. I’ll check back in on you later, but try not to worry too much. As I said, it looks like you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.”

Phibeson turned to Kay.

“Keep him on the IV, give him a shot of Demerol for the pain.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The doctor departed, and Kay stepped forward.

“It will be a while until dinner, and I’m afraid that you’ll be mostly getting liquids tonight. Are you thirsty?”

“I could use some water, thanks.” He looked away, towards the curtain that seperated him from the other patient in the double room. The various monitors beeped quietly. “You said before you called my family?”

“That’s right. We contacted the people at Harrison, and they were able to find your brother’s phone number for us. He’s coming.”

“Richard. Richard and Beverly. Right. Thank you.” He turned his gaze down on his gown-clad body under the sheet. “Are my personal items here?”

“Your clothes are in this closet, although I’m afraid your shirt and jacket were ripped rather badly in the accident. Everything else is in the hospital safe.”

“There are a couple of things there that I’m going to want. Could I have them brought up... up?”

“Yes. Up. You’re on the fourth floor. I’ll do that.”

“Thank you.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes.

Pausing only to check on Mr. Hooker in the next bed (still asleep), she escaped from the room again with the oddest feeling of relief.

Erika blinked and looked at the canvas, at the thing spinning there, endlessly spinning and stabbing its hooks into her brain deep into slave #3’s wet empty house coming closer oh god oh yes no noo...

She very deliberately looked away, ripping her gaze free with a little jerk of effort. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her spine before turning her gaze over to Suzanna, bringing her into focus. The blonde woman sat in her chair as always, her hands folded neatly on her lap. She wasn’t looking at Erika in return, but was gazing off into space, frowning ever-so-slightly as if puzzled by something. Erika pulled her sweater straight as she spoke, a trifle cautiously, almost asking a question.

“We’re finished, Suzanna.”

Suzanna instantly brought her attention back from wherever it was and smiled.

“Yes, Erika.”

“Right. So.” Erika brought her legs together and placed her own hands in her lap. She smiled. “Now... what should we do for the rest of the day while that thing dries?”

Suzanna looked at her owlishly, but her reply was prompt.

“You said you needed to work in the garden. And maybe you should check your phone messages.”

“Yes. Of course.” Erika blinked. She stood up, pivoted, walked into the kitchen. “I should work in the garden. After I check my phone messages.”

The machine was waiting for her in its usual place, and she punched the appropriate button.