The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Helen sat in the back seat of the aircar and yawned.

She felt oddly... good. Her whole body felt good, as though she’d had a good workout, or had recovered from a short illness and realized how pleasant her body normally felt. It was a vague feeling of pleasure rather than a sense of energy. The drowsiness of the last few days still lingered, a bit—and she was horny.

Celestial Lords, how horny she was.

Wherever they wound up staying next, she’d have to figure out a way to get a room by herself, because she and some fingers had a date in masturbationland. Just sitting in the back of the aircar pushing her pussy against the seam of her pants was enough to send minor thrills up her back. She’d always considered herself fortunate to have large and sensitive breasts, but now they were an almost constant distraction, demanding to be squeezed.

Not to mention sucked upon, which didn’t seem likely in the near future, but pulling on them would be great enough.

She looked over at Han-Harris, sitting in the back seat across from her. The mechanic wasn’t her type—girls in general weren’t her type, barring a few episodes many years ago—but right now Helen would love to see her naked. That hard body... did she keep a bush, or had she had it deca-depilated, the way many girls did? Helen kept hers trimmed short; she liked a little hair down there, it felt good to run her fingers through.

Twelve Gods and Twelve Prophets, how horny she was! To be thinking of making out with another woman just because... because she was there. Sitting a meter away, eyes closed, with her hard body and her laborer slang and that good, strong jawline...

With a soft grunt, Helen opened the door and stepped out of the aircar. Han-Harris opened one eye and watched her step out, doubtless totally unaware how much Helen would like to drop to her knees, crawl over between Han-Harris’ legs and suck-

Helen closed the door, stretched, and looked around.

Horniness aside, she did feel really good. Her muscles felt strong, her mood was high. She couldn’t help feeling an optimism that was probably entirely unwarranted, if looked at logically. Her hometown had been taken over by xenos that burrowed into and enslaved those they did not kill, and she was on the run from them with really only a minuscule chance of escape.

Yet it was somehow hard to feel bad about it all. Her body just felt so good.

Captain Stone and the Imperial, Margot, were still out investigating the buildings. Everyone else was loitering around the landing pad. Junipero was watching the door into the eastern building, Han-Irinov the other. Cruzado-Liu was looking down at the interior courtyard. The Thompsons were with her.

Helen walked over in their direction.

“Hey, Helen, what’s up?” Calla asked as she drew near. The younger Thompson was a hot little college-age thing; not chesty like her mother, but the body under that pink shirt was doubtless smooth and curvy in just the right places...

Helen shook her head. “Oh, just, you know, waiting,” she replied.

“I hope Captain Stone and Sergeant Belangier get back soon,” Lynn Thompson said. She was as hot as her daughter, with a real woman’s body, and breasts larger than Helen’s own.

Wow, a threesome with them would...

Helen closed her eyes, massaged her eyebrows with a hand.

“Something the matter?” Calla asked.

“No,” Helen said, “I just...”

“Hey. Hey!” Cruzado-Liu barked. They all looked at her, but she was already turned towards the western doorway. “Pearl!” she shouted. “Look sharp, we’ve got incoming!”

Helen spun around. Sure enough, to the northeast, not just one but four aircars were rapidly approaching. They were at most a kilometer away; they’d be at the buildings in a minute or less.

That was the direction Zhuetia was in.

The SSDF Specialist ran towards Han-Irinov, while simultaneously yelling at Junipero.

Helen turned to the Thompsons. “What do you think we should do?” she asked. “Hide in a building?”

But the Thompsons had their eyes closed. They were standing still, chins slightly raised, as though listening to something.

“Yes,” they both said quietly, simultaneously. “Yes.”

Helen felt a wave of... of pleasure, wash over her, and shuddered. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Lynn Thompson’s eyes came open, and she smiled at her. “Helen,” she said breathily. “It’s time for you to awaken. Why don’t you sit down for a while. Everything should start becoming clear.”

Dizziness washed over her. “I don’t...” she said, “I don’t underst...”

Her legs felt wobbly and she sat down. Sitting down seemed... right.

Lynn had turned away and was walking swiftly across the landing pad towards Han-Irinov and Cruzado-Liu, who had both unlimbered the large weapons they’d been carrying around. Calla went the other way, almost skipping as she ran towards Junipero.

“I don’t,” Helen said to herself, as slow soft pulses of pleasure and dizziness washed through her body. “Don’t understand.”

She watched as Lynn got close to Cruzado-Liu and leaned over to tell her something. Whatever it was, the soldier relaxed, her weapon lowering, her bent knees straightening up, arms falling to her sides.

Han-Irinov was speaking into the walkie-talkie she carried. She looked up, surprised, as Lynn stepped away from the sessile Cruzado-Liu. Han-Irinov said something to Lynn and Lynn replied, and then Han-Irinov, too, was letting her weapon droop until it pointed at the ground. Her eyes seemed to close, her head lowering towards her chest.

Oddly, Helen felt just fine about all this. She was dimly aware that she should be frightened—panicked, even—but somehow she wasn’t. It didn’t bother her. It wasn’t that things were the way they were supposed to be, quite the contrary. Everything was... bad, at least if seen objectively. But Helen didn’t feel at all bothered by it. It was as though her ability to worry had been... shut down.

On the other side of the landing pad, Calla stood next to a docile Junipero. She smiled and waved at her mother, who waved back.

The aircars arrived. Without hesitation, they began to land, lowering themselves in a neat square formation behind and between the two aircars already on the landing pad.

Helen felt good, just sitting there and watching. Good, and still very, very horny. If she were naked, she’d be touching herself, she knew that she would. It would have been irresistible.

People began to debark from the aircars. Three women in black Imperial jumpsuits hopped out of the first one. Were these Imperials? That wouldn’t be bad, they were sort of hoping for the Imperials to come and save them, after all.

Those women—they had utility belts with pistols in them, Helen noticed, but weren’t carrying combat rifles like the SSDF soldiers—walked quickly towards Junipero and Calla Thompson. They were joined by three more women who had emerged from the second aircar, likewise dressed in black Imperial jumpsuits.

They looked good in them, too. The jumpsuits were both tight-fitting and professional; they accentuated the women’s forms but in a way that spoke of rigor and seriousness. Somewhere the Empire had employed a fashion designer who had earned his or her pay.

The six soldiers opened the door which Junipero had been guarding. The young woman stood limply to the side, Calla holding one arm and... and stroking her hair. The soldiers entered the building one at a time, the door closing behind them.

The aircars were all landed now. The drivers of the first two were in grey, non-military jumpsuits, and stood by their aircars as the doors of the second two cars opened.

First out of the closest car was a woman converted into brood—heavily converted. She wore nothing at all; her skin was a dark, glossy black, except for her face and the front of her torso, where it was a dark grey. She was large-chested, with large black aerolae, and she bent forward as she emerged, like she was looking for something—or hunting. She reminded Helen of an animal, scenting for prey.

Second to emerge was the brood-converted woman that had given them the aircars at the crossroads, dressed in a black leather jacket and lime green pants. She paused next to the nude woman, who looked at her. Something was communicated silently between them, because the nude woman loped off towards Han-Irinov, Cruzado-Liu, and Lynn. Helen realized that the woman in the leather jacket was just as brood-touched as the nude woman bounding across the landing pad.

A man came out of the third aircar as well, also brood-converted, dressed in a white jumpsuit, but Helen’s attention suddenly was on the fourth car.

Cora and Vanderbruk had just gotten out of it.

They were smiling, mouths wide beneath their black eyes, and immediately followed the nude woman towards the western doorway. Neither of them wore the police uniforms which Helen had seen them in last; instead they were in black unitards which hugged their bodies.

There were two more Imperial-uniformed broodslaves in the fourth car, but Helen’s attention was on Cora and Vanderbruk.

Lynn Thompson had pulled the door into the western building open, and the nude woman passed right by her and the two docile SSDF troopers and went inside. Lynn let go of the door and approached Cora and Vanderbruk, throwing her arms open, and she met Cora with a hug, then kissed her. Not on the cheek, but a full, mouth-to-mouth, sensual kiss.

It lasted longer than Helen had anticipated. It was hot, watching them make out. Helen’s hand slipped across the ground towards her crotch.

Then Lynn switched, and was embraced by Vanderbruk; watching the two of them and their deep kissing was somehow even hotter, the scientist’s cool demeanor somehow making the kissing more... intense.

But that kiss, too, ended, and Lynn gestured at the limp, stationary forms of Cruzado-Liu and Han-Irinov. Their heads were down, their eyes closed. Cora and Vanderbruk approached the two women, stepping near them, speaking to them. Helen could not hear them over the wind.

Lynn Thompson had turned away and was now approaching her.

Helen watched as she came towards her, grinning, her womanly body swaying seductively as she walked. Maybe she would take Helen somewhere, somewhere with a bed...

Helen looked up. Lynn smiled down at her. “Hello, Helen.”

“What’s...” Helen fought to rally her mind, to focus on what was going on rather than the arousal that had her body thrumming, “what’s going on?”

Lynn’s smile was so earnest. “I know you’re distracted right now, Helen-drone. I can feel it. But you’re such a smart woman... why don’t you puzzle it out?”

Helen nodded. She would do what she was told, and puzzle it out. “They’re,” she said, her eyes flicking to where the Administrator woman was standing with the man and two of the uniformed women, “they’re brood. And you know them. So you...” she looked at Lynn, “...you’re brood, too.”

“Very good, Helen,” Lynn said. “Keep going.”

“But when did they... we rescued you...” Helen’s eyes widened. “It was a trick.”

“It was,” Lynn replied, and squeezed her breasts. Helen stared hungrily. “And a good one, too, wasn’t it? The drone that leapt onto me made it look sooo real.”

“You’re brood. You’ve always been brood.”

“I am a broodslave,” Lynn agreed. “Yes. But not always—my daughter and I were converted at Naigurh, right after the invasion. In the same hospital that our dear Captain Stone and Sergeant Belangier raided. As they were climbing out a back window, we were awakening into our new lives. They didn’t see us there, though.”

“So you... oh.” Helen blinked. “Oh. You got me.”

Lynn knelt down next to her as Helen stared at her.

“I’m brood,” Helen said, wonderingly. She looked down at her breasts, her hands.

“You’re brood,” Lynn replied, and got down onto her knees, her hands taking hold Helen’s shoulders, and kissed her. Her tongue was instantly in Helen’s mouth and Helen sucked on it, her sexual need simply overriding any other thought. She licked Lynn’s tongue and put her arms around Lynn’s back, red hot with the need to mate with her, to fuck her-

Lynn pulled her face back with a wet pop. Helen whined audibly.

“Welcome to the brood, lover,” Lynn said. “I know you need satisfaction, but for that you’re going to need to come with me. There’s something that you are to do now.”

Lynn stood up. She stretched her hands down; Helen took hold of them and was pulled to her feet.

It was still unreal. “I’m brood,” she said.

“Oh yes. The seed has been growing within you since I implanted it in your body that first night we met. Now you and it are becoming one. It’s already dissolved any ability you once had to worry or to fear anything; and it’s implanted the correct attitude towards our new species. Tell me, Helen, do you still think that we need to get away from the brood any more?”

Helen shook her head. “No,” she said. “I understand now. I... I am brood. I want to help them. I want to... obey them. I need to obey.”

Lynn smiled and Helen hoped she would kiss her again, but instead she took her hand and pulled her towards the western door, the one that the nude broodslave had entered. “That’s right!” she said cheerfully. “We are all brood now. As we were meant to be.”

“How did you...?”

“Get you?” Lynn said. “Mmm. That’s one of the best parts. My daughter and I were altered to carry brood ovipositors in our wombs. While you were asleep, I slid mine into your mouth and laid my egg in your stomach. From there it sent a root up and grew throughout your brain.”

Helen’s logical mind noted that, had she still been human, she would have been horrified. Instead, she felt a still-greater wave of arousal wash over her, stopping her in her tracks. The idea of it, of laying an egg in a sleeping human female, was so attractive, so... right. It was what needed to happen, what ought to happen, and the fact that Lynn had done it to her... it was exactly the way it ought to have been. She’d needed a brood egg laid inside her; and Lynn had done just that.

“I...” Helen gasped. “Thank you.”

Lynn giggled. “You’re so welcome.” She squeezed Helen’s hand. “But come on, I don’t want to waste your sopping-wet pussy. You will follow me now, and obey.”

“Yes,” Helen agreed, her voice vehement. Her new, brood-altered mind found that obeying commands was very important to her. “Lead me. I will obey.”

Lynn led her across to the doorway of the western building, the one which the nude, brood-altered woman had entered. No one was at the door; while Helen was distracted understanding her new self and new purpose, people had moved around. Han-Irinov and Cruzado-Liu were no longer there by the door; Cora and Vanderbruk had taken gentle hold of them and led them away. Now they stood between the aircars, Han-Irinov and Cruzado-Liu with blank faces and limp arms, Cora and Vanderbruk leaning on them, whispering in their ears.

As they reached the door, however, Helen realized that Calla had followed from the opposite side of the landing pad, trailing Junipero behind her. Helen turned to look at them.

The soldier was staring into space, hands limp at her sides. Calla, having stopped pulling her along, was now stroking Junipero’s cheek and speaking soft words to her.

“You should let Emilee-drone do that, dear,” Lynn said from next to Helen. “She’s the one who knows this human’s mind the best.”

“But mother,” Calla objected, “it’s so much... nn. It feels so good. Her mind is so open, so soft, so ready to do whatever I tell her.”

“I know how it makes you feel,” Lynn said as she pulled the door to the building open. “But you will do what is best for the brood.”

“Yes, mother,” Calla replied. “Of course. Obeying the brood is all. I’ll just wait for Emilee-drone to finish with Andreia and then take Liqin to her.”

“That’s right,” her mother replied. “But then you will wake Bekka-drone and bring her to the implantation chamber,” Lynn said, at which Calla immediately perked up.

“Ooooh, yes,” she said enthusiastically. “Oh yes. That will be... Mm. I love you, mother.”

“I love you, Calla-drone,” Lynn replied. She turned her attention back to Helen. “Follow along now.”

They walked inside and down a hallway, Helen obediently following along; Lynn had not released her hand and the other woman’s touch felt really good. It all felt rather like being in a dream, a good, erotic dream, although Helen knew that she was not dreaming, that this was all real.

That she was now brood.

“Lynn?” she asked.

“Hm?”

“So I’m a... a drone?”

“That’s right, dear. You’re a brood drone now, an infiltration drone like Calla and I are. No one can tell that you are a broodslave by looking at you, although if you were to carefully feel through the hair on the back of your head, you’d find that you now have a tiny antennae back there.”

The idea sent tingles through Helen’s nipples. “I’m... my body is all shot through with brood, aren’t I?”

They turned a corner as Lynn laughed. “Oh yes, dear, although I’m finding that I have begun to lose the distinction between the brood flesh which has grown throughout my human body, and the human flesh that I had to start with. I am a new creature: Lynn-drone. All of my flesh is equally me.”

Helen nodded. She was a new creature now.

They turned another corner and there was a short staircase down, at the bottom of which stood a pair of double doors. The doors were open and a woman Helen hadn’t seen before stood to the side, holding one of the doors open with her back.

Helen realized with a small sense of wonder that she could sense that the woman was brood. The woman’s mind was somehow detectable by her own mind. She looked at the woman’s impassive face, and felt the obedient throb of the mind behind it, with a dawning feeling of new, marvelous powers, which her conversion and awakening were granting her.

“I can feel her mind,” she said to Lynn-drone.

“Yes. As I can sense yours. As we can all sense each others’. And your timing is excellent, because here we are.”

Beyond the double doors was a hallway with a series of thick, metal doors running down the right side. The very first door was open, and Lynn paused in front of it.

“I feel like I should give you some advice,” she said, “but that’s just the human part of me speaking. The brood in me knows that your instincts will guide you exactly right.”

“What is this? What am I to do?” Helen asked. She felt a mind inside the room, but a different sort of mind, not like Lynn’s or the woman’s but... bigger. Stronger. More... primitive.

Lynn smiled, then with her hands on Helen’s shoulders, leaned forward and kissed her again. Helen responded instantly, unhesitatingly, thrusting her own tongue into Lynn’s mouth, reaching forward to squeeze Lynn’s ass.

Lynn broke the kiss. “We will make love,” she said, “later. I promise. But for now, you need to enter this room and submit yourself to the broodmind within.”

Helen wasn’t sure what a broodmind was, but she was eager to obey. “I obey,” she said, feeling wonderful as she said it.

Lynn stepped to the side and Helen went forward and turned into the open door. The room beyond was large, ten meters by ten, and was not designed for a human inhabitant; no chairs, beds, desks, or any such things. Instead there were a few vaguely organic looking structures crafted from some black chitin-like substance.

Helen did not examine them. Her entire focus was drawn to the creature that stood in the center of the room. It looked like one of the large xenos, man-high, four sharp legs and a tall, flattened center body, except that it was less flat on top, its back a hilly collection of chitinous bumps. Under its center, sacs of darkly translucent flesh dangled.

The old Helen would have been terrified. Helen-drone was very, very excited. Thrilled. This creature... it was what she was meant for.

It reached into her mind.

She felt it, like a finger in her mind, pushing in with minimal resistance. It was not a physical sensation but she felt it clearly nonetheless. It was entering her, sliding into her mind.

Like opening her clothes, like opening her legs, she wanted—she needed—to welcome it. To give it complete access. She needed to let it do whatever it wanted, needed to force her mind and her self completely open to... whatever it might want to do. The need to submit and spread was overwhelming.

She resisted not at all; on the contrary, she struggled to find the right hands, the right things to do, the best means of spreading her mind open. She had to help it, had to submit, had to welcome it into her mind.

Either her eager co-operation and its own power was all that was necessary. It slid deeply in without hesitation and Helen gasped. It was reading her, sucking up her memories, her thoughts. Everything she thought or knew or that she wanted or cared about... all of her was now in its possession. Its presence filled her mind as it took in everything that she was.

And then... it changed things.

Helen whined in pleasure as she kept her mind spread wide. It was touching things in her mind in a different way now. A light touch here and something died, some emotion or hesitation or attitude that was not useful to the brood shriveled away and was gone forever. Another touch here and something lit up, an opinion or feeling or memory that the new Helen would now rely on as part of her core self.

And it implanted wholly new things: new desires, new needs. Things it wove into the new mind of the new creature she had become.

Then it withdrew, or almost; a thin thread of its mind still tied into hers, bringing to it any information from her slave brain that it might desire. But the remolding was done; Helen-drone was now the new creature the brood wished her to be.

Slowly, Helen stopped fighting to keep her mind open and spread. That was no longer necessary. As she came back to something more resembling consciousness, she realized that she had come not just once but several times, that she was lying on her back, spread-legged on the floor, that the crotch of her pants was dark with her own juices.

She looked up at the broodmind which stood over her. There was a tiny pulse down the thread which fed into Helen-drone’s mind.

With a racing heart, she quickly pulled off her pants, her underpants.

Helen-drone swallowed as she stood up and turned around. She bent at the waist as though hinged, a new behavior which nonetheless seemed utterly natural. She spread her legs, touched the floor with her fingers.

Another instruction pulsed down the thread. There was something she must do.

With her mind.

Helen-drone reached out. She found Lynn-drone’s mind nearby; just outside.

She had been waiting.

Helen-drone loved her.

Helen-drone sent Lynn-drone a simple thought: come in.

And Lynn-drone did, entering the room with a wide smile, walking over to where Helen-drone stood legs straight, toes pointed, fingertips on the floor, and Lynn-drone got onto her knees next to Helen-drone’s bare and leaking pussy and guided the oviposition tube of the broodmind into her.

Helen-drone moaned as it went inside her. It felt so good, so good, not as good as when the broodmind had spread open her brain and reprogrammed her very self, but almost, almost. Lynn-drone licked Helen-drone’s clit beneath the thick tube of the ovipositor and Helen-drone cried out as she came, body shaking, but her legs remaining erect and her ass raised in the position the broodmind had indicated.

Pleasure came from obedience; it must never compromise it.

The tube pushed in, and in, and bumped into and then pried open Helen-drone’s cervix. Lynn-drone was licking her again, licking her splayed labia around the broodmind’s ovipositor, and Helen-drone whined and struggled to stay focused on the task she was truly here to do.

To fill her body with eggs.

The first egg arrived at her spread pussy. Helen-drone willed her pussy to open, to welcome the egg, but it was unnecessary. The egg paused only long enough for the second egg to arrive behind it and then it popped into her vagina. Helen-drone cried out, coming again.

One by one, the eggs pushed down through her vagina and past her dilated cervix and into Helen-drone’s welcoming womb. Soon there were enough within her that Helen felt herself began to stretch, felt her stomach begin to bloat and grow. Just the idea was luscious and wonderful.

Then a pause, and then the broodmind pumped liquid into her, not sperm but some sort of nutrient and sealant mixture, and it filled all her crevices and folds, and the ovipositor withdrew and caused her to come yet again as it slid out, and the thick grey goop oozed briefly from her vagina and then gelled in place.

With the broodmind’s acquiescence, Helen-drone allowed herself to slump down onto the floor.

‘Wonderful’, Lynn-drone thought at her.

‘Yes’, Helen-drone agreed. ‘Wonderful’.

“Take a moment to rest,” Lynn-drone said verbally. She sat down on the floor next to Helen-drone; Helen-drone’s cheek was still pressed to the floor, her arms slumped alongside her body. Her ass was still up, still bare, but she was resting on her knees now. Her stomach felt blissfully bloated.

Lynn-drone stroked her cheek. “Once you can walk... Calla-drone is helping Bekka-drone with her own implantation next door. It would be fun to go watch. And make out while doing so.”

Helen-drone sighed blissfully. This new life...

It was wonderful.

“What do we do?” Margot asked.

Stone came out of her crouch and stepped forward, in full view of the creature. “We go back up and see what the eight hells is going on, of course,” she said. She gestured at the thing in the cell. “Whatever that is,” she continued, “if it’s been trapped in here until now, it’s not getting out any time soon.”

The creature stood at the clear, thick wall, clawed hands pressed flat against it, watching them emotionlessly—or what appeared to be emotionlessly. What would human emotions look like, on her alien face?

“It’s the field,” Margot observed, taking a step closer to the creature. “That’s what is keeping her in there. That feeling in the air—it must affect the xenos somehow.”

“I think you’re right,” Stone replied, taking hold of Margot’s shoulder. “But we can speculate later. Right now we gotta go.”

They turned away from the creature and strode back across the room; in contrast to their surreptitious entry, Stone and Margot walked quickly and directly through the staggered ranks of containment units and their long-dead contents.

“Han-Irinov, come in,” Stone said into the walkie-talkie. “Corporal, are you there?”

There was no response.

Stone muttered an imprecation as they passed through the lower security door. They ascended the metal stairs two at a time; Stone tried the walkie-talkie again when they reached the top and re-entered the laboratory corridors.

Still no response.

Margot stopped her.

“Hang on,” she said. “If Pearl were able to respond, she would. Either she’s hiding, or... well, or something. In either case, do we want to go back on the outside, where we’re easy to see? I’ll bet that these hallways connect all the buildings, and if we stay inside we’ll have a better chance of sneaking up on whoever she was talking about.”

Stone nodded. “Good idea.”

So instead of taking the corridor leading out to the courtyard they proceeded straight, down the tiled hall which gave access to the various labs.

Margot tried to think. Who was out there? If it were other refugees, or Imperials, Han-Irinov would still be communicating with them. So it was hostiles. It was probably the Administrator, or forces reporting to her. They knew they were here. She’d said nothing about following them. Had she had second thoughts about letting them roam Cliffgarden unwatched? It seemed rather a lot of effort to simply be a trap, although it had gotten them away from the AATGV.

Or perhaps Han-Irinov had met whoever was already here, on Cliffgarden. The same person or persons who refilled the Creature’s nutri-gel supply. And collected her eggs.

Where did those eggs go?

Despite their attempts to be silent, the empty corridor echoed gently with the sound of their footsteps. The walls were covered with the usual coating of corkboards bearing notices, messages, memos. They passed by a poster advertising vacations on Novisvrb, a low-grav world Margot had never visited. The cheerful family in their flying suits seemed like something from a story, a daydream, unrelated to real life.

At the end of the hallway a pair of double doors opened into the next building. Beyond them was a short corridor opening to a sunlit atrium, a large skylight three stories above illuminating several levels of balconies and interconnecting stairs. Just ahead of them at the ground level were couches and low tables, and several large urns with crispy, dead plants dangling limply over their sides.

They paused to scan the atrium interior. The landing pad was up one more story. “Up here, or down the hallway and up when we reach the right building?” Margot asked in a whisper.

“Up here,” Stone replied, leading the way up a staircase to the open balcony of the floor above. An interior window next to a door looked in on what appeared to be residential rooms; a sofa facing a viewscreen, a dining table, a kitchen area visible in the gloom further from the window.

They walked around the balcony to the hallway that led west towards the landing pad. The hall was dark, the only light spilling in from the atrium behind them.

Their shadows preceded them as they moved down the hall. Several doors went by on the right and left; then there was another double door at the end of the hall.

“Looks like you were right,” Stone said, carefully opening the door, “All the buildings are connected on the inside as well.”

“No reason to make people walk in the rain just to get from one to another,” Margot replied.

The hallway running through the next building was dark as well, and this far from the atrium little light reached through the now-open door. However, the door at the far end of the hall, thirty meters or so away, had a window set into it, and through that window was daylight.

“The landing pad should be right behind that door,” Stone whispered. “That’s the one Junipero was guarding.”

“Right,” Margot replied.

They moved quietly down the cave-dark hall.

Suddenly Margot’s feet were swept from beneath her. Her training took over and she was turning, spinning even as she fell, but someone seized her hands and then a solid blow hit her in the stomach; although she was twisting so that it caught her in the obliques as much as the stomach, it still knocked the wind from her.

Then she was pinned, arms stretched above her head, someone—no, two someones—sitting on top of her, pinning her shoulders and her thighs.

Stone grunted in the darkness near her; replaying the last second and a half in her mind, Margot recalled hearing a scuffle from her, too. So they’d both been subdued.

Whoever it was, they were at least human. Strong hands took hold of Margot’s wrists and brought them down behind her back. There was a click and then the cold metallic squeeze of handcuffs.

“I’m going to turn the lights on,” a familiar voice said. “You’ll want to be prepared.”

The overhead lights came on. Margot looked around, wincing. She was being held down by a man and a woman in black Imperial Special Tasks uniforms. Two others were on top of Stone, who was equally flattened, her arms also cuffed behind her back.

Margot craned her neck to see the woman who had spoken.

There, in her black jacket and green pants, was Administrator Xu-Silva.

“Fancy meeting you again so soon,” she said, smiling beneath her black eyes.

Margot didn’t struggle as they lifted her to her feet.

Stone did, and earned a hard punch in the stomach for her trouble.

“I would like to introduce you to someone,” the Administrator said, indicating a black-eyed woman in slacks and a pale blue button-down shirt who stood next to her. “This is Director Spee. She’s part of the group that has been taking care of this facility for us. She was staff here when the brood took over.”

The woman, whose pale skin contrasted with the black veins at her temples and under her jaw, nodded without smiling.

“You,” Stone gasped, “you wanted us to come here.”

“Oh yes,” the Administrator agreed. “There is a very special task that only you can do for us. The fact that you were coming here of your own volition, well, that made it much easier.”

“Vanderbruk,” Margot said. “She was lying all along.”

The Administrator tilted her head. “Was she? She told you that this was an Imperial research facility. It was. She told you that there was information about the brood here. There is. You made the decision to come here on your own.”

“Sophistry,” Stone spat. “She led us to believe that there was a cure.”

Xu-Silva laughed. “There is nothing to cure,” she said. “But come, now that we have you there is no more reason to delay.”

The Administrator and Spee turned around and with pressure in the back the uniformed broodslaves started Margot walking. Stone apparently decided it was better to keep her feet than to be dragged, so she, too, let herself be guided down the hallway.

“What happens now?” Stone spat. Margot glanced down at her side; of course they had both been disarmed.

The Administrator and Spee were walking just ahead of them. Xu-Silva replied without looking back: “Well. Everyone else is waiting for us outside, so we’ll join them, and then we have our little task for you to perform, and then you will all get to join the brood.”

“I’d rather die,” Stone said.

“That’s not going to be allowed,” the Administrator replied. “Despite your completely understandable hostility, Captain, you are really far too wonderful of a person to be wasted. No, we want you on our side. We want you quite a lot.”

Stone didn’t reply.

They had reached the door at the end of the hall. Spee pushed it open, and went through; Xu-Silva followed.

Stone was pushed through with a hand on the back of her neck. After her captor was outside, it was Margot’s turn. She didn’t fight.

Once outside, her heart sank.

Right in front of the door stood a brace of the big xeno hunters. The Administrator and Spee had stopped next to them, and stood waiting for Margot and Stone. Several other hunters were walking slowly around the landing platform.

“Where did those come from?” Stone asked.

“We live here,” Spee replied. “And we have since the first free-turned broodslaves returned from Zhuetia to take control of this facility. Rosa-drone had informed us that you were coming, and thus we concealed ourselves for your arrival. Your purpose here is important to us. It would not have done to have scared you off.”

“Rosa, huh?” Stone said, looking at the Administrator.

Xu-Silva dipped her head.

Margot was scanning the rest of the landing pad. There were several humans—no, broodslaves—whom she didn’t recognize, standing near the staircase down to the central courtyard. Two of them were in grey jumpsuits, and two in white lab coats. With them was one of the feral-looking slaves, a nude woman with black, clawed hands and feet. Her short red hair caught the eye, both on her head and between her legs.

A second one of the hunter-type humans, with a larger chest and curvier hips but just as black and chitinous on her extremities, was standing with a tall male broodslave next to the door which led into the westernmost building. As Margot watched, the door opened.

Bekka Han-Harris walked out.

She was completely naked, and smiling.

Behind her came Helen Tsugerloi, who was still in her tight shirt but was likewise nude from the waist down. She was smiling as well, and speaking with Lynn Thompson, who followed behind her. In the rear came Lynn’s daughter, Calla. The Thompsons were still both dressed, but...

Stone had seen them as well. “They’re...” she said, staring.

“...us?” the Administrator finished. “Yes. They are all brood now. The Thompsons have been brood the entire time you have known them.”

“But- but they look human,” Margot objected. “Their eyes.”

“When properly infested, broodslaves need not display any external stigmata,” Xu-Silva replied. “How do you think we took over the ships in orbit? Only some of us are blended. Our bodies are optimized for the type of service we perform.”

“The entire time,” Stone whispered.

“Yes, it was quite a cunning deception,” Xu-Silva said. “Tsugerloi and Han-Harris have only just now joined us, mind you. But we planted the Thompsons among your group quite deliberately.”

Margot stared at Han-Harris. Her stomach was bulging like the early stages of pregnancy. It was a swelling Margot remembered well from Arc of Sands. She’d been implanted with brood eggs. It had happened just now—that’s why she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Tsugerloi, too. Her stomach also jutted forward in a way it hadn’t when they’d landed here.

They were laughing, and talking, and Calla Thompson wrapped her arms around Han-Harris and they began to kiss. Tsugerloi watched them making out with a big smile, then looked in mock surprise at Lynn Thompson, who had just squeezed her ass.

Margot’s head swum.

Xu-Silva stepped in between them and the happy, infested foursome.

“You will have plenty of time to bond with your companions,” she said. “But before then, allow me to tell you why we wanted you here.”

“The queen,” Margot replied, staring at her.

The Administrator raised her eyebrows. “How astute,” she remarked. “Go on.”

“You want us to turn off the field that is trapping your queen. We saw her, down there. In the secure laboratory. There’s a field generator—it doesn’t bother humans. But I’m guessing it’s a problem for you.”

“You saw her?” Xu-Silva said, a slight hunger in her voice. “Yes. Yes, that is why you’re here. We need humans to disable the repellent field. We cannot approach it without... pain. It was the last gasp of the humans who ran this place; they had installed it as a fail-safe, a means of containing the creatures that they had designed. When we returned and overran Cliffgarden, the last among them turned it on.”

“What happened to them?” Stone asked.

The Administrator shrugged. “They stayed there for weeks, but without food and water?” She shrugged. “They tried to escape. They failed. Since then we have kept watch here, waiting for the field generator to fail, but it never has. And then we learned that you were coming. Unconverted humans, heading right for Cliffgarden. What a perfect opportunity for us. You can simply walk in, untroubled, and turn it off.”

“We’ll never do it,” Stone said. “Never.”

Xu-Silva smiled. “I’m not asking you to,” she said. “We have other friends for that.”

A quartet of people walked out from behind the further aircar. In the lead were Han-Irinov and Cruzado-Liu. Following them, dressed in black, form-fitting leotards, were Vanderbruk and Cora.

“Oh Blessed Mother,” Stone hissed.

“Pearl and Andreia have been well-primed,” Xu-Silva said, “and are quite happy to perform as their handlers have instructed them.”

“No!” shouted Stone, lunging forward only to be brought up short by hands around her handcuff chain. “No!” she screamed. “Don’t do it!”

Neither Han-Irinov or Cruzado-Liu looked over, or even altered their slow, measured stride.

“They cannot hear you,” Xu-Silva said. “Cora-drone and Emilee-drone are quite firmly in control of their minds.”

Stone’s face crumpled, and she sagged.

Margot watched as the four women approached the group standing by the courtyard staircase, all of whom turned and stepped to the side. Han-Irinov and Cruzado-Liu walked down the stairs. Vanderbruk followed, as did Cora—who, as she stepped down onto the first step, turned and looked directly at Margot.

And waved.

As she disappeared down the staircase, Margot reflected. How long ago had it been that Cora had been Freckles? The cute girl with the glasses and the bikini top, terrified and glossy with sweat? Managing somehow to keep it together as they fought the waves of scurrying things, only to have one of them crawl up her paralyzed body and inject itself into her brain?

Margot could still picture it, vividly. She couldn’t look away then, and she couldn’t stop herself from seeing it again now.

That was about to happen to all of them.

“What happens when you get your queen back?” Margot asked quietly.

“Mm. You mistake the situation,” Xu-Silva said. “As insightful as you are, there is much you do not yet know. The being you saw in the secure lab... she is not our queen in the sense of the queen of a hive of bees. She is our progenatrix. She is the first of us, the first true brood, and we are all her children.”

The Administrator raised a hand. “The Imperials wanted a biological organism that could subsume the human will, could turn rebellious human subjects into controllable entities. But to cross the species boundary, to be able to work efficaciously on human biology, that new life form had to be partly human itself. And so they created her. The mother of us all.”

“You’ve been feeding her,” Margot said, looking at Spee. “And collecting her eggs.”

“Yes,” Xu-Silva nodded. “That has been the primary task of those living here. Fortunately, the automated feeding system can be reloaded from outside the repellent field. And we take good care of her eggs. But it was nice to hear that you saw her in the flesh. That she is still... well.”

“What do you want with us?” Stone said, her face still pointed towards the floor. “Whatever you’ve done to Cruzado-Liu and Han-Irinov, you’ve got them to turn off your damned field. Why do you need us?”

“Insurance,” Xu-Silva said. “They could fail. We might still need you as humans. No need to rush into things.”

“Do you still want me?” Margot asked. “Voluntarily? Or was that a lie, too?”

“Oh no,” the Administrator replied. “We do want you, very much. And... please. We may have misguided you, but I have been scrupulous never to lie.“

Margot inhaled. “If I join you willingly,” she said, and it felt as though she were hearing the words coming from someone else’s mouth, “will you let Varra go?”