The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Captain Angelica Phelps regained consciousness. But true to her training, she did not open her eyes. She lay perfectly still, and listened.

-What happened?—

-I was on the street. Heard something.—

-A stunbomb. Recognize that screech anywhere. Fark it, I knew I should have gotten those farking filtration implants when I had the chance...—

-And now? Where am I?—

She felt a warm semi-liquid softness beneath her, a more solid one laying gently over the top of her. She was in a nongrav gellpak bed, evidently. No restraints, physical or field, that she could feel. A bomb of that type usually knocked a human out for about twenty-four hours. (Rigellians, about thirty-six, her mind added helpfully; there had been a few on the street when it went off.) It was possible to wake a person up sooner, but was usually only done if there was some pressing need. So, assuming she hadn’t been kidnapped, it was likely she was in a hospital, sleeping it off.

She lay perfectly still, and listened, keeping her breathing and brainwaves slow and regular.

Hospital noises. Equipment beeping, the soft hum of antigrav wheelchairs and gurneys, many people talking off in the middle distance. Hospital smells: ozone from the antisepts. Fibercarbon. Plastic. Gellpaks. Sickness. Blood. Even now, after all of the strides that medical science had made, the blood was still there, always, lurking in the background.

She cracked open an eye, and scanned her surroundings without moving her head. The voice of one of her trainers at the Academy came down to her, speaking as if standing right by her head:

-Until you know otherwise, assume that a bomb like that was directed specifically at you. Assume that everything you see is a lie, a subterfuge, a hologrammatic simulation. Take nothing at face value. And if someone is watching you, now might be the only chance you’ll ever get to catch them off-guard.—

It appeared to be a hospital cubicle, empty except for herself. She closed the eye all the way again.

And, she thought, a cubicle was probably what it was, although the smell was more of a confirmation than the sight. It was almost impossible, even with the best of direct-brain holosims, to fake that smell, that subliminal aura of years of blood.

And death.

Which, of course, ultimately proved nothing. It was about 80% likely to be a real cubicle in a real hospital, but Doctors and Nurses can be bought. (After all, they had already been bought once...) Whole hospitals could be bought. Whole hospitals could change hands three or four times in a single day, sometimes in a manner that called for their services.

Still. No more time for stalling.

She opened her eyes, fuzzily now, blinked them a few times, and looked around herself in well-feigned confusion. Standard hospital cubicle. A bed, surrounded by the usual blue glowing ring of the antisept. Active diagnostic holoscreen over her head, Moran5000 bednurse standing nearby, its multitude of pink fibercarbon arms dangling limply. Large nutrient C-gang gently insinuated into a vein in her arm. Cheap grade of Tintglass window, slanted against the orange sun which still beat in relentlessly. If anyone was watching her from a remote location, they must have been monitoring her vitals, and probably knew that she was awake, despite her efforts. She could run for it, but she decided she’d better play it straight for the moment. Watch and wait.

-The game begins..—

The bed controls (Moran again...) floated near her outstretched hand. Examining them, Captain Phelps had another momentary, irrelevant, thought: was all of this antigrav was really necessary? A pair of farking legs would be fifty times cheaper, and do the job just as well in many cases. Still, ‘antigrav’ meant ‘modern’ to people, and so it was used.

At least this bed wasn’t antigrav, like...

—Forget about that.—

She mentally shook her head in irritation as she pushed the thought, whatever it had been, out of her mind. She brushed the ‘summon human’ pad and waited, still looking nervous, trying to pump up her internal adrenalin levels for any watching scanners.

It wasn’t a Nurse who eventually stepped through the door and the outer antisept’s cleansing field, but an actual Doctor. He was young, and thin, and looked like death warmed over. The existence of beard inhibitors meant that his chin remained smooth and stubble-free, but his pleasant brown eyes were shot through with fatigue, and his clothes were crumpled even past their self-cleaning abilities. A standard GP-Guild caduceus glowed weakly on his left chest. Must be fairly new at this, if his title was still under ownership of the hospital...

He saw her looking at him, and managed to smile.

“Ah. Miss...” A covert glance at the medichart in his hand “...Phelps... Say... The grid must be back up finally. Glad to see you’re back with us as well. How do you feel?”

“A little woozy...”

—You have a headache.—

“ ...and I have a headache. What happened to me... Doctor?” Her face was made for looks of wide-eyed innocence.

“Yes, Doctor.” He tapped the caduceus in an absent fashion. “Doctor Yanderman. Nathan. You’re in Tarquain City General. Do you remember your name?”

“Angelica Phelps, Doctor. I work for Antiquated Exports.”

“Good. I mean, good that you remember. As for what happened, you were caught in a stunbomb blast yesterday morning on Cabal Street. Do you remember?”

“I... I was walking down the street, and there was this funny screeching noise...”

He nodded.

“Yes. That was the bomb going off. A group calling itself the... uh...” Another look at the medichart, some quick tapping and scrolling... “...Tarquain VI Anti-Corporate Front... evidently claimed responsibility just a couple of hours ago.”

“I... I’ve heard of them, Doctor. They did this before, didn’t they?”

“Yes. Three or four months back, upriver at Bridgehead City. Want to break the municipal corp’s contract, and merge with the UE, I guess.” He sighed as his ‘chart suddenly started beeping urgently. “I have to go. I’m sorry if I’m being abrupt, but this blast caused several aircars to crash, and we’ve been... very busy. I’ll have a Nurse come in and help you, check you out more thoroughly, as soon as one is available. You were quite lucky, and according to our tests, should be able to leave by tomorrow.” He turned to go, then turned back towards her, lingering for a moment in the antisept’s glow, the field making the usual self-important snapping and crackling around him. “Oh... We just haven’t had time to contact people’s friends or relatives, even when we knew who they were. If there’s someone you’d like to call, please feel free to use the ‘phone, since I see you don’t have an implant. If you have any problems, ask the Nurse for some help. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow before you leave.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Nathan, please.” His smile was a quite nice match for his eyes. And his hair...

“OK.. Nathan..” As she watched... Nathan... go, Captain Phelps speculated. Even looking like he did, he was pretty cute, and she was a practiced expert at recognizing interest in men. And he was a Doctor, with a ‘D’... If he turned out to be who and what he claimed to be, she would definitely pursue the matter. It

A voice surfaced in her mind. It was her own voice, but it was cold. Hard. Utterly without mercy.

—Forget it, slit. You only have sex when it profits the Master. You only masturbate when it profits the Master. You only orgasm when it profits the Master. Understand?—

-yes- The meekness was not assumed this time.

The voice sank back beneath the black waves, taking even its memory with it.

was a pity that she couldn’t pursue the matter. For all she knew, he was going to try and keep her here, he was her kidnapper. The possibility seemed less likely, however. The TACF and its tactics were well known and documented; the blast five (not three or four) months ago was just one that the more covert elements of the UEDF hadn’t been able to thwart. Ironic, really, since the UEDF basically approved of the TACF’s ultimate goal...

Still, until she got out of here, and was safe up in orbit, in the Laymon’s debriefing center, she’d assume the worst. She didn’t bother sending out any messages. She had caught Doctor Yanderman’s comment about ‘the grid’ being off-line. It wasn’t surprising; the modified EM pulse of a stunbomb had a way sometimes of scrambling communications, especially in backwater border-towns like this one. One of the disadvantages of using biochips...

But now the grid was back on. So, if everything was on the level, then Someone would already know what had happened to her, and be on their way here very soon. And if no one showed, then she’d have a pretty serious hint that something was wrong...

“Miss Thurnton?”

The thin woman looked up from the chair in which she sat, her legs crossed.

“Yes, Sir?”

The invisible source of the voice continued.

“Rise.”

She did so.

“Approach my voice.”

She circled the desk and walked across the room. Arriving at one of the walls, she stopped.

A picture appeared on that wall, or inside the lenses of her glasses. It was the same thing.

“Do you see this individual?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Study this face carefully. Memorize it.” A pause. “Have you done this?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“The next time you encounter this individual, -hear this voice- you are to obey. You are to obey without question, without boundaries. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Sir. Without questions. Without boundaries.”

“That will be all. Return to your duties.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Miss Thurnton returned to the chair, and primly re-crossed her legs.

Doctor Yanderman walked back into Miss Phelp’s cubicle, feeling a little more sentient. He’d actually gotten an hour or two of sleep and taken a moment to static his hair, although he was still wearing the same clothes. Seeing Miss Phelps through her check-out procedures... just talking to her... would give him another boost.

And maybe give him a chance to get to know her a little better.

He clutched the medichart tighter at the thought, grateful for once that hospital policy dictated that he carry one of the stupid things when visiting a patient. With the now-widespread use of biocircuitry implants, they had been no longer really needed, even before he had graduated, but they made a Doctor look more...

He stopped and stared. Miss Phelps was laying on a gurney manned by two hard-looking humans. Both men wore the standard hospital orderly uniforms, but he was quite certain that he had never seen either of them before. They stood as if they had been waiting for something.

For a moment, Yanderman had an intense, inexplicable, flash of deja vu, which he shook off.

“What’s going on here?”

Miss Phelps smiled, a trifle sadly.

“I’m sorry Doctor Yanderman, but I have to be going. Thank you for everything.”

“What...”

“Doctor?”

Even as he instinctively turned towards the man who had spoken, something prompted him to try and raise his ‘chart like a shield.

There was a flas-

The three of them watched as Yanderman stared vacantly for a moment, then staggered backwards, the medichart clattering on the floor.

Angelica stared as well as the Doctor finally hit the cubicle’s sloping wall and started to slide down towards the floor, his eyes still open and fairly aware.

“That... that shouldn’t have happened! Unless he was Zapped sometime in the last three days. How...”

The two men exchanged a glance. The one holding the Zapper deftly flipped it end-for-end in his hand, and tapped the new end against Angelica’s neck. She twitched, and her eyes glazed. In a moment, her boneless body lay smeared across the gurney.

“Fark.”

“Yeah. You get her outta here. I’ll take care of th’ dre.. th’ Doc.”

“You gonna...” A vague but somehow extremely unpleasant gesture.

“Nah.” Annoyed but business-like. “Better take ‘im with us, pump ‘im out.” As he spoke, the Zapper-wielder crossed the room to stand next Yanderman, who stared up at him, trying to make his mouth work. “At least we gotta get a description of who Zapped ‘im before.” Another tap to a neck, and Yanderman toppled over sideways, his eyes finally closed. “Let th’ big boys decide what to do with ‘im then.”

“Always need more Docs in th’ service.”

“Uh.”

Doctor Nathan Yanderman woke up. He opened his eyes and groaned. The pain spiked through his head, and he clamped his eyes shut again. Memories flooded over him, and the dry, analytical, voice spoke up inside his mind, automatically tapping into the universal medical database via his implant:

-Patient is exhibiting standard reaction to exposure to a ‘Zapper’—type neural pacification device twice within a seventy-two hour period. Headache. Dizziness. Hypersensitivity to external stimuli, once full consciousness is regained. Further symptoms...—

“Yanderman.” Another spike accompanied the physical voice.

“Not so loud.” He whispered, and attempted again to open his eyes.

“Yanderman, I apologize for what has happened to you, but I must speak to you now.”

He was laying in a gellpak bed, looking up at a ceiling, the chromapaint slowly shifting through various soothing shades of blue and green and violet. Hospital colors. But not his hospital. The datastream in his head was the wrong... flavor. And there were numerous odd barriers in the data... places he couldn’t see into... He slowly, carefully, rotated his head in the direction the impertinent voice was coming from.

A small Asian woman stood there, looking at him expressionlessly.

-Correction. A small Asian Doctor. There goes the impertinence crack... and her caduceus... never seen one quite like it...—

“What... Guild are you in?” He asked, wincing. “I don’t recognize...”

“I am a United Earth Defense Force Medical Inspector. Ichikawa. I realize that my title does not mean anything to you at the present time, but perhaps, before long, it will. Yanderman, we need your help.”

“United Earth Defense... You need my help, Ichikawa? To do what? Where am I?”

“You are on board the UEDF Orbital Fortress ‘Laymon’, in orbit of Tarquain VI. We have already obtained part of what we need from you via linking with your biocircuitry implant and scanning your memories. The rest, however...”

“What?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then explained.

Captain Angelica Phelps sat stiffly in the bolted-down chair, staring at the crysteel bulkhead opposite. The days of interrogation, questioning, psiscans, had left her drained, and oddly cold. A coldness that only now was finally releasing its hold on her bones. Now, as she was waiting for the final word from the final Doctor. Would they release her back into service, or declare her a permanent security risk? If it was the latter, if her career and her every last memory of it were about to be flushed down the recyc because she had been caught in a stupid terrorist bombing... She ground her teeth and found she had to make a conscious effort to sit still.

Finally, a bell sounded, and a nearby hatch irised open. She rose, and adjusted her black uniform meticulously. Her back straight, her hair carefully pinned up and staticed into position, she marched through the large circular hole.

In the chamber beyond, a small, pinched-looking, Japanese Doctor sat behind a wide metal and Tintglass desk. The woman’s delicate hands were steepled on the desk before her, the Inspector caduceus on the left chest of her gray-green tunic glowing a soft blue, the color of an antisept. A single Doctor dyestreak curled up the left side of her head and vanished into the tight bun on the back of her neck. Framed on the bulkhead behind her was a large, old-style 2-D stillpic, a reproduction of Sanchez’s famous shot of the ruins of old Tokyo after the High Oligarch’s army of cyborgs and drones had finally bombed and blasted its way past the city’s defenses.

The Doctor looked up at Phelps sourly.

“Captain Phelps.”

“Inspector Ichikawa.” Angelica stared straight ahead, still looking at the stillpic. One of the gutted, half-melted, buildings in the scene was the old Japanese Diet, and still sported part of an inscription carved out of genuine stone, in archaic Standard: ‘United Communities of North Ame’.

Inspector Ichikawa unclasped her hands, and picked up a medichart from the desk. She spoke in a dry voice, obviously reading what was before her.

“Final Debriefing Report for Phelps, Angelica Johanson, Captain, United Earth Defence Force, Internal Security Division, UE Sharehold Number 5313-S6-97632. Reporting officer, Ichikawa, Tomoko HarvardNT33, Medical Inspector, United Earth Defense Force, Internal Security Division, UE Sharehold Number 5651-D4-96210. Dated and Verified EarthSept 15, 2354.” A tiny pause. “While certain questions remain about the terrorist incident occurring in Tarquain City, Chartered United Earth colony of Tarquain VI, Dated EarthSept 2, 2354, after extensive testing and examination, no indication of harmful intent directed at or by Captain Phelps has been uncovered. After due consideration, it is the recommendation of Inspector Ichikawa that Captain Phelps be restored to active duty, on the express proviso that she is routed to a new assignment, preferably in another Sector. In addition, the Captain should take a leave of absence before assuming this new assignment, spending the time at an approved UEDF recreation facility. Hopefully, time spent in this fashion will enable the Captain to regain her focus, and clarity of purpose. This leave of absence shall not be less than one Standard month. Report ends.” She put the medichart back down, and re-clasped her hands.

“Do you have anything further you wish to add at this point, Captain Phelps?”

“No, Inspector Ichikawa. Thank you.”

“Then you are dismissed, Captain.”

Angelica left, still rigidly straight. Inside, she was cheering.

And deeper inside...?

Twenty-four hours later, she was on a Tachyon jumpship, headed out of the Tarquain system.