The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

A 101 – d2c

Author’s Note: This is a work of erotic fiction, following on from A 101 – The Smoking Room, A 101 – Forced Perspective and A 101—Field Test. The story also ties in with the continuity of Also Known As Tamsin.

Note the fiction part. Attempting to emulate what the characters do will only lead to trouble with the police. So don’t try this at home, or anybody else’s home for that matter.

Brazil. September, 1982.

‘Doctor Sharpton?’

Hot, humid, sweaty, the ancient hotel room with its crumbling walls and ratty-looking mat on the rough wooden floor to its uneven, lumpy bed smelling of sweat, had never seen better days.

Dr Thomas William Sharpton looked up from his book. Paolo had entered the room and stood in the doorway, batting away insects with one hand while holding an object in the other.

Dr Sharpton stood up from the chair on the balcony where he’d been sitting. He crossed over to the barefoot young lad, and looked down at the item in his hands.

‘Good lad,’ he told Paolo. ‘How much did this set you back?’

‘One hundred cruzeiros,’ Paolo replied. ‘All the money you wired to me.’

Dr Sharpton nodded, and crossed over to his bed. Taking out the wallet from his coat, he counted out a couple of bills and proffered them to the young boy. ‘For your troubles,’ he said. Taking the bills in hand, the boy handed over the object to Dr Sharpton and left the room.

Dr Sharpton went back to the balcony chair. Sitting down, he picked up his half-consumed sweet caipirinha and sipped it, turning the item over and over in his hand.

It was a small stone, fitting snugly in the palm of his hand. A stone bearing distinctive markings etched into its surface.

A stone which offered conclusive proof of the existence of the people he had been looking for.

The present day.

Julia opened the door, and peered out at the strangers.

The taller one was slim, clad in a full length red leather catsuit. Red hair, red heart-shaped sunglasses, red stripper heels. Her smile was natural; as she lowered her shades, Julia could see that the smile actually did reach this woman’s eyes.

‘Hi,’ the woman said. ‘The name’s Tamsin. Dr Henderson’s office sent me here. They say there could be some ... fun.’

Julia frowned. ‘Mandy? Is that you?’

Tamsin stared. ‘Julia?’

Anna peered around the door jamb and into the corridor. ‘You two know each other?’

The other figure stepped forwards, looking at Tamsin/Mandy. ‘Mum?’ she asked.

‘It’s okay, Jenny,’ Tamsin said. ‘Look who it is.’

The second woman glanced at Julia. ‘Oh my God. Auntie Julia?’

Anna slowly backed into the living room.

The Sharpton Institute.

The reception area was a clinical-looking expanse, with a vast, imposing reception desk at the far end. It smelled as clean as it looked; a place where dust particles dared not settle.

A couple, a man and a woman, stood and chatted casually, smiling and laughing, in front of the desk. The man was tall and red-haired; the woman was petite, her blonde hair in pigtails.

Both were stark naked. The woman held a gas mask in one hand, and the man’s erect penis in the other. They were both hot and perspiring, as if they’d just finished some vigorous exercise.

Alicia, the receptionist, sat listening to Anna on the phone. ‘Okay. Got it. Thanks, Anna,’ she said, putting the phone down.

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘now that was freaky weird.’

‘What is?’

She looked up at Dr Henderson, who’d approached the desk while she’d been talking to Anna.

‘That was Anna,’ Alicia replied. ‘Something unexpected has happened.’

‘Report,’ he said.

‘Did you know that Julia and Handler One are sisters?’ Alicia asked.

‘What happened to you?’

The lighter snapped. Blue cigarette smoke wreathed Tamsin’s face. ‘There was this chat room,’ Tamsin said. ‘Amanda ... I ... joined it. The details are fuzzy. The way I figure it is this. There was a link, I think. I clicked on it. There was a page. Something on it—I don’t know what it was—caught my attention, and the next thing was, I had accepted an invitation to visit the Sharpton Institute.

‘And they processed me.’

‘Me, too,’ Jenny replied, sucking on an electronic cigarette and blowing out a cloud of white vapour.

‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ Julia said to Tamsin.

‘Not till the Sharpton Institute recruited me,’ Tamsin replied. ‘When I go back to being Mandy, I don’t smoke.’

‘It’s the nicotine,’ Anna said. ‘It enhances the effect of the reagents we use in conditioning you.’ She said this with a cold matter-of-factness; yet the other women just seemed to accept this fact. They were conditioned. They knew that they were conditioned. But they had been conditioned not to get worked up over it.

The living room smelled of Febreze, and the window had just been closed to clear the cigarette smoke; so the air was cool.

The face in the photo on the coffee table, belonging to some aging, bald, jowly man in an expensive suit, was vaguely familiar. Beside that photo was another; a stern-looking mature woman with a mane of blonde hair.

‘His name is Arthur Michaels. He’s a spad. Er, special advisor,’ Tamsin said. ‘They say he’s in line for a Lordship some day. The woman in the photo next to him is his wife, Diana. She’s not the second subject.’

‘Who is?’

‘I’ll come to that in a moment. Look here.’ Another photo skidded across the table. Arthur Michaels in a photo with the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister.

‘There was an article on him. Something about exerting undue influence over the PM. Too much influence. A chance just arose to correct that.’

‘Which is why we’ve got to do the p2p thing,’ Julia replied.

‘d2c,’ Anna corrected.

‘So who’s the second subject?’

Tasmin slid another photo across the table. Julia saw a pretty Middle Eastern woman smiling in the photo. Long, straight hair, dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, full lips. ‘His mistress, Sahirah Farah Shamima,’ Tasmin said.

‘Interesting,’ Julia said, looking at the photo. ‘Why do we need her?’

‘As much as he enjoys being married to his wife Diana,’ Tamsin said, ‘he loves Sahirah. We need that knowledge to turn him.’

‘That’s all well and good,’ Julia said. ‘But how do we do that, Mand- I mean Tamsin?’

‘We start,’ Tamsin replied. ‘with a phone call.’ She held up her smartphone.

The phone rang. Diana Michaels, dressed in her gardening overalls, Wellington boots and gardening gloves, still carrying the scent of the garden with her, picked it up.

‘The Michaels residence,’ she said, her voice plummy and cultured.

‘Hi,’ came the voice over the phone.

‘Who is this?’

‘Time to sleep.’

‘Diana’s face went slack. She let out her breath. Her eyes glazed over.

‘Unconscious mind,’ the voice said, ‘say hello.’

‘Hello,’ Diana said, her voice a hollow monotone.

‘Begin,’ the voice said. ‘Follow your instructions.’

The line went dead. Diana blinked and looked at the phone. She shrugged and put the receiver down. ‘Wrong number,’ she said to herself.

She turned to go back to the garden; then checked herself and turned to go upstairs.

In one of the spare rooms, Diana opened a Victorian armoire and reached for a heavy shoebox on the top shelf. Inside were two silvery metal gas cylinders, held together by a rigid frame, capped with a grey triangular device. Diana attached a short, transparent plastic hose to a nozzle on top of the device. Then she flicked a switch to arm the device—a red LED came on—and put it back in the box.

In the echoing garage, she unlocked the Jaguar and opened the door. Diana reached beneath the front passenger seat and pushed the device under the seat, out of sight.

Then, closing the door and leaving the garage, she returned to the phone. Dialling 1471, she let the number ring twice and hung up. A moment later she shook her head in confusion, unsure what she was supposed to be doing. Sighing, she returned to the garden.

Tamsin looked at her phone. She looked at Julia, Anna and Jenny. ‘Done,’ she said. ‘We’re good to go. All we have to do is wait for Arthur Michaels to pick up his woman.’

‘And what makes you so sure he’s going to be taking that car, to pick her up?’

‘Diana’s been of great help,’ Tamsin replied. ‘None of his other cars are working right now. Various mechanical problems.’ She smiled. ‘Also, today is Friday night. Arthur always takes Friday afternoon off to pick up his woman and head off to his country house in Hampshire.’

‘Does his wife know about their affair?’

‘Oh, she does,’ Tamsin replied.

Anna chuckled. ‘When do we move?’

‘Twenty minutes,’ Tamsin said. ‘We need to have all the pieces in place by the time Arthur rolls.’

1984.

Stephanie Sharpton looked closely at the delicate flowers, each isolated from the other under glass.

‘What are they?’

Dr Sharpton turned to Stephanie. ‘Orchids,’ he replied. ‘Brazilian orchids, from the deepest part of the rain forest. Unheard-of outside of their tropical environment.’

‘Are these what all the fuss was about at Customs?’ Stephanie asked.

‘They are,’ Dr Sharpton replied. He crossed over to stand beside Stephanie. ‘They are very important to my research,’ he added.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Dr Sharpton replied, patting Stephanie on her shoulder. ‘Let’s just say that my research into human behaviour modification just took a massive step forward.’

The present.

‘We’ve set up the collection for this point here,’ Tamsin said, pointing to the map. ‘On the B3420, before the Three Maids Hill roundabout here.’

‘How are you arranging it?’

‘Collection van here,’ Tamsin said, pointing. ‘Fake traffic lights here. Cones here to narrow the road and create a bottleneck. B team wagon here, out of sight, ready to move in and clean up once the deed is done.’ She looked up at the team. ‘Does everybody know what they are doing?’

The others replied in the affirmative.

‘Then let’s do it,’ Tamsin replied.

The Jaguar passed by the young Lycra-clad cyclist, forcing her to stop at the side of the road.

‘Target acquired,’ Jenny said, to her mic pickup. ‘He’s on his way.’

‘Acknowledged,’ Tamsin said, some way up the road. ‘Get ready.’ She called up an app on her smartphone, and remotely triggered the lights.

Presently, the Jaguar hove into view, slowing down and stopping at the temporary traffic light. The collection van bore the livery of the local council. Sitting in the driver’s seat, wearing a council worker’s uniform and signal orange tabard, her face half-concealed beneath a cap, Tamsin could see Arthur and Sahirah sitting in the front seat. Arthur clearly preferred to drive his own car, rather than have a chauffeur.

Tamsin waited for the right moment. Then she remotely activated the gas cylinders underneath Sahirah’s car seat.

‘What’s going on?’ Arthur asked. The lights had been red for what felt like an eternity.

‘I don’t know,’ Sahirah replied. She looked up from her phone, where she’d been tweeting about how the journey always seemed to take forever. She blinked and shook her head. ‘Is there a problem?’

Arthur rubbed his eyes. ‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘The lights are stuck on red, I think.’

Sahirah nodded and began to yawn. Her head and arms felt heavy. ‘Oh,’ she said, as her phone slipped from her fingers.

Beside her, Arthur yawned, beeping his horn for attention. It didn’t look as if there was anyone around, apart from that one workman sitting in the council van. Arthur tried beeping the horn again, but there was no response.

A creeping lethargy stole upon him. His hands slipped from the wheel onto his lap.

Sahirah fumbled beneath her chair for her phone. She felt it, but she could not gain any purchase; her fingers were really clumsy. Unbeknown to her, her bending down to reach beneath the seat was bringing her face closer to the end of the hose, exposing her to a greater concentration of the releasing gas.

‘Wait,’ Sahirah said, yawning, her eyes half-closing. ‘I’ve got it.’ Her hands closed around something hard. ‘No, that’s not my phone,’ she said. She coughed. Beside her, Arthur also coughed, followed by a huge yawn.

‘Oh, this is taking forever,’ Arthur said, irritably. For some reason, he could barely move his limbs. ‘What is going on?’ he said, the words slurring.

‘What the hell’s this?’ Sahirah said, slurring her words. She pulled out the gently hissing gas bottles and the hose, and tried picking up the device with leaden hands. She only managed to pull out the hose from the device; gas rushed into the compartment, blowing into their faces.

Sahirah’s eyelids felt heavy, and her body was becoming unresponsive. She found herself staring at the device, wondering what it was and why it was making that noise; as she thought that, she passed out as Arthur succumbed to unconsciousness beside her, his head lolling back as his eyes closed.

‘They’re under,’ Tamsin said, as the targets slumped in their seats into unconsciousness. She shut off the gas flow in the device, and remotely unlocked the Jaguar. ‘Pick them up.’

The back of the van opened. Julia and Anna emerged from the van, wearing council uniforms and tabards, their faces concealed behind gas masks. They were carrying more gas cylinders like the one in the Jaguar, but with tubes ending in medical masks. Quickly, they made their way towards the car. Opening the doors, they got to work, undoing the seat belts holding Arthur and Sahirah and strapping the medical breathing masks to their faces.

‘Let’s get them in the back,’ Anna said. ‘We’ve got to drive the car to Arthur’s country house and leave it parked there for the weekend.’

‘Is that where the second unit is?’ Julia asked.

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘They’re waiting to take the targets to the Institute.’

They hauled the couple into the back of the car. Anna got into the driver’s seat. ‘Julia,’ she said, ‘you go on back to the Institute with Tamsin. Take the payload here with you and secure it.’ She gave Julia the gas cylinders which had been planted under the car seat.

‘We only need one driver for this,’ Anna said. ‘Go. It will be fine.’

Julia made her way back to the council van, as Jenny arrived on her bicycle.

‘Let’s go,’ Jenny said, hauling the bike into the back of the collection van. Already, the lights were on green and the Jag was pulling away, the two unconscious targets slumbering in the back.

Julia and Jenny closed the back doors of the van, and Tamsin began to pull away. Even as the van drove away, Julia could see a lorry coming along to pick up the cones and traffic lights.

‘In a few minutes,’ Jenny said, ‘it’ll be as if there was no-one there.’

Julia pulled off her mask. ‘Just how it should be.’

Arthur could not remember how he came to this room. As far as he knew, he had always been here and had always intended to come here, to whatever this place was.

The chamber he was in looked like a luxury hotel room. He was sitting on a leather sofa that had to be worth two grand, minimum. There was another one facing him across from a glass-topped coffee table on which rested a small wooden box and a lighter. There was what looked like a coffee dispenser at the far end of the room, opposite from him, situated beneath a large mirror mounted in the wall.

For some reason, Arthur was wearing what looked like a bathrobe of kingfisher blue silk. Underneath the robe, he was naked. He couldn’t remember undressing.

The room felt hot and humid; a greenhouse. It reminded him of his own greenhouse back home, where he kept those marijuana plants growing between the tomatoes. His skin began to prickle with sweat. Persipiration covered his forehead.

‘This is incredible,’ Julia whispered as she peered at the CCTV display on the HD screen in the control room.

In the image on the screen, Arthur could be seen opening his eyes and coming around.

Anna leaned towards the microphone in front of her. ‘Sahirah opens the door and enters the room,’ she said. ‘She is wearing only a short bathrobe. She crosses the room and sits opposite you, crossing her legs.’

The door opened, and Sahirah entered. She, too, was wearing a bathrobe; short-sleeved, it only covered her to the tops of her thighs. Smiling, Sahirah crossed the room and sat on the sofa facing him, crossing her long legs.

She smiled at Arthur.

‘Wait,’ Julia said, ‘he’s responding to Sahirah?’ On the screen, Arthur turned towards the door, reacting to thin air; as they watched, he turned to follow something only he could see, crossing his legs and sitting back.

‘He’s got a hard-on,’ Julia said, watching as Arthur tried to conceal his erection.

‘Watch this,’ Julia said, leaning towards the microphone.

Sahirah leaned forwards as Arthur watched. As she opened the small box and took out a cigarette, the front of her robe fell open and he could see a glimpse of her breasts.

He watched as she lit the cigarette, blowing a streamer of smoke into the air.

‘You don’t smoke,’ he said, as she looked at him, her robe still lying open, her breasts still exposed.

She took another drag of the cigarette. ‘I don’t,’ she replied. She blew a streamer of blue smoke at Arthur, pursing her lips.

Arthur coughed as the smoke reached his face.

Julia watched Arthur cough and wave his hand in the air in front of him. She looked at Anna.

‘Did he just react to non-existent cigarette smoke?’ she asked Anna.

‘Yes,’ Anna replied.

‘I had no idea the gas could do this,’ she said.

‘No, it just induces hypnosis,’ Anna said, as Arthur shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘This is one of the triggers I put into his mind while he was in a deep trance. Watch this.’

She leaned towards the microphone. ‘She is now getting to her feet and approaching you, undoing her robe ... she is standing in front of you, opening her robe and holding it open so you can see her naked body ...’

Putting out the cigarette, Sahirah then got up to her feet and approached Arthur, loosening her robe.

As he watched, she opened the robe and stood in front of him, exposing her nude body to him.

Then she got to her knees in front of him. Her fingers were warm and firm as she gently parted his bare, hairy legs.

Her eyes never looked away from his.

Julia watched, wide-eyed, as Arthur lay back on the sofa, his erection standing straight up. Presently, he began to buck and writhe slowly, one arm reaching for thin air as the other gripped the base of his cock.

Beside her, Anna sat back in the chair, regarding Julia with the look of quiet satisfaction of a professional at her work.

Arthur kissed and kneaded Sahirah’s breasts. Her skin tasted sharp from perspiration, and had a faint, lingering flowery scent.

Slowly, Sahirah impaled herself on Arthur’s penis, taking it deep inside her with a satisfied sigh. Arthur felt her body press down on his; felt the skin of her thighs, the warmth of her vagina sheathing his cock. He gasped.

Sahirah raised herself the length of the shaft of his penis, and slid down it again. This motion turned into a slow rocking. Arthur began to moan softly, his breaths rising and falling in time with hers.

Sahirah leaned forwards, still smoothly rocking her body on his cock. Arthur reached for her soft breasts and kept kneading them as Sahirah’s breathing became moans of passion.

‘He looks ready to explode,’ Julia whispered. Anna continued to watch Arthur as the subject continued to make love to a companion who existed only in his mind.

‘He is almost there,’ Anna said. ‘But he’s not going to come until Sahirah says a trigger word. Until then, his orgasm’s just going to build up and build up.’

‘And when he blows ...’ Julia said, looking at Anna.

‘Oh, yes,’ Anna replied.

‘So just one thing,’ Julia asked. ‘Where’s Sahirah?’

‘She’s being conditioned herself,’ Anna replied. ‘We’ve got her in a room with a real person.’

‘Where?’

‘Where else?’ Anna said, smiling. ‘Your favourite. Room A 101.’

‘Huh,’ Julia said. ‘Who’s the person that she’s with?’

‘You’re going to love this,’ Anna replied, flicking a control. The big screen changed, and Julia saw Sahirah inside Room A 101—the room where Julia herself had been conditioned—and a woman whom she did not know.

‘Oh, my God,’ she said.

‘Yes. That is Arthur Michaels’ wife, Diana,’ Anna said, grinning.

‘They’ll tear each other apart,’ Julia said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Anna said. ‘They’ve been pumping Key 509 into the room for a few minutes, now, and both of them have been helping themselves to the coffee in the dispenser—coffee that is also laced with the drug.

‘Any minute now, things are going to get very interesting for those two women in A 101 ...’

‘I know,’ Diana said to Sahirah.

Sahirah looked up at Diana. She had been looking at this thick, glossy magazine. She had no idea what she was doing here. Her last memory was of waiting to be picked up by Arthur to head for their usual weekend away at his place out in the countryside.

And now, here she was, sitting at a table in a windowless room, sipping lousy coffee and reading some sort of magazine with some woman sitting on the couch.

‘Sorry?’

‘I know who you are,’ Diana said, getting up to her feet, a little unsteadily. ‘You’re sleeping with my husband.’

That caught Sahirah’s attention. Her head, which had been slowly sinking, now snapped up. Her eyes were wide. She stared at Diana.

‘We’ve not met in person,’ Diana said. ‘You are Sahirah. Arthur’s mistress.’

‘I see no point in prevaricating,’ Sahirah replied. ‘I am. You must be Diana.’ She slowly got up from the chair. ‘Hope you don’t mind if I don’t shake hands.’

‘That would be wise,’ Diana replied, coldly.

‘Well,’ Sahirah said, ‘what shall we do, now that the formal introductions are out of the way?’ Her heart was pounding for some reason.

‘I think,’ Diana said, ‘that I need some coffee first.’ She made her way over to the coffee dispenser.

The idea of getting coffee seemed like a brilliant idea to Sahirah. ‘Mind if I join you?’ she asked.

Diana have her a sidelong look for a moment, then nodded.

In close proximity to Diana, Sahirah could smell Arthur’s wife’s scent. Mixed with the lingering air of the garden, she was wearing something Sahirah knew, but couldn’t quite place.

Then she recognised the aroma. ‘Oh,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ Diana’s expression was cold. More than that; there was pain in her eyes.

‘I ... I had no idea,’ Sahirah said. ‘That’s his aftershave. You’re wearing his aftershave as your scent.’

‘It reminds me of him,’ Diana replied. ‘I mean, I’ve got my own boys for fun, but when it matters ... I still love Arthur, more than he will ever know.’ Diana sucked at her lower lip. Sahirah was so close to her that she could feel the woman’s body heat.

‘And you’re afraid that I’m going to take him away from you,’ Sahirah said. For some reason, she couldn’t stop smiling. Diana looked so beautiful, up close, with that glow that all mature women have.

Diana nodded. ‘When we were friends at school, back in the day,’ she said, ‘we were inseparable. Then we fell in love, and by God we had to fight to stay together. Our parents never fully approved, not even when Arthur made his first millions back in the Eighties selling console games and simple personal computers. We just came from different stock. Breeding, my dear.’ Diana briefly wondered what Sahirah would smell like. Momentarily, she thought of burying her face in Sahirah’s luxurious hair and getting a good, long inhale of her scent. Her heart leaped at the thought. She frowned. Why was she getting excited like this?

‘I know about breeding,’ Sahirah said, reaching for Diana’s forehead to brush aside a loose lock of the woman’s hair which had fallen over her eye.

Shocked, Diana slapped away the hand. ‘Presumptuous upstart—’

Sahirah looked stunned for a moment. ‘YOU—’ she screamed.

The coffees forgotten, they screamed incoherently and moved together, hands reaching for one another, seeking purchase anywhere; hair, arms, face. Fingernails sought to rake facial skin like claws. Faces flushed and contorted, the women screamed like animals as they struggled to keep from killing one another—or at least to keep from clawing out each other’s eyeballs or leaving permanent visible claw marks.

Julia watched the fight on the screen, as Anna kept monitoring Arthur.

‘I think Arthur’s about to release,’ Anna said.

‘I’m more concerned about the fight,’ Julia replied.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Anna said, smiling. ‘In a moment, the Key 509 will kick in fully, and you’re going to love what happens.’

Arthur had never known sex like this before. He had gone far beyond his normal pleasure threshold, to another plane of ecstasy entirely. Gasping and moaning, his face and upper body flushed and sweating, he begged Sahirah to let him come.

Sahirah, her breasts moving rhythmically in time with her hip movements, looked down on Arthur and smiled.

‘Here we go,’ Anna said. She said the trigger word that unleashed Arthur’s orgasm.

Arthur shuddered and came. The ecstasy of release burned through his consciousness, tearing down the walls, the little censors in his mind that reminded him that he was awake. The Key 509 in his system gave the waves of pleasure radiating from his groin a force of reality that his mind could not resist.

As Arthur climaxed, he shuddered, his semen spurting over himself, onto the couch and the floor as, with a grunt, his back arched one more time and he fell slowly into a deep, deep trance.

In A101, the screaming and fighting abruptly stopped. Sahirah and Diana separated, glowering at one another, growling. Their hair and clothes were in disarray. Their faces were flushed and contorted. Panting, they were not to know that every deep breath served to draw in a greater concentration of Key 509 gas into their lungs.

‘Worthless bitch—’ Sahirah screamed.

‘Uncouth vulgarian trollop—’ Diana hissed.

They looked at one another. They caught one another’s eyes.

A moment later, they were back together, their hands roaming over one another bodies, looking for purchase. Lips locking, breath mingling, soft moans coming from the women as another passion emerged, seeking purchase in their minds, demanding its own release.

Diana stopped kissing Sahirah, grabbed a handful of her hair and buried her face in Sahirah’s locks, inhaling her scent. Sahirah sighed passionately. Her hips ground against Diana’s. With a soft moan, Diana responded in kind.

They kissed again; deeply. Passionately. Hungrily, with wet lips and probing tongues and hot breath and moans drawn from the depth of the body.

Separating for a moment, Sahirah and Diana looked at each other with undisguised lust for a moment, before moving back together again. This time, with feverish hands they began removing one another’s clothing, desperately eager to expose the other’s skin.

Diana’s blouse and Sahirah’s top flew through the air, to land on the back of the couch. Their bras followed not long afterwards. Kissing passionately, the now-topless Sahirah and Diana made their way to their couch, Sahirah gently raking Diana’s body with light strokes of her fingernails as Diana caressed and kneaded Sahirah’s ample breasts with her firm fingers.

Diana’s skin tasted of perspiration and some exotic cologne; Sahirah’s tongue explored the hot skin of Diana’s throat, her shoulders and chest.

Diana moaned as Sahirah began to nibble at her smaller breasts, Sahirah’s hands roaming over Diana’s hot, soft skin. Diana’s hips ground against Sahirah’s thigh. They separated again to remove the rest of their clothes. Now naked, they moved back together, falling onto the couch, kissing, their fingers finding each other’s waiting vulvas, parting soft flesh, seeking out each other’s clitorises.

Presently, Sahirah and Diana began to breathe regularly, heavily, in unison, as both began to approach climax. With a groan and a shudder, Sahirah came first, followed a few seconds later by Diana.

‘Oh, my God,’ Sahirah said, stroking Diana’s hair, ‘that was intense.’

Diana murmured sleepily.

‘What the Hell did we just do?’ Sahirah asked, her words slurring. Drowsiness was stealing upon her, making her limbs heavy and limp. Gradually, she joined Diana in slumber.

‘They’re all ready,’ Anna said to Julia. She tapped instructions on the keyboard in front of her.

Presently, white-coated men and women, dragging hospital trolleys behind them, entered the chambers where Arthur, Diana and Sahirah lay sleeping. The lab technicians were all wearing gas masks. Behind them, Tamsin entered the room containing Diana and Sahirah, and Jenny the room containing Arthur.

As Julia watched, they picked up the three and placed them on the trolleys, before leading them out of the rooms. Just before leaving the room, Tamsin looked directly into the video feed and gave a thumbs up to Julia and Anna in the control room.

‘And that’s them sent off to Central Processing,’ Anna said. She looked up at Julia. ‘Job done. Let’s go and get something to eat.’

Three weeks later.

The Jaguar approached the yellow Vauxhall Vectra parked in the layby on the road up to the Three Maids Hill roundabout. The bonnet of the Vectra was propped open. The pretty Middle Eastern-looking woman stood over the exposed engine. She was wearing a short-sleeved yellow blouse and an impractically short skirt.

Arthur got out of the car and approached the woman. ‘Can I help?’ He was carrying a rolled-up newspaper.

‘Yeah,’ Sahirah said. ‘The car won’t start or something.’

‘Ah,’ Arthur said. ‘Here. Hold this a minute.’ He handed the rolled-up newspaper to Sahirah. Arthur went around the front of the car and peered into the engine compartment as Sahirah leaned against the side of the car and lit up a cigarette.

Briefly, Sahirah caught the eye of Arthur’s wife, who sat in the passenger seat of the car, using an electronic cigarette. There was the briefest of nods from Diana. Sahirah smiled slightly.

‘I think I have it, Miss,’ Arthur said. ‘See if you can start her up now.’

Sahirah put out the cigarette and got into the car, dropping the newspaper on the passenger seat. A moment later, and the Vectra’s engine caught and began turning over.

‘There you go,’ Arthur said, closing the bonnet. ‘That should do the trick.’

After a few moments listening to the car running smoothly, Sahirah leaned out of the window, smiling.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Any time, Miss,’ Arthur replied, getting into the Jaguar and driving off.

Sahirah sat in the car, and turned the engine off again. She sat and listened to the rustling of the wind in the trees and the silence in the road.

Presently, another car approached. An identical yellow Vectra. It parked in the layby just up ahead of hers. A white woman got out, with auburn hair. Her red dress was even more impractical than Sahirah’s short skirt.

Sahirah got out of the car, clutching her car keys, and approached the auburn-haired woman. Without a word, they fell into each other’s arms, kissing one another passionately, their hands roaming over one another’s bodies, caressing each other’s breasts and firm skin through the flimsy material of their clothes ...

An articulated lorry approached, beeping its horn. The driver leered at the two lesbians as he drove past. Shocked, the young women abruptly separated; staring at the departing truck, they looked sheepishly at one another.

‘Maybe another time,’ Sahirah said.

‘Yeah,’ the auburn-haired woman replied. ‘Some other time.’

Sahirah got into a yellow Vectra, and drove off leaving Tamsin behind alone in the layby. She watched as the young woman drove the car out of sight, before getting into the Vectra that was left behind in the layby.

On the passenger seat was the rolled-up newspaper.

‘Tamsin here,’ said Tamsin into her mobile phone, as she peeled off and turned the car around to go down the lane in the opposite direction to the one Sahirah had taken. ‘Switch made.

A few miles away, Julia sat in a people carrier in another layby. Beside her was Jenny. In the back were two members of the Sharpton cleanup crew.

Presently, the Vectra drove up to the layby and parked behind it. The B team got out of the people carrier and passed by Tamsin, who got into the back of the people carrier. The keys of the Vectra were still in the car.

‘Did you get it?’ Julia asked, as they drove back to the Sharpton Institute.

Tamsin looked at the rolled-up newspaper in her hand. She opened it out. There was a small brown envelope inside; opening it, Tamsin shook two 64-gigabyte flash drives into the palm of her hand.

‘Looks like it,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this data home so we can get it analysed.’

‘Why all that rigmarole with the cars?’ Julia asked Tamsin. ‘What was the point of the vulgar display?’

‘Misdirection,’ Tamsin replied. ‘If anyone saw anything, all they’d likely have seen were two lesbians making out in the layby. I don’t think they’d have paid attention to the cars at all. Also, there was no way of knowing who had come to the layby in which car.’ She chuckled. ‘Also, it was an excuse for me to make out with Sahirah for a bit.’

‘Do you think up spy stuff like this all the time?’

Tamsin smiled. ‘Why do you think I’m designated Handler One?’ Her mobile phone vibrated. She picked up the call. ‘Tamsin,’ she said. A moment later, she smiled. ‘That’s brilliant. I’ll tell them.’ She hung up.

‘What?’ Jenny asked.

‘That was Home,’ Tamsin said. ‘As soon as we get the payload delivered, we’re to go straight to the boss’s office. Doctor Sharpton is in, and wants to thank us personally.’

Back at the Institute, Tamsin placed the flash drives in Dr Henderson’s hands. Dr Henderson smiled.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Go and see Dr Sharpton now.’

The team made their way along the corridor. They bumped into Anna, who was wearing a lab coat and a gas mask, and carrying a clipboard. She waved at the agents as they passed.

The lift at the end of the corridor took them down four floors. This floor was busy; lights shone on the white-coated, masked technicians as they tended to the rows upon rows of flowers. The antiseptic odour competed with the heady floral scent of the orchids.

At the far end of the room, the team approached a door. Tamsin knocked and entered.

The room was occupied. They saw someone sitting behind the desk, turned away from them, staring at the big screen behind the desk.

On the screen was a BBC report announcing that the government had committed a large sum of money towards human response research.

‘All is well,’ Tamsin said. ‘It looks as if one of our obstacles has been removed.’

The figure in the chair turned to face them.

‘I believe that we can now proceed with the next phase of our operation without interference,’ said Dr Sharpton.

‘Doctor,’ Julia began, ‘I —’

‘Please,’ Dr Sharpton said. ‘Call me Stephanie.’