The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Rebirth

By Saddle Rider

Chapter Two

Everything was so beautiful. Rainbows layered upon themselves and the bands of color entwined like the double helix of DNA and they climbed and weaved through the gaps created by the others. It was endlessly fascinating and relaxing and Kayley could look at it forever. The only problem for her just now was the border of otherness that existed around her. It was just a fringe, really, and it was something she thought she could ignore.

The lights were there and she could keep diving in and almost swimming with them, but that fringe was fussing with her happy. Knowing it was there was enough. There shouldn’t be anything but the peace and the rainbows. With some internal effort, she looked to the borders around the well of happy that seemed to change as she moved. Maybe it was a new pattern. Maybe it’d be something entertaining too if she focused on it. The view changed as she moved her head back and forth. The pattern was nowhere near as fun as the rainbows that teased and seduced her to get her to come back.

So come back she did. For, she had no idea how long, she just breathed and let herself feel the taste of the excitement that mixed with contentment like when she was very little before it all went so wrong when Kayley would be at the park and try to see how high the swing could take her. Still, the border gnawed at her. Maybe if she knew what it was for sure she could forget about it.

She examined the pattern, moving her head with some agitation at first, mostly just angry at that fringe for existing and hoped that she could shake it loose. When that failed she took stock of it. Lines and color formed their own patterns, and there was something familiar about them if she looked hard enough. She caught sight of something familiar..bright silver and curved over a basin. Kayley struggled for the word and she finally pulled up “faucet.” She was somewhere else. The world was not a tapestry of rainbows, though that would have been nice to slip back to.

No. Yes, but no. Where the fuck am I?

Now that her mind was trying to find new patterns in the periphery using the one thing she recognized she found other bits. Color and lines? Cabinets. Light overhead. White and silver and well-lit told her she was somewhere clinical which left her a little bewildered and afraid, which, in turn, made the spectacle a glance away all the more tempting. She gave it one and the happy after the rush of fear was almost overwhelming. No, she said, scolding herself, that’s what they want.

Turning her head side to side, taking stock of what she could, she could feel the smooth leather of the wide chair on either side of her and that her wrists were bound to it. She spent the next minute bringing the side of her head down on either side of the chair as hard as she could manage in an effort to dislodge the device strapped to her head. As a pleasant side effect the thrashing helped clear her mind a little. She heard the static-like sounds of the velcro straps that kept it to her head pulling away from one another as the left side of the headset or whatever it was lifted enough so that she could see the room.

It was indeed some sort of clinical room. Black counter tops, white cabinets, with black handles and gleaming silver fixtures dominated and the overhead light burned eyes used to soft happy rainbows. Kayley closed her eyes from it and the stinging that it bought with it after she looked down and made out the canvas straps that secured her to the chair, gnawing on the gold buckles like a wild animal. She didn’t even think about the ‘how’ of why she was where she was. It didn’t matter and there was no reason to dwell on it. I’m here. I don’t wanna be here. I’m getting out. She snarled as she made some headway, pulling up the left strap what felt like too little at a time. Finally, it gave way and she pulled it free enough to get her hand out.

The other hand followed and she pulled the rainbow maker from her head and tossed it to the wall, feeling some satisfaction at the aural twinkle of the cracking and shattering of thin metal and plastic. That was one obstacle down. Next, she focused on the door at the other end of the room. It was steel painted white with a square window for those passing by to peer in.

She looked out and, seeing no one began rifling through the drawers in the room, looking through the medical equipment and various office supplies trying to find things that she might use on the lock. Selecting some medical equipment that seemed to fit the bill she dropped to her knees and went to work manipulating the pins inside the lock. She didn’t know how much time she might have before whoever might happen by, but if she worried about it too much right now she’d screw up the lock. If they come they’ll just zap me again anyway and it’s over so, don’t worry about it. Work.

The tip of Kayley’s tongue poked from the right side of her mouth without her thinking about it as her long fingers felt their way through the process. Feeling the last pin push into place she turned the knob. Before pulling it open, she looked both ways as far as the little window would let her and opened it. The instant she stepped out she felt their presence and jumped when she turned to the right to see Rebecca and the clones waiting.

Samuels was leaning uncharacteristically casually against the white wall, arms crossed with a genuine grin on her face. “I like you, Kayley, very much. I’ve been watching you for a bit now,” she added, pointing to the cameras above them.

Fear died to be replaced by anger and frustration.“Who the hell are you and where the hell am I?”

“I’m Doctor Rebecca Samuels, and the facility I run is where the hell you are.”

“Where is here?”

“Where you are.” She straightened and decided to accede to the glare that hoped to cut through her that in so many ways reminded her of her own. “Still in the city.”

“What happened?” She thought back on it, trying to answer her own question, “I remember...Carlos belting me, then glass shattering, then...happy. Stupid happy.” She pieced those together with earlier in the night while Samuels looked at her with curiosity and a look that was no less than honest encouragement. “The clones counting out thirty bills without looking and picking up Carlos like a bitch and just...holding him there.” Her eyes done dancing as she processed her own memories, she returned Samuels’ curiosity, “Do you make robots or something?”

Naturally analytical and logical, even likely without education. Wonderful. “I don’t. I would actually consider what I do a bit more complicated and delicate, though I respect serious work among those seeking AI and to put that into an android form. I don’t mean to nitpick, it’s just that I tend to see robots as different from androids as the usual intention for an android is to pass as a person.”

She stopped herself from further rambling with the wave of a hand as, on occasion, particularly when it came to science she could ramble. “I don’t make robots or androids.”

Kayley tensed looking down the hall behind her wondering where she could run even if the Amazonian clones let her which she doubted, “What did you bring me here for?”

“Because you may not think you are, but I think you are a rare find, Kayley. Come with me, please.”

Samuels walked toward the elevator at the other end of the hall while the twins stood their ground, Staci giving a subtle nudge to follow. The not so subtle nudge being that they stood blocking her path. “What if I don’t wanna go?”

“You can stay in the hall with the girls if you like. I know they may not seem like great conversationalists, but they can be and are versed in a wide variety of topics.”

“Will following you get me out of here?”

“No,” she called back as she allowed the soft blue light to sweep her eyes from left to right and then back again, “but it beats the hallway. I’d like to talk to you and show you some things.”

Then can I go?”

The doors opened on the wide elevator with doors on the other end like she’d seen in hospitals. “Do you want me to lie to you and say you can leave after our chat?”

She felt her throat constrict as Rebecca’s words sank in.“No.”

“You’re destined for something great, I think, Kayley. I’m afraid I can’t let such potential go to waste. As much as you don’t see it right now, I do. I want you here, so here you’ll stay.”

Kayley was always pragmatic even if she didn’t know the word. Even if she could get past the clones she had no idea how to get out of here and no expectation that they would make it easy anyway. Her best chance was to go with her. Rebecca seemed rational in her own way, maybe Kayley could make her see reason, so she took a first few slow steps to the elevator before resuming her usual stride with some natural hip sway.

When the four of them were safely inside Samuels spoke as Staci and Traci took their places behind her, “Processing level three.”

There was a beep and the elevator started slowly downward. There was a knot forming in the blonde’s stomach as she got further from freedom before she tried to crush it. Who the fuck are you kidding, Kayley? Look at this place. Whatever it is, you’re not getting out. Even if you got away from her she’s got more clones or, hell, someone will just hit me with more rainbows and I’m over.

There was nowhere to go now anyway. At least Lisa got out. She was sure of that because she knew the girl. At the first sign that Kayley was caught that girl was halfway across town.

And if Kayley couldn’t make it out, whatever happened, she hoped Lisa made it to one of those square states that nobody lived.

On another front, she pictured Carlos calling all his friends and telling him to bring their guns while he found everyone in the house and threw them on the couch while having full on conversations with himself about what he would do to everyone who pissed him off when he found them. But if Rebecca hit her with the rainbow bomb, everyone else got it, too, so she dared to ask, “Did you kill Carlos?”

“Of course not,” she asked as though the notion was just stupid, “nothing so...inelegant. In fact, I liberated him to do something he’s always wanted to do. That what he’s always wanted to do is short-sighted, moronic, and will get him killed is not my problem.”

Samuels eyes surveyed Kayley and noted her reaction. “That doesn’t bother you.”

She snorted as she returned the gaze. “Should it? He’d have to work his way up to piece of shit. You have no idea what he did to girls fresh off the bus to turn ’em out. You have no idea what he did when you didn’t bring what he said to bring back. Shit, sometimes, he set the money super high just so he’d have an excuse.” She remembered more than a few of those times when they involved her and when they didn’t because he liked an audience. He even liked to get the girls in on it sometimes to try to keep them from being friends. “Fuck him.”

“Exactly.”

Kayley faced her with a smile and her hand ran up Rebecca’s arm suggestively. “Guess I owe you, huh?”

The doctor appraised her again as the blonde gave her her best ‘come fuck me’ look, touching her cheek again. There was delicate with the fierce; feral one moment and an unsure fawn the next. She liked how they mixed. Samuels drew closer so that each could feel the other’s breath and she had to admit the desire was there. She was desirable on many levels. The doctor asked tenderly “Trying to sex your way out?”

“Would it work? Personal toy for a couple of days or whatever and I can go?”

“It is tempting,” she admitted. “You have a wonderful spark of life to you and many fine qualities. You’re here because of them. And sexually? I wanted to see you with a friend because I wanted to see you with a friend. You’re a natural dominant, yet gentle. You get caught up in the heat of play the same as your partner. You can know a great deal about a person by watching how they have sex. I like what I saw in you then and since. You...will have greatness.”

Nearly giddy from the promise of that Samuels stepped half a step back to run her fingers through her dark hair, feeling the difference between the thinner streak of silver and the black. “Tempting as you indeed are, sex isn’t enough because I have ample opportunity for that, and I partake quite a bit.”

The elevator finally came to a stop and the doors opened on a long corridor with walls painted a burnt orange. Every dozen feet or so were wide black doors that slid open and closed on tracks, the doors large enough for equipment to be brought in and out. Deciding to amuse herself and perhaps enlighten Kayley in the process, she flipped the switch to hold the door open. “Let me show you something.”

Samuels turned to Staci who looked at her normally as anyone would. No one would have suspected that the twins were her thralls. The doctor slowly undid the buttons on her jacket, exposing the white-buttoned blouse beneath. Kayley thought she was beginning to be able to tell them apart as Traci’s cheeks were just the tiniest bit fuller. “Staci?”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I’m going to play a bit. I’d like you to just be my good girl and stand there and watch me, but you’re free to express yourself in any way that pleases you, alright?”

The ‘yes’ was breathy. The mere anticipation of any touch by the doctor was ecstasy by itself. “Traci, you can as well.”

“Yes, Doctor. Thank you.” It looked to Kayley that she was as excited at the prospect of watching as she would be at the prospect of being touched herself. And the young woman couldn’t help herself. Like a cat obsessed with a pinprick of laser light dancing on the wall she almost had to watch what would happen as she undid the button at the collar, then paused for effect and to speak. “Staci and Traci are very special. In many ways, they are among the finest examples of what I can do. “Fast. Powerful. Intelligent. They will even be in their prime, beautiful as they are now, for a very long time.“

The next button was undone. “And they are mine.”

Staci’s eyes glittered with a hint of mania as she watched the hands of her owner do what she wished, exposing ever more of her flesh. “Yes, Doctor, I’m yours. I was nothing before I was yours, now I will always be yours. I am your slave. I am so your fucking slave.” To Kayley, it sounded like a mantra that the girl knew well, that she said or thought of often to soothe or excite herself depending on the moment.

Her eyes tracked every movement of those fingers down her blouse until it fell entirely open, the air against her tingling skin making her feel like a live wire pulsing with current. Kayley didn’t know how much of it was nature and how much of it was whatever the doctor did but the subtle curves of her belly and the definition of her muscles she looked like she could have been a live version of a Greek sculpture like she saw on tv.

Samuels looked admiringly at the white lace bra and the way the vine pattern cupped her full breasts and strategically covered her nipple while the rest of the lace was just thin enough to allow one to make out their shape and the color of the flesh beneath. Her fingers gently raked Staci’s belly and the muscles shivered at the touch. Even Staci’s jaw quavered as she fought the urge to moan just for the sake of fighting it. She liked to do that for its own sake because it made the feeling that came with the shattering of the self-imposed barrier so much sweeter.

“So active...so sensitive, and that’s when I let them be as much of themselves as they can, which is mostly. I can even turn them mostly off.”

Kayley contemplated trying to leave once again for the briefest moment before she reminded herself she was literally deeper into the belly of the beast. She admitted to herself that the sight before her was hard to look away from. “Turn them off?”

“When I want them to be simple guards, they stand there, wait, and react. Their minds are in a happy place and they wait. Sometimes they put themselves there. They tell me they find it restful.”

“Like a warm bath with that tingle as your muscles unwind,” Traci said, “and it never ends.”

Kayley had seen that look often enough in the eyes of other people to know what was going on behind her eyes. Traci was almost high just talking about it and watching her sister get groped by the doctor. She snarked almost without thinking about it. “Jealous?”

Traci only spared her the quickest glance because to pay her any more attention would take her away from the theater before her. “Envious. It will be my turn or our turn together sometime soon. Until then...I wish I was her.”

“So you two…?”

There was no need to finish the sentence. Staci let the lust out and fed it with the times she could recall with perfect clarity when they were together. “Traci was strong.” She began to pant as the doctor’s nails meandered, sending electric chills to her toes. “Doctor Samuels could have broken her. No one can stand against her that way. Traci simply would have woken up changed.” Remembering was hot. Remembering made the simple touches of the doctor more intense to the point where Staci was nearly dizzy. “But she used me to break her.”

“It was...intense,” Traci said. It was a memory she enjoyed reliving herself. Even now she made love to each word “Resisting...realizing its futility...finally pleading with her because that was all that was left to do. But she was merciless, and I thank her for it.”

“I merely obeyed the doctor. I had no choice, but I took pleasure in it for that.” She bit her lip as the nails stopped making random paths and unfastened her bra from the front to reveal breasts that were every bit as glorious as the hints of the lace implied with half-dollar areola a dark pink like freshly slapped skin, “and for your struggle. It made my pussy wet to watch you squirm and listen to you beg.”

And how she was wet now. Her panties were sopping and the droplets making their own paths down her inner thighs made her skin itch as her insides felt much the same. She didn’t need much more in order to cum, and she waited as patiently as she could. Her panting occasionally carried a whine with it.

Samuels looked to Kayley as she let her nails run around her breasts, occasionally squeezing with the roughness of ownership and the practice of knowing exactly what Staci was feeling. The doctor was gratified in that, while the young woman watched the goings on with interest, some prurient, of course, but it was deeper, too. She was trying to understand it all. “It doesn’t offend you that I’ve tied them together?”

The blonde shrugged. “You realize how many guys I’ve had that wait until the middle of it and start begging me to call ’em ‘Daddy’?”

Staci’s right nipple tempted the doctor and she succumbed for herself as much as for her pet. The very tip of her tongue circled that nipple over and over making her whine. Kayley watched. She knew how to fake it and fake it well, and she could tell when others were. Staci wasn’t. The veins in her breasts began to bulge as her blood rushed wildly through her body. “I’m yours, Mistress. Just a little more, please. Oh, please.”

“You are mine.” Her tongue swirled around the nipple. “You will always be mine.” Swirl. “Imagine it.”

“I do. I live it and I still imagine it. I go to sleep imagining tomorrow.”

Swirl. “Know it.”

She threw her head back in bliss at the thought, the moan from her throat loud and long before she refocused on the sight of the doctor servicing in even a small way, Her unworthy little piece of meat. It was better than being touched by God because her Goddess was tangible in the here and now and gracing her with Her attention. “Forever, Mistress.”

Swirl with a bat of tongue to nipple, “I know what you want.” Swirl. “I know what you’re waiting for. It’s very interesting to me; submissive in that you want it and need it.” Swirl. “And dominant in that you wait for me to give it, trying to control me even as I...”

Her eyes widened in shock and shame at the implication that she could ever be in a position of superiority, “I would never, I could never. I...”

“Cum for me.”

If the command wasn’t enough, it was punctuated with teeth sinking into the yielding flesh while Samuels sucked inward and battered that hard nipple left, right, and sideways. Staci was beyond speech. She stood rooted to the floor as the rest of her body convulsed, muscles flexing rapidly so that Kayley could get a true look at how ripped that body was under the feminine curves. Her eyes locked on the doctor as she panted like a marathoner losing her second wind and her mind utterly surrendered to a feeling that hit in wave after wave.

Kayley admitted that that looked like a helluva cum. Traci’s eyes fluttered so during Staci’s orgasm she was sure Traci came, or something like it, just watching.

“Very good, Staci,” Samuels said with a tenderness that didn’t often find a voice in her. “My good girl. Recover, then let’s proceed, shall we?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Staci answered more by rote than returned coherence.

Samuels returned her attention to Kayley as Staci gathered herself. “Now, imagine being licked by someone so devoted. Sucked. Fingered. Passionate doesn’t begin to cover it. As tempting as you are, there’s nothing you could do by comparison to sway me.”

“I guess not,” she had to admit.

Staci had deftly composed her clothing and herself as though nothing had happened. The four headed down the well-lit corridor as Kayley gave voice to something that had played at the corners of her mind since the doctor had stood nonchalantly waiting at the door. “Why’d you set me up?”

Samuels’ tone was curious, “Set you up?”

“Yeah, in a little room all by myself strapped into an old waiting room chair with the happy goggles before you lay it out for me about how I can’t get out. If you didn’t want me to get out, I wouldn’t get out, right? Why set me up to get out?” Her anger and frustration spiked, or, more that she finally just gave it voice. “Let me wake up just to fuck with me like that little bitch in the cartoons with the football? Hold out getting away just so you can power trip over showing me I can’t?”

Samuels thought nothing of it. The anger was normal. Hell, a physical confrontation would be normal given the circumstances, but even now she was remarkably rational which pleased the doctor no end. Even her walk was still assured. “There’s great potential in you Kayley. I saw it when I first passed you on the street. You have an indomitable spirit. You’re right, I set you up. I put you in a locked room, but one you could easily escape from...if you had the will. You told me while...happy...that you could pick a lock, so I decided to test that, and your inner strength. I adjusted the pacifier to give you an out if you had the fortitude to take it.”

“I’ve given others similar chances as well, and I found them all chin to chest drooling down the front of themselves, willing to die of dehydration rather than lose their happy place. One woman sobbed uncontrollably until it was given back to her. But you chose to fight your way out...and you’d try to fight your way out of here now if it were possible.”

She gazed upon the young woman, her tone becoming more animated.“You talked to me on the street as though you were broken, but it’s not true. You saw how weak Carlos was, you had more money at one time than you have maybe ever seen, and you had a chance. You had a chance at freedom and a new life and you took it. You only failed because of your own loyalty to your friend and, admittedly, my own ax grinding against Carlos.”

“Where is Lisa?” The dread was like a rock in her belly.

“She ran as soon as she saw us coming down the street.”

Kayley sensed the truth in the words and relaxed just a bit. It helped to know that she knew that girl and the fact that, at the end of the day she was a mouse, probably saved her ass.

“You’re clever, witty, and intelligent. You have a superior will. You have qualities that set you apart.”

She spat with self-mockery. “Wanna know how young I quit going to school?”

Samuels dismissed the reaction.“Irrelevant. School is nothing but a place to absorb data and learn how to turn it into usable information. It has remarkably little to do with intelligence in and of itself. You have an intellect there. I see it. My very work is seeing potential in others and shaping it.”

They reached rooms on either side of the corridor with larger double doors ahead of them and Samuels gestured her to the left room as she called ahead. “How is the processing, Jeremy?”

He didn’t jump at the sound of her because, while he often worked alone, it wasn’t unusual for the doctor to be everywhere at once. The bright-eyed technician with the slightly pasty skin that suggested he needed to get out more looked, at the readings on the center display before jumping at the sight of the young blonde at the doorway as she stepped slowly inside to look at the young Asian woman nude and strapped to an angled metal platform, though the straps were simply to keep her from sliding to the floor rather than to prevent escape. Her eyes were focused on the screen just above her that silently displayed a woman bouncing with whorish abandon as she filled her ass with a cock.

A dildo buried itself in her landing-stripped pussy, wires descending from it to a blinking box.

“She’s fine,” the doctor assured him when it came to Kayley’s presence. “The processing?”

“Oh, yes, sorry.” He looked to the master systems monitor in the center. “She started at a point seven-eight. We found what she likes: anal, being domme and,” he added with a grin because it was something he could get into himself, “slippery, oiled-up sex. She’s down to a five-one and starting to seek her rewards. I think we can start the education routines in an hour or so, two tops.”

She looked over the readings, “I think you’re right. Get her down to two-five and let her float for half an hour before you start teaching.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Samuels turned to see Kayley leaning leaning over her, “Trina?”

“She can’t hear you and she doesn’t want to.” As if to agree, the vibrator thrummed loudly and she smiled as the woman on the screen orgasmed as the man she rode wailed in desperation.

“What...were those numbers?”

“Resistance. One is an impenetrable wall, point one is a blank slate. Two-five is nice and pliable with enough of her mind left to help you reprogram her.” Samuels warned her when her hand slowly made its way to the bundle of wires at her temple. “Try to free her like that and you’ll hurt her. She would have to be weaned away.”

“She was always a bitch to me.” Her voice was quiet, pondering whether true or not, she deserved where she was. “You’re gonna turn her into her clones?”

“No, nothing like that probably, not unless a client orders it.” She eyed the woman from head to toe. “A nice body with not too much hard living yet and Asian...she’ll sell.”

“Is that all she is to you? A slab of meat?” It annoyed her to be defending the girl at all when she knew the other would probably be laughing at her and offering to help fry her brain.”

Samuels shrugged. “You’ve lived on the streets. It’s no different there than the African savanna. There are predators and prey. Those of us here? Apex predators. The rest? Less. A client will pay well for her, he will be happy. She will be happy being exactly what he wishes her to be.”

“And you make bank.”

She snorted. “Substantial, but I almost don’t care about that. It only serves its purpose in that it allows me to continue the work.” She was animated and exuberant now, smiling at her hand in the truth. Medicine? Psychology? Work here is half a century ahead of what the rest of the world calls the bleeding edge and beyond that even.”

“But you don’t share it with anybody, do you?”

“Why? So some corporation or government can game it all? Companies and governments do their own research and bury the results. There are a lot of cures for diseases already buried in vaults because there’s more money in treatment than the cure. They play their games, I play mine. I might grant that I’m no better, but I’m no worse.”

She gestured to Trina.“This is how I end up?”

“No.” Her tone was hard, but her brown eyes carried the desire that she understand. “You’re special. You’re destined for more. I’ve sought one like you for a while now. All the qualities I told you that I see in you are innate. Sure, I could make you brave or clever. I could make you anything that I want you to be, but who you truly are is already there. Michelangelo said, ‘In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped in perfect attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. That’s you.”

But you’re going to get rid of me to do it, right? That’s what all this is for. That’s what you want for me.” Her anger rose with her voice and Jeremy leaned forward into his panels to ignore everything as conspicuously possible. “That’s what you’re going to do to me? I’m dead so your...apparition gets to live.”

The answer was honest even in that it wasn’t completely devoid of regret. “Yes.”

“Fuck!”

She rushed from the room and was halfway to the elevator before it struck her like a slap that she couldn’t even open it. In response, she paced the floor like a caged animal. The first word was a final plea. ”Please let me go.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

“Fucking liar!” she bellowed, leaning into it. “You won’t.

“I won’t,” she agreed. She cleared her throat. It could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare the number of times she had a pang of guilt or regret over what was to happen, but there was some here, even though it wasn’t enough to change her course. “I wish I could make you understand. Everything you truly are will still be there. It will be at the core of you and unbreakable. You will be a masterpiece. You’ll understand.”

“You’re just Carlos with a Ph.D., you know that? Carlos will light up a pipe for you or put a coat hanger to your back to turn you out.” She stabbed two fingers rapidly against her right temple. “You turn fucking minds out.“

Samuels stiffened as if struck and her face flashed her anger before she tamped it down as much as she could. “I am nothing like that creature. He and every...thing...like him care only for themselves. Whatever it takes to get you out the door with your mouth open or legs spread just so you bring him his money. Not only do they not care about your misery, they feed on it. They are parasites latched onto society and to women like you.”

Those that leave me are happy to be as they are. They are happy with the lives they go to. There’s no lifetime of pain and desperation as they wonder if they have the strength to escape it, even if that means a bathtub and a razor blade.”

“If I gave the twins the choice to leave me or stay, do you think they’d go?”

“No,” she snarked, “because you fuckin’ turned their minds out.”

“Because they are happy. They are happy with their lives and purpose. Who cares how it came to them? How many people grind day in and day out in misery?” She gave Traci a glance as she stood tall and proud. “And I am...happy with them.”

“Find someone who would be happy with it.”

“I’ve found you, and you will be.”

“And that’s why you’re Carlos with a Ph.D.” Kayley took a deep breath and held it, fighting against the urge to scream again because it wouldn’t do any good. There was no point. It wouldn’t change anything, she didn’t want to give the doctor anymore of the satisfaction or whatever she was getting out of all of this, though she still found herself spinning in a circle in the hallway, stopping finally and facing away from Samuels as she spoke as though spent. “Just...”

After moments dragged like time slowing to a crawl Samuels ventured forth with a single softly spoken word. “Yes?”

She clenched both fists at her side and looked up before staring at the elevator door that was so close, yet only the first impossible step on an impossible journey. “Just...” She gritted her teeth. “Just...make sure I go to someone nice, all right?”

The doctor kept her tone as before, knowing well the edge upon which the girl rested. “Who might that be?”

“God, I don’t fucking know.” She turned and stretched out her arms as though waiting for someone or something to take her. “There’s gotta be some rich, decent guy somewhere that doesn’t wanna fuck with a greedy bitch and a prenup. Just, ‘whenever, wherever you say, dear’ when he wants to fuck. Or...” she began, giving voice to things she always suspected weren’t in her future no matter how much she played with the ideas when she was alone or with Lisa or the few others, she considered friends. The streets were hard and the talk of something better, even if one never got there, sometimes was enough to make it through the night.

“Or just wants a wife that’ll shut up and be happy staying home with the kids and baking pies all goddamn day, I don’t fucking know. They can’t all be perverted freaks, can they?” That, too, was a plea by another name.

“No,” Samuels admitted honestly as she slowly came to stand before her. “They are not all ‘perverted freaks’ as you call them. Had a client fairly recently with severe social anxiety disorder. Wanted to have someone in his life but couldn’t endure trying to meet another woman, much less trying to build a relationship and failing as he had countless times before. He wanted someone to love without all the effort to get there that was so difficult for him to make, even though he wanted to make it.”

“Someone like that. Just...someone nice,” she wiped away her tears roughly and sniffed, banishing the tears and the feelings that came with them, even if the lump was still in her throat, “even if I don’t remember it or know anymore.”

Strong, even in the face of losing herself. She’ll walk into that room under her own power and face it with dignity. With the thoughts came a satisfied smile. Samuels placed the young woman’s face in her hands with tenderness so uncharacteristic it felt slightly foreign even to her. “Have I lied to you since we’ve met?”

She had to admit, “No.”

“Then listen to me now. “You will go to someone who will cherish your wit and your intelligence and your spirit. You will go to someone who will always respect your strength. In ways you cannot understand, you will still be there even if the form has changed. That core of your being will have a life that the you that exists now can only dream of and better than even that.“

“And you will never again have to flinch at the likes of a Carlos or any creature like him. You will be the apex predator forever and the prey never again.” She offered her hand. “Be strong. Accept it. Embrace it.”

There wasn’t any choice anyway. Say no and it’s the happy goggles and it all happens anyhow. Kayley could still have a few minutes as Kayley this way. And there was an appeal. There was a whisper in the deepest part of her that liked the idea of being free of the likes of people like Carlos and free forever. She remembered Staci holding up that piece of shit like he was nothing. If Samuels had said, “Twist his head off,” it would have rolled down the street.

What is there really good to remember anyway? “Do you promise?”

There was a little girl’s ache in the voice and it tugged at Samuels who was able to blink away the mist. “I don’t break my word, Kayley. I promise.”

Kayley hesitated one more moment and took the proffered hand, squeezing tightly out of a desperate need that her words be true since there was no other out but through what led to the end of Kayley as she knew her, if not the end of Kayley period.

Rebecca squeezed the hand and grinned as the twins walked behind them while the large doors loomed. “I’m very proud of you, Kayley.”

“Whatever.”

“You won’t regret it.”

The cynicism was easily read. “How many button presses does that take?”

Samuels let it go. “I actually have several PhDs.”

Kayley laughed. She wasn’t exactly sure why, but venting the butterflies dancing in her stomach seemed as good a reason as any. “Jesus Christ, that’s what you go to right now?”

“Just...correcting the record is all.”

A hint of humor remained.“Whatever.”

The doors slid smoothly back and Kayley’s eyes darted around the room in awe as Samuels looked on in pride. The entire ceiling was like one large overhead light and there were four long control panels at the four compass points of the room that had so many lights, displays and panels from one end to the other that it looked to her like the whole place was ready to launch something off to another star. In front of each array of panels were a row of five tanks large enough to hold several people even though the ones in use only held one.

Each was surrounded by metalwork steps and a catwalk that wrapped three-quarters of the height to the top of the tank. Each also had a stainless steel spine along its back that craned over and above it with arms folded close together. When in use, they flared outward like the legs of a spider, firmly encasing the limbs and torso spreading them out in a way that always reminded Samuels of Vitruvian Man She watched Kayley’s eyes take it all in. “This is for body modification processes, though it is occasionally used as a sort of sensory deprivation system for the particularly willful. It’d be overkill for most cases, but there are a rare few that need it.“

Kayley finally turned attention at the tanks in use and the people in them. She knew them all. She lived with them in the house until the rainbows came and Samuels spoke of them. “Drug abuse. Carlos abuse and the damage that goes with both, that has to be repaired before they can be shown to clients. Then there are body enhancements, though we generally wait to do those until we have specific requests from the clients.

Kayley’s eyes locked on a floating redhead in the third tank to her left. “Lisa!” She ran to her as the doctor followed behind. The blonde stood staring at Lisa, now suspended and encased. Her nose and mouth were covered by a breather and the fluid in the tank flowed bottom to top as Kayley could see it lift her hair; Her eyes were open and she rarely blinked, staring into a visor that looked more complex than Trina’s.

Another arm of the metal spider encased the back of her head with needle-like spikes around her head, including each temple that, rather than penetrate her skin, dimpled it as they slowly moved from one color to the next like Christmas lights The central arm went down her back, flaring at the base of her spine and continuing down her ass and between her legs before flaring to cup her mound and hide it from view.

Tears welled again, burning trails as she pounded on the thick, transparent material only hurting her hand as Lisa’s eyes continued to stare at nothing, occasionally fluttering shut before opening again, “You said she got away.”

“I said she ran as soon as she saw us coming. You inferred from that that she got away.” Samuels wasn’t particularly cold with what came next, it just was. “She didn’t.”

Her fingers rested on the tank like a claw as Kayley watched her float.“Why didn’t you just let her go? You could have just let her go.”

“She wouldn’t have been a problem if I had, a minor annoyance at best, but, I was dealing with everyone else, in any event, so why a loose end?”

It sounded brutal to Kayley. Brutal, but practical. It was something Carlos might do, but maybe practicality could reach. “Let her go and I won’t hassle you. Let her go and I’ll just let go and become whatever you want.” She turned to the doctor trying to keep her jaw from quivering. “Just let her go, okay. I know you already got us, but you want me way more and I’m here. If that means anything, just give her the money she already had and drop her off at the bus station and you can just...wipe me out or whatever it is you’re going to do.”

“I knew you cared about her. It was all over you two when you were having sex. But willing to wipe yourself away so she can find a life somewhere else? That speaks to more.” Her gaze bore through the other woman as she played through the scenarios. “You’re strong, she’s not. She gravitated to you for that, and the protection that went with it from him and the other women who might attack her for her weakness. She loved you, or she at least converted the comfort of your protection into love.”

“You don’t feel the same...” her eyes narrowed. “Or perhaps you do and don’t have the courage to say it back. Or perhaps it’s all just your protectiveness of her.”

Kayley stopped her, “Quit fucking acting like you know what I think, feel, or want. The fact that I’m here and stuck here means you don’t give a shit anyway. Just please let her go.”

“She’s desirable on her own merits. Young, full-figured with just a bit too much extra weight, but that’s easily tweaked. Whatever her future has in store for her, she is excited for it and was from the start.”

Kayley looked back at her. Her expression was calm, placid even, and the flesh exposed around the metal rings that pressed to her limbs and torso looked different. She already looked a little thinner and more muscular. “Bullshit.”

“You’re a smart girl, Kayley. You already have the means to prove yourself wrong; ask the technician.”

She went back to watching Lisa float, not wanting to give the doctor the satisfaction of watching the war going on in her mind. She wanted out so Lisa wanted out. Anyone would. Nobody would want this shit done to them. Hell, isn’t this what most of them talked about all the time? They talked about getting out and leaving the old life behind...becoming new people. Talking about the PTA and kids and all that while pretending to make fun of each other for it. What better ‘out’ of your old life than to never remember it to begin with. To have your guy fuck you and you just have him on top of you rather than flashing through the faces of every other trick who did the same thing.

“Are you scared to?”

“Of course you wouldn’t be, right?”

“We all have trouble with our truths sometimes. Some women...some people...like being used, even if the feeling only hits them sometimes as a means to cope. They still liked the feeling even as it embarrasses them. And, for instance...that I am anything like your Carlos.” She proved that difficulty herself with the manner in which the next words came, “but there are... base similarities. Strength of being comes in facing them and admitting them.”

Time dragged before Kayley spoke to the tank. “What was her resistance number when she came in?”

The female technician looked to the doctor who nodded her assent before she pulled up the records and ticked them off in a heavy French accent. “Point four-one at the beginning of induction. Three-eight as she was placed for modification, which was at 0234. Now already at point three-five.” She smiled, kind of liking the ones that she knew liked it more than the cases that forced her to break them. “Very responsive.”

Samuels placed a hand gently upon Kayley’s narrow shoulder. “Some want this, Kayley, they truly do. Maybe she really wants to escape what was, but she started at four-one. She was very submissive to start with. And, if there’s one thing this does offer it’s beautiful, burning submission. She’s having the best orgasm she’s ever had, pretty much constantly to keep her mind open. She knows that if she obeys and accepts, that just gets better and better. Even in the beginning she and a couple of others were, just with the pacifiers, spontaneously having orgasms for bumps in the road.”

Samuels drew closer.“She wants this. You know she does. You know that if I did as you ask I’d be taking something more away from her than she’s already freely giving. She’s not as strong as you are and she never was. She’s free now to be what she wants to be, and that is whatever I want to make her.”

“I’m just bringing out what she is and then shaping it.”

“Michelangelo with PhDs.”

“Something like that.” Samuels noted the still unusual to her softness in her own voice, “Look at me.”

Kayley let herself be turned around and fierce brown eyes met their mirror. “I make the same promise to you for her that I made to you. She will go to someone that will respect who she is and what she has become.”

“Someone nice?”

She squeezed Kayley’s shoulder. “Someone nice. I promise.”

Kayley gave the redhead one last look before she gave Samuels a look that she seemed to be able to read. “Would you like to be next to her?”

She nodded, very much the little girl at that instant. “Now what?”

“Let’s get you ready. Show me that lovely body again.”

Kayley pulled off her shoes and then turned to let Samuels unzip the dress if she wanted. It was the only bit of submission she could make herself offer. She just couldn’t make herself say, “Wipe me out, it’s cool.” Samuels took the offer, dress unzipping it slowly before letting it fall to the floor as the blonde stayed in the middle of the pile long enough to step out of her heels and climb the steps to the top of the tank the cold of the metal and the diamond mesh of the movable platform digging into her heels as they waited for the final checks to be performed.

Technicians descended upon the empty tank next to Lisa, pulling the breather from the bottom, checking it as well as the armature that would hold her as well as all the instrumentation that would alter her very being. It looked ominous. It looked wicked, but she had resolved that, no matter how much she still wanted to bolt, that she would be the strong woman that she was and Samuel’s thought she was. Looking at her now, she saw that the doctor was strong. Now, supremely in her element, she looked it. She narrowed her eyes at the equipment, watching them check and recheck it, making sure they followed procedure. This place was hers and it was the first time she realized the true scope of it as technicians danced around. A trash can probably didn’t get emptied in this place without her knowing.

Samuels noted the steady gaze and realized how her glaring might have looked. “My people know their jobs but I always have a bit of paranoia on the important ones like you, and even Lisa. It’s a gift to find someone so open and that should be respected.”

“Ready, Doctor,” a nameless technician said after giving the arms one last check. He looked to Kayley, as it wasn’t often that he put people in the tank that weren’t already thoroughly and happily subdued. “If you could step back for me that’d be great.”

Kayley backed into the iron clutches and with a few keystrokes that she saw over the doctor’s shoulder they looped around her arms and legs as they did with Lisa, but she could feel hard nubs of rubber all around the flesh, holding her tightly. She struggled just to try and found almost no give. She was long since at the point of no return, but this time she felt it as a physical truth.

As another lifted her hair Samuels herself placed earbuds firmly in each ear the black and gray breather over her nose and mouth and buckled it precisely. “Air, obviously, and there are certain drugs and chemicals that are best administered this way. The earpieces will help keep your mind open and they are good for communication. Sometimes a subject needs a little nudge.” She shrugged with the pleasant memories. “Sometimes it’s just fun to nudge for me….and it makes them cum.”

“It won’t hurt. In fact, it’ll feel wonderful. I can promise that, too.”

Kayley nodded, her eyes conveying the continued presence of her butterflies.

Placing the visor over her eyes, she tried to give some last reassurance to them, as they could still see one another. A hand stayed on her cheek until she felt Kayley steady, Samuels not descending the stairs until she did. “Put her in.”

The armature lifted her effortlessly and, with mechanical smoothness, brought her forward and then down into the tank. She wiggled her toes and fingers because that was pretty much all the control that she had left. The mechanics stopped with a tweeting sound and, seconds later, the fluid began to pour in. It was transparent like water but thicker and warm to her skin. Kayley looked to the doctor for reassurance, which she provided, now with her own earpiece and a tablet in hand. “You can hear me?”

Kayley nodded. “It helps change the body and, as it flows, it helps the visor work. You’ll see.”

The warm bath reached her thighs and progressed upward, then to her torso, then to her breasts, then to her neck. Samuels placed her hand against the tank. “Breathe normally...slowly. It’s all right. Close your eyes until you get your bearings. That will help.”

She closed them tightly. I’m not drowning. I’m not. I’m not. Chill. Breathe. She inhaled slowly, continuing to talk to herself. See? Stop fucking freaking out. You can breathe, so knock it the fuck off. Her pounding heart stopped pounding quite so much and she opened her eyes to see the doctor there, her hand still where it had been, now distorted by the fluid and two layers of transparency. Her voice, however, was still crystal clear. Maybe it was the fluid, but the sound of it seemed to move beyond her ears and into her brain.

“Very good, Kayley. Very good. You’re fine. See? Relax.”

The word tickling her brain helped her do that.

“Relax, Kayley. Calm and relaxed. Calm and relaxed and ready for the next phase.”

“Calm and relaxed” reverberated through the bone of her skull as though it was coming from all around her as the ring of nodes wrapped snugly around her head.

“Very good, Kayley, calm and relaxed.” She tapped her fingers on the tablet and the nodes came to life and the reverberation increased. Now it felt like all her bones were vibrating in time to the lights that she could see reflecting off the tank.

“You know, most are already agreeable and...elsewhere...by the time they get to this point. I have to admit I don’t mind this; someone awake and aware and embracing it. Calm and relaxed, Kayley.”

“Calm,” she said, as though talking through a dream. “Relaxed.”

“Excellent.”

Samuels watched her progress, letting her ‘thrum’ for a time before deciding she was ready for the last addition to the process. One of the arms extended downward and between her legs to come up around her mound. Once firmly in place the dildos penetrated her, the frame making minute adjustments to plant them firmly. The liquid in the tank made a lovely lube, with Kayley liking that warmth inside her and feeling like it was penetrating every part of her being. She groaned as whatever made the fluid flow in the tank started working and it was like an endless caress. Her fingers and toes spread to embrace it as she grunted to accommodate the fullness she felt.

Samuels didn’t need the statistics flowing before her to know what was happening. “You like this, don’t you, Kayley?”

When the lights around her head flared to brightness it was like a thrum in her head that drown almost everything out in a comfortable nothing. “Yesssssssssss.”

“Mind nice and open. We’ll keep it open while we work on your body. Tell me what kind of porn you like?”

“Hard,” she slurred into the breather. “Rough. Dirty.” Her brows knotted until the next thrum. “Lovey.”

Samuels elaborated for her. “Kissing, caressing, and sweet nothings in between you two just grinding like animals.”

“Mmmmmmmmmmmm-hmm.”

“Luckily for you that, over the years we’ve used the men and women that have come through here to create scenes to cover any sort of need you can think of. Good for the training of the individual and good for the work at the front end too, as you’ll see.”

A few tabs and scrolls later the visor lit and her world became the sight of a grand canopy bed with a lovely blonde under a vision of male muscle, her long legs covered in fine white stockings, feet in the air just above his back, shaking back and forth as his ass pumped madly, driving himself deeply as they kissed madly, trying to consume one another as he held her to the bed by the wrists.

Kayley’s sigh sounded like a long burst of white noise in the breather.

She was satisfied with that. “There’s much more where that came from. Relax, Kayley. Relax and watch and let your mind open.”

Thoughts sewed themselves together in her addled mind, the thrum almost taking them away. Whatever Samuels was doing was just starting. This was...fast. I didn’t think...so fast. Feels good. Feels so good. Gonna do what she wants anyway. Gonna...do what she wants and I just...watch fucking while she does it. That’s hot.

The doctor was happy with the results. Thought, but no real resistance. “Good girl.”

Turning to the technician in charge of Kayley’s transformation, she rattled off what she wanted. “She gets the works. Clear the scars, obviously, then the bone and muscle density enhancement as well as the full telomere re-balance and full-range sensory improvements.”

“A new agent then?”

“Don’t get ahead of everything, Michael. Just handle what you were asked to, please.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, Doctor. Apologies.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m going to my office and I’ll forward you the final stats. After that, I’m going to get some sleep. Finish the body work, then let her float until I get down here. Finish the base body work on Lisa, but she floats, too.”

“Absolutely, Doctor. Good night.”

“Good night.”

* * *

Samuels put her thumb to the hidden drawer under one of her file cabinets to retrieve a gleaming chrome flash drive, the contents of which she had been working on for years off and on, but more fervently of late as events conspired to force her to reflect on what she’d given up to be where she was and have the work that she enjoyed.

She once told the woman in charge of the project’s finances, Brenda McLemore, who had become an unexpected friend that she’d understood the price of success. That was true, but she had rarely allowed herself to feel it. She knew how the technology had given everyone that availed themselves of it their life’s wishes, but that was largely abstract. They took their products and left. With Brenda and Elizabeth, she could see that happiness and sense of completeness that they shared and she admitted to some jealousy while doing so.

Samuels gave Brenda the stuff of life. She gave them all the stuff of life, and this is where she profoundly parted company with the likes of Carlos. All he provided was a means for transactions to take place. She gave more and she had given it to others without taking much for herself. She’d played with some of the subjects in training, but the twins were her greatest real luxury in her years of work.

She’d earned more and now was her time to collect.

Samuels placed the drive to her terminal, worked through its security measures, selected the initial files and forwarded them to Michael. Once she received that acknowledgment, she retired to her home within the complex.

* * *

After a few hours of sleep, Samuels went to work on the synaptic overlay protocols for Lisa. She could work quickly and carefully and did so now. Entering the lab area in her long white coat with Staci following suit wearing their own as they went to the terminal that governed Lisa and Kayley’s tanks to find Hannah reading a book. Understandable since nothing was expected to happen at this point and the machines would notify her if anything deviated.

Captain Black’s Treasure of Lust. Must you defile such a place as this with writing like that? Shakespeare? Tolstoy? These I can understand, but...that?”

Hannah grinned. “I think about hard things all day, and since I’d rather not turn into one of them I need an outlet.”

“Fair enough. Are things all right here?” Samuels asked as she looked over the technician’s shoulder to see that it was so.

“By the numbers, Doctor. The upgrades were initially slow to take because she was slightly malnourished. Nutrient feed piggybacked with a metabolic booster handled that, then she took to the alterations well.”

“Excellent. I’ll handle things from here, as the overlay I want is layered and delicate.”

Hannah rose to comply even though she was slightly stung. “Sure, but...I have handled delicate.”

“And you do well. But, this matters to me. If something happens that’s unforeseen or a mistake is made, would you prefer I was responsible for it, or you?”

The technician saw the hint of mirth there and it diffused the situation even though she also knew well the answer to that. “Fair enough.”

Samuels shook her head, pony tail swishing like a horse’s, “And take your trash novel with you.”

“Yes, Doctor.” She swiped the book with the ratty cover with aplomb and left.

Sitting to go over the hours of records she missed as she slept, they served to give her the particulars that her eyes couldn’t see. What her eyes could see pleased her. Kayley floated as serenely as Lisa. Kayley had indeed taken to the changes well even though there would be more time yet in the tank. The armature holding her in place had delivered the drugs and nano-materials to blood, muscle, and bone and her body had incorporated it. Her muscles were dense now and with that density came an effortless definition, not to the extreme of a bodybuilder, but simply as one who had spent her entire life maintaining and sculpting her form. Indeed, her strength lay hidden as it should.

Her face had refined slightly, nose lengthening and narrowing slightly and cheekbones sharpening. With the changes to her face and her blonde hair now a deep black it was doubtful that she’d recognize herself in the mirror. The eyes were unchanged as Samuels remembered the intensity they were capable of throughout the night. Indeed, it was those eyes that drew her and reminded her of herself and of opportunities missed.

They were before her again and for the first time all at once.

Even her mind had changed. As suspected, she already had a keen, albeit unschooled mind, and the changes already blossoming there would take root to brilliance in the coming days.

Rebecca then spent time skimming Lisa’s changes, which were nowhere near as extensive externally, just an elimination of some of the excess weight and accents to her hips and breasts to emphasize the voluptuous that was already there. Inside, she shared Kayley’s changes, as Samuels decided that if they would be together as she intended, Kayley deserved someone that could wake with her every day of the long life before her and have the body to share whatever adventures they decided to undertake.

She ended up so engrossed in that that she hadn’t noticed Traci come in and set a cup of her grandmother’s comforting version of coffee next to her, and it was only her voice that snapped her to. “Since you will be working.”

“Thank you, Traci. Are you ready to get to it?”

“As you please, Doctor. The twins took terminals next to one another and tied them to hers.

From Samuels’ pocket emerged the chrome drive and into the terminal it went. Data scrolled. It would indeed be layered and delicate, so much so that she tried to temper her own nervousness. One of the twins’ greater gifts was the fact that they could multitask like no untouched soul could. She would make no mistakes, but she would also take no chances.“Girls, if you are certain, or even suspect that I am making an error in my part of the overlay, you are to override me and stop the procedure, pending verification. Understood?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The machine-like unison made her truly smile. “I love it when you do that.”

“Yes, Doctor.” She was certain that they did it again this time just to amuse her.

The data finished being sorted by the terminal and, once done, it prompted her for several elements. The doctor filled them all in quickly, save one. Even that particular had been selected long ago, but now she found herself hesitant to enter it. Kayley. Kayley was already intelligent and clever. She had raged understandably, but, in the end, had accepted that which she could not change with vulnerability and grace. That took heart and deserved some sort of notice.

Samuels typed.

It still sounds like a porn name, but I can get used to it.

* * *

Kayley floated, her mind focused on nothing. The porn had long since disappeared, the visor now giving color to the ways in which the fluid flowed before around her. Her body had changed. She felt it. She felt the needles go deeply and not so deeply into the flesh of her entire body at one point or and she had cum.

She’d breathed deeply all the scents mixed to her breather, some horrid and some pleasant and each time she had cum.

She felt bigger somehow...stronger and when she would let herself feel that, she would cum.

She was warm and held and safe. Nothing could happen to her here and now that wasn’t supposed to and when she focused on that security, she would cum. Kayley still had herself and her memories, but they didn’t matter. All that mattered was warm and safe. Nothing could and no one would hurt here. She was free to be who she wanted to be.

That that was what someone else wanted her to be was irrelevant.

It had so ceased to matter that when Carlos had become Carl, and Carl had faded to simply a face with bitter feelings that were casting a dark pallor over the safety she felt in the now, she had let them go without concern. As more faded from her grasp she let them go, as they too were just interfering with the safe, warm feeling that came with this place.

Soon, so much was gone that she couldn’t even piece together what had been wiped away. She was held and warm and the thrum was certain and comforting. She had no sense of time, though hours had passed. In the end, all that had remained was the giddy excitement like when she was trying to see how high she could swing.

She was empty. She was literally nothing.

Then she was not.

She began to be Kayley again, but not one the old her would recognize in her own mind, much less the mirror. Memories began to fill the blankness and these ones were right. There was no pain to them. Or shame. They were happy and sad, and funny, and embarrassing, but she knew they were all her. Somehow they fit this new body in a way the old ones never would and she embraced them. She knew when she woke that even the sense that there were old memories would be gone. There would only be this Kayley.

Seeing the memories, each in turn, she knew was a Kayley that did not fear or struggle just to get to the next day. This was not a Kayley that was uncertain, waffling between bravery and nearly crippling uncertainty. This Kayley was bright and well-read and thrived with a challenge at hand. This Kayley was beautiful and brilliant and the world would bow before her in its own little ways.

And she knew that if it didn’t do so readily, she could bend it to her whim.

This is the Kayley she wanted to be.

* * *

Hours rolled to days in the process of tank, overlay, and recovery. Again and again and Samuels worked the procedures with the same drive and meticulous attention each time. With the last, knowing it was the last, she let Kayley float in the tank one last time as the doctor slept, then in this recovery area that looked much like a normal hospital room by design.

It was done now and she knew it. It was perfect and she knew it. She knew it with her own certainty, only made granite by Staci and Traci’s eyes and their own ability to look at every step with near emotionless detachment. Even so, as Rebecca entered and looked upon that form, seemingly asleep in that bed, she was nervous and afraid in a way that she had never been before in her life. Uncertainty plagued her. As a great bit of science fiction deftly pointed out, having was not so pleasing a thing as wanting. What if it was all for nothing? What if it was something that she really didn’t want in the end?

Tough luck, Rebecca. The decision’s made and you made it. She didn’t ask for this and you did it anyway.

Having her fill of self-doubt, she withdrew a penlight from her coat pocket and clicked it on to see the LED strobe an electric blue before placing it over Kayley’s right eye for five seconds, then her left. Pocketing it, she placed her hand over the one that at this moment seemed so frail just because that’s what was expected. There was a little more than that perhaps. Resting before her was the culmination of a supreme effort, some of which was experimental. She had faith in it certainly, she wouldn’t have used it otherwise.

Still..

Moments passed and the silence was broken by a sharp inhalation and the hand that was once seemed so frail held hers with surprising strength. A more normal breath followed as Kayley’s head rolled to the opposite side. Forcing her eyes open, she took stock of her surroundings slowly, her head making its way back to face Samuels. When their eyes met she squeezed the hand again and smiled even though her eyes still carried her confusion. “Mom?”

Samuels felt in a way that she had never felt before. She loved. Simply. Instantly, as if a switch was thrown inside her. This was her child in every way. She was beautiful and brilliant. She would be expressive of her feelings in ways that Rebecca sometimes found so difficult, yet able to have her mother’s clinical detachment when need be. She would be like her in some ways and simply better in others as every child was and should be.

The doctor had skipped actually having to suffer the grind of all of the runny noses and school plays and seemingly perpetual teenage melancholy. She did so without dismissing them because she knew as a practical matter this was the stuff of life. They shared the memories of all of it because they were Rebecca’s hopes, and dreams and the result of playing out a thousand what ifs in her minds. She’d crafted every memory down to the last detail over years, then watched and refined them until they were perfectly imperfect. She crafted until they were all the things that bound a mother and daughter in love and a sense of family. She could still enjoy the fruits of the path not taken.

That smile...like she was safe now and if she wasn’t, her mother was there and would fix everything melted her soul. “Mom, what happened?”

She cleared her throat to push back the tears while failing to stop the mist. She caressed that smooth cheek and ran her fingers through that thick, almost impossibly black hair, “There was an accident with the car. Do you remember?”

Kayley looked up at the ceiling, searching as though it held her answers, “I think… Yeah, going along fine, some guy crossed the median...crossed me and...” Her eyes widened in panic. “Lyssa? Oh, God, is Lyssa okay?”

Samuels nodded quickly. “Shhhh...she’s okay, I promise, honey. She’s resting down the hall. I had you both brought here as soon as I could. We could take care of you here the way a regular hospital couldn’t...’round the clock, the best of everything and all focused on getting you well.” She shocked herself at how quickly the loving words came in order to try to soothe Kayley.

She was instantly reassured, her body sinking more deeply into the bed. “You know...we know... more than they do anyway.”

Samuels was reassured as well and she stood, seemingly unable to take the smile from her face as she leaned over her daughter, taking in her perfection and the knowledge that that was a mother’s hand in a great many ways.“Yes, we do.”

“Can I see her?”

“In a few hours, all right? I’ll check on her for you while you try to get a few hours more sleep for me. After that, you can see her. If the two of you take it easy enough for a couple of days I might be persuaded to take you and your mousy little girlfriend out to dinner.”

Kayley heard the play in her mother’s voice, so the words didn’t upset. “Just because she’s quiet and shy doesn’t make her mousy. Just because she doesn’t act like she owns every place she goes like someone I know...”

“Who might that be?”

“Find a mirror and get back to me.”

“Well, your joy at occasionally being difficult is still intact.” Samuels kissed Kayley’s forehead with something akin to reverence. She let her lips linger, not wanting to surrender the moment. Kayley’s hand touched her face. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too, Kayley” Hah. Isn’t that something? I’m used to ‘Kayley’ already.

As Samuel’s walked towards the door Kayley called out. “I’ll be a good girl now for Italian when you take us out.”

“Seems fair. Cannoli included, I suppose? Where to?”

Kayley’s tone sounded like an eye roll. “Did you hit your head or something? There’s only one place for good Italian in this town, including Cannoli.”

The grin Kayley didn’t see was ear-to-ear. “Quite true.”

End.