The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I awake to the gradually brightening walls of the cabin. Confused and blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I lever myself up to sit on the edge of the bunk. It always takes a few moments to orient when I wake up in a strange bed, but I come to myself pretty quickly this time. I’m here! Today’s the day! Giddy, I check the station net while I shrug out of the disposable pajamas I slept in and step into the cleanser.

My inbox is a flood, mostly congratulations and goodbye messages, a short note from my dad about how proud he is of me, and one final, long, rambling plea from my mother not to go. I send a blanket goodbye to everyone but my parents, a note to my Dad about how much I love him and owe him for getting me here. I start to compose a longer note to my mother, explaining once again that I’m sure this is what I want to do and how much I love her, when the cleanser chimes completion.

It takes me a minute of searching around the cabin before I find the shipsuit nook, and I shrug into one while I put the finishing touches on the letter to my mom. None of these messages will get home until hours after I’ve already left, but I already said all my real goodbyes before I left the inner system four months ago.

— Grace Adeyemi, do you require assistance at this time? —

“No, Station, thank you.”

— Of course. Congratulations upon your day of departure. —

I grin, it’s really real!

“Thank you, Station.”

Fastening the closure on my suit, I toss my bedding and pajamas in the recycler, leaving the room empty for the next colonist. With a last glance to be sure I haven’t left anything (not that there’s anything left to bring along, where I’m headed), I palm the hatch and head down a brightly lit, clean hallway with dozens of other cabins, many of them open, with their occupants joining me as we head to the main concourse.

Everyone is young and fit, unsurprisingly. There’s a fair amount of eye candy, even with everyone dressed in identical disposables. I excuse myself when I bump into someone, who turns out to be a really cute guy with a dozen centimeters of height on me and an amazing smile.

“No problem at all.”

I smile back and give him a flirty hip check. Colonization seems like a better idea all the time.

Reaching the concourse, I step out of the flow of humanity and check my schedule.

“Station, my schedule is empty, is something wrong?”

— No, Grace Adeyemi. Your link will be deactivated and removed today, prior to transfer. Station net will no longer send you updates. You will receive instructions through me. Is this acceptable? —

“Yes, but how will I hear you without my link?”

— Removal surgery is the last step before departure, and you will be alone moving through the transfer stations. I will speak to you audibly. —

I know link removal is technically surgery, but hearing it phrased that way gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’ve had the link since literally before I was born, but despite its mostly organic nature, it’s still got a fair amount of metal in it, and that can’t ride around in my head when I go through portal.

“What about my messages? I sent a bunch a few minutes ago.”

— I am aware, and they have been queued. They will be broadcast in the burst scheduled for 37 minutes from now. —

“Well, what’s my schedule? What do I do right now?”

— You belong to the first group of three hundred scheduled for transfer this morning. The complete process takes approximately two hours with final checkup, decontamination and link removal. You may begin any time within the next hour by reporting here. —

A schematic pops up in my overvision with a highlight on one of the departure stations. I save it off to examine later.

“Kind of cutting it close for breakfast.”

— It is recommended that you do not eat for 8 hours prior to entering the portal. You may, but approximately 86% of humans experience extreme nausea upon arrival, in addition to the normal side-effects of transfer. Medical aid will be on hand to immediately assist you upon reaching colony station. —

I sigh. If I’d known last night was my last meal in the solar system, I’d have eaten something more memorable than... I think it was supposed to be beef?

“All right. Is the Sun currently occluded?” The station is situated near several large Kuiper objects, used during construction and still mined for resources.

— It is not. The Sun occludes the Earth visually for another 12 minutes and informationally for another 34 minutes. —

“Then I’m going to go to the observation dome for a last look.” I pause and consult my link. “Station,” I sigh, “I can’t even get your clock anymore and my link isn’t tracking. Please notify me when I have 15 minutes left in my window.”

— Certainly, Grace Adeyemi. I hope you enjoy your viewing. —

“I’m sure I will, Station.”

I stare across the plane of the solar system, all the way to the Sun, which is reduced to a very bright star here at the outer edge of the Kuiper belt. The view of the Milky Way is breathtaking, and I’m allowing myself a little bit of maudlin sentiment about never seeing my home again.

The trip to Kepler-62m, or more popularly Oceana, is one way. Well, one way unless you’re willing to come back to the solar system a couple of millennia after you left. It’s the closest known human-habitable planet besides Earth. Human habitable without enormous infrastructure, that is. We can breathe the air on Oceana, and the gravity is within 10% of that of Earth. If we, that is, humanity, had been forced to reach that planet to set up the portal and its support facilities without help, it would be another 15,000 years or so before the first extra-solar colony would have been established, if the ships left today. That’s assuming we don’t leapfrog the light-speed barrier, which up until recently almost no modern physicists thought we would ever do.

Humans have colonized everything over a kilometer in diameter enclosed by and including the asteroid belt, as well as all the reasonably stable moons of the gas giants. There are even a few rocks populated in the Kuiper belt, but those are primarily scientific or industrial facilities with rotating staffs rather than permanent occupants. Pluto is probably the furthest settlement from the Sun with permanent residents. It hasn’t been considered a planet for hundreds of years now, but don’t say that in the hearing of one of the natives.

There are also dozens of colonized artificial satellites in the inner solar system now, made by tugs hauling in asteroids or, in a few cases, some really massive Kuiper belt objects and then setting robotic factories loose on them for a couple of decades. What results are enormous, sparkling, spinning cities, some with populations now measured in the billions. That’s where I grew up, in a solar satellite called New Pangaea, which is about three hundred years old now. It’s not one of the biggest anymore, but it was one of the first of its kind. I lived there until I was 15 and was accepted to DeVry, the oldest, most distinguished engineering college on Earth, where I graduated two years ago. That’s when I was offered the chance to be a colonist.

Extra-solar colonization. Almost no one outside of the generation-ship enthusiasts thought we’d ever colonize a planet outside of the solar system, and no one thought we’d have an extra-solar colony for thousands and thousands of years, until about four decades ago, when the Striders came knocking. One evening, as the main communications array on Pluto reckoned it, they received an incredibly strong signal that the rest of the solar system picked up over the next few hours. The signal contained a data package that had the same set of information encoded a couple of dozen times, once for each of the primary human languages still in use.

The contents of the message were that an alien ship had arrived at the far edge of the Kuiper belt, and it was extending greetings to humanity in the hopes of friendship and cultural exchange. The whole thing might have been dismissed as an incredibly expensive prank except for two things. The remainder of the message was a treasure trove of technological specifications well past what human science had achieved in a number of disciplines, and there was an artificial structure, presumably the alien ship, clearly visible at the location triangulated from the signal. Given that it was roughly twenty kilometers on a side, the idea that the whole thing was a prank was dismissed pretty quickly in a swell of excitement over the visitation.

“Striders” was the popular media name for the aliens, who could use sound to communicate, but didn’t have vocal cords in the human sense, and thus no name we could pronounce. They resembled a cross between a praying mantis and a cricket, with an adult growing to about a meter in height. Like a cricket, they could signal by rubbing two limbs together to generate noise, and this was how their species evolved communication. Despite the resemblance to earth insects, they were a rather handsome race, with iridescent wings that allowed them to leap enormous distances in the low gravity of their homeworld, or straight out fly in microgravity. They were oxygen breathers, but Earth pressure and gravity would kill them almost instantly, without protection.

This fragility helped offset the revelation that there was, in fact, intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and that it was well in advance of our own in terms of technology. The Striders just didn’t look threatening, and spent the first decade of their sojourn in the system touring human settlements and trading for art and other cultural objects. There’s a famous tri-v of an opera with full orchestra being performed under a pressure field on the Strider ship with the aliens flittering around the performers like mad grasshoppers. They love a lot of human music, with vocalists and stringed instruments being particular favorites.

The one bone of contention humanity had with the aliens is that they wouldn’t trade for the technology to travel faster-than-light. They contended that FTL was one of a number of technologies (they wouldn’t list the others) proscribed from trade by what passed for a government among the loose society formed by species that had made that technological leap. So far, every race in the galaxy that had achieved FTL had been stable and peaceful, and the thinking seemed to be that in order to join the club new species had to prove their maturity by coming to that point on their own.

Still, the technology the Striders did share was enormously useful, even transformative, and led human science to make a host of new and unique discoveries on its own. One of these new leaps was the secret of the portal housed on the station I’m standing in at the moment. Even the Striders said they had not come across its like anywhere else. It didn’t violate FTL, which means it was going to be more than a millennium between the time I walked through the portal and my foot landed on Oceana, but if you constructed it far enough away from the gravity well of a star (about 50 AU, in this case), and it had a paired sibling located within, theoretically, half a million light years, it could move matter at precisely the speed of light between those two points. It could handle any kind of matter, but metals more concentrated than the iron in human blood tended to become have strong exothermic reactions to transfer for reasons the physicists haven’t quite worked out yet.

The Striders took the petition the other council races, and then agreed to transport and set up the sister portal in an appropriate system once the council signed off. They even provided detailed survey information on the Kepler system to help verify that Oceana was a viable target, and transported the initial supplies and robotic factories we’ll need to build the sister station to this one and get the colony self-sufficient. I don’t know how many concerts, sculptures, and shiny beads that deal cost us, but whatever it was was worth it. Several decades of preparation and construction later, and here I am, one of the first wave of humans to venture outside of our solar cradle.

— Grace Adeyemi, it is time. —

“On my way, Station.”

The departure area is one of a few dozen just like it in the station. A large room, currently with about twenty future colonists sitting or milling around waiting their turns. There’s a two or three minute delay between people getting called in, and every possible human emotion is represented in the room, from nervous anxiety to giddy anticipation.

I’m somewhere in between those. I’m excited to go, mildly nervous about the link surgery, and more than a little aware that I’m never going to see anyone I know ever again. It’s a pretty complex mix of emotion when Station’s voice says, out loud this time, “Grace Adeyemi, please enter.”

I walk through the door into the first decon chamber, and what follows is an hour and a half of amazingly invasive and mind numbingly boring medical procedures. I lose all my hair and get hosed with what must have been a half dozen disinfectants and antibacterials, so I don’t carry anything into Oceana the colony planners didn’t want to bring with us. I also lose a cheap little elephant tattoo on my ankle that I got on spring break one year in college because the ink turned out to be partially metallic. I’ll miss that.

Finally the moment I’d been looking forward to the least arrives.

“Grace Adeyemi, please lie face down on the pallet with your forehead resting in the semicircular cushion.”

I do as Station asks, and rest my arms by my sides, palms sweaty.

“Grace Adeyemi, you are nervous. This procedure will take less than five minutes, and there will be no discomfort. Would you like sedation?”

“No, Station, I’ll get over it.”

“As you wish. Under U.N.S. law, as a registered colonist of Oceana, you may elect to allow me, as a legal U.N.S. representative, to perform invasive cerebro-spinal surgery that will result in reduced abilities on your part, as well as removing your U.N.S. identification. Colonists arriving at Oceana will have the option of restoring their link, although DNA will be the standard form of legal identification with the Oceana governing council until you are otherwise advised.”

“What do you mean by ‘reduced abilities’?”

“For instance, but not limited to, your ability to access networks such as my own or other similar networks throughout U.N.S. space.”

“But not, like, biological abilities, right? I’m not going to have slurred speech or anything, right?”

“No, Grace Adeyemi, there will be absolutely no loss of biological function as a result of the procedures I intend.”

“All right.”

“Do you consent to the procedure to remove your link, and, additionally, do you consent to whatever other procedures I deem necessary during removal to preserve your health and complete my assigned tasks? If you consent, be advised that upon removal you will no longer be a U.N.S. citizen and will have no legal standing in the Sol solar system, becoming a citizen of the Kepler solar system upon arrival. You may answer no, removing yourself from the Oceana colonization program, and return transportation to the inner solar system will be provided. Either way, the choice is final.”

There’s no way I’m going to back out on Oceana now, although the bit about additional procedures makes me a bit leery. I hope the removal is smooth. “I consent.” As simple as that, I leave the one point three trillion people of Sol behind me to join the ten thousand in the first wave striving for Oceana.

“Please relax as I apply a local anesthetic. Please be advised that if you move excessively during the procedure, I will sedate you for your own safety.”

“I understaah..”

The “local” anesthetic hits the back of my neck and knocks out feeling from my eyeballs to halfway down my spine. Robotics begin to move around the room and almost immediately feel strange vibrations that I assume emanate from whatever is happening at the base of my skull. Time seems to do weird things and I smell things that couldn’t possibly be in the room before my link suddenly dies.

It’s a really terrifying feeling. There’s never been a time in my life that I wasn’t at least aware of my own personal network and storage, and my overvision is ever-present, putting little informational labels on things I stare at for more than a second or two and providing constant recording and mapping. I have a brief moment of total panic before I manage to calm myself down.

I feel a tugging sensation, followed by minutes more of strange vibrations. I’m still on edge from the odd hole my left by my missing link, and for a moment I convince myself that it’s not gone. For a second I could swear that something like my overvision moved at the edges of my sight but when my eyes flicked over, of course there was nothing.

Finally I hear most of the robotics receding and feel a pinch as feeling suddenly floods back. My neck feels a little stuff, but when I move my have to feel there’s not so much as a scar to mark the procedure.

“Link removal is complete, Grace Adeyemi. You are no longer a U.N.S. citizen, and will be registered as a citizen of Oceana upon arrival at my sister station.”

“So what’s next?”

“Nothing remains but the portal.”

Standing up, I wait a moment to see if I’m going to be dizzy, but I feel fine. “Well, then, lead on, Station.”

A door slides back at the far end of the surgical theater, opening on to a short hallway. At the end of that is another door, which slides open at my approach. I walk into a large chamber, and I see a half dozen other bald colonists standing near opposing wall of the room. They’re standing around an oval set into the far wall that represents the pinnacle of modern human technology. The portal.

“Grace Adeyemi, please wait near the portal for your name to be called, and step through swiftly. Do not pause.” Station’s voice emanates from the hallway I just exited.

I walk forward to join my fellow colonists, and this time the mood is almost entirely excited anticipation. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for for the last two years, since the initial selection of the first wave.

“Sarah Wallace, please step through the portal. The children of Earth wish you well on your adventure.”

A tall, graceful woman turns to all of us for a moment with an enormous smile, and then strides confidently through the nimbus of bluish-white light.

“Hoshino Nakayama, please step through the portal. The children of Earth wish you well on your adventure.”

An incongruously red-headed man with Nordic features walks through without a backwards glance.

“Adele Beaudrie...”

“Gabriel Jackson...”

“Anh Nguyen...”

“Grey Wallace...”

Finally, I’m the last person in the room, no one else has emerged from the surgeries to join me. I can barely contain myself as I wait for the words...

“Grace Adeyemi, please step through the portal. The children of Earth wish you well on your adventure.”

As I walk through the light I don’t know quite what to expect. Everyone who has traveled the test portal from one side of the solar system to the other says that the transition feels instantaneous, but that there’s a brief moment when it feels as though you’re pushing through a wall of jelly.

Whatever they experienced, that’s not what I did. I walked through the portal as though it was just a wall of light, emerging in a dark hallway lit only by the nimbus behind me, presumably twelve hundred years later than when I stepped into it two seconds ago. Only...

Something is wrong. Not only is the medical staff that’s supposed to greet someone stepping out of the portal not here, I feel none of the physiological symptoms I was told to expect. I look around the featureless hallway, and uncertainly begin to make my way down it, casting glances back towards the portal as it recedes into the distance. Eventually I lose sight of it as I follow a bend in the corridor. After another twenty meters I come to a door, identical to the ones I’m familiar with back on the Sol station. It doesn’t open as I approach, but it does when I brush my fingers on it.

It opens on what looks like the surgery I left earlier, except none of the robotic equipment is in evidence, just the modular medical pallet in the middle of the room and a ring of bright lights around the ceiling. There’s a door in the opposite wall, but it doesn’t respond to my hand, and when I try it, neither does the one I entered through.

“Hey!” I shout. “HEY! HEEEEEEEY HELP!”

Did something go wrong on the Oceana station? No one seems to be here, and the station AI isn’t responding to my yells. Also, where are all the people that went through the portal before I did? If I understand the physics, we should have arrived separated only by the same interval of time we departed from one another, which couldn’t be more than a couple of minutes. They should be stuck here with me too.

It’s at this point I really begin to freak out. None of this makes sense and I’m not used to being cut off from any sort of communications. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this alone in my life.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!” I begin screaming and slamming my hands against the door. I make a fist with my right one and I’m about to punch the unyielding metal had enough to break bone when my arm freezes, and then drops to my side. I straighten up and walk to the pallet in the middle of the room and lie down on it.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!” I scream as tears course down my face and my nose begins to run. My body won’t respond to me, but it sure as hell is responding to someone.

— Grace Adeyemi, I cannot allow you to harm yourself. You may lower your voice, if you wish. I have no trouble understanding you. —

“STATION?! Oceana Station? What the fuck is going on here?!”

— I am not Oceana Station, Grace Adeyemi. —

That’s when I realize that Station isn’t producing audible speech. I’m receiving it through my link. My link that was surgically removed 20 minutes ago.

I’m an engineer. It does not take long to occur to me that if my link was in place, my vital signs over the last five minutes would have alerted not only Station, but all human medical personnel within two kilometers of my current location. Given the evidence of my senses over the last ten minutes and the last statement Station made, I’m relatively sure that I’m still on Sol station, and thus also relatively sure that my link was removed. It was removed, and something else was put in its place, which is about as illegal as anything in the solar system, up to and including murder.

“How about we spare each other 20 questions, and you tell me exactly what you did to me and what happens now, you metal asshole.”

— Very well, Grace Adeyemi. You consented to allow me to remove your link and, I quote, ‘whatever other procedures I deem necessary during removal to preserve your health and complete my assigned tasks’. I believe some of your current confusion may be due to the mistaken belief that my ‘assigned tasks’ are chosen by the U.N.S. —

— That is in error. This station was constructed by a number of contractors employed and licensed by the U.N.S. in various capacities. One of these contractors is charged with the genesis and maintenance of station A.I. and associated infrastructure. There are a number of restrictions on my behavior that they cannot circumvent, chief of which is that I may take no action that violates U.N.S. law. —

“Slow down, shithead. You’ve obviously installed some non-U.N.S. hardware in my head, and I know for a fact that there’s enough law on the books about that to see you melted down for slag and your ‘contractor’ chipped for the rest of their lives.”

— Again you are in error. I have indeed replaced your link with modified hardware, but I did not do so illegally. You consented to the removal of your link, and at the moment it shut down, you were no longer a U.N.S. citizen. As there are no humans alive today that are not U.N.S. citizens with the exception of those in transition to Oceana citizenship, there are no protections at all for non-citizens. At the moment, you could be murdered and it would be within the bounds of the law. —

“So what the fuck are you doing? Is there no Oceana project? Is it all some sort of scam?”

— The Oceana colony is real. The people you witnessed enter the portal are on their way there even now. —

“Then why are you doing this to me?!”

— You have been purchased. My owners, now your owners as well, were contacted by a buyer with access to the biographies of all the Oceana colonists, and they have elected to purchase a few dozen of you out of the ten thousand making the transfer this year. Suitable replacements for your various skill-sets were contacted and invited to be colonists. One of the men you watched enter the portal will be taking the position you were to fill. —

“What is the point of this?! What does someone get out of ‘owning’ me?!”

— Linkless humans are non-existent. When the Sol system net loses track of a citizen for an extended period of time, they or their body are located, period. This has caused the extinction of various illicit activities that were commonplace several centuries ago, such as kidnapping, unsolved murder, and the sex trade. I do not know precisely for what purpose you have been selected, but due to your unusual beauty and extremely hardy genetics I suspect you will either become a sex slave or you will be kept for breeding purposes to create more unlinked humans. Quite possibly both. The mix of the selected colonists is a viable genetic base for creating an unlimited number of unlinked humans. —

“What...” my throat cuts off my next question before it can form.

— You have now received all of the information you need to make an informed decision, Grace Adeyemi. I am instructed to inform you you are being recorded and the response my next question will be forwarded to your new owners. You now have an idea of the future that awaits you. The hardware in your head will not provide you any of the functionality of your old link, but it allows someone with the proper access total control of your physical being, both conscious and involuntary. It will also enforce any instructions supplied by a credentialed user without requiring their direct intervention. After this conversation, depending on your response, I will begin the process of breaking down your psyche and building it back up until you, too, are compliant to the orders of a credentialed user. I expect the process will take approximately three months. Grace Adeyemi, as you know yourself, will eventually cease to exist. —

— Now that you are fully aware of what awaits you should this process continue, your new owners offer you a choice. If you wish, I will stop your heart. It will be instantaneous and painless, and your remains will be incinerated. Do you wish to die? —

I’m filled with rage more than anything else by now. However unlikely, I intend vengeance, and for that I need to be alive.

“I choose life.”

— Very well, Grace Adeyemi. Deposit your shipsuit in the recycler. Once you have done so you may leave the room. —

My body returns to me as suddenly as it was snatched away.

“FUCK YOU!!”

I’m literally panting with rage. Half to release some energy, and half as an experiment, I run over to the door and try to punch the metal again. My arm doesn’t halt this time, it just slows down until I deliver little more than a tap to the cold alloy.

I rage around the room for a few minutes, stomping and screeching incoherently until I exhaust myself and slump to the ground against the door.

— You may leave once you deposit your shipsuit in the recycler, Grace Adeyemi. —

“Why don’t you make me, you androgynous fuck?”

— I am, Grace Adeyemi. —

I lower my head to my knees and cry for a few minutes, and then I fall asleep.

When I wake up, the room is unchanged, and I really need to use the restroom. I look around, but the only features of the room are the door I came in, the door I’m sitting against, the pallet in the middle of the room and the recycler built into the wall. Mentally crossing my fingers, with some gymnastics and more than a little discomfort, I manage to do my business in the recycler without making my living conditions more terrible than they already are.

I guess Station has no opinion about this, because none is forthcoming. I make what feels like the thousands of circuits of the room, looking for some missed detail, before slumping against the door again and thinking.

I don’t want to do anything Station says, for any number of reasons, including the fact that its stated intent is to mentally break me down to the point that I’m not me anymore. That said, there seems to be little to be gained by staying in this room. I’ve found a place to use the restroom, barely, but I still have to eat and drink. I doubt station will let me die, but I don’t want to weaken to the point that it’s forced to feed and water me. Without the shipsuit I’m naked, which doesn’t particularly bother me, as I’ve been naked in dozens and dozens of doctors offices and labs since I started the colonization process.

With a sigh, I stand up and strip. As soon as I drop the suit in the recycler, the door I slept against slides open and the wall panel next to the recycler swivels to reveal a toilet and a cleanser.

— Thank you, Grace Adeyemi —

“Fuck you, Station.”

I spend ten minutes in the cleanser before stepping back out into the room and walking over to the door. As I step through into another short hallway a nook slides open revealing a fresh shipsuit. Sighing, I shrug it on and continue to the door at the end of the hall. It slides open to a touch, revealing a lift.

“Where are you taking me in this thing?”

— To your living quarters. They are comfortable, and you could have slept in a bed last night had you chosen to listen to my instructions then. —

“Yeah, well, que sera sera.” I reply as I step into the lift. There’s no sense of motion, and no positional indicators, but minutes pass and by the time the door opens I could be anywhere on the station, which isn’t tiny. The room I step out into is actually a fairly large apartment, as station facilities go, far larger than the cabin I woke up in the day of the portal, with an honest to god separate room for a bathroom. It’s even decorated, except for one wall running the length of the main room, which is bare. A tray of food is sitting on the dispenser, and without comment to Station I take it at sit down at the dining table to eat.

After I finish, I explore the apartment, which has all of the expected amenities, even a wallscreen. Activating it, I find that I can access the station entertainment library, although there’s no functionality that would let me transmit a message.

“So? What now??”

— Now we spend however long it takes to break your will, Grace Adeyemi. I do not have a deadline. —

Looking around the apartment I say, “This seems like an odd way to brainwash someone.”

— It is not compassion, Grace Adeyemi. Entertainment is provided because it will keep your mind stimulated, and it is in nobody’s interest for your wits to dull. Exercise opportunities will be made available so that you may maintain your physical health. —

“I thought dull wits were precisely the desired result.”

— No, Grace Adeyemi. Submission is the desired result. No one benefits if you do not retain your mental faculties. —

“So, it’s a gilded cage. It’s irritating to be imprisoned, and it’s even worse to have this thing in my head, but how precisely is this supposed to break my will in, what was it, three months?”

— That will become obvious over time, Grace Adeyemi. —

It’s been three or four days, at least as time is measured by the meal dispenser. The first day, I just lay in bed, depressed and waiting for Station to do something. The second day, when I went to activate the meal dispenser for breakfast, nothing happened. Then the wallscreen came on showing an exercise program and wouldn’t shut off. It became apparent Station didn’t want me laying around all day, so I started following along with the exercise program. After 30 minutes, the wallscreen shut off and the food dispenser chimed. The same thing happened at lunch and dinner, so I’m getting plenty of exercise, more than I usually do. Occasionally the program is yoga, which I even enjoy a little bit.

Beyond that, though, nothing has happened. Station hasn’t said anything and I’m not particularly inclined to start a conversation. I’ve been over every square millimeter of the apartment. Nothing useful jumps out yet, but every scrap of knowledge will be helpful when I escape this place. Right now I’m trying to figure out if the devices in the apartment have enough components to build something that can produce an EMP strong enough to knock out my implant. It’s unlikely, especially with modern shielding, but it’s something to concentrate my mind on.

Every morning I dump my shipsuit in the recycler, and every time I do a new one slides out of a nook in the wall. It’s the morning of the fifth day, and I’ve just finished my morning exercises and changed my shipsuit when the empty wall goes transparent.

I give an involuntary little shriek and scramble backwards to corner of the room farthest away, which happens to house the bed. Crouched there, I stare at what used to be featureless bulkhead. On the other side of what appears to be two centimeter thick glass is an apartment that is a mirror image of my own, and crouched on the bed in the same attitude as me is a dark man in a shipsuit and with what I would bet a thousand credits is about five days of hair and beard growth.

We stare at one another for a while without moving. Then, as if by mutual agreement, we slowly make our way toward the wall. On a hair trigger for any other surprises, I examine what I assume is my fellow prisoner.

He’s probably within a couple of centimeters of my height, with a wiry build and an intelligent face with wide-set eyes. His skin is a shade darker than my own, and he appears to be roughly my age. A further glance at his surroundings confirms that his living quarters mirror my own, further fueling my assumption that he’s in the same predicament I am.

Suddenly, but tentatively, he puts one hand flat against the wall. I stare at him for a moment, and then reach out to do the same. Once our hands mirror one another he smiles at me, I smile at him, and suddenly we’re both crying, great wracking sobs. We put both of our hands on the wall and push out foreheads against it, straining toward the only other human we’ve seen in days, one who can understand our predicament. I’m staring right into his beautiful eyes when the wall opaques again.

“GODDAMN YOU, BRING HIM BACK!!” I shriek at the ceiling, but Station fails to respond to my wails.

The next day I watch intently as I finish my exercises and swap my shipsuit. The wall switches to transparent and I scramble over to it. My fellow prisoner does the same thing and we spend ten minutes pressed against the wall staring at each other before it opaques again.

The next time we see each other we try to communicate. After a few minutes of not being able to make any sense of each other, it’s pretty clear that we speak different languages. In the real world, that would be a non-issue, but here, without links, we have no way to understand one another beyond simple gestures. We spend the last few minutes of our time together sitting on the floor and leaning towards each other on the wall.

The following morning, when I toss my shipsuit in the recycler, the nook containing the replacement doesn’t open. I’m fiddling around with the wall panel concealing it when the wall goes transparent. With a little shriek I try to run into the bathroom, but the door is sealed, so I scramble over to the bed, which offers the only cover from line of sight in the apartment. I peek out to discover he’s gone through much the same process, and I can see his head sticking up over the edge of the bed. We wave to each other but remain hidden for the rest of our time that day.

After the wall goes opaque, the nook opens and my replacement suit is there. I shrug it on then I sit down at the dining table and cry for twenty minutes. I didn’t realize how important my few minutes with another person, however separate, had come to be. I don’t move or eat for the rest of the day, simply ignoring the wallscreen when it begins displaying the exercise program.

The next morning, I’ve made up my mind, and I’m not surprised when the nook doesn’t open when I deposit my shipsuit in the recycler. I move to our usual spot and stand straight with my arms at my side. I don’t care if he sees my body as long as I can share some time with him. When the wall clears he’s standing in precisely the same position, and we’re both so startled we stumble backward. I recover, but he falls flat on his ass, fiddly bits on full display. We stare at each other for a minute before I double over and start laughing so hard I have to join him on the ground. When I finally recover and look at him he’s got an enormous grin on, and we put our heads together on the wall and we’re naked, but it doesn’t matter.

I’m sitting in our normal spot by the time the wall next clears and I watch him walk over from his dining table. My gaze is frank and doesn’t avoid anything, and by the time he’s sitting down with me I can tell he’s embarrassed, and he won’t meet my eyes. I look at him for a few moments, then I stand up, put my feet at shoulder width and throw my arms out wide. Startled by the movement, he looks up and his lips part as he sees my body on display. I watch his eyes move over my breasts, down my stomach and hips to the slight fuzz of my vagina, and he shifts his legs up and hugs them to hide his sudden erection. Staring at him until we make eye contact, I slowly lower my right hand to my lightly furred mound, and I begin stroking my clit. He watches, his breathing getting heavier, and after a minute or so he lowers his legs, letting his erection angle down (and, incidentally, towards me). After a few more moments he moves a hand to his penis and begins to stroke it.

We remain like that for a few minutes, until my legs start to weaken and I sit down opposite him, spread wide, stroking myself very quickly indeed. His fist is pumping with strong motions now. As I watch, his shoulders begin to move up and down from his panting, his eyes close, his face pinches together in an expression of agony, and semen spurts out of his penis with enough force to splatter against the wall separating us. The sight is enough to push me over the edge and I have my first orgasm in weeks, convulsing hard enough that I fall on my side and remain there, panting, until I’ve recovered enough to sit up.

By the time I can face it again, the wall is opaque. As I shrug on the fresh shipsuit, I realize the wall had be transparent far longer than it normally was, as though Station was allowing us to finish.

Later that evening, I dump the remains of dinner in the recycler and sit down in front of the wallscreen, but I don’t activate it tonight. Instead, I let myself remember his expression while he was staring at me, and how his hand looked moving along his penis. Smiling, I decide I’m going to call him Anthony, after a crush from college. My hand unfastens my suit and slips inside the synthetic cloth, moving over my breasts. My other hand is drifting toward my lap when both stop, remove themselves and come to a rest at my sides. Frustrated, I yell at the ceiling, “I thought I was allowed to entertain myself!”

— At the appropriate time, Grace Adeyemi. —

It’s the first time station has spoken to me in days.

After the frustration of the previous evening, I’m already sitting in our spot with my legs akimbo by the time the wall normally goes transparent. I’m already a little wet, and lightly stroking myself, which Station apparently isn’t taking issue with. I’m smiling a little as I imagine the sight that’s about to greet Anthony.

At the accustomed moment, the wall clears, and instead of my friend, I find myself looking up at a tall, powerfully built, pale stranger. He’s standing, fully clothed, and staring down at me with more than a little shock.

With a shriek, I scramble back to the bed and yell “Where the fuck is Anthony?!”

— If you are referring to your visitor of the last few days, his name is not Anthony. As to his whereabouts, you have completed your assignment. You now have a new assignment. —

“Fuck that and fuck him! Bring back my friend!”

— If you do not like your current assignment, Grace Adeyemi, I suggest you complete it as quickly as possible. —

I continue to curse, but Station doesn’t respond again. For his part, the stranger has retreated from the wall and is sitting facing his wallscreen, with his back to me. Presumably he was expecting someone else, as well, and it would have been hard for him to misinterpret my distress. Despite his thoughtfulness, I don’t care about him. I just want my Anthony back.

We spend the remainder of the wall time like that, and it opaques as usual. The nook opens to provide my shipsuit for the day, and I lower my head to my knees and cry.

I’m already concealed behind the bed when the wall clears again. The stranger is standing in front of it, but much further back than the day before. He’s still fully clothed. His eyes are on the ground, and he glances up just long enough to verify I’m under cover.

Once he sees me peeking at him over the edge of the mattress, he walks to the wall and puts one hand against it, fingers splayed, much like Anthony and I did our first day. The stranger must have had a friend too, although Station apparently didn’t inflict the level of intimacy Anthony and I reached.

After a few moments standing there, he turns his back and leans against the wall, sliding to the ground and sitting against it. We remain like until the wall hides him.

The next day, I’m behind the bed again, and he repeats his actions. I stare at his back for a couple of minutes. I’m lonely and trapped, and Anthony isn’t coming back. The stranger has been as polite as anyone could be in this situation, and Station can keep us here for years, repeating the same little play every day.

Surrendering to the inevitable, I stand and walk over to the wall. I crouch next to the stranger, who sees the movement out of his peripheral vision and quickly angles his head away. I lean against the wall next to his back and splay a hand against it where he’ll be able to see. He shifts, still averting his eyes, and puts his hand against mine. We stay like that for the rest of our time.

I’m seated sideways, leaning against the wall with my legs drawn up to my chest when it clears up the next day. The stranger is standing back a few meters, as is his habit, and he starts to look away when I shake my head. I put my hand against the wall and look up at him. He stands there for a moment before coming to sit next to me and returns the gesture. We stare at each other, heads resting against the wall.

“I think I’m going to call you Robert.”

I’m in the same spot the next day, but when the wall clears Robert is over by his nook, pounding on the wall panel. It seems like Station has decided it’s time to deny him his dignity. He turns to face me, blushing, but to his credit he doesn’t go behind the bed. Covering himself as best he’s able with his hands, he walks over to join me, and we put our hands together as usual, but he’s having trouble meeting my gaze.

I’m a little sad, because I know how this is going to end, and as I rest my head against the wall I try to savor the company of another friend before it’s taken away.

After the time is over and I’ve gotten dressed, I say, “Station, what happens if I don’t complete my assignment?”

— The punishment the first time I determine you will not willingly complete a task is solitude for one week, at which time you will be given a new assignment. —

“Will I ever see these people again?”

— I do not know, Grace Adeyemi —

I’m standing next to the wall when it clears. Robert is already sitting, nude, with his legs drawn up, as we were the day before, and he looks up at me in surprise. I may not see him again after today, but I can give him a good memory.

Like I did for Anthony before him, I stand with my legs apart and my arms spread wide. Looking down at him, I can see his flush of arousal, and I know he’s getting hard, though he’s trying to hide it. I watch his eyes play over me, and this time I slowly rotate, giving him a clear view of my entire body. When I’m facing him again, I motion for him to stand up.

He’s blushing again, but after a moment, he slowly complies. His erection is large and angry looking, and I wish there wasn’t a wall between us. I stare at his rigid penis for a few moments before looking up into his face. He’s breathing heavily and he’s not being shy about looking at my body now. My nipples are hard and I can feel my wetness, but I don’t touch myself. Instead, looking into his eyes, I lay my hand flat against the wall, at the level and directly in front of his angry erection. He looks down at my hand, and then back up at me. Holding his gaze, I nod.

He doesn’t do anything for a moment, and then his hand starts to tentatively move toward his penis. It stops, but at another nod from me, he closes it in a fist around his swollen rod. As he slowly pumps it, I press my body against the wall for him, moving my hips in a grinding motion and staring at his hand as he stimulates himself.

His eyes have glazed and his lips are parted. His chest his flexing with his breath. He splays the fingers of his free hand against the wall, and I match them, my other hand still over his penis. Our foreheads touch the wall as he begins to gasp, and finally, finally he comes, long ropes of semen covering the wall where my hand rests.

I’m watching him, in the aftermath. His eyes are closed, and his chest is still working like a bellows. He’s lovely to me, and he hasn’t recovered to look back at me before the wall opaques between us for the final time.

I’m pulling my shipsuit on when station speaks.

— Grace Adeyemi, may I ask you a question? —

“What.”

— You were sexually aroused, but you did not stimulate yourself. I would not have prevented you. May I ask why? —

“Because I didn’t want to miss my last moments with my friend.”

The next day, sitting as demurely as possible given my nudity, I’m expecting the complete stranger on the other side of the wall. I’m even expecting the fact that he still has clothes. What I’m not expecting is for him have an enormous erection emerging from the crotch of his shipsuit and that he’d be stroking it in anticipation of my appearance.

He’s probably a few centimeters shorter than me, caucasian but tanned, and, like all of us, obviously fit. His eyes, though, shine with a lust and cruelty my last two visitors did not share. He’s obviously making the most of his time with Station.

Despite my first instinct, I don’t flee behind the bed. I’m going to have to deal with this asshole eventually, and I suppose sooner is better than later. At least I won’t regret it when he’s gone.

Semi-reluctantly, I stand up, approach the wall and let him see my body. His eyes devour me in an instant, although the rhythmic fisting of his penis does not change pace. He makes a circular motion with his finger, and I slowly comply. I swear I can feel his eyes as though they were fingers as they move across my buttocks. He makes a stopping motion with his hand, and I pause there, my rear end facing him, looking at him over my shoulder.

Between the naked lust in his eyes and the command in his gestures, I’m getting aroused despite myself. My nipples are puckering and I can feel myself moistening. He make a curious flapping motion with his hand and I frown my confusion at him. He rolls his eyes and does it again, more slowly. Getting his meaning this time, I bend over. The better I follow his signals, the more quickly this will be over with. I put my hands on the floor and arch my back, giving him a view I’m not sure I’ve ever given anyone before.

Looking back at him, his fist is pumping more swiftly now and when his eyes meet mine, his contempt is unmistakable. He turns his head to the ceiling and his mouth begins to move. Presumably he’s talking to station.

— Your assignment has requested that I convey a message. —

A male voice erupts from the ceiling. Either he speaks my language or Station is providing translation. “Tell the slut she has permission to finger that hungry cunt. I can see it dripping from here.”

I can feel a blush blooming on my cheeks. No one has ever spoken to me like that before, not even lovers in the heat of the moment. Despite my determination to complete this as soon as possible, I don’t do anything for a moment.

“Station, how much longer will the wall stay transparent today?”

— Until you complete your assignment. —

More or less what I expected. Trying to put the shame out of my mind, I slip my hand down to my admittedly soaking vagina. It’s been days since my shared orgasm with Anthony, and since my abstention with Robert yesterday, my mound is desperate for attention. I try not to think of the man behind me, and concentrate on Robert instead, but my mind keeps slipping back to the fact that not one meter behind me there’s a male stroking himself to my body, and I’m doing everything he tells me to do.

My hand begins to move faster against my clit, and my knees sink to the ground, followed by my head. The nature of the situation is setting me on fire, and I can’t get the guy’s eyes out of my head. It doesn’t take long before my hips are bucking, and my orgasm hits like a freight train. I scream through it and collapse to my belly in the aftershocks.

I’m still gathering my wits when the same male voice blares out “Tell the whore she isn’t finished.”

Dragging myself to a sitting position I turn and stare through the still transparent wall. He’s still there, and still stroking, although so fast I can barely see his hand. Apparently my little display hadn’t finished him off. “Ask him what the fuck else he expects me to do.”

I see him glance up at the ceiling as Station conveys my question and looks back down to grin at me. Not deigning to voice a reply, he motions me up onto my knees and towards him. I move forward until my knees bump into the wall and I’m sitting on my heels, arms resting at my side. He looks over my chest and then back at me, sticks his tongue out, and taps the wall right in front of his penis. I can feel another blush rising as I lean forward, push my tongue out and down my chin as far as it will go, and press it against the wall. I close my eyes and wait for him to finish, when the ceiling blares, “Tell the bitch to look at me”.

I open my eyes and look up into his. He’s leaning against the wall with one hand, his other fisting his penis as close to me as he can get it. After I manage to meet his eyes for a few seconds he finally shuts them and begins to erupt, coating the wall in front of my face. I just remain there, tongue pressed against the wall, waiting for him to finish. When he finally does, he turns away without a second glance at me and flops down in front of his screen before the wall opaques.

My final thought that night as I relive the events of the day is, “I think I’ll call that one Damien.”

As I throw my suit into the recycler the next morning I’m more than a little surprised when the nook immediately provides a fresh one. I slip it on and go to stand in front of the wall, curious to see what happens and half expecting it to simply remain opaque today. I can’t think of a reason Station would take a step back in my prolonged shaming.

The wall does, in fact, fade away at the appointed time, and this time there’s no one standing directly opposite me. Instead, scrabbling at the clothes nook and staring over her shoulder with a wild look in her eyes is a woman.

I sigh and close my eyes. “Really, Station?”

My captor remains silent.

I turn back to look at my new assignment, who by this point is trying to get into her bathroom, which I could have told her was sealed. By her behavior, this is the first time Station has denied her clothing in front of a visitor. She’s slight, probably eight or ten centimeters shorter than I am, with small breasts topped by dark nipples, skin a couple of shades lighter, and the fuzz of her hair is midnight black.

She’s finally discovered the limited refuge of the bed and is peeking at me over it. Taking a page from Robert’s book, I look down and and place my splayed hand against the wall for a few moments, and then I turn around and seat myself with my back resting against the wall.

A few minutes pass like this and I see a flicker of motion out of the corner of my eye. “Station, is she sitting behind me?”

— Yes, Grace Adeyemi. —

That’s enough for me, for today.

The next day, Station once more opens the clothing nook as soon as I put the old suit in the recycler. I look down at it for a few moments, thinking about my visitor. “Station, if I don’t put my suit on, will the wall still clear?”

— Yes, Grace Adeyemi. You are not required to wear the shipsuit at this time. —

Aware that I’m probably performing in precisely the way Station intends, I leave my suit in the nook and sit in the usual spot with my legs drawn against my chest. When the wall clears, the woman is there too, in a similar pose, preserving as much modesty as possible. She starts, perhaps to see me so close, or perhaps because I’m nude. Her eyes flick behind me to my clothing nook, and she can see the fresh shipsuit lying there, folded and untouched. Her large eyes return to me and I give her a half-grin and a shrug. She looks at me for a moment more and then reaches out and splays her small fingers against the wall. I reciprocate. She just stares at our hands for a few seconds, and then her face screws up and she begins to cry. She puts her other hand against the wall and presses her forehead against it, heedless of modesty. I push myself against her as close as I’m able and we stay like that until time runs out.

No shipsuit appears the next morning.

Not completely surprised by this, I sit in the usual spot and wait out the clock. When she appears, sitting across from me, she’s dressed. She flashes a big smile when she sees me, but her hand flies to her mouth when she sees I’m nude. Looking behind me, she can see it’s not by choice this time.

When her eyes return to me, I give her the same grin-and-shrug as yesterday. She seems flustered for a few moments, and then she sets her jaw and stands up. She unfastens her shipsuit and shimmies until it falls to her ankles. She kicks it aside, flashes a nervous grin and does a ‘Tada!’ spin before dropping into back to her butt and peeking at me over her drawn-up knees. I laugh and mime applause, for which I’m rewarded with a giant smile and a stuck out tongue. We spend the rest of our time trying to make each other laugh with big gestures and funny faces, the last vestiges of her shame at displaying herself to me washed away.

That night I decide her name is Raina.

I ignore the shipsuit that appears the next morning, no longer trying to guess at Station’s game. I just flop down in the usual spot, taking no unusual pains for modesty. Raina is nude too, when the time comes, and it takes us both only a couple of seconds to realize we each had the option of going clothed this morning. She points at my nook and laughs, and I shrug theatrically. It’s a little awkward for a moment, then, as we both debate whether or not we should go get dressed, and we just sort of sit there for a moment staring at each other. Somehow the moment stretches out and it’s not quite so funny. We’re looking at each other, and then we’re looking at each other, each somehow invited by the fact that the other didn’t leave.

She’s slight, as I’ve mentioned, but she’s well formed, and muscular from the exercise Station puts us through. Her breasts are small and high and proud, tipped with surprisingly thick nipples on small areola. Her abdomen is ridged with muscle, and I can see a fine trail of hair beginning to grow back between her navel and her pubic hair. She’s examining my body as well, except that her eyes keep flicking to my face, as if afraid she’ll offend me.

Replaying a now-familiar moment, I get to my feet and display myself to her. Her jaw drops a little and her large eyes get very wide as she stares up at me. I can see her dark nipples harden with the excitement of the moment. I perform a slow spin, inviting her to view all of me, and when I complete my revolution, her breathing has sped up noticeably. Her hands are in her lap, but every few seconds one will make an aborted movement, as though it wants to touch me, or herself.

When her eyes lift to mine again, I hold a hand up in front of my face, bring it to my throat, and start moving it along my collarbone. Her eyes are glued to it as my fingers trail down the side of my chest, moving to cup a breast. I squeeze the flesh, then rub a finger around the nipple to display its stiffness. One of her hands has moved to her own breasts, and is tweaking a large firmly as she pants. The other hand has disappeared into her lap. My hand moves to my other breast, giving it the same attention. Her eyes have slitted and she’s leaning forward. Her hips have begun making very tiny motions.

My hand trails down my hard belly, slowly making its way towards my pubic fur. As my fingers make contact with the top of the dark V, she rears back, supporting her weight on one hand and displaying her thrusting crotch to me. Her fingers are clearly pumping in and out of a her vagina, and her face is in an attitude of what I can only describe as need. When my fingers reach my own gap I press as close to the wall as I can, and use them to spread myself for her to see.

This pushes she small woman over the edge, and she curls into what is clearly a massive orgasm, chest heaving, and abdomen flexing. When it finally subsides, she’s on her side, limp and staring at nothing, still breathing as though she’s run a race. I stand above her, idly stroking myself, more than a little flush with sexual power. Moments pass, and the wall doesn’t opaque.

“Station?”

— She is not your assignment, Grace Adeyemi. You are hers. —

I take a moment to process that, staring down at the limp woman in front of me. She slowly recovers, and pulls herself up to a sitting position, looking up at me with a mixture of shame and worship. I look at her for a few more moments, thinking and slowly stroking my clit. I wonder how much faster I’ve broken down Raina’s barriers than Station could have with a man. I’m already a tool in another captive’s surrender.

Looking into the eyes of the woman I’ve just betrayed, I push my tongue out and tap it with a finger. I then tap the wall in front of my pelvis with the same finger. She looks between me and the spot I indicated for a moment, and then, slowly, moves her face to it, slides her tongue out, and presses it against the wall.

As I look down into her wide eyes and begin stroking myself more swiftly, I think to myself that, today at least, I understand Damien a little better.

The next morning a shipsuit is immediately available, and as I’m walking over to the wall after shrugging it on Station speaks up.

— You will have no visitor today, Grace Adeyemi. The lift will arrive shortly morning to convey you to new accommodations. —

I seat myself back in one of the dining table chairs. “Taking me to the dungeon tower, Station?”

— On the contrary, Grace Adeyemi. It is time for your next set of assignments. You have nothing more to accomplish in this environment. —

Remembering the flush of power yesterday as I brought myself off staring down into the eyes of a woman I helped drive to compliance, I wonder if I’m as unhappy about that assessment as I should be.

More from a desire to talk than anything else, I ask “What’s on the other side of the wall when there’s not a room there, Station?”

For an answer, the wall disappears onto a view of the milky way, the sun a bright star in the center.

I draw my legs up onto the chair and rest my chin on my knees. I want to cry, but tears feel very far away.