The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The officers had been waiting in the hallway for about fifteen minutes since the rest of the crew had left. The younger ensigns were self-conscious about their nudity, doing their best to hide their breasts behind their arms. The raider crews, on the other hand, didn’t seem to particularly care.

Agatha, the younger of the two “hosts”, finally approached them. “Hello again, ladies. I’m so sorry for the delay. We weren’t anticipating so many officers from the ship, so we had to adjust, but they’re ready for you now. Would you like to go with the robots, please?”

Six robots formed up around the group, and the lead two started to walk down another one of the corridors that sprouted off the hallway. Resigned, the officers reordered themselves into something like a parade ground formation, and followed them.

Commander Lia was annoyed at the interruption. During the travel from the ship, she had figured out a communication method, and tapped repeatedly at the wrists of the raider crews until she found one, Commander Su, who knew the Morse code she was using. She and Su had been surreptitiously discussing what had happened. So far, she had learned that Su’s raider had been inside the shields when it was hit with no warning, and instantly incapacitated—like the cruiser itself. They’d drifted for hours until the Imperium transport ship had brought them into its docking bay and removed them, finding the other raider crew already captured, but no sign of Andersen or Jensen.

Now, however, it was not clear what was going to happen to them. Being separated from the enlisted was not a surprise, but she was concerned about the Captain being taken off on her own. She just hoped that the Imperium respected the wounded, and were treating Lt Commander Kopel’s injuries appropriately.

The eleven officers walked slowly down the long corridor, eyes darting left and right as each of them tried to pick up clues as to the nature, size, and purpose of this ship. The robots seemed uninterested in trying to prevent them seeing anything. Occasionally they’d come to a junction, and sometimes have a brief view of what looked like engineering spaces down a spur corridor, but the robots kept them moving. Lia growled in frustration—the opportunity to gather intelligence was so tantalizing, but so frequently denied.

Without warning, they turned a corner to find themselves at a dead end. The robots stopped, and so did they, uncertain of what came next.

Within a minute, a section of wall in front of them rose up, and the robots marched them into a somewhat cramped metal space which had been revealed. They huddled up together inside it, exchanging glances.

The wall dropped down, and almost immediately they felt downward motion—apparently, a turbo elevator. It went on for five seconds, implying to the observing crew that this ship had at least ten stacked decks, before coming to a stop.

The robots ushered them out into a long but narrow hallway. Their eyes squinted at the brightness; this space was nearly uniformly white, and it was hard to pick out any particular feature.

Along the sides of the hallway, eleven doors suddenly opened. The robots marshalled their charges into a single line, and took the officer at the front—who happened to be Ensign Vor. A robot led her to the furthest open door, pushed her inside, removed her wrist cuffs and gag, and closed the door on her. Commander Lia had to admire—in abstract—the efficiency of the operation.

She watched carefully as the four officers in front of her were similarly confined, before she was selected. The cell into which she was pushed was small, maybe four feet square, and—hopefully!—not intended for a long stay, given that there was nowhere to lie down.

As the cell door closed, she licked her lips in relief—the gag having prevented this for a while—and took a seat on the short bench that the cell afforded. The temperature was still warm, to her relief, but she didn’t have any idea how long she’d be confined here. The cell interior was carefully rounded, with no sharp corners, and the material was a uniform red-orange warm plastic. She knew, from Alliance counter-interrogation training, that sensory deprivation was remarkably effective in breaking down resistance.

The aspect that worried her most was the lack of communication. The Imperium had been obviously careful to prevent discussion between the crew after their capture. Although she had managed to gain some information from the raider crews, that was an isolated success—the rest of the crew had been shut off from each other, and she was sure that this was not an accident. Who knew what the enlisted might be telling their Imperium interrogators right now?

Captain Muller didn’t know for sure what had been in that red drink, but it was certainly doing a number on her. Her vision was swinging around, causing her to be dizzy, and she had caught herself giggling for no reason. She flashed back to the party for her friend Captain Ramirez, when Ram had insisted that her best buddies try synthesized alcohol drinks from 21st Century recipes. She had the same sense of disorientation, and disconnection from reality, but—thankfully!—not the accompanying nausea. Yet.

The cell door slid open, and there was Aunt Em, offering to take her hand. “Katie! Come here, darling. I have the most beautiful robe for you.”

Muller rose to her feet, unsteady, and a flunky handed Aunt Em a green silk robe. Em carefully slid it onto the swaying Muller, loosely tying the sash.

“Oh, my dear Katie, you look lovely. Green really matches your eyes!” She held Muller’s face, gently, peering into her expression. “Yes, I think you’re ready. Come! Come! Let’s chat.”

Em took a gentle but firm hold of Muller’s hand and pulled, towing the disoriented woman along with her. They walked past a series of cell doors before the corridor took a sharp left, and Em opened an innocuous and anonymous door on the right hand side.

“Just in here, my dear.”

It was a living room; not particularly large, with a sofa and a loveseat crammed between bookshelves, cute figurines, and small art pieces that varied from the classical to the disturbing. Em guided Muller to the loveseat, and sat them both down. Muller sat heavily, relieved at taking the weight off her feet, and rested her neck.

“How are you feeling, Katie?”

“Kinda drunk,” Muller confessed. “Everything’s a bit whoopsie!” She giggled. “Don’t know what was in that drink. Hope you’re not going to take advantage?”

Em laughed, and hugged her. “Oh, my dear Katie. Never!” She stroked Muller’s cheek. “I just want to have a little girlie chat. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No problem...” Muller waved her hand, vaguely. “What d’you wanna know, Em?”

“Tell me, Katie...” Em moved a little closer, and fluttered the front of her robe, releasing a small whiff of perfume that made Muller briefly dizzy. “Tell me...” She moved slowly to whisper in Muller’s ear. “When did you last kiss a woman?” Her cheek brushed Muller’s ear, and the Captain briefly trembled.

“Couple of years... Captains’ get-together,” she sighed. “First time for ages we could relax, no lower ranks. Got a bit drunk with the girls. Bad Katie!” She giggled. “Bad Susie. Susie was a bit loose with her tongue. Nice tongue. Warm.”

“Like this, Katie?” Muller felt a soft, warm tongue caress her left ear, and moaned, unconsciously clutching at herself. Em’s voice lowered to a whisper, but so close to her ear it was all she could hear. “You like the way this feels?” The tongue slowly, carefully explored her, and Muller couldn’t help but press herself into Em in response.

“Yes, I thought you might,” murmured Em, the hint of a laugh in her voice. “You know, Katie, we process a lot of Alliance girls here, but I always save the command leaders for my own, special treatment. Do you know why?”

Muller’s befuddled brain was way beyond an ability to compute “why?", and she just stared at Em.

“They’re always so interesting,” Em purred, stroking Muller’s shoulder. “Every one of their minds is its own interlocking, complex puzzle for me to take apart, and put back together. You know, nearly every time, I have to come up with a new approach to overcome a particularly challenge point of resistance. It’s all worth it in the end, though.”

She beckoned to a white-hooded and suited figure who, Muller belatedly realized, had been standing in the doorway for a while. The figure slowly walked over to the loveseat, and knelt beside them.

“Why don’t you take your hood off, darling?” Em suggested.

The figure slowly slid off her hood to reveal a pale, heart-shaped face, framed in short black hair. Muller blinked, suddenly recognizing her.

“That’s right, Katie, this is Captain Belle, formerly of the Alliance. Now, though, she’s one of Aunt Em’s most special helpers. Would you like a kiss, Amelie?“

Amelie leaned forward and planted a slow, soft kiss on Em’s lips. Finally withdrawing, she sat on her haunches and gazed at the older woman adoringly.

“We’ve found that she can be so creative!” Em said, proudly. “I’m sure that you’ll experience that with her, in time. Why don’t you say hello to your new friend Katie, Amelie?”

Amelie leaned forward again, this time gently holding Muller’s head as their lips locked. Muller felt a firm tongue, tasting of strawberry, slide into her mouth and start to explore her. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but kiss back as her animal instincts all fired at once in reaction to the touch.

“There now,” said Em, happily, as the two disengaged. “I knew you’d be such good friends. You can go now, Amelie. Thank you so much, my dear.”

Amelie gracefully slid her hood back into place and walked out of the doorway. Muller’s eyes followed her, with her brain full of confusing thoughts.

She managed one, turning back to Em. “How...”

“Oh, all in good time, my dear.” Em patted her hand. “The important thing with my visitors is that I don’t make them do what I want—I just help them want to do what I’d like them to. You’ll find that giving yourself to me is so fulfilling, Katie, it truly is.”

Muller tried to swim to the surface of the whirlpool of her thoughts. What Em was saying suddenly sounded very attractive, but there was something else tugging at her mind. Finally, it popped up like a bubble. “My crew...?”

“We’re taking very good care of them, Katie,” Em assured her. “Would you like to see what we’re doing with your fellow officers?”

She unfolded a display panel from a table surface, and—putting on an archaic pair of spectacles with a beaded cord—pressed a few buttons on the side. The display lit up, showing a white-painted room.

“They’re just doing the last few of them,” she said, pointing. “Let’s watch.”

Lia figured that she had been in the tiny cell about an hour when the nurse and her robots came for her.

The door hissed open with no warning, and two robots were standing in the entrance. Each took one of her arms, and firmly lifted her to her feet and out of the cell.

Once out, Lia could see a blonde, pretty woman in a nurse’s uniform, awaiting her with a smile.

“Hello, Commander. I’m Nurse Suzie. Would you mind leaning your head a little to the left, my dear?”

Lia did so, reluctantly, feeling cold metal press against her right neck, and hearing the hiss of a gas injection syringe.

“That’s all we needed. Now, come along with me, please.”

The robots slowly escorted her down the corridor to a door marked simply, but ominously, “PREPARATION”. Suzie tapped in a code, and the door opened into a small room with two other doors, side by side, on the opposite wall.

“We need to make sure you’re properly clean,” Suzie explained, as she opened the left-hand door. “Please step inside, close your eyes, and wait for the ultra-violet sterilization. Once you hear three beeps, you can open your eyes again.”

Lacking any real option, Lia walked reluctantly into the chamber. As the door slid shut behind her, she closed her eyes and steeled herself.

There was a hum, the hint of a blue flash through her eyelids, and a brief warm feeling on her skin that went from top to bottom, and back up again. Three beeps sounded, and she obediently opened her eyes.

A few seconds later the door on the other wall of the chamber opened, and she stepped into a brightly-lit room. Suzie was waiting for her.

“How do you feel?” she asked, brightly.

“Fine... wait...” Suddenly Lia felt very woozy. She clutched at the edge of a nearby table for support. “What’s happening?”

“Don’t worry, darling, that’s the sedative we gave you. It’s quite strong. Why don’t we get you lying down?”

That sounded very attractive right now, and Lia all but collapsed onto a low table that Suzie helpfully indicated. Suzie slid a small pillow under her head, and then with a hum the table lifted Lia up to waist height on Suzie. The nurse had a silver blanket in her hand, which she unfolded and carefully placed over Lia.

“There! Just so you don’t get cold.”

Lia lethargically turned her head to the left, realizing that there was a second table next to her. With some effort she recognized Doctor Fan, similarly blanketed, staring vacantly at the ceiling.

“She was sedated about ten minutes before you,” Suzie explained, wrapping something around Lia’s wrist and consulting a small read-out.

“Where... what...” Lia knew there were things she needed to find out, but her tongue seemed twice its normal size, and her brain was way past being able to form coherent questions.

“Try not to talk, darling. Just rest.” Suzie busied herself entering data on a pad, while Lia gazed up blearily at the lights above her.

The noise of a door opening, and footsteps. “They’re ready for her now,” said a calm voice.

There was hum beside her, and with effort Lia turned her head to see Fan’s table being pushed away by white-clad figures. She sighed, and returned to looking at the ceiling.

Maybe ten minutes later, she became aware of Suzie’s smiling face in her vision. The nurse shone a small light in her eyes, appearing satisfied at the results.

“You can hear me okay, can’t you, darling?”

Lia just managed a nod.

“Very good. We don’t want you too sleepy for the procedure, but you do need to be relaxed.”

“Procedure?” Lia wrinkled her brow. No-one had talked about a ‘procedure’.

“Just a little insertion. It won’t hurt, darling, I promise. Perfectly safe.”

Suzie produced a cap, and started to tuck Lia’s glossy black bangs into it. “You do have lovely hair, darling. I wish I could get mine as shiny.” She ran her fingers around the edge. “There! Now it won’t get in the way.”

Lia’s memory was patchy, but she remembered a few things. “My crew...”

“We’re taking good care of them, darling,” Suzie promised, squeezing her hand. “Many of your officer friends have been through already. The rest of the crew are being trained in their new roles. They’re quite, quite safe.”

Lia nodded, too tired to press the point further.

“I think they’ll be ready for you soon... oh look! Here they are.” The door re-opened, and the white-clad figures returned. Lia looked up to see two masked faces next to Suzie.

“I’ll see you in Recovery, darling. You’ll be fine.” The nurse moved away, and Lia felt her table start to move.

The next room was a brilliant white, hard on the eyes. The white-clad figures who examined Lia as she arrived were only visible as eyes, the rest of them blending into the background.

Lia felt something close around her head, fastening under her jaw. Someone draped a tube under her nose, and she felt cool air blowing in.

A woman leaned over her, wrinkles from an older face visible in the small gap above the mask. Her dark eyes scrutinized Lia.

“Give her another quarter dose.” She patted Lia’s hand. “We need you conscious for this procedure, but only just.”

Another gas injection in her neck, and Lia’s hearing started to go strange, as if there was an echo. Her last few muscles relaxed, and she felt a gloved hand slide under the blanket and carefully probe around her mid-section.

“She’s ready now.” The older woman donned a pair of binocular eyeglasses, and watched as someone else did something to the left side of Lia’s face. She felt it go very cold, then quickly numb.

“You’ll hear a noise and feel some vibration. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”

There was a high-pitched whine, which increased in pitch and volume. Something was coming closer and closer to her head. In other circumstances, she might have screamed or thrashed about, but the sedative was far too strong for her to do anything but moan quietly.

“Sshh...” The woman leaned over, inspecting something. “Up two mil, right one mil. Yes, that’s it.”

Lia felt a vibration start in her head. It was similar to when Doctor Fan had had to drill out one of her wisdom teeth, six months ago. Somewhere deep inside she knew things were terribly wrong, but the sedation kept her unable to make any real movement.

The vibration finally stopped, and more faces came close, peering at the left side of her head.

“We’re now installing the neural cut-out,” explained the older woman. “You’ll probably feel a bit strange.”

She was correct. Suddenly, Lia felt as if she were cut off from herself—her consciousness moving away from her head and body. It was like the out-of-body experiences described by psychological researchers. She knew things were happening to her, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter.

“And close the circuit...” Just as quickly, she was back.

“Very good! Close her up, please.” The older woman sat back, and removed her binoculars. “That went very well. We’re all done with you, now.”

There was some attention to the side of Lia’s head, and she felt something soft taped across her temple, then the frame around her head was loosened and slid away.

“Take her to Recovery, please.” The older woman walked away.

Lia watched blearily as her table was taken from the operating room, down a gray corridor, and into a long, low ward. She was wheeled past several other women, apparently asleep, and recognized Doctor Fan and Ensign Vor among them.

Finally, she was placed in her own bay, and one of her attending nurses drew out a fresh hypospray, while the second attached several leads to the side of her head.

“Dreamtime, Lia. Have lovely dreams...” The spray gave a hiss, and Lia fell into a deep sleep.

Em gestured at the monitor. “You see, darling? We’re taking very good care of Lia and your other officers.”

“What did you do to her?” Muller had seen the procedure from above, but it wasn’t obvious what they had put in—or taken out. She could only see the glazed expression on Lia’s face, and lack of reaction to the penetration—her 2ic clearly hadn’t been in pain, but she had no idea what had happened.

“Just a small neural cut-out,” Em explained. “We’ve found that Alliance officers can be quite resistant to our usual methods of training, so our scientists came up with this terribly clever little thing; it lets us temporarily disconnect their personality from the rest of their consciousness. They say it’s like you’re dreaming, but still awake. Your friends will find the training program much more enjoyable and less disruptive now.”

She stroked Muller’s hand. “And, speaking of training, Katie, I think it might be time for you to take your first steps, don’t you?”

Amelie and another woman in white had appeared silently behind them at some point, and now came around to the front of the loveseat to help the still-unsteady Muller to her feet.

“Let me show you my lab, Katie.” Em led the party out of the living room and through a pair of white double doors into a very large room. The walls were festooned with complex equipment, several areas in the center of the room held solid-looking medical tables, and ominous tubes and nozzles hung down from piping and racks that criss-crossed the ceiling.

“Ever since my first successes with Alliance leaders,” Em explained, “the Imperium has been so generous in providing everything I ask for. You know, war is an expensive business, Katie.” She gestured around. “For a relatively small investment, we can defend the Imperium without firing a shot, by convincing the Alliance leaders to work with me. Isn’t that just wonderful?”

Muller made a noise of agreement, but was distracted by looking around at the equipment. The closer she examined it, the more ominous it seemed, even to her distracted brain.

Em must have noticed, and stopped by one bay along the wall. “Are you wondering what it would be like, Katie?” She peered at Muller’s confused eyes. “What it would be like to just give yourself up to me, and my machines?”

Amelie slipped the green silk robe off Muller, and her companion gently but firmly pushed Muller into a padded chair in the bay, then swung several pieces of equipment across her. Muller found her legs held apart by a divider that fastened into the chair either side of her hips; her breasts were cupped in metal devices and pressed against her chest. Her wrists were fastened in soft cuffs to the arm of the chair.

“I’m particularly proud of the Feedback Chair,” Em cooed. “Such a simple idea, but so quick to train the patient. It’s all about motivation, you see. Of course,” she giggled, “we have to pace them, or they’d simply collapse after an hour or so.”

Amelie swung a final piece of equipment into place. This covered Muller’s face from below her eyes to below her chin, pinning her head against the headrest. She felt something like a wide mask covering her mouth, though she could still open it.

“Lovely. Thank you, ladies.” Amelie and her friend withdrew, leaving Em alone with the trapped Muller who could now only communicate with her eyes.

“I think we can run you through the full program today,” Em said judiciously, tapping on a small console next to a chair. She swung a small screen in front of Muller’s eyes. “Have fun, my darling Katie! Just do what they show you.”

The screen lit up, showing Muller two impossibly beautiful, naked women. One was sitting on a chair, leaning slightly forward. The other knelt in front of her, and cupped one breast in her hands; she slid out her tongue and started to slowly, gently, lick the nipple.

Muller watched, bemused, until a sharp, electric pain shot briefly through both her nipples, and she screamed into the mask.

“Please copy the action,” an unemotional voice said, briefly overplaying the display’s soundtrack.

Confused, Muller tentatively stuck out her tongue. To her surprise, it found something inside the mask that was nipple-shaped, soft, and warm. Carefully, she started to tongue the item.

Now a new sensation came to her nipples—for all the world as if they were being tongued and suckled. She experimented with speeding up and slowing down with her tongue, and the sensations on her nipples faithfully duplicated it. Now she could start to feel a sexual stirring rising inside her, and gave little grunts of pleasure as the tingles from her breasts started to spread more widely in her body.

The two women finally slid off the chair, and the one who had been attending with her tongue now lay on her back with her legs in the air. The other slipped under her legs, taking them on her shoulders, and bent to focus on the clean-shaven sex of her partner.

There was a short hum from inside the mask, and the nipple rotated away. Its replacement was similar in size, but surrounded by soft folds of what felt like skin. Muller didn’t need telling, and attended to the new item with an eager tongue.

Sure enough, something warm and damp now intruded into Muller’s sex, unerringly locating her clit. After a few flicks and licks with her tongue, she had to pause briefly as shivers now started to run through her. She attacked the nub with renewed energy, forgetting where she was or what was happening to her—the only thing that seemed to matter right now was the surge of pleasure that was nearly drowning her. The short lag between her action and the feeling inside her quickly vanished as she built a sustained momentum in her outreach.

Finally, the women rolled over, and the previous giver positioned herself on her knees, head to the ground, bottom in the air. The other took a buttock in each hand, and bent over the small puckered hole before her tongue started to attend there too.

Muller felt the item in the mask change again, and—sure enough—it was the texture she expected. She started to tongue it, and squealed as something intruded into her bottom. Never having been explored there, she struggled to keep focus on her tongue as unfamiliar sensations shot through her...

The screen flickered off, and the sensations stopped. Muller was gasping into the mask, feeling perspiration run down her face. She groaned at the electric tingling that was still going on all throughout her body.

Amelie and her companion unfastened the equipment and swung it out of the way. Helping a very unsteady Muller up, and into her robe, they escorted her back out of the lab and into an anteroom with array of opaque doors. One of them opened, and they guided her onto a futon on the floor of the small room behind it.

The door closed, and an exhausted Muller fell asleep within seconds.

Kopel had never known pain like it. The hours since the plasma explosion had passed with her in something like delirium, remembering only fragments of images of Doctor Fan trying to treat her injuries, the constant pain that medication merely lessened, the coldness that had started to penetrate her body as time had passed. She had only dimly been aware of the transport in the Imperium ship, and her face had been covered as she was taken away from her crew.

There was a particularly sharp pain in her side and she mewled, eyes flicking open and suddenly wide awake again. She appeared to be in a sterile room, surrounded by medical personnel in sterile protective covers. There was a background hissing noise, and the room smelled like burned meat. She was afraid that she knew why that was.

“Please try and keep still, Rita,” one of them urged, hands lightly resting on Kopel’s relatively undamaged shoulders. “We have to debride this injury.”

“Painkillers, please...” Kopel whimpered, dignity and forbearance long since gone.

“I’m sorry darling, we’ve given you all we safely can.” The woman’s eyes were full of compassion. “I’ll try to be gentle.”

“Should we try a nerve shunt?” one of the others suggested.

“We’d need her permission...” The first woman leaned over. “Rita, darling, there’s something we can try; putting a small device onto your cranial nerves. It would let us shut off the pain signals to your brain, so we could go fix the rest of you without discomfort. It’s quite invasive, of course, and likely permanent: do you want to let us do it?”

“Anything,” mumbled Kopel, biting her lip to avoid crying out. “Please, do it. Please do it now.”

“Okay, let’s halt the debriding for now, ladies. We need Rita turned over. Everyone, find an uninjured spot.” Kopel felt a number of hands slide underneath her. “On three... one, two, three and over.”

There was another flash of pain as some burned skin stretched during the rotation, but Kopel quickly found herself with head resting face-down in a padded ring. Now she could feel warm air blowing across the front of her body, and realized that she was on a blown-air bed, keeping most of her scorched body from making actual contact with the surface.

“We’ll need to shave the back of your head, I’m afraid...” There was a buzzing, and Kopel felt something at the nape of her neck.

“Make sure you get all the hair,” her carer instructed someone. “We don’t want that going into the burned areas.”

A new voice came from the side. “Rita, I’m Doctor Reyes. I understand that you want me to put a shunt in your cranial nerves?”

“That’s right,” Kopel confirmed. “Please, can you hurry? This hurts so bad.”

“I’d imagine it does. Okay, let me numb the area, and we’ll get started.”

Kopel felt numbness spread across the back of her head, and as it reached her ears, everything went quiet, as if she’d submerged her head in water. There was still the background burning pain from her injuries, but she was almost past caring about that by this point. She closed her eyes, and tried to daydream herself away from reality.

Suddenly, she felt really strange. All the pain vanished, and indeed so did all other sensation below her neck. She could still feel the padding press on her face, but it was as if the rest of her body had simply evaporated.

“What happened?” she mumbled.

The doctor’s voice was brisk and in-control. “We just inserted the shunt. You likely can’t feel anything at the moment. Don’t worry, that’s expected. We’ll be reconnecting and re-tuning the nerves you need in over the next half hour.”

Kopel sighed in relief. She let her tired eyelids close. With her body no longer screaming in pain, she quickly slipped into dreamland.

“Rita, how are you feeling?”

Kopel blinked herself back to wakefulness. She was still in the sterile room, and her attendant nurse was still wrapped in sterile gear, but now the room was quieter, and the distressing smell of burned Rita had gone. Her body was now covered by a sheet, though several tubes ran under it from an IV stand.

“Um...” Kopel mentally ran through a damage report on her body. No pain signals, at least for now. She could feel the soft cover resting on her body, so at least some of her sensations were working. “Okay, I think? It’s not hurting.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” the nurse chirped. “Here, let me sit you up, but not rush...” The bed rose slowly under her shoulders, lifting her to a half-sitting position.

“What happened?” Kopel looked around her, but there was little clue to how much time had passed.

“Dr Reyes inserted the neural shunt,” the nurse informed her. “You should be able to feel the interface—use your right hand, please, we’ve got your left arm secured for fluids.”

Gingerly, Kopel slid her right arm out from under the sheet. A dressing covered most of her forearm, but her hand appeared undamaged. She carefully touched the back of her head, and her fingers encountered a plastic-like cover that seemed to protect the bottom half of her skull and her cervical spine. A small cluster of wires and tubes led from it.

“Thank you, " she said, moving her arm back. “I don’t know how it works, but I can’t feel pain, though I can feel touch, so I’m very grateful.”

“Our pleasure. We want to take the best care of our guests.” The nurse tapped on a console. “The doctors wanted to see you when you woke up; let’s see if they are around.”

About ten minutes later, two more masked people joined them. Kopel thought she recognized Dr Reyes, but not the other woman.

“Hello, Rita.” Reyes peered at a couple of monitors. “How are your sensations? Any pain?”

“Not a thing,” Kopel confirmed. “Thank you very much—I didn’t know how much longer I could have held on.”

The second woman had a grave tone when she spoke. “Rita, there’s something we have to discuss. Obviously, you know that you were burned very badly.”

Kopel nodded, comment seeming superfluous. While she had known intellectually the heat of a reactor plasma bloom, it was something else to experience it playing over one’s body.

“We’ve managed to clean up your burns after we installed the shunt, and they appear to be free of infection so far, but I’m afraid the news is not so good about the damage to your body. Your right foot is already gone, obviously, and we don’t think we can save anything much below the knee on either leg. The burns on your torso have compromised most of your abdominal space. What I need you to understand, Rita, is that you will need artificial support just to stay alive, let alone be able to move out of bed.”

Unseen by Kopel, another person had entered the room, and was carefully adjusting settings on a data console whose wires led directly into Kopel’s shunt interface.

As she listened to the doctor, Kopel felt herself start to grow cold. Perspiration beaded on her forehead, and her hand started to shake, as the interface commanded a growing dump of adrenaline into her system.

Uncertain of her reaction, she tried to rally herself. “That’s not so bad, is it? I mean , I’ll recover eventually...” Her voice trailed off, along with her bravado.

The doctor shook her head, eyes sad. “Not from this damage, Rita. We can’t repair your organs. You can’t even eat or even drink effectively, we have to give you all nutrition and fluids intravenously.”

There was a pause, and Rita’s eyes started to tear. She wiped at them with her trembling free hand, and gulped. “I’m going to ... die?”

Doctor Reyes stepped forward. “Rita, can I talk to you about something?”

Kopel nodded, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue that the nurse had handed her. Behind her, the technician selected a different set of stimuli on the pad.

“Rita, I’m one of the Imperium’s premier cyberneticists. The neural shunt was only the most basic demonstration of what we can do. You’re an engineer, you know what’s possible in this space. Would you like me to tell you more?”

A warm feeling was growing inside Kopel. She nodded, eagerly.

“We’ve made large advances in the cybernetics space. We have prosthetic limbs that operate with advanced sensory feedback loops, giving you more fine control and power than you’ve ever had before. As an engineer, I know you appreciate what a huge leap forward this is.”

Kopel started to smile. The more Dr Reyes talked, the better she felt. She was certain that she could happily lie here all day listening to the doctor speak.

“We have fully-working artificial replacements for all major organs, each capable of far superior performance than the organic component they replace. Synthetic polymers with the same elasticity as skin, and a sensory interface to your nervous system, provide a more resilient cover to your internals.

“Rita, I can fix you. In fact, I can make you better than you used to be. Do you trust me?”

Every word that Reyes uttered seemed to sink deeply into Kopel’s consciousness. Everything else faded away from her vision, and Reyes took center stage.

“In short: We can replace all your damaged organs with cybernetic equivalents. We can rebuild your limbs to be stronger, faster than they were. We can make you effectively impervious to pain. Would you like that, Rita?”

By now dumbstruck with attraction, Kopel could only stare at Reyes with her mouth agape.

Reyes smiled behind her mask, and took Kopel’s hand in hers. “I need your verbal consent, Rita.”

Kopel’s mouth opened and closed a few times before she squeaked out “I consent!”

Reyes laughed, patting Kopel’s hand. “I knew you would, somehow.”

She turned to the nurse, now all business. “Prep the patient for transport to Conversion.”

An hour later, Kopel was secured on a bench in a lab room. She looked around nervously at the complex machinery, currently folded away at the sides of the bench, but clearly intended to unfold at some point and give the bench occupant its undivided attention.

Reyes squeezed Kopel’s right hand. “It is a bit intimidating, isn’t it?”

Kopel agreed. “I’m a little bit scared, Dr Reyes.”

“Of course you are, darling, that’s natural.” Reyes gestured to one of her assistants. “Rita, I’d like to check your sensation before and after cut-off. Can you let Rosie know what you feel?”

Rosie took something that looked like a knitting needle, and moved down to Kopel’s left leg.

“Stroking on my thigh... scratching... poking...” Kopel reported dutifully.

“Excellent.” Reyes directed Rosie around Kopel, checking sensations at several other points. Once satisfied, she nodded at someone behind Kopel, and Kopel had the now-familiar sensation of her body disconnecting from her brain.

“Nothing,” she reported as Rosie scratched at the various areas of her body. “But it’s nice to be sure.”

“It’s always important to check,” Reyes agreed. “I do believe we’re ready. Thank you, Rosie.”

Kopel gulped, and her fingers grasped the edge of the bed. Despite the commanded serotonin flow into her system, the sudden surge of fear was palpable.

Reyes chuckled. “Don’t worry, darling. We do need your conscious mind to be active, so we can run integration checks, but we don’t need you to see and hear what’s going on. Rosie, the A/V inductor please.”

Kopel felt metal pads squeeze gently on the side of her head.

“Let’s take you away, Rita, to somewhere lovely.”

Kopel’s vision and hearing blanked out, almost immediately replaced by a scene of a starry night, with the noise of a soft desert wind playing in her ears.

“She’s in the program,” reported the technician. “No access to outside stimuli.”

“Lovely!” Reyes tapped gently on a keyboard. “Well, I think this gorgeous lady is finally ours. Start the programming, please. And let’s make her super- human.”

The robotic arms by the beach unfolded, and—with inhuman speed and precision—attached themselves to Kopel’s shoulders, hips, and central abdomen.

Reyes patted the shoulder of her disconnected patient. “Say hello to the new ‘you’ soon, Rita.”

Power cells whined, and needle lasers burst forth.