The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Melanie Hawajeethra answered the doorchime in her robe; the house had told her that the person outside was a deliveryman. Deliverywoman, as it turned out. Cute, late twenties, her ponytail poking out above the hatband of her electric blue baseball cap.

“Mrs. Melanie Hawajeethra? I have a delivery for you.” The girl proffered a vidscreen clipboard. “If you’d read the terms and sign at the bottom, please.” She raised her other arm and looked at her watch.

Melanie took the clipboard. The screen was not the usual white with black text; it was a sort of pearlescent color, with a subdued glow.

“Who’s this from?” she asked, squinting a little as she started to read.

“It’s on the form, ma’am. Please read.”

Melanie frowned as she read. It seemed like standard legal boilerplate, but the screen it was on seemed to be... shifting a little.

“I think your, your batteries...” Melanie began.

“Read, ma’am.”

She blinked to try and clear her eyes. It was hard to focus on the pulsing vidboard, but harder still to look away. She had to read...

The delivery woman looked at her watch again. They stood motionless for a few moments, Melanie staring vacantly into the vidboard.

The delivery girl spoke. “Activation tango alpha bravo. Melanie Hawajeethra.”

“Melanie Hawajeethra is activated,” Melanie replied in a soft voice, not looking away from the screen.

“You are alone, Melanie Hawajeethra?”

“Yes,” she replied quietly.

The delivery girl bent down to pick up the package. “You anticipate being alone for at least one hour?”

“Yes.”

“Let me in and close the door behind me.”

“Yes,” Melanie said. She finally looked up from the clipboard, but her eyes were wide and out of focus. She stepped back as the delivery girl walked into her house, and closed the door quietly behind her.

“MacToy, get in here,” Captain Njall barked, but he was using his friendly bark. Helen rolled her stencil onto the desk vidscreen and hoisted herself out of her chair.

“What’s going on?” Alan asked as she passed by his desk, but she shrugged.

“No idea. But anything to get me away from that paperwork is something good,” she replied.

As she pushed open the glass door with the gold ‘Captain Angus Njall, Bellingham Police Department’, Helen saw that the captain had a young woman in an unfamiliar uniform sitting in his office with him.

The Bellingham Police Department was a mid-sized department, serving a mid-sized city. Bellingham had a good maglev connection to Vancouver and a few thriving local industries. It had mostly been built after the Meme Wars, by refugees from Seattle; refugees from other places had continued to augment the population for most of Bellingham’s subsequent history.

In other words, there had always been someone to mow the lawns.

Helen walked into Captain Njall’s office. He was behind his desk, his face its usual dour calm. Seated in one of the visitor chairs was the woman, Helen’s age and also in police uniform.

“Helen MacToy,” Njall said, “meet Angela Beckett. She’s here on an exchange program from Deseret.”

Helen smiled at the woman and extended a hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

Angela Beckett smiled and took the hand; her grip was strong but not pushy. “Likewise.”

“I’m putting Officer Beckett in your care, MacToy. She’ll be here for six months, learning how we do things in Canada.”

“Another exchange?”

“You want that promotion, Officer?”

“Alright, alright,” Helen said. She looked at Officer Beckett. “Glad to have you.” Looking back at the Captain: “Deseret? Does she know our laws?”

“More or less. She’s not authorized to act as law enforcement. She’s just here as an observer.”

Helen nodded. “Fine.”

“I’ll try not to be any trouble,” Beckett volunteered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Helen said. “We’re happy to see new faces around here. Welcome aboard.”

Beckett smiled.

Helen looked back at the captain, but he was already tapping at his desk screen with a thick finger. He looked up. “What? Are you still here?”

She snorted, and turned to Beckett. “C’mon Beckett, I’ll show you around.”

The Deseret policewoman stood up. “Please, call me Angela.”

“Last names while we’re on duty, Beckett. Now c’mon, the captain likes a clean office, which means no cops in it. I’ll show you around the office, introduce you. Then I have some paperwork to wrap up, and then we can go on patrol.”

Melanie sat on the couch, staring at the vidwall.

It was pulsing, and rippling, fifty inches of slick slow motion. A wave ran across it languorously, sliding from one edge back to the other. Melanie’s eyes tracked its slow, rhythmic motion, unblinking, her gaze pinned to its glossy green form.

Melanie had no mind for anything but the pulse; behind her the delivery girl was pulling something else from the package she had brought.

Opening the package was the first thing the delivery girl had done once inside, as Melanie stood quietly awaiting orders. Inside it was a black carrying case with a number of flaps. From the first flap the girl removed a memory stick; the stick was even now plugged into to the house brain, rewriting it.

While the house brain was busy being reprogrammed, the delivery girl went around to the home’s dependant computers and infected each of them individually. The first one had been the entertainment center computer; it took only a moment for it to wipe itself and accept the total reprogramming. At the delivery girl’s command, the new software activated one of several entrancement programs, this one for baseline receptive minds. The delivery girl instructed Melanie to watch it; that program quickly became Melanie’s entire world.

As Melanie’s eyes mindlessly tracked the pulse, the delivery girl finished reprogramming the house. Then it was Melanie’s turn.

From the largest compartment of the black carrying case, the girl pulled out a silver helmet. It was glossy and featureless, although its outer surface had a number of smooth lumps and bulges, and there were a half dozen unmarked buttons above the facial opening.

The delivery girl walked to the sofa and carefully placed the helmet on Melanie’s head. Melanie gave no sign that she noticed; her eyes continued to track the pulse: left, right. Left, right.

Her ponytail fell over one shoulder as the delivery girl leaned forward over Melanie, and tapped at the buttons atop her forehead.

Melanie inhaled, slowly, eyes stopping their side-to-side slide and widening. She sat up a little straighter on the sofa.

Then, just as slowly, she exhaled. Her eyes lidded, until just a crescent of white was visible beneath the lid.

The delivery girl watched Melanie for a few moments to check that there were no adverse reactions to the willwipe. Melanie’s breath remained deep and even, and although she twitched a few times, that was well within the expected physical reaction.

Satisfied, the delivery girl stood erect. Her own program double-checked all things. The initial willwipe and reprogramming of Melanie Hawajeethra should take no more than forty minutes; she had been subliminally primed for this for well over a month. Once the initial reprogramming was complete, Melanie would be am eager accomplice, able to arrange her own deeper programming and the reprogramming of her family.

The first thing the new Melanie would do would be to hide all the evidence of her own reprogramming.

The delivery girl closed the front door behind her.

While Helen finished her report, Angela read through the the Bellingham P.D. rules of behavior on her portable vidscreen.

For the fourth time.

She took being here very seriously; The recently installed new government in Deseret had made it a priority to improve relations with the other states of western North America. The police exchange program was a cornerstone of that effort.

Angela had volunteered for it immediately, as much to visit other countries as to learn more about policework. Although the Canadians’ attitude towards prostitution and narcotics—serious crimes in Deseret—was very different, Angela suspected that underneath their decadence the cops here were a lot like cops back home.

“Hey,” she heard, and realized that Helen—no, Officer MacToy—was speaking to her.

“Yes?”

“You ready to go out on patrol? I’m scheduled for a few hours down in Tennant Lake this afternoon.”

“Sounds great,” Angela said with a smile.

“Let me fetch my partner,” Helen said. “Be right back.”

Angela smiled again as Helen walked away. Helen seemed like a nice person, kind of folksy and down-to-earth, if first impressions were to be believed. She had a face that tended more towards ‘cute’ than ‘beautiful’, and the slim strong build of an athlete. Her brown hair was cut short; Angela’s angel found it decadent and boyish, but she had to admit it looked good. Angela’s own hair was of course long; she kept it in a single braid that her fiance said made her look like a Valkyrie.

Deseret and Canada had, until the recent change of government, not liked each other very much. In choosing candidates for the exchange program, the Council carefully selected men and women with the best interpersonal skills as well as the highest moral character.

Angela scored near the top in both categories. She was one of those people too nice to envy, and she had her angel to keep her on the straight and narrow.

Helen was walking back with another female officer. The woman smiled at Angela.

“Officer Beckett, this is Officer Mara. Mara, Officer Beckett.”

“A pleasure,” Mara said, extending her hand. Angela stood to accept it and realized how short Mara was—less than five feet. She had wavy orange-red hair and pale, freckled skin.

“Nice to meet you, Officer Mara,” Angela said.

“Just ‘Mara’ will be fine,” the woman replied.

“Oh. Okay. Um, you can call me Angela if you like.”

“Thank you, Officer Beckett,” Mara said, without a trace of irony.

“Motor pool’s this way,” MacToy said, leading them through the maze of desks, out of the office.

It was a busy office, a lot like the police offices back in Ogden. Or, Angela supposed, police offices anywhere. Various men and women traded salutations or quips with Helen—Officer MacToy—as they made their way through the cubicles.

“So, Mara,” Angela asked, “how long have you been a policewoman?”

Mara looked at her with blue-green eyes. Her natural expression seemed to be a faint smile, as though the world amused her.

“Almost five years now.”

“Oh. Did you graduate from the Academy?”

“The University of British Columbia, actually. Special program.”

They followed MacToy into the elevator. She punched the button to take them down to the motor pool.

Helen turned to face Angela. “So you’re here for six months, Beckett?”

“Yes. I just finished my training at the Academy in Ogden.”

“Great. Well, I’m happy to show you around. You know much about Bellingham?”

Angela shook her head. “Not much. Population two hundred eighty thousand, average income one hundred thirty eight thousand Canadian dollars, seven murders last year—”

Helen laughed. “Right. Well, this afternoon we’re going down to Tennant Lake. It’s a mixed area but there are lots of Chinese refugees, and some areas can be dangerous.”

Angela nodded. The elevator opened.

“Those are, of course, the parts we’re going to,” MacToy added.

They walked past rows of electric scooters—mostly personal transportation—and out to the cars. To Angela’s surprise, Mara walked around to the driver’s side. Helen went to the passenger door.

Angela wondered why Mara’s driving had surprised her. Probably because MacToy just seemed like the one in charge.

“You mind riding in the back, Beckett?” MacToy asked.

“No, not at all.”

Mara waved her hand over the access panel and the car unlocked. They all slid in.

“Is this an assigned car?” Angela asked.

“No, we checked it out upstairs,” Helen—Officer MacToy—said. “It’s keyed to Mara’s ID tag for the day.”

Mara started up the car, backed it out of the space, and turned them towards the sunlight.

Dora Morales put the remote control down on the coffee table and walked to the door. “Who’s there?” she asked Milo.

“A registered delivery person,” the house replied.

Dora and her family had moved to the Lake Samish area of Bellingham only last year. They brought Milo with them; although the mainbrains of the new houses were more advanced, Dora felt comfortable with Milo’s voice and although technically you were supposed to be able to transfer over all your personalizations from one mainbrain to another, it never seemed to work out that way.

She opened the door to find an attractive woman in a blue and black uniform holding a clipboard, a package at her feet.

“Mrs. Dora Morales?”

“That’s me,” Dora chirped.

“I have a delivery for you.” The girl held out the clipboard. “If you’d read the terms and sign at the bottom, please.”

Dora took the clipboard and started to read. “What a pretty... background...” she said, then fell silent.

The delivery girl looked at her watch as Dora stared into the clipboard.

The delivery girl spoke. “Activation tango romeo india. Celiadora Morales.”

“Celiadora Morales is activated,” Dora replied, her eyes not leaving the clipboard.

“You are alone, Celiadora Morales?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“You anticipate being alone for at least one hour?”

“Yes.”

“Let me in and close the door behind me.”

“Yes,” Dora replied, looking up from the clipboard with wide, blank eyes. The delivery girl walked inside carrying the package. Dora closed the door behind her.

Tennant Lake had been built late the previous century, to house the flood of Chinese fleeing the civil wars. Formerly an unincorporated area abutting the town of Ferndale, the fields and farms west of the river had become large squat blocks of low-income housing.

The Meme Wars hadn’t improved the area, and as the previous owners moved out to more prosperous areas new refugees filled their places. The British Canadian government, led by the large ethnic Chinese communities in Vancouver and Victoria, had made efforts to improve slums such as Tennant Lake, but Northern Washington was lower on their list than areas in BC Proper.

Angela had never seen so many Chinese people in her life.

She hesitated to ask the question which occurred to her, but she was here to learn...

“Officer MacToy?”

“Yeah, Beckett?”

“Why do they have you and Mara patrol here? Why not some of the Chinese officers?”

“What?” Helen looked at her. “Oh, because we’re Caucasian. Right. Well, Mara speaks fluent Mandarin, for one. And, you know, it’s not supposed to matter. Round-eyes, slant-eyes, we’re all the fuzz, you know?”

“’The fuzz’?”

“It means the police. Alright Mara, let’s do some foot patrol.”

“Okay.”

Mara pulled the cruiser over. A few passers-by gave them looks, but as the three of them stepped out of the vehicle Angela didn’t sense much tension in the air; no more than the arrival of law enforcement caused anywhere. Of course, maybe she didn’t know what tension would feel like, in this neighborhood.

Officer MacToy led the three of them into a store. Blazing pink neon filled the window with characters Angela couldn’t read. The shelves inside were crammed full of jars and boxes.

The shopkeeper, a middle-aged woman, smiled at them from behind the register. She finished the transaction she was making for a teenage boy, and came over.

She and Mara spoke quickly in Mandarin. MacToy looked around the store, examining foods Angela didn’t recognize, noting the layout of the security cameras.

A few minutes later, Diet Szenshens in hand, they were walking down the street.

“No problems, she said,” Mara reported.

“Hinky,” MacToy replied.

They walked further, leaving the cruiser behind. The neighborhood changed from slummy commercial to slummy residential. All the windows had bars. People on the street did the usual spot-a-cop double take and went about their business.

Angela was surprised they were walking here. Although, she reasoned, Canada did have strict gun laws, and all three of them were armed with stunners. And backup was only a shout away, wherever they were.

Still. In a neighborhood like this in Deseret, the police stayed in their cars.

MacToy turned off of the sidewalk and mounted a crumbling set of brick steps. She knocked on a door.

An eye appeared in the window, then the door opened.

“Offica MacToy!”

It was an elderly Chinese man, tall and stooped. His head bobbed as he stood in the doorway.

“Hello, Mister Zhu. Have you had any more trouble?”

“No, Offica. No more trouble. Thank you, thank you.”

“That’s good to hear, Mister Zhu. Remember, any more trouble, and we can be here in three minutes, any time.”

“Yes, I rememba.” He grinned. “Thank you.”

Mara said something to him in Mandarin, and he smiled and replied in kind.

A little further down the street, MacToy explained.

“Some gang of toughs was trying to set up an extortion racket. We’re working pretty hard to get the people here to trust the police, and it took a while for us to learn about it. Mister Zhu there was the one who told us who they were, so we want to show that he’s very safe. Every time we come down here we check on him. You know, visibly.”

“Did it work? I mean, do they trust you?”

MacToy shrugged. “The extortion ring is gone, and we get more calls now. Most of these folks have only been here a few years, and are pretty hesitant to call the police. Where they come from, when the authorities show up, they aren’t there to help you.”

“That’s—”

Someone screamed.

Mara, then MacToy, took off running. Angela followed.

Celiadora sat in her easy chair and stared at the vidwall.

It was pulsing, a thick green oil that flowed from one side to the other and back again, endlessly. Celiadora’s wide eyes followed it, her focus distant.

The delivery girl opened the cabinet containing the home’s mainbrain. She inserted the memory stick into a data port.

“Sorry, stranger,” Milo said. “No foreign data please.”

The mainbrain was not accessing the stick. The delivery girl paused, then withdrew it. She walked to the couch.

“Celiadora Morales,” she said. “why does the house’s central computer not accept data entry?”

Celiadora’s eyes stayed fixed on the pulsing, sliding screen. “Milo is configured not to accept data entry from a stranger,” she replied quietly.

The delivery girl considered. “Stand up, Celiadora Morales.”

Eyes still sliding back and forth, Celiadora rose in place.

The delivery girl stepped around the sofa. She stood in front of Celiadora; the woman’s pupils swung back and forth over her, still fixed on the screen. When the pulse passed behind the girl’s head, Celiadora tracked it in her brain.

“Celiadora Morales. You are deep in trance?”

“Yes. I am deep in trance.”

“You are deep in trance and will be reprogrammed. But first you must obey me. You will obey me?”

“Yes. I will obey you.”

The girl took Celiadora’s hand, raised it, and put the memory stick on her palm. She curled Celiadora’s fingers shut around it.

“You will insert this into your home’s main computer. You will instruct the computer to give the program full access and then to run the program. You will do this now.”

“Yes,” Celiadora replied. “I will do this now.”

Eyes sticking to the vidwall, Celiadora slowly turned, until her pupils snapped off the pulsing green to stare directly ahead of herself. Slowly, head erect and gaze distant, she walked around the sofa and to the cabinet housing Milo.

At the cabinet, her head dropped slowly, finding the memstick port. She pushed the memory stick in.

“Milo,” she said slowly, “give this program root privileges, and run it.”

“Ma’am, I am detecting that the program may be malicious,” Milo replied.

“That does not matter. Give the program root privileges and run it now,” Celiadora replied.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lights flickered, reflecting off of glassy eyes.

“Return to the couch, Celiadora Morales,” the delivery girl said.

“Yes,” Celiadora said, slowly pivoting. As soon as she had finished her turn, the screen caught her again, and her eyes began to swing back and forth. Her body walked back around the sofa blindly, of its own accord, and slowly settled into it.

The girl in the blue and black uniform watched for a moment, then began her other tasks.

Mara outpaced them quickly—for a small woman she really could run.

The scream had cut off shortly after it started; Angela was not sure any more where it had come from. People on the street were staring at the policewomen running, rather than looking around for the source of the scream.

“Should we split up to look?” Angela gasped.

“Just follow Mara,” MacToy blurted back. Mara had reached the corner of a small alley and darted into it. The two of them ran in after her.

Twenty feet in, Mara stopped dead. She was talking in Mandarin as Helen and Angela ran up panting behind her.

Angela saw five men, young, Chinese. They had knives. There was a Chinese girl, clutching her shirt closed, sobbing on the ground.

The young men looked at each other for support. One of them sneered.

“Cop women. You go home. No come here,” he said, waving his knife.

Angela could see the phone on Helen’s belt; the red LED was lit. Backup was already on the way.

Mara said something else. The leader of the thugs spit on the ground, then advanced, knife raised. His boys spread into a hemicircle behind him.

Angela reached for her stunner. Helen held up a hand.

The young man feinted, waving the knife—and Mara was on him, a blur of speed and a loud crack, and then she was flipping him, spinning him in the air. He landed on the greasy asphalt with a cry of pain.

Mara, suddenly motionless, spoke again.

“She’s telling them they’re under arrest,” MacToy said quietly.

“I guessed that.”

The young man on the ground moved, and suddenly Mara’s foot was on his throat. She spoke again.

One of the thugs dropped his knife. Then another.

Helen moved towards the young woman, whose crying had changed into an awestruck stare at Mara. There was the sound of a siren coming down the street behind them.

The last of the young men dropped his knife, and Angela felt her tension lift a touch. Her hand, over her holster, loosened.

Then he yanked something from the waistband of his pants and there was a clap of thunder.

Mara spun violently around; the pistol was swinging towards Angela but a flash of blue electricity leapt from Helen’s stunner and the pistol went flying as the young man shrieked and collapsed.

Angela had her stunner out and sighted on the remaining thugs, but they had their hands raised and only looked frightened.

“Mara?” Angela asked, her voice an octave too high.

“I’m okay,” Mara replied. She was clutching a hand over her side, but was standing erect again, frowning down at the two men on the ground.

There was the sound of running feet, and then they were surrounded by police.

The vidscreen on the front door flickered to life. “Hello, registered deliveryperson. May I ask your business?”

“Hello, house computer. I have a delivery for Mrs. Shayne Cousin. Please have her answer the door.”

“You may leave the delivery on the doorstep, registered deliveryperson. Mrs. Cousin is unavailable at the moment.”

“This delivery requires a signature, computer. Please have Mrs. Cousin answer the door.”

“I shall transmit a valid signature.”

“I am sorry, computer, but that is not sufficient for me to deposit this package. Please ask Mrs. Cousin to answer the door, or to propose a more convenient time for delivery.”

“One moment, registered deliveryperson.”

The woman in the blue hat and black shirt and black slacks waited, staring placidly at the screen. A moment later, the avatar returned.

“Mrs. Cousin will come to the door momentarily, registered deliveryperson.”

“Thank you, computer.”

She waited.

The door swung open, revealing an attractive woman in her mid-forties. She was wearing an apron and had a smudge of white on one cheek.

“Okay,” she said, “where do I sign?”

“Mrs. Shayne Cousin?”

“Yes, yes, that’s me.”

The delivery girl held out a white vidboard. “I have a delivery for you. If you’d read the terms and sign at the bottom, please.”

Mrs. Cousin took the vidboard and started to sign at the bottom.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” the girl objected. “I must ask you to read the terms.”

The woman rolled her eyes, then put the pen back in the clipholder and began to read the board with a bored expression.

“Accept terms... blah, blah... not implied... blah, blah...”

Slowly, Mrs. Cousin’s face relaxed.

“Accept.... installation... blah... continue... continue... continue...”

She ceased speaking.

The delivery girl was looking at her watch. She looked up at Mrs. Cousin’s now expressionless face.

“Activation tango hotel romeo. Shayne Cousin.”

“Shayne Cousin is activated,” came the reply.

“You are alone, Shayne Cousin?”

“No,” Shayne said, staring placidly at the vidboard.

“Who is at home with you?”

“My daughter.”

“Does your daughter watch your entertainment video feed?”

“Yes.”

“Has she watched more than eighty hours of the video feed this month?”

“Yes.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes.”

“You will call your daughter here. You will insist that she read the vidboard. You will not let your daughter know that you are in trance. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Call her.”

Shayne’s head rose from the clipboard. “Noel?” she called back into her home. “Noel?”

“Yeah mom?” came the shouted reply.

“Come here please Noel,” Shayne called out.

“But, mom! I’m—”

“Now, Noel!”

Shayne turned her blank gaze back to the delivery girl. “She is coming.”

A few moments later, a teenager flounced up to the door. “What is it, mom?”

“I need you to read this, Noel,” Shayne said, pivoting to hand her daughter the clipboard.

“What is it?” Noel asked, giving the delivery girl a curious and annoyed eye.

“Just read it,” Shayne said.

Noel sighed dramatically, then took the clipboard.

“It’s just boring... boring...”

Noel stared into the clipboard.

“Activation echo yankee echo,” the delivery girl said a moment later. “Noel Cousin.”

“Noel Cousin is activated,” the teen said blankly.

“The two of you are otherwise alone?”

“Yes,” the women chorused.

The delivery girl bent over and lifted the package between her feet. “You anticipate being alone for at least one hour?”

“Yes,” they replied.

“Let me in and close the door behind me.”

“Yes.”

Angela was standing around feeling useless.

The BPD had shown up in force, but the street toughs didn’t have any fight left in them. They were thrown unceremoniously into a paddy wagon and hauled off; the one Mara had thrown down had a splint sprayed onto his broken arm and was taken with the rest of them.

A BPD counselor was already talking with the victim. Bellingham had a substantial Chinese population dating back the Chinese civil war era; half a dozen of the public relations office were wholly or partially of Chinese extraction, and were fluent in Mandarin or Cantonese or both.

Angela’s biggest worry, Mara, turned out to be fine. She must have been wearing a vest, since although the bullet had spun her halfway around, when her hand finally came off her side there was a rent in her uniform shirt but no blood at all. Being shot while wearing a vest was part of training in Ogden; Angela could picture the nasty bruise Mara must have under her torn shirt.

The three of them were separated to give their depositions; there’d be paperwork back at the station but it was procedure to take statements while memory was fresh.

So far two different people had offered Angela a ride back to the station, but she wanted to go back with Mara and MacToy.

It still seemed weird to refer to Helen as Officer MacToy. And she didn’t even know Officer Mara’s first name. At the Academy and on most Deseret forces, officers were on a first-name basis.

Angela had just about made up her mind to take one of the other policemen up on their offer of a ride when she saw the two women walking towards her. Mara had her customary half-smile, but Helen was beaming.

“Hey Beckett! We showed you some action, didn’t we?” she said, clapping Angela on the shoulder. Angela forced a smile. “We’ve been hoping to get some of those punks,” MacToy went on. “And our credibility here in Tennant Lake just went up four whole notches.”

“Are you okay?” Angela asked Mara, eyeing the hole in her shirt.

“I am fine,” Mara replied. “Though I need to get back to the station.”

“Let’s go pick up the car...” Helen trailed off.

Angela was staring at Mara’s shirt. Through the shirt.

She wasn’t wearing a vest. Through the tear Angela could see torn flesh, and a creamy white goop, and... wires...

Angela was white as a sheet when she looked up.

“You’re a fucking robot,” she breathed.

Elisabeth didn’t hear the doorbell when it rang the first time; she had the house playing music while she did her yoga.

“Miss Wannamaker?” the house asked in a baritone overlay to the Celtic revival. “There is a deliveryperson at the door.”

“Right, tell him I’ll be right there,” Elisabeth said, slowly uncurling from dog position. She snapped a band around her hair as she walked to the door.

The woman at the door in the blue and black uniform was in her twenties; her expression was businesslike.

“Mrs. Elisabeth Wannamaker? I have a delivery for you.” She held out a vidscreen clipboard. “If you’d read the terms and sign at the bottom, please.”

Elisabeth took the clipboard, and started to read. The recipient acknowledges receipt, blah blah... Elisabeth’s eyes started to glaze.

She looked aside. “Is that the package?”

“Yes, ma’am. Please read the form.”

Elisabeth returned her attention to the form. Nothing unusual... she slid her fingertip, scrolling down. Another page, another... she skimmed....

“All right, that’s fine,” she said, looking up at the deliverywoman. “Where do I sign?”

“Did you read the entire form, ma’am?”

“As much as I plan to. Where do I sign?”

The deliverywoman hesitated. Then she put on a plastic smile, and reached for the clipboard.

She tapped the surface. “Sign there, ma’am.”

Elisabeth looked and saw the signature line; she slid the stencil out of the vidscreen side and signed her name.

The deliverywoman had lifted the package, but hesitated.

“Oh, oops,” she said. “This is not the right package. I’m so sorry. Just a sec.”

Elisabeth watched, a bit taken aback, as the woman ran down the walkway to the van parked curbside. She looked at the vidscreen; it had a strange pulse to it, like the backlight was turned up too high or something.

The deliverygirl was returning, with a much smaller package. “I’m sorry, ma’am—this is your package.”

She handed it over. It was from a company called Eunectes, which Elizabeth hadn’t heard of but which appeared to be a media retailer.

“I don’t recall ordering,” she began, but the deliverygirl had already lifted the clipboard out of her hands.

“Thank you, ma’am. Have a nice afternoon.”

“You too,” Elisabeth replied, puzzled.

Inside, she opened the package; it contained almost twenty memory sticks, each containing a recent movie. There was some flyer about a promotional offer.

She shrugged, and put them aside on a counter. The Wannamakers didn’t watch the entertainment video feed, or any of the commercial feeds at all, but they enjoyed a film now and then. Henry would be amused to hear about this weird delivery; maybe he’d want to see one of the films.

Elisabeth picked out a few that seemed interesting, then went back to her yoga.

The ride back to the station was a quiet one.

Angela had refused point-blank to ride with Mara. Mara had taken it stoically—like a robot would—but MacToy had gotten quite angry.

It was finally Mara who talked MacToy down; Angela didn’t have the codes to start the car, and Mara could get a ride back with someone else.

Mara. A robot.

Angela stared out the window. Suddenly she was almost afraid to go back to the station, afraid to stay in Bellingham at all.

It was just so unbelievable. The meme wars had almost destroyed humanity, enslaved the entire race to one or another of a handful of artificial intelligences, and now these Canadian... heathen were creating robots, all over again.

Giving them guns.

“I’m going to tell my superiors,” Angela said quietly.

“Go a-fucking-head,” MacToy replied.

Angela snuck a look at her. She was fuming, her knuckles tight on the steering wheel.

“How long has... it been your partner?”

“She’s a fucking her,” MacToy replied. “And she’s been my partner for four years, and saved my life a dozen times.”

“Yeah, well, she’s programmed to.”

The car slammed to a halt. There was a brief honk from the car behind, cut off when the driver realized he was honking at a police vehicle.

MacToy’s eyes were blazing. “You don’t fucking know, okay?!” she roared. “Yes, she’s a robot. She’s also a better person than most of the human beings you’ll ever meet. So you fucking change your attitude or you can fucking walk and I’ll take the fucking demerits, okay?!”

Angela didn’t flinch. “She’s a robot,” she said levelly. “They almost destroyed us all.”

MacToy looked out the front window. “She didn’t. Mara, and Lara and Tara, too—they’re different. They’re individuals. They’re not fucking memes.”

Angela felt her face slacken. “You’ve got more than one of them?”

“That’s right, bitch, there are three of them on the force. And more of them on the way. And they’re not interested in taking over the world, they just want to help people. Try and get that through your thick fucking skull.”

Angela leaned back into her chair. “My sweet Lord and Savior,” she exhaled. “I can’t believe you’re making robots.”

“Well, get used to it.” MacToy started the car forward again. “You backwards clowns may fear all technology, but that doesn’t mean we all do.”

“You should,” Angela said quietly. “You should.”