The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Slavers

Chapter Ten

Years ago, before her parents divorced, Rosalie went to a department store with her dad and got into a lot of trouble. She had been about eleven. While her father was looking at things nearby, Rosalie was playing, just goofing off the ways kids do at that age. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was or what she was doing. The store row she was in had clocks and other items arranged alongside one broad shelf. It was a metal shelf, but it hadn’t been put into place very sturdily. That was the excuse her father gave later. What happened was this: while skipping through the row, Rosalie tripped and brushed heavily against the shelf’s side. This in turn caused the whole thing, from one end to the other, to unbalance and collapse, spilling its contents onto the hard, tiled floor. The noise was unbelievable.

For a moment all Rosalie could do was stare at the godawful mess. Nothing on the shelf had survived. Clock parts were scattered everywhere. It was hundreds of dollars worth of damage. Rosalie’s dad, who had come instantly at the sound, took one look and told his daughter to “scram,” to go back outside to the parking lot and hide in the car. Rosalie, scared to death, did exactly that. She ran out of the store seconds ahead of the store manager who came looking for her. She reached the first row of cars in the lot and looked behind her. The store guy was scanning in all directions at once, a furious expression on his face. Rosalie crouched down low and managed to get back to the car.

When her dad came out later, he told his daughter to forget it.

“Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t tell Mom. This’ll be our secret.”

Well, Rosalie managed to keep her and her dad’s “secret” for about a week. Then, wracked with guilt, she told her mom. Her mother never did say anything to Dad about it, at least not in front of her. What she did instead was force Rosalie to go back to the store and admit what she had done.

She had to take “responsibility.” It had to be an “object lesson.”

It was, simply, the hardest thing Rosalie had ever done in her life to that point.

She had to walk into the store on her own—Mom was waiting outside—ask to speak to the store manager, and then, in a tear-choked voice, explain what she had done and offer to pay restitution. Throughout, Rosalie felt like her head had been turned to glass, her stomach filled with lead, and her feet attached to iron weights. Just going in—the actual process of walking into the store—was a nightmare. What was worse, though, was the waiting, the anticipation she had felt the night before, of knowing she would have to go in and ask someone to find the manager. Seven-and-a-half years later, Rosalie still winced whenever the memory came up. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that bad an experience. She would do equally embarrassing things over the years, things she regretted later, and, all things considered, accidentally breaking a row of clocks in a department store wasn’t really so awful. Other kids should have been so lucky. She had never forgotten it, though, nor the dread she had never thought possible the mere act of walking could instill in a person… the dread of doing something she simply had to do.

Rosalie now, feeling such a mortal dread and reluctance that it made that innocent childhood incident look even more comical that it was, walked quickly and purposefully through the crowded streets of the Base. Her head was glass, her stomach filled with lead, and her feet weighted with iron.

Oh, God, she prayed, let me get through this. Please God. For Mom’s sake.

Nausea gripping her, Rosalie stopped at a building corner and attempted casually to lean against its plastic surface, to give the appearance she was simply waiting for someone, or thinking, or something, and was not in the least scared and frantically fighting an urge to run away in sheer panic.

Let me get through this, for Mom’s sake.

A man dressed almost conservatively in blue tights and an open-front vest strolled past her, his eyes downcast as he noticed Rosalie’s costume. Crawling on all fours before him, her throat collared and leashed, was a naked woman.

Naked, perhaps, wasn’t the best word to use, though. The woman—the sex slave, Rosalie knew—wore no clothes per se, but she was in fact clothed. White fur, like the thin hair of a poodle or some other show dog, covered her from head to toe, rendering her svelte, sexy body an alabaster charm. Her owner must love petting her, Rosalie thought, and repressed a shudder. Pointed ears extended out from beneath the animal girl’s thick, snowy mane of hair, and a pink tongue lolled loosely beneath dark, mindless eyes. A white tail jutted out from above a lush pair of ass cheeks.

The slave naturally looked up at her master in loving adoration.

This won’t work, Rosalie thought. I can’t do it. I’ll… I’ll freak. Someone will notice me. It’s inevitable.

Her lips, adorned in rich black, began to quiver, and she closed her eyes for a moment.

“Get a hold of yourself,” she whispered in the liquid, syrupy sounds of Language. “Get a grip, girl.”

She opened her eyes, grit her teeth, and moved on. When she passed the next pair of people on the street—they looked like something out of a Mardi Gras celebration—Rosalie deliberately took hold of the riding crop attached to her belt and put an extra arrogant swagger in her walk. Both clownish figures looked away quietly.

It’ll help considerably that everyone here is terrified of Celestra and her soldiers, Gordon had said to her earlier, back when they were coming up with this insane plan. It’s why the security will be so lax at the Auditorium. Nobody in their right mind, they think, will want to screw with them. The lawyer considered. Well, I take that back. The people here will want to screw with you, they’ll just be too afraid to. He laughed. The bastard.

Rosalie wanted to rip his throat out. She didn’t know whether or not he’d keep his promise to help her and her mom, but she suspected the worst. He had, after all, hypnotized her and tried to “enslave” her earlier. But she wasn’t sure. She just wasn’t sure, and in any case she had to get her mom back. She was the only one who could. If even half of what Gordon said was true, there was no chance otherwise. Her mom would remain a sex slave forever… and so would she herself become, if she wasn’t careful.

She strolled out onto the Base’s main concourse.

What she saw before her was a culture obsessed with sex. Rosalie had thought pop-culture America was bad, but this was unreal. The Base was disgustingly pornographic, nightmarishly so. The building up ahead, the front part of it at least, was designed in the shape of a naked woman from the hips on up. Where her ass should have been was a public entrance where people loitered and openly played with themselves. Above and to the opposite side, the figure’s ludicrously exaggerated breasts jutted out and formed something like a balcony for the crowd coming and going from her open, voluptuous mouth. Street lamps took the place of her nipples, and a sound system released amplified carnal moaning sounds for blocks around. Closer to Rosalie, a row of exquisitely precise illustrations on the building wall facing this giant whore detailed the form and use of different kinds of dildoes and other attachments. It took Rosalie a moment to realize the pictures weren’t graffiti. They were advertisements, with invitations in written Language for free demonstrations of their respective merits.

An open doorway a few paces down revealed a woman inside apparently enjoying such a demonstration, with a pair of onlookers standing by and discussing which they should purchase. Rosalie wasn’t sure whether they were talking about a dildo or the woman.

Sick, she thought. It’s sick. Sick!

Another woman across the street, behind a transparent wall of some sort, was encased from the neck down in a huge, straight-from-The-Little-Shop-of-Horrors alien plant, which apparently was giving her a full-body massage and in-depth fuck simultaneously. Her companion—both wore the same silver makeup—was paying the clerk and climbing into a fucking vegetable of his own. They, like everyone else Rosalie saw, were totally without shame or modesty.

They screwed, got screwed, or used tools to screw beneath densely packed stars and a purple cloud that stretched from horizon to horizon. Their costumes were outlandish, even the ones worn by the people who obviously weren’t slaves to somebody else. One fellow, who might have been the same man Rosalie saw floating like a balloon days earlier, drifted by in a harness connecting tubes from his ass and groin to a single pipe coming out of his mouth. He blew, or sucked, Rosalie couldn’t tell, and floated, in onanistic delight. Another man, coming out of the giant whore’s ass, looked like a parody of an African witch doctor, with feathers, leather hides, and a plastic bone jutting through his lower lip. He was naked from the waist down too, and superbly muscled and equipped. Rosalie felt a rush of warmth pass through her and looked away. She had never been with a man herself yet, and after this experience, she found herself hoping almost that she never would.

The people who were naked, in chains or not, were actually a little easier for her to gaze upon. As bad as they all were, though, as perverse and disgusting, they were at least all recognizably human.

Rosalie didn’t think she would be able to handle looking at another alien, remembering as she did that maggot thing from before, and those two headless dog creatures. Star Trek and Carl Sagan be damned. Knowing—just knowing—there were alien things nearby sent unspeakable crawling sensations up and down Rosalie’s spine. Hers was an atavistic fear, and when Gordon told her each species tended to stay in its own enclave on Bases like this, she was grateful. So, walking toward the edge of the “town,” their plan was going all right so far. No aliens… and no obvious signs yet that she had been identified as a fake. She didn’t stand out. Her costume was, if anything, by local standards, fairly conservative.

That didn’t make her feel any better. She still felt like a space-age prostitute advertising her wares.

Skin-tight latex covered Rosalie from the neck down to her feet. The catsuit had molded itself perfectly to her svelte form and exaggerated her natural curves in sleek ebony and individual scarlet patches around her middle, forearms, and lower legs. High-heeled leather boots and a wide leather belt completed the slutty package. It had taken hours of practice for her to learn to walk in such overwhelmingly high heels. They still made Rosalie’s ass feel like it was on display… which, actually, it was. The night air felt cool against her exposed cheeks, each of which jutted out of a precisely tailored gap in the latex. Similar spaces outlined and exposed Rosalie’s breasts, which, due to the confining nature of the suit, poked out straighter than if she had been wearing a wonderbra. The leather belt—wide and tight—acted like a corset and pushed her tits even higher while narrowing her waist down to Barbie-doll proportions.

The worst part, though, the absolute worst, was the hole left open over her vagina.

The tight rubbery material surrounding her sex, Rosalie knew, pressed her nether lips coarsely together and thrust them out as if begging for a kiss. Or a fuck. That, obviously, was the intent.

It was a suit designed to promote and facilitate frequent and hard fucking.

Rosalie felt lower than a whore in her costume, walking down the street to the transport Gordon had told her would be there. The suit was so damn tight that even if it had lacked the sex holes it would have left nothing to the imagination. It made Rosalie feel so slick, so… so damn inviting she could hardly stand it. At least she wasn’t sweating. The temperature outside was cool, but while the catsuit may have felt like rubber, it didn’t act like it. It was firm, yes, confining, no, and nowhere near as hot as she had imagined it would be. It flexed with every movement of her body.

For all that it was an actual suit, it might as well have been painted for how much it affected her ability to move. The belt was the most uncomfortable thing she wore, physically. How could women even breathe in things like this?

The teenager tried to ignore how sexy the suit made her feel, or how needy. Rosalie might have been a virgin, but she was no prude. She had had fantasies before… but this, this whole planet, was beyond anything she had imagined.

She concentrated on the task in front of her.

The Base complex, from the diagram Gordon had showed her, was arranged in isolated segments around a low chain of mountains. Individual communities like this one faced the bare rock and were connected to one another through tunnels bored directly through it. Celestra’s Auditorium was several miles away over landscape largely consisting of desert and even more bare rock. Rosalie couldn’t use the projector to teleport there, which had been her first idea. She would teleport first to the Auditorium, then to Earth, and back again when she had the relay, all assuming she could work the alien device and muster up the courage to do so. But no, Celestra showed at least a minimum security consciousness.

Projecting from the Base to the Auditorium was disallowed. The necessary frequencies were cut off.

Rosalie would be forced to get there overland.

A transport, which Gordon had described as a cross between an open-back truck and a train, made regular trips back and forth between the settlements. He had used it himself when he first arrived on this planet, accidentally, he said, as the result of a “stupid Colonist,” whatever that meant. He had disguised himself as one of Celestra’s male subordinates to find out what was going on, just as Rosalie now was disguised as one of Celestra’s female agents. Gordon had been lengthy in his descriptions and dislike of the giantish woman. Rosalie hoped she never had an opportunity to meet her.

If the plan went according to plan, she wouldn’t need to.

The correct chronal frequencies would be open inside the Auditorium, Gordon said, the ones leading to Celestra’s Earth headquarters. If they had been open elsewhere, Rosalie could have teleported to the headquarters directly. She could, Gordon had explained further, have gone to almost anywhere else on Earth, but not there. More cut off frequencies. As such, the hard part, as Rosalie had believed, then and now, would be getting to the Auditorium in the first place.

Or so she hoped and prayed.

Walking steadily, trying her best to ignore everything going on around her, just as she tried to ignore the basic unreality of what she was doing—God, she was on another freakin’ planet!—Rosalie made her way to the edge of the Base. There she saw the transport, which looked exactly as Gordon had described it. It was like a giant caterpillar from a Japanese horror movie: a huge tank flat and open at the top and divided into three sections, one section for the driver, one for the female personnel, and one broader platform for the guys. Latex-clad workers of both genders were climbing up or already on board. Rosalie hurried, realizing abruptly that the train was about to take off without her. The treads lurched forward ponderously. Rosalie ran up to it, then hesitated, suddenly unsure exactly how to get on board.

Someone whistled, and she looked up. A woman in the second platform dressed identically to her pointed toward a ladder. This is it, Rosalie thought. Do I or don’t I? There was no time to decide. Fate stepped in. Two men dressed in leather pants—they lacked tops—had been about to climb aboard when they saw the latex teen. One of them grunted at the other, and then both of them roughly backed off, jumping away from the side of the machine clumsily, one of them falling to his backside in the dust, so abrupt was his attempt to make room for his superior. Their pants, like Rosalie’s catsuit, had strategically cut holes in them. Their erections bounced perkily at sight of the “officer.”

The one on his back stared openly at Rosalie’s sex, in fact. The other leered at her bared breasts and licked his lips.

If she backed off now, Rosalie knew everyone would be suspicious.

The choice had been made for her. Feeling flush, and trying to will up her anger, the teenager grabbed the ladder and began climbing. She didn’t think a “Bitch,” as Gordon had called Celestra’s soldiers, would glance back at the men she knew were ogling her ass. She ignored them, and tried instead to use how it made her feel. The angrier you are, she thought, the more like them you’ll appear to be. She hoped that was true. It was all she had going for her.

It was a short climb—about ten feet—but the edge of the platform was ringed with a guard rail without any apparent breach. Rosalie didn’t think; she acted instinctively. She reached up, grabbed the railing, and swung her long, thin legs over, the motion no doubt brazenly exposing her to anyone who was maybe watching. A moment later she was on top.

She looked around. Everyone was watching. About a dozen other latex-clad women shared the roughly circular space on top. Three smooth rows were in the middle, and the soldiers were using them as seats. There was a space open in back, and, feeling incredibly self-conscious, more conscious of her body than she had ever been before, Rosalie sat down. The larger platform behind and slightly beneath her was full of huddling men. The smaller platform in front of the women’s stage held a single female driver. Rosalie found that she was holding her breath. She let out a small gasp.

She remained very tense. I’m in the army now, a wild thought went through her head. She found no humor in it.

She looked around. The scenery outside the Base community was sterile and dead. Rocks were everywhere, and the purple cloud in the sky illuminated everything weirdly. The plastic plank she sat on was cool against her naked bottom.

Oh, please, please let me get through this, she prayed. Oh please.

“You’re new,” she heard someone say, and it took Rosalie a moment to realize the voice was speaking to her. She turned her head. She was sitting next to the woman who had beckoned her.

She was a blonde. Her hair was drawn up in a tight, helmet-like bun. She was expecting a reply.

“Uh, yes,” Rosalie said, trying to be noncommittal. Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, she thought.

Her companion sniffed. Her makeup made her look like a goth. Her cheeks were pale, but her lips were ruby red. Her eyes were outlined in thick, black war paint. She slapped a hand over Rosalie’s smooth knee, and the smacking sound of rubber against rubber was shocking. Rosalie almost screamed.

“I haven’t seen you before,” the strange woman said. “Colony girl?”

She’s touching me! Rosalie shouted inside her head, fighting back the scream. “Yes,” she said, almost casually.

The other nodded. “Same here. A lot of us are, I think.” Her hand stayed on Rosalie’s leg.

“I’m Nash, Gamma Squad.”

And now what am I going to say? Rosalie thought. Hi, I’m Rosalie? Good God, No!

“Uh…” she started, then cleared her throat. Her next words just popped out. Rosalie?

“I’m Rose, from…” Gamma? Gamma? No. “Delta,” she finished.

Oh God, I’m fucked!

“Rose?” the blond woman asked questioningly. “That’s a… plant, yes?”

Be mean, goddammit, Rosalie thought. Be mean! “Yes,” she said firmly, hoping she wasn’t killing herself. “Rose. It’s a plant… from my colony.” She looked directly at the other.

Rose? Rosalie? Good grief, she thought. How stupid could she… .

“I’ve heard worse,” Nash said simply and turned forward. Her hand came off of Rosalie’s thigh.

Blinking, feeling absurd, Rosalie looked ahead too. Her anger evaporated like a morning dream. What am I doing here? she thought wildly, all the while trying to maintain an outward calm. I will not cry. I will not cry! She brought the image of her mother to mind and regretted it an instant later, feeling like she was going to choke. Reaching down, Rosalie grabbed her other thigh and squeezed tightly, concentrating solely on the strange rubbery pain.

She breathed in and out slowly, trying not to hyperventilate. She stared down at the seat in front of her, then looked away immediately, seeing the exposed butt of the woman there. She blinked again.

The road flashed by in a blur.

The vehicle picked up speed. Martian-like dust flew out to either side, though strangely it came nowhere near the platforms. Was there an invisible screen? Rosalie tried to think about nothing. Failing that, she went over the plan again, over and over. Reach the Auditorium. Use the projector. Go to Earth. Find the relay. Use the projector.

Then… ? She blinked again, refusing to go beyond that point. She pictured Gordon the Associate, his immobilizer in hand. She imagined spraying him again, kicking him, again and again. The miles passed desolately but rapidly.

The stars. Rosalie looked up at the stars. There were so many of them. They were blazing, making their own shadows on the ground. She had never taken astronomy in school, but… .

The woman sitting next to her, Nash, reached over and put her hand in Rosalie’s lap.

The teen stiffened. All thought fled.

She couldn’t even turn her head.

The woman’s rubber-clad hand poked through the hole in Rosalie’s costume. Latexed fingers lightly brushed over and tugged gently at the fine hairs they found there. One slick, smooth finger slid over Rosalie’s fleshy lips, and, despite her valiant attempt not to, the teen gasped, just as she felt that exploring digit began to poke slightly up… .

“No,” Rosalie cried and tried crossing her legs.

Nash laughed. “Plant girl,” she said, then bent and put her face—her mouth!—to Rosalie’s breasts. She felt the woman kiss her… kiss her right there! Her hand, meanwhile, crept back to Rosalie’s thigh and inserted itself, deliberately nudging her ebony-coated legs apart. The vehicle hit a bump in the road, and Rosalie nearly yelled out.

She moaned again, unable to prevent it, and, not knowing exactly why, put her arms around Nash’s head and held her. Her passion, which had been uncontrollably aroused and kept at a fever pitch by the circumstances she was in, the surroundings, that damned costume! flared, and she squirmed in her seat, suddenly feeling wet and inviting. She felt Nash kiss her nipples once more, and she sighed, unable to do anything else. She didn’t know what to do. Should she… must she… if she didn’t, what would happen? Fingers tugged at her pussy hairs again, and she fidgeted in her seat.

“Tasty,” she heard Nash say, her voice muffled against Rosalie’s bosom.

All Rosalie could do was moan, totally floored, clueless, lost in horror and pleasure. I am NOT liking this, she thought, arching her back delightedly. She squeezed her eyes almost shut, hissing in satisfaction.

Nash picked herself up and grinned at Rosalie through a damp mouth. “I like you,” she said.

Rosalie didn’t know what to say. “Ah uh,” she whispered. It was the only noise she could make.

“Delta squad, huh?” Nash reached out and squeezed Rosalie’s thigh again. Rosalie let her, still utterly numb and disbelieving. “I’ll meet you after shift. Green sector.”

She reached down, gave Rosalie one last lick across the nipples, and turned back in her seat, rubbing her groin. Rosalie turned forward too, noticing as she did that no one else had even bothered looking at them. Oh, gee, she thought, all perfectly normal. Silly me. She stared ahead blankly while the woman next to her began masturbating mechanically.

Miles passed. In the distance, Rosalie saw a huge, whitish structure come gradually into sight. The vehicle slowed. She had no idea how much time had passed. None at all.

Her thoughts raced, her face felt boiling red. Her nipples, she noticed, were fully erect, and the feel of the wind against them, against the moisture left behind by Nash’s kisses, caused little electric thrills to shoot through her. Then Rosalie shuddered and had to fight with every ounce of strength in her body not to get sick. She clutched as the seat below her, willing away the nausea one second at a time, breathing deeply, for the moment not caring whether she looked angry or not. She felt like she was going to die. But no one looked at her. Most were too busy emulating Nash’s example.

Gradually, Rosalie’s revulsion began to fade, and she concentrated again on the plan. Reach the Auditorium. Use the projector. Go to Earth. Find the relay. Use the projector. It became a mantra. Reach the Auditorium. Use the projector. Go to Earth. Find the relay. Use the projector. The immensely large building loomed ahead of them.

The transport came to a halt.

“We’ll share a slave together,” she heard Nash say from far away. “One of the new ones from Dirt.”

Rosalie felt herself nod and got up when everyone else got up. She climbed down when everyone else climbed down. Reach the Auditorium. Use the projector. Go to Earth. Find the relay. Use the projector. She tried to think of nothing else.

Reach the Auditorium. Use the projector. Go to Earth. Find the relay. Use the projector.

She was on the ground again. Nash came up and slapped Rosalie hard across the ass. Rosalie barely felt it, her mind was so far away. “Green sector,” she heard herself say, and Nash said yes. I’ve got a date, the teen thought. But I think I’m going to have to stand her up.

Then the nausea returned, sank in savagely, and there was no choice, no choice at all, and Rosalie turned somewhere, behind the vehicle, she believed, hoped, and vomited for what seemed like forever.

* * *

With a loud pop and a flash of light, Celestra appeared before her lieutenants. “Report,” she said, boots making harsh contact with the smooth floor of the Auditorium’s control room.

Clio saluted and spoke first. “We’re ready,” she summed up briefly. “Energy outputs are at their peak, the necessary frequencies are stabilized, the receiving platforms are set. We could begin processing now, ma’am, given sufficient warning time for personnel to take their stations.” She handed Celestra a hardcopy report, which her superior glanced at. It enumerated precisely all the myriad details that had needed to be accomplished. Each was marked complete.

Celestra lifted her eyes to another lieutenant, Dewal, who immediately saluted.

“Ma’am” the leather-clad, dark-haired beauty spoke. “The personnel are standing by at your command.” She grinned suddenly, evilly. “Give us the word, ma’am. We’re ready.”

Celestra handed the woman the slip of paper. “The word is given, Dewal. Execute.”

The women saluted again at once, then, all but two, they walked briskly to their respective duty areas, hands and faces twitching in anticipation. A moment later an overhead announcement rang out: “TEN MINUTES! TEN MINUTES TO PROCESSING STATIONS! TEN MINUTES TO PROCESSING STATIONS!” Across the Auditorium, men and women launched into action. Meanwhile, Clio, Dewal, and a second lieutenant, Kormira, stayed at hand for further orders.

Celestra turned to them.

“Go to Earth,” she said to the second officer. The two of them held up their respective projectors and synchronized them with the special chronometer Clio had ready. A complex tool, it ran second-by-second comparisons of the time differential between Earth and the Base Colony, which was close to being a constant but not quite. They took a final reading.

“There. Four minutes from… mark!”

Their projectors synchronized. Kormira, a blue-eyed, mousy-haired petite woman who could, and had at Celestra’s command, rip a man’s testicles off with her teeth, saluted.

“Ma’am,” she said, deferentially. She backed up a few paces, raised her projector, and in a flash was gone.

Celestra nodded to Clio. She went to synchronize the Auditorium computers with the final reading.

“How went the negotiations?” Celestra asked, turning to Dewal. “Were there any complications?”

“None, leader,” the lieutenant said. “Dern Prime agreed to the purchase price. They’ll take the first fifty thousand slaves at only a quarter less than standard credit. If they like what they get, they’ll buy more.”

“Excellent.” Once word spread of the quality of her merchandise, all of the Colonies—the human ones anyway—would flock to Celestra’s door. She nodded and dismissed the brokering officer.

Ten minutes, she thought. Only ten more minutes. Actually, the blond dominatrix knew it would be more than an hour from her perspective. That was enough time to conduct one last-minute inspection.

She walked toward the stairway, reattaching her projector to her belt. She fingered her recently used whip as she did so. It was still moist. Celestra had left that slobbering slut of a doctor back there in her city, partially to give the slave time to recover—she had taken to the lash quite nicely, and Celestra was thinking about adding the slave to her personal household—but mostly because she wanted to ask her about it later. Celestra would have liked to have stayed in Chicago herself, to see the projection field take hold and watch the disappearance of a million souls, but she knew she had to stay here and supervise. The doctor would watch for her, in the eye of the storm.

Between her and the monitors she had set up, Celestra felt sure to get an entertaining show.

It was one she had been looking forward to for a long, long time.

* * *

When she felt like she had herself back under control, Rosalie joined the workers entering the Auditorium. She didn’t think any of the women saw her lose it, but she was sure some of the men had, and she thought—imagined, maybe, but could she take the chance?—that they were talking about her.

She fingered the projector at her belt and detached it.

She would have to find someplace reasonably private.

She looked around, but everyone around her was crowding through the main entrance tunnel, and Rosalie had to go along. She saw a pair of men watching her from the side—they were whispering—and she clutched the riding crop from her belt and waved it at them threateningly. Both men looked down immediately, but Rosalie still felt unsure of herself.

She couldn’t be angry anymore. She was too scared, too sick, and too anxious to find somewhere private where she could use the projector, always assuming, of course, she had the necessary courage. What happened on the transport had completely messed her up. She knew she didn’t have it in her anymore. She was going to get caught. They were going to do awful things to her. She would find her mother again, only instead of rescuing her, Rosalie was sure she would be joining her in a life of slavery. Maybe if she were lucky they would end up serving the same owner.

Beyond the tunnel, the inside of the Auditorium stretched out around the scared teen like the largest football field in the universe. It was immense. It made the Colosseum in Rome look small by comparison. Off in the distance she could see thousands upon thousands of cots, and Rosalie had to bite her tongue to keep from fainting, knowing what they were intended to be used for. She could scarcely imagine it. The entire city of Chicago. Shauna. Her friends in high school. Everybody she knew, except her dad who lived in California. They would all become slaves of Celestra too.

No, dammit, she thought. There’s still a chance.

Rosalie stopped and looked around, careless of the people moving around her. There had to be a closet or a tunnel somewhere, a place where she could . … A blaring voice screamed overhead, and Rosalie yelled with it, surprised out of her skin: “TEN MINUTES! TEN MINUTES TO PROCESSING STATIONS! TEN MINUTES TO PROCESSING STATIONS!” Rosalie’s eyes bugged out. For a second time that day she felt like she might faint.

Christ, did anyone hear? she thought.

“You, bitch!” someone called, as men and women began racing across the field. Rosalie looked up to see a dark-haired woman pointing at her. She was dressed differently from she, though no less evocatively: spiked collar, leather bustier, thong bikini briefs, also in leather, and very high-heeled boots. She was shaking a whip in Rosalie’s direction. “Get over here! Now!”

This is it, Rosalie thought numbly. This is it. Against her will, she felt herself drawn to the bitch-queen, wondering if this might be Celestra herself who had caught her. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry. But they wouldn’t see her cry, she resolved. She would not let them make her cry.

She stepped up to the dominatrix, legs quivering.

“Take these sluts to Section 16 on the double!”

Rosalie looked at the woman.

The officer glared back at Rosalie for a full second. “Move!” she screamed and brought her whip down in a firecracker strike inches from the teen’s face.

Rosalie blinked, not comprehending, until she saw the six women in chains kneeling behind the leather bitch. Only then did everything click together.

“Yes. Yes, ma’am,” she muttered, still feeling like she was going to fall down. Her legs felt like they had been turned to mush. The leather bitch continued to look at her, and Rosalie’s stomach sank further.

Oh, she thought. Oh!

“YES, MA’AM!!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, then, not knowing what she was going to say until she said it, began screaming at the huddled sex slaves. “Move! Move!! Follow me!”

And she turned and ran, hoping she was going in the right direction, not daring to look back.

Rosalie headed toward the side wall furthest from where they had been standing, figuring that if the woman who had just given her her orders had been anywhere near Section 16—duh?—she would have taken the slavegirls there herself.

The announcement moments ago had filled the air with urgency. Everyone was running, Rosalie saw. The entire field swarmed with people. A bunch of men stomped across her path carrying sets of glowing poles, and she stopped to let them pass. Only then did she glance behind her and was simultaneously gratified and horrified to see the six sex slaves had indeed followed her. They had resumed their kneeling when she stopped, putting their faces to the dirt.

God, what am I going to do with them?

One of the slaves, the one in front, shyly looked up at Rosalie and whispered, “The unit exists solely to serve and please, mistress.”

Unit? Rosalie felt herself flush. She thought of her mother’s predicament again.

“Come on,” she squeaked, and began running again. She stopped abruptly, though—she had a sudden idea—and the lead slave accidentally bumped into her.

“Oh, mistress, the unit is sorry! Mistress, mistress, forgive the unit, please!”

The slave turned around and raised her ass to Rosalie, clearly offering her backside for punishment. No way, the teenager thought, then went around to face the kneeling, crying woman.

No freakin’ way! “Get up,” she said. “Get up! Do you know where Section 16 is?”

The slave looked at Rosalie, confusion filling her pretty face, but also love, awe, and desperation.

“Yes, mistress. Mistress, Section 16 is over there.” The slave pointed toward a part of the auditorium several hundred feet away. Shit, Rosalie thought. She would never make it that far.

She pointed in the direction they had been heading. “What’s that over there?”

“Mistress?” The slave held an expression of almost comic bafflement. Why wasn’t the mistress beating me? “Mistress, that is Section 12… a barracks section.”

“Is there anyone there now?” Rosalie asked, thinking rapidly. She looked around again. The entire field was converging on the area surrounding the cots, and she was afraid of standing around too long and attracting notice. Would they be missed if they didn’t go to Section 16?

The slave shook her head.

“The unit does not know, mistress. Forgive the unit her stupidity, mistress.”

Rosalie bit her lip, trying to concentrate. “Okay,” she said quietly, then, in a louder voice for the slaves to hear, “Follow me. We’re going over there.” She started running again, this time in the direction of Section 12.

The slaves followed, bewildered but obedient. Moments later they reached the barracks, and, whispering a silent thank you, Rosalie saw that it was empty. I hope, she thought, praying she wouldn’t run into somebody coming in.

She led the slaves in and told them to hide.

“Hide, mistress?” three of them asked at once, their voices in sing-song unison. Rosalie noticed they all sounded like cartoon characters. What kind of twisted fucks would… ? “Where does the mistress want the units to hide, mistress?” They looked up at her like little lost children.

She was suddenly furious with them. With an effort of will, however, Rosalie managed to keep from yelling. They didn’t deserve that. They hadn’t asked to be turned into brainless sex slaves.

“Anywhere. Just go. Go down there.” She pointed toward a set of stairs going down.

“The pleasure chambers, mistress?” The slave licked her lips. Rosalie saw her nipples tighten.

“Will the mistress be joining the units?” Another spoke too: “The units exist only to serve the mistress’ pleasure.”

They began sighing, obviously needy, like a pack of bitches in heat, which, in a very real sense, they were.

Christ, Rosalie thought and closed her eyes for just a second. “No, just… just go downstairs now!” She yelled the last part, and, with a mutual sigh of disappointment, the slaves hurried away. As soon as the last bare ass of them went down, Rosalie picked up her projector.

She pushed the search control Gordon had told her about. On a small screen, a series of numbers flashed by.

There’s no time, Rosalie thought. I’ve got to do it… just do it!

The numbers whirled to a stop. A light flashed in a corner. She had contact!

The Earth frequency. The Earth headquarters frequency. Rosalie gulped and closed her eyes.

She aimed the device at herself and pulled the trigger.

Rosalie felt the floor beneath her disappear, her ears popping simultaneously. A bright flash passed through her closed eyelids—a flash so brilliant, so powerful, that it was not in fact painful. The light was so bright it passed through her eyes, like a curtain of incandescent yellow. The teen experienced an incredible, timeless moment of vertigo.

When it passed there was a solid foundation beneath her feet again. She opened her eyes.

A cracked, dirty wooden floor now lay beneath her. A musty odor of age filled her nose. The light was dim.

A large metal door surrounded by cracked white plaster was fixed in the nearest wall.

Rosalie coughed, wondering what had gone wrong.

This wasn’t Celestra’s base! She was… she was… she didn’t know where she was.

She looked around, still dizzy, and leaned against the metal door, feeling a chill even through the latex. She had gone somewhere at least. She had actually teleported herself… but where?

She saw a sign on the wall, in English: MEAT. She was in a meat plant of some kind.

Chicago? she asked herself. Am I at least in Chicago?

She heard footsteps behind her, and she spun suddenly, seeing a woman dressed just like her coming through a side entrance. The walls were cracked and falling apart.

“What are you doing here?” the newcomer asked, snarling the words. “Report! Name and section.”

She raised the riding crop in her hand.

“Uh… ah, Rose,” Rosalie said. “Rose… from Delta Squad.” She smiled, then berated herself for doing so. Bitches don’t smile, she thought absurdly.

“There’s no Rose in Delta,” the latex-clad woman said to her. She stepped closer. “Who the…”

Not thinking about it—if she had thought about it she would have hesitated—Rosalie raised the projector and fired it at the woman. The move was so sudden Rosalie wasn’t sure she was pointing the device in the right direction. She could have just as easily shot herself. But she didn’t. The woman snarled and kicked… then disappeared in a flash of light.

Instantly, from across the room, another flash of light appeared, and the woman landed, her side kick driving into the metal door, which rang hollowly and dented. Ohmigod, Rosalie thought, and raised the device again, spinning in her direction. She fired again, convulsively pulling the projector’s trigger, hitting all of its controls at the same time.

The metal door flared brightly, turned transparent, and vanished. So did a large part of the wall adjoining it.

The woman she had been aiming at, and missing, leapt into the air, quick as a cat. A moment later Rosalie felt a vicious, unbelievable pain in her left side. The room flared in bright light and color.

The metal door reappeared in the air.

Rosalie heard a scream, abruptly cut off.

Then there was so much noise and dust and falling plaster—and pain, unbelievable pain!—that Rosalie almost felt herself black out. The building itself shuddered and groaned. She heard shouts from somewhere above, and, grunting, crying, Rosalie pushed off the large, broken piece of plaster that had fallen on her. She tried to get to her feet, and the pain in her side flared brightly—more brightly even than the projection effect—and she screamed, feeling her ribs sliding together brokenly from where her attacker had kicked her. She fell beside the collapsed metal door.

There was blood everywhere. A rubber-clad hand, the only part of Rosalie’s attacker not crushed beneath the heavy metal, clutched a familiar tool.

Eyes widening, Rosalie grabbed this small device. She heard two people enter the room.

“What the fuck happened?” the lead woman yelled. She was a small person, with dull brown hair but gleaming, bloodthirsty eyes. She was dressed like the officer who had given Rosalie the slaves to march. The other girl wore the more standard latex uniform, the one like Rosalie’s. Both of them reacted instinctively, not even seeing the woman beneath the door, not that there was all that much to see of her anymore. They saw only Rosalie’s uniform—and the blood maybe—and they didn’t see Rosalie’s face, or her hand, until it was too late.

“What the fuck happened?” the first woman repeated, and Rosalie, taking the moment, reached over and touched her with the immobilizer she’d found and grabbed.

The woman fell instantly and bonelessly on top of her.

At the same time the room shifted again—the supports were lying in pieces all around them—and the third girl gasped.

“Ma’am?” She was looking in the wrong direction.

“Here,” Rosalie croaked and touched her with the immobilizer too.

She waited afterwards a minute to see if anyone else was going to come. Then, unable to resist the pain any longer, Rosalie pushed the one woman off of her and screamed. She looked down but couldn’t see the bruise because of the uniform, which in itself looked undamaged, though firmly powdered with white plaster. The teen got to her feet, swayed, and had to support herself by clutching the wall. She looked down and saw the lead woman—the dominatrix—staring up at her with a blank, bewildered expression frozen on her face. Rosalie knew what that felt like.

Okay, she thought. Okay. Maybe I am in the right place after all.

She staggered out the way the two women had come in, where the first woman, her attacker, had come through as well. She had to stop at the door and lean against the jam. The whole side of her body felt like it had been caved in. The woman had kicked her once before the door fell on her, but once was enough. Rosalie was afraid of how badly she had been hurt. She did not want to look underneath her uniform. She felt blood pooling against her side. Nevertheless, gritting her teeth, the teenager started up the stairs the doorway had led to.

Mom, she thought. I’m coming to get you. The plan went through her mind again. Reach the Auditorium (Done that). Use the projector (Done that too). Go to Earth (We’re on a streak, Rosalie, ol’ girl).

Find the relay. Use the projector.

Yeah, yeah, she thought, clutching at the railing and using it to draw herself up one step at a time.

At the top was a small landing. Beyond it was an open doorway to another room, and through it Rosalie could hear a funny and loud humming. Lights like those she had seen downstairs flashed on the back wall. Rosalie staggered through and saw a wide room in the center of which sat a complicated array of equipment. It was both the source of the lights and the noise. In the center of the array she saw the glowing block-like thing Gordon had described as the relay.

Thank God, Rosalie thought, then looked beyond it to see windows. A great city was there.

Chicago! She was back in Chicago!

She staggered forward, clutching the projector. She hit the recall key and watched the numbers fly to match the pre-set coordinates Gordon had programmed into it earlier, the ones that would take her back to that awful world.

Did she really need to go back? She could just send him the relay!

But what about her mother?

In Rosalie’s other hand she held up the immobilizer she had won.

“Okay, no choice,” she said quietly. “All or nothing.”

She reeled, balanced herself on the jam, then heard a small noise to her side.

There was someone else in the room! Rosalie spun… and saw yet another of those poor sex slaves, like before, only this one was beaten raw. Her back was covered with red marks and cuts. Her face was heavily bruised.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she said, feeling indeed so sorry for this girl, who looked to be no older than she herself. Who could’ve done this? The girl looked as if she had been whipped half to death.

The slave didn’t seem to mind, though, which was bad. She even smiled at Rosalie, which was worse.

The worst thing, though, was when the slave crawled forward despite her own obvious injuries, mindlessly driven by her mental programming to be little more than a pleasing sex toy.

“Mistress, the unit exists only to serve,” the poor beast of burden cried, tears streaming down her swollen face. She managed to lick her lips seductively, however.

Rosalie was overcome with as much pity as disgust. She leaned down, to comfort the girl perhaps, or to order her away, or something… and then, weirdly, she noticed the slave’s eyes again.

There was something very familiar about this sex slave’s eyes.

“How can the unit serve the mistress?” the girl asked her, crawling to within inches of Rosalie’s face. She tried to lower her head, but Rosalie reached out to tilt it back up.

No. It couldn’t be.

This girl… this sex slave… was a young girl… younger maybe even than she herself.

It couldn’t be.

“Mom?” Rosalie whispered, seeing the obvious resemblance between them, seeing those eyes that had loved and comforted her her entire life.

The body was different—incredibly different—but not that different.

“Mom?” she asked again, then, overcome, wrapped the slave up in her arms, ignoring the awful pain in her side. The slave, bewildered, hugged the latex-clad teen back instinctively.

Younger—they had made her young! she thought—and sluttier—Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Mom!—but it was her… recognizably her! They really had turned her mother into a slut… a sex slave.

It was all true.

“Mistress?” The girl pulled back. “Mistress… the unit… the unit.” She stopped, a wave of confusing emotions rolling across her face. The expression made her look like a small child.

“Sshh, sshh, Mom, it’s okay, it’s Rosalie.” She tried to get her mother’s attention, to focus her back to reality. “It’s Rosalie. I’m your daughter. Don’t you recognize me?”

Rosalie’s mother—who, actually, looked more like Rosalie’s younger sister now—looked confused. “Daughter?” she whispered. She began crying. “317 does not understand, mistress. The unit lives only to please… but… but you…”

The slave shivered uncontrollably.

“Don’t you recognize me?” Rosalie asked, tears falling down between them. “Mom? Mom?”

The girl just shivered, and after a few moments Rosalie got up. She wasn’t mistaken. This was her mother… but she didn’t recognize her. She had been too thoroughly brainwashed.

Her mom didn’t recognize her own daughter… or herself, for that matter.

Wincing, Rosalie tapped controls on the side of the projector, increasing the mass ratio. There was only way to get her mother back. Like it or not, they had to go back together.

When she was ready, she got back to her knees beside her mom and whispered to her.

“It’ll be all right, you’ll see. We’ll get you back. I promise, Mom. I promise.” There was no reaction.

She stood up slightly, aimed the projector at the relay—the multicolored lights had begun to merge together—and fired.

The universe exploded into even brighter colors and brilliance.

They fell.

The next thing she knew, she was hearing a voice: “My god, who would’ve thought? You actually did it. You actually did it!”

Rosalie opened her eyes and saw the Associate standing near her, his face full of amazement, staring wide-eyed at the huge equipment she had brought.

This was her chance. She needed an edge. She reached around with the immobilizer.

Gordon caught the motion with a side-long glance. He backed up, straightened, and kicked Rosalie in the side… unfortunately in the same side where she had been injured.

The teen screamed hoarsely—her mother, the slave, screamed too, even louder, it seemed—and the immobilizer flew from her hand. Gordon turned toward the girl, and Rosalie, despite her pain, rose to try and get it. The Associate laughed, stepped up, and kicked it out of the way. He reached over, grabbed Rosalie, and pulled to her feet.

“Is that any way to say thank you?” he said, then flung her viciously across the room.

Rosalie saw stars. She saw more stars than could be seen ordinarily through the small window she landed beneath, the same one that looked out across a dead and sterile planet.

“Seems like you didn’t trust me there, little girl,” the Associate said, slowly walking up to her. He didn’t notice the slave whatsoever. “Well, that’s okay. I didn’t exactly trust you either, but you surprised me, you really did. I was going over contingency plans when you arrived.”

He stood before Rosalie. He reached down and picked her up. She groaned miserably.

“Ah, does pretty have a boo-boo?” He laughed. “I can make it all better. You can trust me on that.” He reached up to the window ledge and pulled from it the slaving module resting there.

“You’ll be a lot happier being a slave, Rosalie,” he said, reaching around. “Being my slave.”

The device hummed in his hands. He held up the teen’s unresisting head.

“In fact, I can damn well guarantee it.”