The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Drone

7

Though the words meant little to either of the two identical pleasure drones, they duly acknowledged them. “It’s my nativity day,” their pre-use-Master said, already removing his clothes. “I want you two to make this special.” The same chemiprocessor functions passed through their smooth bald heads.

[Orders Received: “Make this special”]. [Query?] [Non Sequitur]. [Modify Pre-Seduction Mode. Prepare Tandem Sexual Mode]. Unthinkingly, they approached the man, their movements perfectly coordinated, like little toy soldiers. They touched hands briefly. A neural charge passed from one to the other and back again. Their memory circuits processed the situation and made a decision.

[Activate Tandem Sexual Mode 45]. In less than a second the entire sexual sequence was laid out for them, the part each was to play in it already determined. The extraneous directives, “It’s my nativity day. I want you two to make this special,” deleted themselves from further consideration.

One of the drones took the man’s hand gently and led him to the bed. Once there, she guided his hands around her slim waist, took his head in her hands, and pressed her enormous breasts to his chest. The other drone, meanwhile, went to her knees and crawled between them. As one began kissing their use-Master on the mouth, surrendering herself to him urgently, the other took hold of his throbbing cock and rubbed it, brushing her soft, pink plastic lips back and forth over the tip, slowly circling her mouth until he was ready. She engulfed him. Together, the drones gracefully lowered the gentleman to the bed.

He ejaculated hotly into the one drone’s mouth. Forming a tight seal with her lips, she didn’t let a drop be wasted. In fact, she tickled the man’s penis with her specially textured tongue and stimulated him to deliver even more semen than he normally would have been capable. She sucked him like a vampire.

The other drone straddled their mutual use-Master, bringing her knees up near his armpits. As he made sounds of contentment with his first climax of the session, the drone writhed atop him sinuously, encouraging the exploration of her exaggeratedly feminine curves with his hands. His fingers found her dangling breasts, her ideally firm thighs, and the smooth rondure of her ass. Though she made not a sound—she was incapable of making sounds with her throat—her face was beautifully expressive, showing her Master the exquisite pleasures he was inflicting upon her while simultaneously conveying the emotionless attitude of the machine she was with her blank and expressionless eyes. It was a delicate balance, that countenance, yet it was achieved. The man made enough delightful grunts for all of them.

The session lasted well over an hour. The drones let their use-Master breathe for a few minutes and rest while sandwiched between them, curling and squirming the whole time. It didn’t take him long to become excited again. All three of them came to their knees on top of the bed. Seemingly playfully, yet in a precisely coordinated and calculated series of maneuvers, the drones arranged themselves to either side of the man and teased him, one pushing him toward the other, the other doing the same, again and again until he was almost mad with lust. Finally, one of them spread her thighs apart while the other pressed the man’s face toward her partner’s moist center. He put his mouth to her clitoris and sucked.

The drone behind him stroked strategically, her velvety hands petting his back and thighs. He pushed forward. The drone before him leaned back, and then he was atop her, his face buried between her thighs. His hands cupped her breasts, squeezing and massaging. The drone behind stepped back, turned over, and on her back pushed herself upward until her face was below his dick. She kissed him there, and with her tongue she lubricated his organ with her pseudo-saliva and his burgeoning precum.

The drone being muffdived rocked her hips in a gyrating motion. Her legs folded over her use-Master’s shoulders and onto his back. In the meantime, the other drone continued working to get the man harder and harder. Finally, when he lifted his head for air, the drones shifted positions, folding themselves around him until his dick was placed against one of their cunts. It didn’t matter which one it was. They were both the same in every detail. The drones’ featureless eyes never blinked once during the sex.

The man penetrated his waiting drone. Their hips touched, and he was soon riding her, thrusting deep and intensely. Her breasts bounced up and down beneath him. Her hands clasped his shoulders, and her face contorted, cheeks puffing and lips pursing as if she were in a state of both pain and intense pleasure. The other drone left the bed entirely and waited motionlessly until he finished. As soon as he climaxed inside of his living doll (“Oh, Arrrghhh! Arrrhh!! Fucking hell, but that was good!!”), she came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest, and began kissing his neck and face. He laughed uproariously and allowed her to pull him back, settling his weight atop her as she spread her legs and enfolded him. The drone in front recovered from her titanic drone orgasm and began kissing and sucking his toes. On and on the two drones fucked their use-Master in a myriad of ways.

When his time was up, they left him without looking back. Already the memory of the encounter was fading from their circuits. Each glided back to her respective chamber. Finding no appointment waiting for them, they lay back on the beds that made up the majority of their spaces, spread-eagled and staring up at the ceiling. If one of the brothel’s owners had cared to watch their movements on camera, two screens side by side, he would have found no difference in their actions. Even apart, their arm and leg gestures were indistinguishable. Inside their heads, the same functions were processed the same way.

There was no difference between them whatsoever. They were simply two pleasure drones, impossible to tell apart in every way. Hours drifted by, and neither of the drones moved so much as a muscle.

Eventually, a light turned on in one drone’s chamber. It was colored red; the brothel owners thought it was funny. The drone stood at once beside the bed. Her posture was pre-set: legs slightly apart, arms slightly back, bosom raised, eyes staring forward. Her mouth opened; it was hardly ever closed except when performing the services for which it had been designed. About a minute later a man entered.

He ordered her back to the bed. Crouching beside her, he took one of the drone’s ankles with his hand and pulled her legs roughly apart. Without another word, he climbed on top of her and began her use.

As they fucked, and as similar drones in similar chambers in the brothel were similarly fucked, the other drone from that earlier session continued to lay silently. In time, a light activated above her bed. She rose, automatically assuming the standard position, legs and arms apart, breasts upraised, eyes front.

The door to the drone’s chamber slid open, and a man entered. He was larger and weighter than most of the doll’s patrons, yet aside from that she noted nothing particular about this individual. To her, he was just a use-Master, no different from any of the other hundreds she had serviced. Use-Master, not pre-use-Master, though; this one had had her before. The relevant data surfaced from her circuits. A list of likes and dislikes flashed before her blank and golden eyes. She statistically predicted what he would want from her, and the resultant data determined which of thousands of programmed Routines she should follow. [Activate Pre-Seduction Mode]. [Standby Mode]. [Awaiting Orders].

If a pleasure drone could have been surprised, this one would have been a second later. Instead of giving her a command to climb onto the bed or kneel at his feet, the man her programming recognized as “use-Master 1” beckoned her to accompany him from the chamber. She did so at once, expressing neither approval nor disapproval, feeling neither as well. He led the naked drone out of the brothel through a back exit and into a waiting hovercar. It was the first time she had left the residence in more than a year. The vehicle rose into the night air, a night singularly not all that dark. With two suns in Beta Prime’s sky, only one or two times a season were the stars ever visible in the black curtain of infinity.

The man, “use-Master 1,” was evidently familiar with pleasure drones. In the hovercar, he told her to go into “passive mode.” [Orders Received: Passive Mode]. She settled beside the man in the two-seated vehicle and made no attempt to touch him or instigate any sexual behavior. She sat like a lifeless doll instead, hands folded in her lap and staring blankly. The car flew above the busy capital city.

Passing through a multitude of towering buildings, zooming over teeming streets, the man and the drone in time landed on a penthouse landing platform. “Follow me,” the man said, getting out, and the drone did so, legs and arms sliding with plastic silkiness from the hovercar’s seats and into the penthouse door.

They came into a large bedroom. The walls and carpeting were ivory, and great plasteel windows filled the south and eastern exposures. The man took a control wand and darkened the views. Lights came on automatically. He ordered the anonymous pleasure drone to wait while he used the restroom.

She stood motionless, waiting. She was in [Passive Mode]. She would have waited for centuries without budging a centimeter, if such had been necessary. Her use-Master came back much sooner, though, and, refreshed, he again would have surprised her, had she been capable of surprise, when, again, instead of an order for sex, he merely asked her to sit down. He even pulled a chair out for her.

He took another chair, put it before her, and sat in front of her.

They faced one another. The pleasure drone’s face was a mask of lovely indifference.

Breathing heavily, the man reached out and placed a small round disk on the sexdoll’s forehead, right above her golden eyes. It was white, and it adhered at once, resting like a blind third eye. The drone didn’t move at all. She had no orders to do so. The man settled back and looked her square on.

He took her hands into his. His face scrunched up in concentration. The white disk activated.

And Alex woke up.

In an instant she remembered who she was, what had happened to her, and when. A flood of thoughts, images, and feelings rushed into her consciousness. Alex saw herself—literally felt herself, recalled the event as if it were happening again—leading her team through the Solarian station on Proxima Five. She recalled the sensations of the slavesuit adhering to her skin, growing moist with her body’s heat.

She remembered Servicing Master Nax, over and over for three horrific months. She remembered her true love, Master Peter, her beloved Master Peter, overlooking her amidst a thousand other drones.

She remembered the Solarian ship. The warehouse. Her many months in the brothel.

She remembered everything.

She remembered . . . she remembered too much.

Too much, too soon.

She remembered walking with Peter arm-in-arm through the sponge-gardens of Lakar Province . . . sucking Crewman Jhal’s cock while tickling his scrotum . . . taken doggy-style by a Betan businessman . . . Edgar falling, a spot of blood appearing on his shirt . . . sneaking aboard a Solarian warship disguised as Llaran patriots [Stop] . . . wrapping her smooth drone legs around her 571st use-Master . . . fucking use-Master 332 . . . [Please stop] emerging from the ruins of Ulysses City and seeing both gorgeous suns in the sky . . . playing chess with Alisa . . . [I can’t take it] the pieces were a thousand years old and predated the Solarian reign . . . [It’s too much, too fast] use-Master 762’s deliciously thick shaft penetrating her lowly drone cunt . . . more, more, more. [I’m going to go insane!!]

The memories were flying through her mind at what felt like breakneck speed, as if the words and pictures, and the hundreds of emotions attached to them, were carried along by hurricane winds. Alex was inundated. She remembered everything. Everything, from the obscene wetness of Solarian Crewman Gharn’s cum drying on her belly [Day 15 of her life as a drone] to Crewman Eagon’s cum drying on her face in a ship’s corridor [Day 32]. She remembered all the sex, all the time, happening again as if for the first time. “It’s my nativity day. I want you two to make this special.”

Alex remembered the words, she remembered the acts, she remembered the thoughts and orders in her head as she performed them, all of them, and all simultaneously. There was no transition between her memories. There was no sense of linear time, no discrete start, duration, or ending to any of it.

Instead, they were all starting Now; they were all happening Now; they were all ending Now.

And as if the memories were not of a sensory deluge, Alex also recalled too Mode, every Command, every Routine embedded in her nervous system by the slavesuit, all the things that made her a sexdoll.

She remembered . . .

. . . use-Master 14’s bushy eyebrows and even bushier thatch of groin hair [Day 213] . . . massaging use-Master 575’s ass and inserting a finger into his rectum [Day 178] . . . heat . . . Peter’s face . . . [Mode 200] . . . a blue stone on top of a black stone on top of a yellow stone . . . the bare mattress beneath her back as she stared unblinkingly at the ceiling . . . The Pink Decade . . . [Mode 164] . . . A voice, “Lie down on the bed and spread your legs, slut” . . . Cerebral Nihilism . . . The Overlapping Blossom . . . the height of summer when both Alpha and Beta shared the sky . . . so hot . . . desire . . . “It’s good that you can’t talk” . . . The Backwards Salute . . . fucking use-Master 1,325 . . . Look at me, Alexandra . . . frottage . . . begging for penetration . . . [Mode 86] . . . a scent of flowers . . . Look at me . . . “I love you, Peter. I will always love you” . . . need . . . the taste of Cynonian nectar . . . the taste of a Master’s cum on her tongue . . . fucking use-Master 1,701 . . . Here, Alexandra Panara . . . firing a blaster at Xenonic mercenaries . . . Here . . . Follow my thoughts, Alexandra Panara . . . Let me guide you . . . fucking use-Master 428 . . . golden eyes . . . Look at me . . . .

[Who?] Alex thought. [Where . . ?]

<Here, Alexandra Panara> <Here> <Follow my thoughts> <Look at me>

. . . The Fish’s Mouth . . . the blue and green surface of Beta Prime . . . <Here, Alexandra Panara> . . . fucking Master Nax . . . <Look at me> . . . <Listen to me> . . . sitting in a chair of real wood . . . <If you don’t look at me> . . . face-sitting . . . <If you don’t listen to me, you will go mad> . . . Master Peter . . . <Here, Alexandra Panara> . . . <Listen> . . . <Look> . . . [Mode 17] . . . <Look> . . . .

[What?]

<Here, Alexandra Panara> <Look at me>

Alex could feel the tide in her mind receding. The roar of her perfect memory slowly subsided, not quite going away but becoming less noticeable, less distracting. <Here, Alexandra Panara> <Look at me> <Look at me> These thoughts were not her thoughts. These words were not her words.

She felt the hands holding her hands for the first time. She, Alexandra Panara, felt them.

<Look at me> <Look at me>

The words she heard were from outside, outside her head, outside her mind. They acted like a series of dams dropped into a river to redistribute their force, shatter their current, and enforce calm. Alex felt her mind become more organized. She felt the disparate and warring pieces of her personality falling into their correct slots. She focused her attention and obeyed the command given her.

Obedience felt natural. This too had its calming effect.

<Look at me> the voice had said, and so she did, finally.

She looked into the face of the man holding her hands. Really looked into his face.

It was a shock, to say the least.

In sudden recognition, she saw that the man holding her hands was Master-Citizen, Governor of the Solarian Empire, Estabo Nax. It was Nax sitting in front of her and holding her hands.

Her first reaction, upon recognizing the man’s unmistakable face, was fear, followed quickly by anger, and then, of course, as always, by desire.

Nax! The miserable creature that had wrought the horrible transformation of her body, mind, and soul.

Him! Him!

[You Bastard!!] Alex screamed inside her mind. [You misbegotten monster!!]

Surprisingly, her Master Nax winced. [He heard me] she realized. [He can hear my thoughts].

The Solarian opened his eyes and met Alex’s. Inside, she stiffened.

Her Master Nax’s eyes were not the same as before. His eyes were now without pupils, totally white.

They were like the eyes of a blind man.

Another memory fell into place, and Alex realized what it was that was holding her hands. Again, surprisingly, the Nax-figure nodded.

<Yes, Alexandra Panara> <I am not Citizen Estabo Nax of the Solarian Expeditionary Force> <I am Commissioner Halan Ovidius III of the Drad Republic> He smiled, stretching jowly facial muscles that were not originally his own. <We met before> <Do not yell> <That is an order>

Alex tried to ignore the sense of well-being that swelled within her. [He’s given me an order] she swooned. She noticed too she had obeyed it. Somehow, she lowered the “volume” of her thoughts.

That she was somehow capable of lowering the volume of her thoughts felt weird. Very weird.

Her thoughts in and of themselves didn’t sound right to her. There was something wrong with them. They sounded artificial, machine-like, like the Commands and Modes of the slavesuit.

Again, the Drad, Master-Commissioner Halan Ovidius III, nodded.

[Are you reading my mind?] Alex thought at him. No, very definitely, her thoughts did not sound the same. They sounded . . . hollow. Echoing. The realization frightened her.

<In a manner of speaking, Alexandra Panara> Master Ovidius “said” back to her.

His lips did not move. The Nax-smile he wore did not change.

<Telepathy is a myth, if you mean a supernatural exchange of thoughts> <What you and I are experiencing is a neural pathway connection>

He raised one hand and tapped it against Nax’s pale and balding temple.

<A device implanted inside this shell’s skull is translating my neuroelectric impulses and sending them to the responder unit I placed on your forehead, and vice versa> <In this manner, we can communicate on a direct, non-verbal level>

An array of questions came to Alex, from the mundane to the blisteringly detailed. The one that surfaced most prominently was the simplest. [Why?]

Master Ovidius did not answer. He stood up in his Nax-body, his “shell,” and ordered Alex to do the same. [Yes, Master]. She complied without hesitation. Although she had her mind and memory back, albeit strange and artificial, she had no more control over her drone body than she had ever had.

“Lie down on the bed,” Master Ovidius ordered, speaking out loud. It both was and wasn’t Nax’s voice. The basic sound was the same, but the Solarian accent was gone. In its place, Alex thought she could discern the solemn inflection characteristic of the Nova-Latinate nobles of Bungula Secundus, the second planet of Alpha Centauri proper. Alex complied. She lay on her back staring upwards.

<You have a good ear, Baroness Panara> the Drad “thought” at her. <But then I am not surprised> <You were a most intelligent, most capable young lady before your transformation> <And, of course, your drone hearing is superb> He sat down on the bed next to her. <I am counting on both of those qualities>

He patted Alex’s slick, pink leg. <I’m going to use you now>

“Prepare yourself,” he added, speaking.

Alex’s sexual programming triggered. [Activate Pre-Seduction Mode] she thought. [Awaiting Orders]. The Drad climbed atop her. Her sensors interpreted her use-Master’s position and recalled the appropriate style. [Mode 23: Missionary/Blossoming Flower]. Alex lifted her hips. She arched her back and spread her legs. She received him totally, and he began to take her, equally as totally.

His hands moved to caress her breasts. Her hips writhed against his. He entered her with ease, and she clutched at him, drawing him in deeper. As her mouth worked against his face and neck, Alex’s user thrust in and out like a slow piston. His strokes were long and patient, almost as if he were trying deliberately to bring her an equal pleasure to his own. It was a new experience for the pleasure drone.

Her movements were guided by his. His weight pinned her down, controlling her. He set the pace.

[Master!] she screamed inside, feeling the cusp of her latest orgasm. [Please, Master]. [Please!]

She could tell it wasn’t the same Nax inside her. The Drad aristocrat now inhabiting his body had greater restraint, greater patience. His strokes were deeper, more fulfilling. He exerted himself more. The rhythms of his fucking, in other words, were entirely different. The original Master Nax, like most of the Solarians Alex had entertained with her body, liked to have things done to him. He liked being pleasured, stroked, sucked. The Drad, on the other hand, may have been using his pleasure drone, but he wasn’t in the slightest way being used by her. He didn’t receive; he took, over and over until Alex was in a frenzy of burning need. He rode her like an animal, and when she came, she cried like one.

[Eeeeeeeeeeeee].

The muted mental noise echoed in her plastic skull, like the sound from a malfunctioning machine.

The cock withdrew from Alex slowly. Eventually, Master Ovidius sloughed off of her.

“That was eminently satisfactory,” the Drad said. He still held her within his arms, but they were now lying side-by-side facing one another. Alex’s bountiful drone breasts pressed into his chest.

[Thank you, Master] she projected. The peculiarity of her situation was more than a little overwhelming. Not only was she able to communicate again after more than a year of silence, she was doing it through a means that was so close to magic it practically deserved the title. Coupled with the programmed fulfillment of being found ‘satisfactory,’ the afterglow of her completed use, and the rising fever within her to be used again, Alex’s combination of emotions were as much confusing as they were extreme.

<Your personality hasn’t affected your automatic responses in the slightest> <They are well within the norms for a pleasure drone> His blank white eyes stared into her equally blank golden ones. He groped her pussy. His hands cupped her warm wetness, fingering forcefully, masterfully.

[Oh, please, please] Alex thought/projected. [Oh, please, Master]. [Use me again, Master].

“This is rather enjoyable,” the Drad spoke. “I’ve never had a pleasure drone capable of responding to me in this way. I don’t think anyone has before. Your ‘Master’ Nax didn’t know what he had.”

Despite her heat, Alex could not resist asking. [What happened to my Master Nax?] If she could have blushed, she would have. Nax was Master Nax in her drone thoughts, just as Peter was Master Peter, and this repellant, body-stealing Drad was Master Ovidius. She could not think otherwise.

And, blast it all, this Master Ovidius knew it. He could read her mind.

Alex heard his amused voice through their shared link. <Citizen Nax is, alas, no more> The pleasure drone felt both elation and sadness at this news, both approval and a desperate longing for him again.

She had hated her Master Nax, yet she still wanted his cock back inside her.

<I will oblige you, Baroness> Master Ovidius “said.” <Shortly after dropping you off on that asteroid, Nax’s ship was intercepted by a Sovereignty patrol> <Amazingly, he survived the encounter, though barely> Such a report really was amazing. Space battles did not often leave survivors. The weapons used were too deadly, the vessels and their crews too vulnerable. Surprise was the deciding factor in most ship-to-ship battles. If the losing combatant could slip into a null-zone, he would escape. If he could not, he was ninety-nine times out of a hundred totally destroyed.

Master Ovidius nodded. He pressed into Alex even more so, again increasing her desire, almost enough that she couldn’t follow what he projected next.

<He sought medical treatment on Bungula Secundus, as well as sanctuary, thinking that we might give it to him> <He was mistaken> <We of the Drad may be sympathetic to the Solarians, but not that sympathetic> <We harvested him from his shell, interrogated him, and, once we had extracted everything of value, incinerated him> Master Ovidius pressed his stolen Nax-cock against Alex’s thighs. <The shell, as you can see, we repaired>

[Why?] Alex somehow asked a second time. [For what purpose, besides my torture?]

“Ahh, but Baroness Panara,” Master Ovidius said with Nax’s voice, “you are mistaken. We of the Drad care nothing about you.” He squeezed her tits, and she writhed like an eel in helpless ecstasy.

[Then why?] she asked when she could think again. [Why, Master?] His hands continued to explore her plastic-smooth curves, and it was all she could do to keep her thoughts focused on his answer.

<Nax didn’t know what he created when he created you> <By giving you that chemical therapy before slipping you inside a slavesuit, he produced something that, to the best of our knowledge, has never existed before: a pleasure drone with a personality and long-term memory>

Master Ovidius slowly began to penetrate her again. Alex’s heat rose proportionately.

<It’s the memory we’re most interested in, of course>

[But what can I tell you that you don’t already know?]

“Nothing,” he whispered in Alex’s drone ear. “Absolutely nothing.”

<It is what you don’t know yet that is important> Both answers came nearly simultaneously. The Drad’s control over his own thoughts was incredible. <And the task that you will be assigned>

[I don’t understand].

Master Ovidius smiled a Nax-smile and pulled Alex beneath him again. He was weighty, and, as he sank deeper inside her, the drone caught a hint of distaste through their link. <I so hate “used” shells>

When a Drad of Bungula Secundus, the independent second planet of Alpha, referred to him or herself or others, they referred to the person’s brain rather than the whole person. To the Cerebral Nihilists, the brain was the person. A body was just the vehicle someone walked around in, and the typical Drad possessed several, most custom designed through precise cloning and chemiprocessor technologies.

Alex remembered—she could remember now, without any confusing overlap—her first and only trip to the Drad Republic. She had seen the Drads as they saw themselves: brains, disembodied brains, brains dyed a sickening vomity green through the transplant fluid permeating their cells. Her F.C.A. contact in the Republic’s Foreign Commission had been a nice enough fellow, but Alex had still felt uncomfortable in his/her/its company, especially after the obligatory tour through a Drad aesthetics complex. She had seen the “empty” shells hanging corpse-like in their rows. She had witnessed firsthand a surgeon-machine scoop a Drad brain out of one body and put it in another, like an obscenely swollen seed pod. She had had the trouble adjusting her thoughts and language in diplomatic politeness to her host, taking into account his/her/its various changes, most often of gender but occasionally of species as well.

Alex didn’t like the Drads. They weren’t hedonists like the Solarians, but they were almost as decadent.

<Decadence, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, Baroness Panara> Master Ovidius projected, still obviously eavesdropping on her recollections. <The Solarians are barbarians for all their faux sophistication> <Their tastes are crude whereas ours show refinement>

He touched himself with one hand and used the other to gesticulate.

<They are gourmands> <We are gourmets>

[You’re monsters, both of you] Alex thought/projected. In response, he put his Nax-paws to her head and lifted her lips to his. [Oh, Master . . Master!] [That feels so good!]

<Yes> <I know> He kissed her, and she responded with helpless fervor, clutching and stroking his pale back and neck. <You cannot resist> <You’re nothing but a helpless pleasure drone, and that is what makes you the perfect espionage agent>

Alex managed a small interrogatory even in the face of her ongoing pleasure use. [?]

<Yes> <You are going to be a spy for us, Baroness> <You will notice I still call you Baroness> <You will notice I come to you in this Nax’s flabby shell> He caressed her breasts. Their hips were joined together. <Their purpose is to force you to recollect your identity so that we may use it to our advantage>

[I . . I don’t understand, Master]. Oh, his touch felt so good. He was using her, he was using her!

The Drad’s thoughts leaked into hers as they coupled.

<Were it not for her gnat’s memory and limited attention span, you must admit, Baroness, a pleasure drone would make an excellent spy> <Everybody uses them> <Nobody notices them>

She felt his hands on her, inside her. He stroked and manipulated her clit. She squirmed, and he penetrated deeply, a third time. Their legs and arms intertwined every much as their thoughts did.

<They are as functional as furniture and as easily unnoticeable> <This is, of course, deliberate> <The Solarians intentionally limit their mental prowess> <They are aware of the security danger> <While it is true a pleasure drone has a vast catalog of sexual techniques at her disposal, and a capacity to learn more and keep track of her owner’s preferences, in practice she is no more than an automaton> <Her conscious mind is asleep forever>

He would push in, withdraw, caress, then penetrate once more. His sexplay was deliberate. In a way, it was every bit as mechanical as Alex’s. [You’re testing me, aren’t you, Master?] [You’re testing my responsiveness]. A surge of raw pleasure strummed along her drone chemiprocessors.

“Yes,” the Drad whispered in her ear, emotionlessly. His projected thoughts, almost entirely divorced from his body, went on uninterrupted.

<A drone is a rote machine, nothing more> <The Solarians could as easily slip slavesuits over monkeys or plants and achieve the same result, but then they would not get their satisfaction in seeing an otherwise intelligent human being reduced to a sexdoll, would they?>

He ejaculated inside her. Alex’s drone body climaxed at the same time, as per her programming.

[Master, oh, Master!] [Master!!] His hands played at her, bringing forth yet another monstrous climax, then another, one after the other, until Alex’s mind felt utterly blown.

Still, her body reacted on automatically.

Crushing ecstasy flooded her sensors, blinding light seemed to flash behind her golden eyes, the universe itself trembled, and yet Alex could not lose attention to what was going on around her, inside her. Her reawakened awareness paid attention despite everything. She found she couldn’t not pay attention.

She could have replayed their psychic conversation over and over, verbatim.

<Nax was headed toward a sentence of death even before that debacle at Proxima Five> Alex’s use-Master declared in her mind, when he was through. <He developed a means to subvert the entire pleasure drone industry> <He could make them self-aware>

Unable not to, Alex noted the Drad’s internal amusement. <Imagine the horror!> <The Solarians would never be able to talk freely before their plastioid sluts again!>

Seemingly unfazed by her series of drone climaxes, Alex moved about on the bed and took the Drad’s cock in her mouth and attended to it, sucking and tickling. [Activate Post-Coitus Mode], her exhausted mind thought. She wanted nothing more than rest. She wanted to drink in her momentary satisfaction. Nonetheless, somewhere inside her, dazed and overcome, Alex listened and understood.

It came to her.

[This is what Master is testing] she realized. [You’re just playing with me].

All use-Masters played with their pleasure drones, but few quite so deliberately, or cold-bloodedly.

<Yes>

He spasmed inside her, flooding Alex’s mouth. Sperm was her elixir. She climaxed explosively, again, and her animalistic grunts and sighs of pleasure echoed within the neural link the two of them shared.

Master Ovidius disengaged. The pleasure drone immediately pulled herself around and began licking at his depleted cock, cleaning him. Her fiery need for another fuck-use came creeping back inexorably.

Alex could tell her Master was amused both by his expression and their mental link.

“Of course, he had to die,” he said out loud. “Now only we of the Drad possess this invaluable secret.”

[What are you going to do with me, Master?] she projected. The cum was gone. Her encoding asserted itself. Alex got up and stood beside the bed and gazed down upon the false Citizen Nax.

He lounged there piggishly. Aside from his dead white eyes, he suddenly looked like the real thing.

“You’re leaving the brothel, Baroness Panara,” he said. He scratched himself crudely, again reminding Alex of the real Master Nax. “I’ve arranged everything, from locating you in the warehouse, selling you to Torim, and now purchasing you for a private owner, in whose hands you will soon be ensconced.”

[Why a brothel, you bastard?] Something revolted inside her. [Output Error]. [Error. Error. Error]. Her programming did not like the word “bastard.” It was disrespectful toward her Master.

“To provide provenance,” he answered. “To build a cover. Your new owner will never suspect her latest plaything is actually the long-missing Baroness Alexandra zee Panara of Beta Prime.”

[Her?] [You’re selling me to a woman?] Alex had only Serviced a handful of women in the brothel.

She wouldn’t like that. She preferred, as much as she could prefer, to be used by men.

<Yes> the Drad answered in her mind. <And not just any woman> <Her name is Countess Justine zee Xarusha> <Do you recall her, baroness?> Alex felt her Master probe her mind for the answer.

[Justine!] she soundlessly exclaimed. Her reaction inside was enormous. On the outside, Alex merely continued to stare motionlessly. [That godrotting bitch!] Again, an [Error. Error. Error] message distracted her, smothering her outrage. Oh, she knew Justine Xarusha all right! The Countess Xarusha!

She was a vain, harpy-like woman, a typical product of the new Betan aristocracy, who were more concerned with their inherited privileges than they were with their sworn duties to the people and the Sovereign. She was exactly the sort of woman, Alex felt, she herself would have turned out to be had she not been awakened to her responsibilities by Alisa’s murder. Perhaps that was why she disliked her so much. The Countess Xarusha had once had the gall to complain in the Beta Assembly that the Free Centauri Army took all the best workers and left her with nobody to staff her garden parties!

She had never donated so much as a half-credit to the Resistance. F.C.A. Intelligence had never been able to prove willful complicity with the Solarian Governorship, but there had been rumors, not many, but some. It didn’t surprise Alex that Xarusha was the sort of woman who would want to own her own pleasure drone. She was exactly the sort of petty, self-absorbed, self-righteous aristocrat who would.

The thought of being sold to the likes of her was as appalling as being sold back to her Master Nax.

[No!] she begged. [Please, Master]. [Don’t sell me to that woman].

Master Ovidius wore a perfectly Nax sort of expression: smug arrogance and selfish delight.

“It’s already done,” he said. “The currency has already changed hands.”

[I won’t do it]. [I won’t spy for you]. She straight away received an [Error] message for her insolence, but she had to say it. Pleasure drones could not be sick. Nonetheless, Alex felt sick.

He took his time in standing, moving lazily. Alex adjusted her position to remain a respectful distance.

<What you want makes no difference> the Drad thought at her. “Help me dress,” he said out loud at the same time. Alex turned, scanned the room briefly, and went to a closet for the necessary things.

“You will obey perfectly because it is your function to obey,” he said as she helped him with his trousers. “And as you obey, you will likewise observe, because with your awakened mind you will have no choice but to observe. And I will coordinate and collect and control.”

She held his shirt open for him. It was a Solarian fashion, gaudy and loud. Alex wondered how he could walk around like this, when so many people hated the Solarians, and Governor Nax in particular.

“I do so very carefully,” he said, answering her unspoken question. He put his arms through the sleeves, then turned to face her as she went to work with the many zippers.

<Torim and the Pink Decade> he projected. <Tell me>

Alex’s recollection was flawless, perfect. She didn’t even need to project her thoughts per se. The images just flashed into her mind mechanically, and Master Ovidius “read” them as they unfolded.

“He only got to seven,” he said a second later. “How disappointing. I thought he would at least achieve eight or nine. And he didn’t use you again that whole day.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “He should exercise his shell more, or get a new one.” Alex completed the many intricate fastenings.

The Drad thought other inquiries at her as she continued to dress him: about her patrons in the brothel, about what she did on board the Solarian vessel, about her life prior to her drone transformation. If it occurred before the slaveskin went on her, the memory was hazy, a little cloudy, as if seen through a frosted glass. If it happened afterwards, after her drone transformation, the recollection was crystal clear, as detailed as any chemiprocessor memory circuit could make it. Her thoughts and feelings unfolded as easily from her roused consciousness as if he were reading them from an antique scroll.

When she was finished, so he was he. “Eminently satisfactory,” he said and patted her naked breasts.

The pleasure! The thrill of being fondled! [Oh, Master]. [Thank you, Master].

She hated herself. She couldn’t help her feelings.

“Stand here,” he ordered. He went to the closet and picked up a large synleather pouch.

“There’s just one more test, baroness,” he said coming back. “You are doing quite well. You are pleasing me.”

[It is a pleasure to Service you, my Master] she projected, despising the servile contentment his praise gave her. [I exist solely to Serve, Master].

“That is good,” her Master said. “That is very good. And now, it will please me more if you will take this blaster pistol . . .” and he handed her the directed-energy weapon from the pouch, “. . and discharge it forthwith into my chest, killing me.”

He stood back near the bed to give her the necessary room.

[Error. Error. Error] Alex thought as her hands closed around the handgrip. [Fatal Error. Fatal Error. Fatal Error]. [Violation. Violation. Violation]. An assortment of contrary Modes and Routines flashed through her mind. Nonetheless, prompted by the Command her Master had given her (“It will please me . . . take this blaster pistol . . . discharge it . . . killing me.”), she aimed and fired.

Alex noted the weapon’s setting as she fired. It was set to its highest level.

A bolt of superheated plasma spat from the muzzle and struck the Drad aristocrat dead on.

Instead of turning into the customary pillar of flame, however, Master Ovidius merely grunted as the crackling discharge bounced off of his stolen Nax body. His shirt blackened. He stumbled, lost his balance, and fell softly to the bed. He hissed slightly, as if only in mild pain.

Then he smiled and stood up again, smoke rising from his cindered chest.

He crossed the room and took the pistol from Alex’s unresisting hand.

“Eminently satisfactory,” he said. “Any other pleasure drone in the universe would have froze where she stood, unable to do a thing. But you followed my command as if it were any other.”

<I’m proud of you> he projected.

Alex shivered inside. She felt shaken to the very core. [The pistol . . ?]

“I tinkered with the power setting. It was nearly drained.” He looked down at the huge scorch mark on his front and shrugged. A low-powered blast or not, the result had still been a large and painful looking burn. Drads treated their “shells” carelessly sometimes. Since they thought of them as nothing more than temporary vehicles, damaging them—even inflicting mortal injuries to them on occasion—was not considered a major thing. He checked the blaster, then tossed it carelessly on the bed.

“But you had no way to know that, did you? For all you knew, you could have killed me. At the very least, you would have, and, in fact, did, cause me injury. At my command, you violated the most basic drone protocol. You inflicted harm on your master. How do you feel, baroness?”

[Sick, Master] she thought. [I feel . . . sick]. [Full of errors].

He gripped her by the arms. Sexual warmth immediately filled her. She wanted his penis inside her.

<And yet you still respond as the passionate doll you are> the Drad projected. He looked her up and down, probing with his mind. She could feel his probing. <You are undamaged> he concluded.

[What could have happened to me?] she asked. [Could that have hurt me . . . damaged me?]

<Yes> he replied guilelessly. <Pleasure drones are counterprogrammed for violence in all forms> <The command might very well have fatally and irreversibly frozen your chemiprocessors>

[You son of a . . . Error. Error. Error]. She wilted mentally, unable to continue the curse.

“Truly, you are unique, Baroness Panara,” Master Ovidius said to her, releasing her. Her desire for him was almost as painful as the [Error] messages fading into the background of her thoughts. “Let this thought be a comfort to you. Of all the pleasure drones in existence, only you can think, only you can spy, and only you can cause the death of another.” He clapped his pudgy Nax hands. “Bravo!”

[Are you sending me to kill someone?] she asked. She tried to phrase the tone of her thought as a demand, but the artificiality of her mental processing and her programmed servility prevented her. The question sounded like what it was, a begging plea. [Are you sending me to kill Justine Xarusha?]

He looked honestly puzzled. “Why would I send you to kill that woman? She’s meaningless to us.”

[Then who?]

“You’re going to spy in her household. And, if and when we of the Drad determine the time is right, if it should serve our purpose, you will be on hand to assassinate her betrothed.”

[Justine is getting married?] [Who?] [Who is she marrying?] [Please, Master, tell me!]

Master Ovidius went to a countertop. He picked up a familiar-looking device, a universal control wand. “I think that’s enough. I need to perform a physical check of your synaptic relays now.”

He pointed the wand toward her.

Horror and dismay filled Alex. Bad enough that she was a pleasure drone, but now she was being turned into yet another kind of tool, a worse one, a weapon.

She had killed before, many times, but not like this. Never like this.

[Tell me!!] [Tell me who you’re sending me to kill!]

But the Drad operative ignored her.

Click. The familiar quiver passed through her head.

All became darkness.

. . . to be continued