The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Oh Alex, you’re back! But it’s so late. I know, I know…you probably got distracted by a project, and forgot to call. I forgive you…again. Are you ready to come to bed?” Amber smiled at me, with what seemed like genuine pleasure, and held out her hand. The only problem with that smile was that we had split up a week before I left on my trip—there was no reason for her to be happy to see me, and there was absolutely no reason for her to be here, naked, in my bed..

Amber Karlsson was a thirty-six year old software engineer and former Stanford cheerleader. She was as pale, blonde, and blue-eyed as her Scandinavian last name would suggest. She was also busty, and curved, and toned in all the right places, evidence of which was bouncing up and down in excitement, right in front of me.

I’d finished rebuilding Survivor this past March, while I was in a pretty steady relationship with Amber. We’d started dating about a year before that, and she thought that my “hobby” of working on a boat was cute. We had talked quite a few times about sailing around the world together, but when the boat was nearly finished, and I began making plans for my trip, she started making comments about how easily she got seasick, or how busy her work was going to be this summer. By the time Survivor was complete, I knew I would be sailing solo.

That had been fine at the time. It had appealed to my lone wolf ego—sailing from port to port, picking up honeys whenever I made landfall. The thing was, I never pursued relationships with women with nearly the same fervor as I pursued answers to engineering problems. Ultimately, I’d had only one hookup before landing on Kili Island, with a very nice accountant-slash-surfer in Hawaii. She had really liked my boat.

I had been seriously pissed at Amber for a time, while I was wallowing in self-pity during my six and a half weeks in that Army-issue mausoleum. If she had come with me, I reasoned, I wouldn’t have ended up huddled in a corner, starving, and ready to slit my own throat from despair. Of course that anger lasted just until I’d figured out what happened to the planet.

I believed without a doubt, that if Amber had been with me on 6/22, I would be just another drone right now, performing my normal behavior every day. The fragile chain of events that left me with my free will intact could have been disrupted at any time, and trying to save my own skin while looking out for someone else would have ended in disaster. What if Amber had insisted on bringing her satphone into the shelter, and we’d watched the alien pulse together? What if she hadn’t been able to endure those extra days without food, and we emerged from the shelter early, just in time for the next eighth-day show?

So I’d forgiven Amber for giving up on our around-the-world trip, but I still couldn’t figure out why she was here, in my bed. She looked good, with her tousled blonde hair, her big blue eyes, and her pale, heavy tits. She looked so good that I felt my cock twitching in my pants. She had never been ashamed of her body, and I actually understood her being nude, because that’s the way she always liked to sleep when she stayed over.

Memories of those times made me realize that it was still technically Tuesday night—“Feast and Fornication” night we used to call it. It had been our one night each week to order in pizza or Chinese food, watch a couple vids, and then fuck like bunnies. And Amber was really, really good at that last part.

Still, why was she here now? It had been…what…eleven weeks after I left California that the aliens had arrived? Her normal behavior shouldn’t include coming back every Tuesday for date night.

I needed to find out, but I needed to get her in a mood to answer questions first. She looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond. I moved closer to her naked form, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking her hands in mine. “Amber,” I said, “I have the power of command. You will listen to, and obey my commands. Say yes if you understand.”

Her sculpted eyebrows knit with concentration for a second. “Yes,” she finally said.

“Good,” I said. “Stay here and wait for me.” Her expression went from smiling and expectant, to blank. Leaving her there, I hurried back down the stairs.

Outside, Lani was still sitting patiently in the BMW. I knew she didn’t have a “wait mode” like I’d just put Amber into, so I wanted to get her in the house and doing something.

I opened the garage door and pulled the wagon in next to my other cars; my Audi roadster, and my restored 1970 Corvette ZR-1 big block. Lani got out and helped me unload the car. I left the storage box, grabbed both duffels, and steered her to the front door.

Huddled in my commandeered jacket against the cold, she swiveled her head, trying to take in everything.

“Wow, Alex. Are you rich?” she said.

“I’ve done pretty well,” I admitted. I took her hand and led her inside.

Inside the foyer, I turned her to face me. “Lani, don’t talk until I’m done.” Her smiling face got serious, and she nodded at me. “We’re going upstairs to my bedroom. My ex-girlfriend Amber is up there.” Lani looked wary, but didn’t speak. “She’s in my bed, and she’s naked, but that doesn’t bother you, OK? You’re going to accept that Amber is part of my circle now. She’ll be with us quite a bit, and you’re going to treat her like a friend. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes,” Lani said.

“OK,” I said, “you’re free to talk.”

“Do you love Amber?” she asked. I recognized by her tone that she wasn’t asking out of jealousy; it sounded like she was just curious. When I thought about it, I realized that Lani wasn’t capable of jealousy, since that would be a form of conflict. Her reversion to her old personality hadn’t given her back that basic human ability to get mad. I was certainly grateful for that, since I didn’t have the time to deal with catfights while trying to save the world.

“No, Lani. I dated her for a while, but we weren’t in love.”

“OK,” Lani said, and that was that.

We went upstairs to the bedroom. Amber was just where I had left her, sitting on the bed. Lani dropped her duffel bag on the floor, and looked at my former girlfriend.

“She’s pretty,” Lani said. “Her boobs are way bigger than mine.”

I chuckled at the matter-of-fact way she said that. I stepped into Amber’s line of sight. “Amber, listen to me,” I said. She turned to face me. “This is Lani. I brought her home with me from my trip. In your normal behavior, she’s my companion, and she is your friend. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. Resume your normal behavior now.”

Amber came alive. She jumped out of bed. Her long blonde hair flew, and her full breasts bounced wonderfully as she rushed over to Lani. “Lani! It’s so great that Alex brought you home with him. He’s wonderful, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes,” Lani said, hugging the naked blonde back with no hesitation. “I love him so much.”

I laughed at how surreal this was turning out to be.

“Amber,” I said.

Both women looked over at me.

“Please put a robe on, then join us in the kitchen.” I turned and walked downstairs.

In the kitchen, I flipped on the coffee maker, and slid a mug inside. Lani came in a moment later. I waved at the expanse of the house to indicate that she could explore.

While she was checking the fridge, Amber came in, wearing a baby blue terrycloth robe, and light blue faux-suede fleece boots. I noticed that it was decently warm inside, and realized that Amber must have turned the heat on. I absently wondered how high my energy bill was.

“Amber, what exactly are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m doing my normal behavior.”

“Explain your normal behavior to me,” I said.

“I miss you being here, so I come to your house, and watch vids, and eat pizza and sleep naked. I use my toy and pretend that it’s you in bed.”

That sounded just a little psycho, but I let it slide. “You miss me? Then why didn’t you come with me on my trip?” I said.

“Because I had met David, and I thought I might be in love with him,” she said. “So I stayed behind for him, but David was a jerk, and we had…conflicts.” She shuddered at that word, finding it difficult to talk about something that was so expressly forbidden by her conditioning. “And then he dumped me. After that, I got really sad, and I really missed you. Since I was checking on your house every week, I tried to make it like it used to be when we were together.”

Well, I guess having control over people is a good way to get the honest truth. I remembered that I had asked her to look in on my house every once in a while when I was gone, but I didn’t know she’d taken it on as a weekly chore.

“Who’s David?” I asked.

“From work. He’s a software engineer like me.”

“So you cheated on me with David?” I asked. Not that it really mattered. Not that any of these questions mattered. But for some perverse reason I wanted to know.

“No,” Amber said. “But when you wanted me to leave with you for months, I realized that I didn’t want to be away from David for that long, so I tried to get out of going on the trip.”

I had a dozen more questions, but I just took a deep breath and decided to drop it. Whatever qualities David once had—qualities that made Amber like him enough to leave me—were now just so much repetitious normal behavior. For a moment I felt really vindictive, like I wanted to punish Amber for this whole thing, but I took another deep breath and let it go. She was a wind-up doll now, which was punishment enough.

Lani had finished checking out this floor, and was leaning on the kitchen island, listening to Amber. My coffee was ready, so I removed the mug from the machine, and blew on it before taking my first sip. I needed to be alert; it was approaching 3:00am, and I had to work out my next moves.

I wanted to drive to the Rollins-Chiu campus in the morning, getting there around 8:30, when most people would be arriving. I didn’t have privileges in the building any more, so I would have to get someone to let me in. It would be at least a two-hour drive to San Jose, which meant leaving around 6:00. That gave me three hours to kill.

I needed to question Amber some more. She had fallen into my lap as the perfect guide in this new version of my old city, and I intended to learn as much as I could from her. I watched her, standing quietly in her robe, watching me. The front of the robe was open enough that I could see the deep cleavage between her breasts, and it gave me a little rush of desire.

Perverse things started popping into my head. Could I really do it? I mean it’s a fantasy every guy has, right? I’d had a little taste before with Lani and her sister, and it was pretty good. And there was nothing stopping me; Lani was crazy in love with me and couldn’t say no, and Amber would do whatever I told her. I rationalized it by telling myself that it would be better than her sad normal behavior—masturbating in my bed because her new crush had dumped her, and she missed what she no longer had with me.

So? Should I or shouldn’t I? I looked at Lani, who was also watching me. She smiled like she always did. I looked at Amber, and saw the pale skin under the robe, and remembered the enthusiasm she had always shown in bed.

God damn it. OK. Fine. I was going for it.

“Let’s go back upstairs,” I said.

Once we were there, I looked at Lani. “Take your clothes off, baby,” I said. She smiled and threw off my oversized jacket.

While she continued, I turned to Amber. “Answer my questions, Amber,” I said. “Have you ever had sex with a woman?”

“Yes,” she answered.

Well. OK. Learn something new every day. “And have you ever had sex with two people at the same time?”

“No.”

“Fine. Now, listen to me Amber, your new normal behavior is to have sex with Lani and me, whenever we ask you. You will enjoy sex with Lani just as much as you do with me. You’ll follow instructions from both of us, if we give you any, but otherwise, you will work to please us both in whatever way seems best. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes.” she said, still in robot mode.

“Good, Amber. Resume your normal behavior.”

Her pretty face broke into a smile. She looked at Lani, who stood naked except for a small pair of pink panties. She untied her robe and dropped it off her shoulders, revealing the curved, voluptuous body I remembered so well.

Lani, in her new state of semi-free will, understood what was happening, and came up behind me. She grabbed the back of my jacket and slid it off my shoulders. Then she reached around my waist, and started unbuttoning my shirt, while rubbing her firm, hard-nippled tits against my back. Amber stepped in front of me and went after my pants. By the time she pulled them down, my cock was at full attention.

She tried to get it in her mouth, but I grabbed a handful of blonde hair and lifted her up to kiss me first. Lani was pressed warmly against my back, and was peppering my neck and shoulders with tiny kisses. I grabbed each girl by the arm, then stepped out from between them, leaving them facing each other.

Both of them had some experience in this situation, and before I could force them together, they were already in each other’s arms; the pale, curvy blonde and the sleek, dusky island girl. Their lips locked together, and their hands explored each other’s bodies. Lani was fascinated by Amber’s outsized tits, and cupped and squeezed them with both hands. Amber kneaded the firm globes of Lani’s ass. I stepped back and sat on the bed to watch.

The kissing and caressing went on for a while, until Lani snuck her hand down Amber’s front and slid it up and down the blonde girl’s hairless slit. Amber pulled on Lani’s ass, mashing their crotches together with Lani’s hand trapped between. In just a little while, Amber’s knees buckled, and she wrapped her arms around Lani’s neck to stay up. Seconds later, she broke their kiss, and laid her head on the darker girl’s shoulder, panting heavily.

“Oh, my God, Lani…oh yes, please…”

Lani had trouble keeping the larger girl upright; Amber had lost control and wasn’t even trying to help. Taking pity on my island girl, I reached out to grab Amber around the waist, and dragged her back toward the bed, with Lani following. Her ass hit the mattress, and she instantly flopped onto her back. I saw that Lani had two fingers buried in Amber’s wet slit, and was using her other hand to rub her fingertips rapidly over Amber’s clit.

My ex threw her head back and forth on the mattress, whipping her blonde hair around. She made the same, breathy, high-pitched moans that I remembered from so many months ago. I had a brief flash of jealousy, thinking that some guy name David was the last one to see her like this, instead of me. I know that’s unfair and chauvinistic, but it was there all the same. I was perfectly fine though, with the fact that it was Lani teasing those sounds out of her now.

I realized that I had missed Amber. She was very smart, and fun to be around. We liked some of the same things, but had enough of our own separate interests that we could spend time apart. We had never talked about taking our relationship any further than it had been at the time we split. I wasn’t in love with her, and after hearing her confession about David, I knew she wasn’t in love with me, but we had worked as a casual couple, and I was glad to have her back.

With that in mind, I leaned down and wrapped my lips around one of her stiff, pink nipples, and swabbed the crinkled flesh with my tongue. Her thrashing got even more intense when I started kneading her tits and running my tongue over both her engorged tips.

Amber gave a yelp, and I glanced up from her luscious tits to see what was happening. At the edge of the bed, I saw her widespread legs now had a crown of dark hair bobbing between them. I smiled to myself and went back to my own task. Lani truly was thinking on her own now, since she didn’t have any experience eating pussy. This wasn’t normal behavior at work, it was a desire to please, and the free will to do it however she wanted.

“Oh, yes…oh,yes…there…right there…ahhhh!”

I couldn’t see what was happening, but Lani must have been very good for her first time. Amber pushed my head away, so she could reach down and grab Lani’s hair. She ground her crotch into the younger girl’s face for almost a minute, milking every little bit of pleasure she could from the contact.

I tugged on Amber’s blonde hair, and forced her head around so I could give her a kiss. Her tongue invaded my mouth and headed straight for my tonsils. I brought my other hand up to pinch her nipples, while our tongues wrestled. The bed shifted, and Lani was on the other side of Amber trying to kiss her as well. Her wet cheek rubbed against mine, and I could taste Amber’s juices as we tried to form a three-way connection of lips and tongues.

Eventually, I backed away, leaving the girls locked together. My cock was incredibly hard from all this excitement, and I wanted it to get involved. Moving further up the bed, I rested my head on a pillow, and lay on my back, with my erect tool pointing at the ceiling. Looking over at the pair, I loudly cleared my throat.

“Uhum…girls?”

They raised their heads and looked at me, then looked at each other and smiled. Before I knew it, I had a girl on each side, black and blonde hair spread over my stomach and thighs, and two pairs of soft, wet lips kissing my straining shaft. Amber was much more experienced than Lani’s sister Malie had been, so between the two women, they quickly figured out a division of labor that had me moaning. It looked like Amber had the top, and Lani got the bottom, at least for now.

I felt the wet vacuum of Amber’s mouth around the end of my cock, while Lani went to work on my balls. My ex’s tongue was working it’s magic on the sensitive underside of my pole, while she bobbed up and down. I felt her take me partly into her throat and then back away; I made a mental note to remember how I’d “fixed” Lani’s gag reflex, and repeat those commands to Amber.

Actually, it was a good thing that she couldn’t go any deeper on my cock, because what she was doing now was driving me crazy.

“Amber, stop,” I finally said, just before I was about to blow. She backed off my dick with a wet pop, and looked at me expectantly. “Ride me,” I said.

I knew this was covered in Amber’s normal behavior, because it used to be one of her favorite things. She gave me a kiss, while one leg swung over me to straddle my hips. She shifted back and forth a bit, until the length of my shaft was nestled in the smooth, slick groove of her pussy. Still keeping her mouth locked to mine, she hunched her hips back and forth, coating everything with her slippery juices.

She moaned into my mouth every time she ground her clit against my hardness. Eventually, she worked her way up until the head of my cock was catching on her entrance with every thrust. A little more downward pressure, and on the next sliding pass I popped right in.

The warm constriction of her pussy engulfed me down to the root, as she sat all the way down on me. Giving me one last kiss, she leaned back and started driving her wet channel up and down my cock. She had her eyes closed, and was biting her lower lip in concentration, impaling her cunt over and over. Her large tits were bouncing all over her chest with her efforts, so I reached out to steady them, one in each hand. She opened her eyes and squealed as I pinched both fat nipples at the same time, but then she gave me a smile and resumed her rhythm.

It was wonderful, feeling Amber’s creamy tight pussy around me again after all these months, squeezing her warm tits and hearing her little cries of pleasure; it felt like a little bit of sameness and sanity during a time of pure chaos.

I could feel Lani crouched between my legs, valiantly trying to get her tongue onto whatever she could while Amber bounced on me.

“Lani,” I said, “up here.”

Her head peeked out from around Amber to look at me, and I released one of Amber’s tits to summon her with a crooked finger. She scrambled around until she was kneeling by my head, her gaze wandering back and forth between my face, and the place where Amber and I were joined. She licked her lips, watching my cock split the wet, swollen lips of the older woman’s pussy.

She looked beautiful, kneeling there, with her long hair, her lovely face, and her smooth mocha skin. I still couldn’t believe the chain of events that had brought her into my life. As of right now, she was the only other non-controlled person I knew; the only one that I could really talk to about anything, without the limits of normal behavior.

She seemed to think that because she was on her period, that she was just a fringe player in our little threesome; that she could give pleasure, but not receive any just now. I wanted to see if I could change that.

“Lani, listen to me. I want you to look at Amber, at the place where she and I are connected. Do you remember when we did this same thing, on Survivor? Do you remember how it felt?” She nodded slowly, never taking her eyes off Amber’s slick entrance as it slid up and down my veined shaft.

“Remember how that felt,” I commanded. “Feel that same pleasure now, inside you. Feel my hard cock pushing deeply into you, every time you sink down on it. Feel the tingle in your clit as you grind down on me.”

Lani’s eyes drooped, and her lips parted as she started breathing heavily. Her hips started lifting up and down in time with Amber’s thrusts onto my cock.

I reached up to grab one of her firm tits. Everything I did to Amber’s large breast, I did to Lani’s as well; running my fingers all around the smooth flesh, and scraping my palm over her erect nipple. She moaned in an almost perfect imitation of the blonde woman who was busy fucking herself up and down my rigid pole.

I judged by Lani’s reaction, that my half-command, half-suggestion was having the right effect. Meanwhile, Amber sped up her activity, getting closer to her climax. She clenched her inner muscles, tightening her slippery tube each time she pulled up, then relaxing and dropping back down, enveloping me in her heat. I was close to joining her, as the pressure built in my balls.

“Oh, God, Alex,” Amber moaned. I knew she was getting there, because she only got vocal when she was ready to cum.

“Oh, God, baby,” Lani said from beside me. She bounced up and down just as vigorously as Amber, her eyes still glued to where my cock disappeared into Amber’s snatch.

“You feel it, don’t you Lani,” I said. She moaned and nodded her head. “Amber’s about to cum, Lani. She’s about to cum on my hard cock. You feel it, too. You feel the pleasure building inside you, ready to explode.” I sounded like a cheesy porn vid, but whatever I was saying, it worked for Lani. She panted, and pinched her nipple, while her tempo increased to match Amber’s.

My ex was almost at her peak. Her pale skin was flushed a blotchy red that ran down her neck and across the tops of her bouncing tits. Her mouth was open, as she gasped for air and squeaked out small cries of pleasure at the same time.

“Ahh, yes baby, ohhh…ohhh…here!”

Amber’s hands slapped down on my chest, and her head tipped forward, spilling her blonde hair in front of her face. She thrust down all the way onto me, and ground her clit into my public hair with short, jerky motions. I watched her firm stomach muscles tense and release in rhythm with the gripping motions around my cock.

Beside me, Lani repeated Amber’s actions, grinding her hips on air, and making soft noises of pleasure.

Seeing all this going on, it didn’t take me long to feel that first twinge at the base of my cock. I thrust upward, gliding in and out of Amber’s wet hole, loose and open now after her climax. I took her by the waist and held her steady while I pounded with deep strokes. It didn’t take long before I was there. I pulled her down tight onto my crotch, and my cock started spitting deep inside her warm passage.

Amber collapsed on me, exhausted by the workout, and the intensity of her orgasm. Lani stretched out beside us, and I turned to give her a kiss. She smiled brightly at me.

“That was so much fun, having you inside my head, telling me what to feel,” she said. “When you said we’d figure something out, I didn’t expect that.” I didn’t tell her that it had all been spur-of-the-moment, and that I really hadn’t thought of what I’d said before. At least now, I knew I could affect more than just her actions.

It looked like Amber had fulfilled her normal behavior for the night, because she fell asleep, snoring softly while lying on top of me. She looked so peaceful in a recently fucked kind of way. I didn’t want to disturb her, but we didn’t have time to sleep tonight. We had until 8:04:27 Thursday morning to get inside an industrial strength anti-alien-control box. That meant we would go non-stop until I was sure we had the technology to avoid the EM pulse. Then maybe I’d let everyone take a nap.

I shook Amber gently to wake her. She moaned, and rolled off me onto the bed, releasing a stream of our combined fluids from her relaxed hole. She opened one eye to look at me.

“Time to get up, beautiful.” I said.

I turned to Lani and smacked her toned ass. “You too, beautiful.”

Lani bounded out of bed, with Amber slowly following. I sent both of them to the shower, then put on a robe and went down to the kitchen.

I scratched together an early morning meal of frozen waffles with maple syrup, Amber’s leftover pizza, and coffee. Both women came down at the same time, their hair piled up in towels on top of their heads. Amber wore her blue robe, while Lani had one of mine—once again swimming in the large garment. I needed to get her some decent clothes, along with some other supplies, which meant I needed to talk to Amber about shopping in the age of alien invasion.

We sat in the breakfast nook after we ate, sipping our coffee, while I grilled Amber about daily life under alien rule. Mostly to find out what behavior would trigger a visit by the Arbiters, or any other type of alien notice for that matter.

She said that retail stores were still operating, as were banks, movie theaters, and restaurants. Payment was still made with cash or scan. Transportation wasn’t monitored or controlled as far as she knew. Arbiters were only called when one person’s behavior conflicted with another, and only if those two couldn’t reach a compromise on their own. Or, she remembered, when bodies needed to be picked up…

“Wait, are there a lot of bodies that need picking up?” I asked Amber.

“Not so much any more, but just after the Awakening, when people couldn’t resolve their normal behavior, they died.” she said, in a very matter of fact way.

“Is that what you know, or what the vid reports tell you?”

“Well it’s all from the vid. That’s where we learn,” she said.

Sure it is, I thought, that’s where you learn what they want you to know. So the aliens had no real regard for human lives. If a person’s normal behavior was incomplete in some way that caused them harm, they had no option but to continue that behavior until they died. Then someone called an Arbiter to pick up the body. It was a cold, inhuman way to treat people, but these were aliens after all.

“So if we just play it cool, and don’t upset anyone enough that they need to call the Arbiters, we should be OK?” I asked her.

“Yes, I think so,” she said.

“What about you, Lani?” I asked the dark-haired girl. “Do you think you can handle dealing with these mind-controlled people?”

“If I have to,” she said.

“I think we all have to,” I said, “if we want to stay free.”

I stood outside the entrance to the Orange Building—the hardware R&D building—on the Rollins-Chiu campus, waiting for someone, anyone, that I knew to walk by. It was after 8:30, and I’d been waiting here for half an hour. I didn’t like standing out in the open like this, with dozens of mind-controlled people swarming around me. Any one of them could potentially have a problem with me being here, which could result in a call to the Arbiters. I’d had some practice earlier this morning at flexing my command powers, but I wasn’t sure that I could handle this large crowd as easily, or as quietly.

Around 6:00 am, the three of us had piled into Amber’s Mercedes, and started our long journey to San Jose. Amber was driving because my car hadn’t been seen on Bay Area roads since the invasion, and I didn’t know if its sudden appearance on the traffic grid would earn me extra scrutiny. I let Lani sit up front to get the best view of the scenery. We set out over the Golden Gate Bridge, then wound our way through San Francisco proper, until we met up with Highway 101, heading south down the peninsula toward the South Bay. I pointed out some of the more prominent landmarks for Lani, but mostly I just let her gawk.

The morning commute traffic wasn’t as bad as I remembered, and it took us less than an hour to cover nearly eighty kilometers to Amber’s apartment in Sunnyvale. She needed a change of clothes, and she found a real jacket and some warm boots for Lani.

Soon we were back in the car and heading south again. Twenty minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of Symm Software Solutions, the company where Amber worked. We had to clear her for her new work assignment—namely that I didn’t want her to work there anymore. I wanted her to always be available as my guide, plus I felt a little protective of her after our year together. She had warned me that her sudden absence might be missed at work, so I was here to fix things with her coworkers.

Inside the building I immediately went to the owner’s office. I gave him a new normal behavior without Amber Karlsson in it, then had him forget all about me or her. I repeated the process with all thirty-one employees in the small software firm. By the time I was done, she didn’t exist in the minds of anyone in the office. The whole process was actually easier than I’d expected.

The highlight of the morning was that I got to meet David, who, to be honest, was a good-looking, well dressed guy. I could have been a real dick to him, but I figured he was spending his life as an alien drone, and I was fucking Amber again, so there was no need to be vindictive. At least for me.

I did get a little payback on Amber’s behalf, because of the way he treated her during their breakup. I asked him about his sex life, and found out that he didn’t have a current girlfriend, and that he masturbated to net porn every day as his normal behavior. It was hilarious to think that alien mind control was actually forcing this guy to jack off every day. I wondered if he watched the exact same vid every time? Still, he’d been a prick to Amber, so taking away all desire to pleasure himself—ever again—was my small revenge for his transgression.

With Amber now free to accompany me, we continued on to our final destination at my former company. We drove onto the campus, and I had Amber drop me off in front of the Orange Building, my old home away from home.

Before I got out of the car, I gave Lani my scan card and told Amber that her new normal behavior was to take Lani shopping for a whole new wardrobe; just average clothes, nothing flashy. They were to check in with me at noon, or call my satphone at any time if there were any problems. I made sure Lani had her earbuds in against any alien signals in the store Muzak, and gave Amber instructions on how to guard the younger woman from any stray visuals, then I sent them on their way.

As I stood on the concrete steps outside the glass and steel façade of Orange Building, I was struck by a real feeling of nostalgia. I’d had a good career going for me in this place. I’d worked with a great group of people, and had an intriguing problem to solve. The job had been hard, and stressful, but it had been everything that I’d wanted to do at that time. By the end of the project—once the breakthroughs had all been made, and the prototypes were all in their final testing stage—that’s when I’d started to get restless. And once the corporate politics took over, I’d had enough. Taking a walk had been the best thing for me at the time, but I missed those early days when our only concern was solving the next problem.

I was lost in my daydream of days gone by, when my peripheral vision caught a flash of neon green. The subconscious can be a wonderful thing at times—in this case, it told me exactly who had just walked past me. I spun around and rushed after the retreating form of my former lab assistant.

Param Rajagopal actually had a doctorate in electrical engineering, compared to my lowly master’s, but I’d been recruited by Todd Rollins to head the nanoprocessor project based on my experience as a manager, as well as my ability as an electron-pusher. Param hadn’t minded working for me, and we’d become good friends during our three years on the project. He’d been thrilled to have a chance at collaborating with Dr. Kinslov, our lead scientist, so the job title wasn’t as important to him as the science.

In any case, he’d become my right-hand-man during that time, and I knew how capable he was. He was my first and best choice to help me with my current plan. I’d seen him just before I left on my sailing trip, so I knew he was still working here, and thanks to the neon green Nike running shoes that he always wore, I’d found him in time.

Not wanting to touch him, or shout his name, for fear of sparking a bad reaction, I raced in front of him and stood in his path.

“Greetings, Param,” I said, acting as calm and drone-like as possible.

“Greetings, Alex,” he replied, then immediately tried to move around me. I guess because I wasn’t part of his normal behavior any more, he had no reason to stay and chat.

I knew I would have to take a risk, by accosting my old friend here in public. It wasn’t the optimal situation, but if I didn’t get him under control now, I’d have to wait, probably several more hours, before I would get another chance.

I moved to block him again. “Param, listen to me. I have the power of command. You will listen to, and obey my commands. Say yes if you understand.” That phrase had become a mantra of sorts; I’d repeated it over and over at Amber’s workplace. I’d noticed that there was a variable amount of time before each person ultimately said yes, but it had never been more than a couple seconds. In Param’s case, he froze in place, staring into my eyes for at least twenty. I was afraid to blink, or even breathe in that time, not knowing if it would break the process of accepting me as a person who could command.

Finally, his eyes looked away. “Yes,” he said in his neutral drone voice.

I let out my breath, then considered what to do next. I needed to get Param alone for a while, so we could work out a plan; I couldn’t just walk into the building with him, and go past security without some flags going up. But I also couldn’t keep him from going inside, because that would also raise flags when he didn’t show up for his routine day.

“Param, do you still get your chai drink from the cart in front of Blue Building every morning?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Good, that will get him alone. “Go in to work, but leave to get your morning chai at your first opportunity. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good, go now,” I said, stepping aside to let him pass.

Once he was inside, I headed toward Blue Building, home to the unwashed hordes of the software division. I stood in line at the coffee cart, and got Param his chai, and a large black Americano for me, paying cash since Lani had my scan. I was still mostly awake after twenty-four hours, but I had another twenty-four to go—caffeine was the order of the day. I had my supply of StayUp from the medicine cabinet at home, but I was saving it for later when the fatigue really kicked in.

I sat on a bench in the plaza to wait for Param. The weather was nice—clear and sunny—and I was happy for Lani, wherever she was right now, that she could enjoy a warm day.

A few minutes later, I saw Param coming up the path. I intercepted him, and brought him over to sit with me on the bench.

“Param, listen to me, I’m going to tell you some things. Your new normal behavior is to accept everything I say as the truth.”

He nodded, and I immediately told him the story of the aliens, and everything that I knew about their mind control methods. I even told him that he was under alien control, which of course didn’t phase him. I explained the quirks of working within people’s normal behavior, and how I could manipulate that behavior with my commands. Then I ordered him to never tell anyone what I’d just said.

I needed a scientific mind to help me with the technical issues I was facing, and I was going to rely on Param to be my sounding board.

“Answer my questions, Param. Within the confines of what I just told you, what is the best way for me to get to the fourth floor of Orange without being noticed, or causing any problems?”

He thought for just a few seconds. “The best way to proceed without being noticed is to create a closed system under your control. No system of that size can be perfect, but if you keep unwanted information from disseminating, then any mistakes can be fixed internally before they can cause further problems.”

That was precisely what I had figured. I needed to create a haven, where everyone on the inside was working for me, and they guarded the borders against everyone on the outside.

“What is the best way to establish such a closed system in the Orange Building?” I asked.

“Start with the security team.” He said. “The head of security for Orange Building is Mr. Abaté. Once you have access to the building, recruit the top manager in the area you want to occupy, and have that person help you recruit the rest of the department.”

Again, that was the direction I had planned on going—it was nice to have corroboration from someone whose opinion I trusted. And since Param was the top manager in the department I was targeting, I was already on my way. We got up and strolled back to Orange, firming up my plan on the way.

Over the next two hours I made a lot of progress. Param got me in to see the head of security, then he went back to work so he wouldn’t be missed. Within thirty minutes I had all of the security people “on my payroll” so to speak. I also had a shiny new ID badge, giving me the run of the campus. There weren’t any computer records to back up my new badge—not until I could recruit someone in HR—but it would pass casual inspection.

I had the lobby guard call Param back down, and together we took the elevator to the fourth floor; my old stomping ground. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it right away. When the elevator doors opened, I closed my eyes and had Param lead me through the halls like I was blind. I couldn’t risk seeing anything with an alien signal in it. We stumbled along until we reached his office.

Once I was safely inside, we set up an assembly line, summoning workers one by one into the office—just like I had done earlier at Symm Software. I said my Greetings to each one, then sat them in a chair and added them to my minion asset list. For now, I was commanding that each one acknowledge me as their boss, then resume their normal behavior. They were to come to me or Param with problems instead of going outside the group, especially when it came to calling an Arbiter.

Some of the people I recognized, some I didn’t. The ones that I knew from before were the hardest, of course; seeing that zombie stare on their face, where before there had been friendly smiles. Eventually, I recruited all forty-three workers in the project group. The one person that I wanted to see the most wasn’t among them.

“Param, what happened to Scarlett?” I asked.

“Scarlett is gone,” he replied.

That was odd. Scarlett Wong had been my executive assistant during my days here, and according to my last pre-alien conversation with Param, she was still at R-C as his assistant. She wouldn’t just be gone, unless…

“Param, is she dead?”

“No,” he replied.

Damn, not the literal-speak again. “Param, answer my question thoroughly and completely. What happened to Scarlett Wong after the Awakening?”

“She’s gone,” he said.

That wasn’t thorough or complete. Something else was going on here. Why wouldn’t he answer me like I commanded?

“Param, have you been given commands regarding Scarlett?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Commands from whom? An Arbiter?”

“No.”

“So…were those commands from a human like me, or one of the Chrxjthal?”

“A human,” he said.

Well, what one human creates, another can destroy—at least I hoped so. “Param, listen to me: disregard all of the commands given to you by that other human—they are no longer part of your normal behavior. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good. Now Param, answer my question thoroughly and completely. What happened to Scarlett?”

“She left with Todd Rollins, two days after the Awakening. She hasn’t returned.”

“Why did she leave with him?”

“He commanded her to.”

“Commanded her how, Param,” I said. “Be specific.”

“He came to the lab two days after the Awakening. He had eight other women with him. He called all of the workers into the bullpen, and spent some time looking at them. Eventually he pointed at Scarlett and said, ‘You, little Asian bitch, I command you to come with me.’ Then he shouted at the rest of us to forget everything we just saw, and he left. Scarlett hasn’t been back since. We called an Arbiter to determine our new normal behavior without Scarlett, and she helped us avoid conflict.”

That little shit. Somehow, Todd Rollins had survived the aliens, and was running around collecting a harem from his own company employees. I had no idea where he was now, but if he was free of control like me, I needed to find him. Not that I was thrilled about it; even though Rollins had recruited me to work here, I never liked him. Chiu Jianjun was the technical genius—Rollins was a used-car salesman who marketed whatever JJ created. It was totally in character for him to grab all the hot women he could find, and then disappear.

I’d worry about him later though—there were other things on my priority list.

“Param,” I said, “I have a couple tech projects that I’m going to work on here. Your new normal behavior is to assist me on those projects. Say yes if you understand.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good. The first thing I need to know is how many of the clean rooms here at R-C use Faraday cages?”

“I think all of them do,” he said. He walked around his desk. “I can look up the specs if you…”

“In a minute. First of all, don’t turn on any vid displays in my presence unless I tell you. Is that clear?”

He nodded.

“Who’s your best hands-on tech? I need someone to modify a pair of D-glasses.”

“Renee,” he said. I remembered the redhead from her “recruitment.”

I pulled out my satphone and placed it on the pad next to his keyboard. “Turn on your display but keep it facing away from me. Find the directory marked ‘Alien Signal,’ and look at the file called ‘EM Specs.’”

I heard him tapping away until he said, “I’ve got it.”

“Good. Find the nearest Faraday cage that can be modified to screen one-hundred percent of those three frequency ranges—we have less than twenty-four hours to do it. Generate a list of clean room locations, and decide what modifications we’ll need. You have until noon. Say yes if you understand everything I told you.”

“Yes,” he said, still tapping away.

I opened his office door, and accosted the first person who walked by; a young man in a blue t-shirt with wildly unkempt hair. I closed my eyes and had him lead me by the arm to where Renee worked. I sent the young guy on a quest to find me a pair of D-glasses, then I sat and told the young redhead what I wanted to do.

I watched over Renee’s shoulder for a time while she worked on the glasses, and decided that she knew what she was doing. With her on that project, and Param researching my safety cage, I found myself with a little down time. I still couldn’t trust any vid signals, so doing research on my own wasn’t viable, and I didn’t feel like using a proxy to look up things for me. Instead, I thought I would plug some of the holes in the closed system I had established.

I knew that Param, as project leader, reported to several people, and we’d already determined what information he was allowed to send up the chain. The problem was all of the other people who reported to someone outside the black box I’d set up on the fourth floor. That included people like maintenance workers, night janitors, and peripheral departments like accounting and purchasing.

I had to choose between a top-down takeover of the company, or a bottom-up approach. Going after the top people was greater risk for greater potential reward; their modified actions might ripple down to someone who had a conflict, but they could also squash any complaints coming up the pipe before they left the company bubble. I felt that I had enough cover here on the fourth floor that a little risk was acceptable. The question now was, who should I go after.

If I really was going top-down, then the obvious choice was JJ Chiu. I knew Todd Rollins was in the wind, probably fucking the cute little Scarlett Wong at this very moment. I hadn’t heard any news of JJ though.

I asked Param, and he said that yes, JJ was in his office every day like clockwork. I checked my watch, and I still had half an hour before Param was ready with my list, and Amber and Lani were due back from their excursion. The White Building that housed the corporate offices was just a short walk away, so I figured no time like the present.

I exited Orange and turned right, heading for the largest building on the R-C campus. It was getting hot in the bright sun, but not nearly as humid as the Marshalls had been. I’d forgotten my sunglasses and had to squint against the bright reflections off the chrome and glass buildings all around me. I saw a gardener mowing the grass between two buildings, and I wondered if he showed up just to mow the same patch of grass every day, or if his normal behavior had a little more variety.

I showed my new ID badge at the security station, and the employee rank I had assigned myself was enough to get me waved through to the elevators. A short ride later, I was in the reception area of JJ’s office.

Paul, his executive assistant, wasn’t at his desk, so I opened the large door and stepped into my former boss’s office.

I immediately figured out why Paul wasn’t out front; he was in JJ’s office, standing off to the side of the large glass desk, with his hands on his hips and his pants around his ankles. A small man with black hair, who could only be Jianjun Chiu, was kneeling with his back to me, bobbing his head in the crotch of the standing blond man.

I blinked a couple times to make sure I was seeing this correctly. JJ had never given any indication that he was gay. He came across in public as almost asexual; more concerned with creating new tech toys than with dating. Now I knew that he’d simply been private with his sex life. It didn’t concern me, other than the fact that I needed to talk with him, and therefore would have to interrupt his normal routine of sucking his assistant’s dick.

I cleared my throat loudly. “Greetings, Mr. Chiu,” I said, “ I need to speak with you.”

He pulled back from his boyfriend/assistant and turned to look at me. He didn’t seem at all panicked at being caught. Still with his back to me, he stood up and zipped up his pants. Finally, he turned around completely to face me. “Greetings, Alex Drummond,” he said. I was surprised that he remembered my name.

Paul had also put everything away, and went out the door back to his desk.

I stepped closer to JJ, and looked him in the eye. “Jianjun, I have the power of command. You will listen to, and obey my commands. Say yes if you understand.”

Shockingly, JJ didn’t say yes. Instead he looked at me and said, “Wait here.” He walked around me and headed for the back wall of his office.

I was torn between ordering him to stop and explain, or letting him carry on and see what he was doing. He didn’t seem to be doing anything threatening, and he wasn’t trying to contact anyone, so I let him continue.

There were two stuffed chairs and an end table against the wall. JJ went to the table and opened a small drawer in the front. He took out a tape measure, and a small hammer. While I watched, he extended the tape and measured along the wall about two and a half meters from the corner. He scored the drywall at that spot, then measured up from the floor a little over a meter. He put his finger against the spot to mark it, then dropped the tape measure to the carpet. Hefting the hammer, he smashed the wall at the point he’d measured.

I moved closer to him, still staying out of his range if he turned on me with that hammer. He opened a hole in the drywall, and shoved his hand inside. I tensed in case he pulled out a weapon, or an electronic device. Had the aliens planted some kind of behavioral trigger in their programming, as a booby trap for someone like me? And if so, why hadn’t I set it off already? I hadn’t done anything unique in asking JJ to accept my commands.

When he pulled his hand out of the hole, he was clutching a folded piece of paper. Without a word he handed it to me, then put his tools back in the drawer and went back to his desk.

My mind reeled at all the strange things JJ had done in the last few minutes. I looked at the paper he’d handed me. It was plain white, but of good quality, stationary size, and folded in thirds. I lifted the top flap carefully, wondering if the aliens could embed mind control commands in static images.

Printed across the top were the words “From the Desk of Dr. Anatoly Kinslov.”

Intrigued now, I opened the paper all the way.

To Whomever Has Received This Note;

I am Doctor Anatoly Kinslov, a physicist working in San Jose, California, United States of America. I am one of the unconverted. If you managed to activated the trigger that I planted in Mr. Chiu, then you must be one as well.

I have discovered ways to prevent being assimilated by these beings from space. I assume that you have too. I also assume that you are a person of some intelligence, since the people I programmed with these triggers would only be sought out by those of higher aptitude.

I am willing to meet with other unconverted to discuss the planet’s current predicament, but I will only meet on my terms. If you are willing, you must command Ms. Yasui Masae at the San Jose Mercury News to publish “the rental advertisement for Mr. Carvalho.” Give her your contact number or address. I will communicate with you once I have determined that you are not a threat.

Please return this letter to Mr. Chiu and instruct him to complete “Project Winter.” He will reset the process in case another unconverted person comes after you.

Dr. A. Kinslov Sc.D.

I stared at the note in disbelief, but then slowly a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. If the brilliant mind of Dr. Kinslov had been spared from the aliens’ control, then my chance of fighting back against these evil fucks just got a whole lot better.