The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Rhonda recognized Michaelsson’s influence before she was a full block down Main Street. Eyes darting from window to window, taking in every detail and putting them together, her recon told her things that a more traditional woman might have chalked up to women’s intuition. No Kaiser’s. No Darryl’s. All the mannequins are headless, just to show that they’re not using people. Either that, or that’s what they do to intruders. No pressure there, Wilson. No Smile-Mart—well, no shit, Sherlock. Not even any calls for franchisees. Yeah, there’s a couple of chains, but they’re all over on a couple of blocks at the far end of the street. Everything else is mom and pop. And there are no “store for rent” signs, in Michigan, during a depress—oops, sorry, Mr. President, a recession. If that’s not a sign that things ain’t right here, I don’t know what is.

She drifted from store to store, earning her fair share of dirty looks for not being One of Them, and giving back her fair share of I Don’t Give A Fuck looks—and listening to the gossip as she shopped and noshed. She ate lightly, though, making sure that nothing could get into her system. Navy blue was the most common color for sale in everything, especially clothes, except for jewelry. And it’s all gold or fake gold. No silver here. Swear to God, I’d think they had a uniform if I didn’t see so many ways to wear navy blue. The thing that bothered her more was that the thousand and one variations on navy blue, accented in every color of the rainbow except silver, suggested that this was something the townspeople did because they wanted to, not because they’d been told to—though she wouldn’t have laid any bets that they’d been the same way in college.

A hassled looking redhead, short and slim and pixie-like, raced past her with a tray of coffee drinks balanced in each hand, and darted into a law office. Rhonda knew something was up when she saw the place in full scramble mode, and headed inside. She almost heard the record scratch as everything stopped around her. “Good afternoon, everyone! Okay, so the it-was-only-two-beers excuse isn’t going to work here. How about directions to the Smile Mart? Or office supplies! You look like you could use file boxes with all that paperwork you’re dealing with,” Rhonda said.

A couple of people smiled nervously, though she wasn’t sure if she’d broken the tension or if they thought she was going to break their necks, and the rest of them went back to work. The redhead danced past her on deft feet and flew out the door. They must be pullin’ all kinds of overtime if they need that much coffee, Rhonda thought.

A brunette in her early forties strode forward, in a no-nonsense navy pantsuit, a gold blouse, a blue and gold silk scarf with the Great Lakes logo on it, and enough high-quality gold jewelry to buy a small country. She extended a hand. “Kristin Bergeron, partner. You must be one of the investigators they sent. We don’t represent Isaac, or Cleveland’s estate. We represent the people of Great Lakes, both the university and the town. Come upstairs and I’ll answer you whatever I can,” she said.

Rhonda saw how that hand trembled. If she’s a controller, I’m fucking Brad Pitt. “Rhonda Wilson,” she said, keeping her guard up as she went into Kristin’s office. The Alpha Omega plaque on the wall was bigger than anything but her Great Lakes diploma and her Great Lakes law degree, and Rhonda knew that by the letter of the book, she was a victim—but the number of awards next to it, and the family photo on the desk told Rhonda that she was anything but.

Kristin followed her gaze. “I was a party girl until Alpha Omega straightened me out. And not that kind of straight. That sort of warping is shameful. I represented someone who was being straightened like that. It was interesting, in the same way watching someone try to explain that he didn’t cause a seven-car pile-up is interesting. Yes, I’ve exposed controllers in regular courts—not what you were expecting from a Great Lakes girl, is it? It might have only been a divorce, but that’s hard enough. But you’re here about Cleveland. We have the reports, the dropped suits against him, a few investigations he single-handedly stopped.” She clawed her hand for effect.

“A true criminal, and yet you guys sat there with your thumbs up your asses?” Rhonda asked.

“Not quite. Believe me, none of us are looking forward to the class action suit that’s coming. It’ll wreck the university, and that would trickle down to the town. So far, we haven’t seen anything—but that’s just so far. As for Cleveland... by controller law, justice was done, and done swiftly. I just wish Isaac had found out sooner to take care of him sooner. We haven’t found anything that would show it goes past Cleveland, but you can see how hard we’re looking. No need for the goons,” Kristin said with a condescending smile as she went to her computer and printed out a file.

“I already got that,” Rhonda said, but she waited for it to print anyway, then walked out of the office, noticing the panicked tone of everyone around her. Yeah, they know the empire’s falling and the emperor has no clothes—there’s an image that makes me thank God I’m a lesbian—but they don’t want to stop it, because if it needs to be stopped, then something’s gone so wrong in their little world that their brains will explode. Oh, boy. Forest fires a-plenty, and look who just got drafted as Smokey the Bear, Rhonda thought as she looked at other businesses in full panic mode. People were drawing back and speeding up in fear to get away with her, and while she was used to that from strangers who saw her scowl and her imposing build, she knew it was something more.

How the fuck did our cover get blown so quickly? At least they’re showing respect and fear, and not just thinking I’m the boogeyman.

She walked further along the street, passing a confused-looking young suit with a coffee order in his hands, getting away from the most essential businesses and moving to the more esoteric ones. Then she spotted the optometrist’s office, with its array of ads for colored contacts and prescription sunglasses, and she realized she’d hit pay dirt. This Dr. Bostic knew the business and probably had some connection to Michaelsson that she could use. So she strode boldly inside and announced, “I need to get my eyes checked. I can’t see anything but blue and gold.”

The clerk turned pale and ran to the back, bringing out an older man in a white lab coat and the same thick glasses as Michaelsson wore in all his pictures. Dr. Bostic, as his nametag proclaimed him to be, was taller than Michaelsson, but his hair was the same shade of beige fading into white that had once been blond. “I’ve been expecting you. Oh, no, not the way everyone else has. I’ve been expecting you for years. I’ve always expected one of you to make an appearance one of these days. I’m surprised you haven’t been here recently before. I guess Matt Collins is more loyal than Isaac’s ever let on,” he said, speaking quickly, the words tumbling over each other. “Would you mind speaking with me in my office? I can talk to you out here if you don’t feel safe, but I don’t know if this is something you want to discuss in front of other people.”

“I can deal with your office,” Rhonda said with a little bit of a bite in her voice, and she kept her guard up as Dr. Bostic led her into his basement, where she saw not just cases of colored contacts and sunglasses, but also oversized bras, baggy shorts, and other implements meant to hide the most powerful of natural weapons.

“Yes, you’re surprised, aren’t you? I can tell. Your people always try so hard not to show it that you show it by not showing it. Yes, we have people who sometimes don’t want to use their power and sometimes just want to have an ordinary day. But that’s not something you can wrap your mind around, is it? You can’t think of us as anything but ravening soulless beasts. Stoker’s fault—he had a bad run-in with a vampire, that’s what caused him to write Dracula and really get the vampire legends started in Western culture. I hate what he did. Makes it harder for the rest of us.”

“Yeah, I really feel for you guys,” Rhonda said as sarcastically as she could muster up.

“See? It’s like I thought. You look at us and see people whose mothers were brain-dead the moment they laid eyes on us, or who took over churches with our voices. No, no, not at Great Lakes, not us. That’s simplistic. People do that because they learn to be that way—without education, without a reminder that the rest of the world still matters, absolute power does corrupt absolutely. That’s a fact, doesn’t get any clearer than that. Combine it with hyper-reflectivity, or abnormal attractiveness in a specific part, or a siren’s voice, and you get the world that we live in. Allow some devils to manipulate the mind through machines and chemicals, and you have the world everyone’s feared since Salem. It’s falling apart, and now you’re coming after us, when we’re the ones who’ve tried our best to keep all of that from happening.” He raised a hand before Rhonda could interrupt, and she saw how it shook. “No, I understand, I really do. It’s not blind hate. You’ve left us alone for years because you understood what we were doing. I know what happened with Geoff Cleveland. I always had my doubts about him, you know. Should have been a warning that he wanted to better children. But he always had an alibi, always had a way out of trouble. But he hanged anyway, didn’t he? He hanged as soon as Isaac knew, that very moment. His life was forfeit the moment Isaac knew.”

“We noticed. Didn’t let anyone else find out more details, did he? Look, just between you and me... I know a little about Coach Cleveland. Used to watch how he worked with the linebackers, ’cause I played a little bit of linebacker in the Corps. He knew his shit. Picked up a lot of my tackle technique from his guys. So why would he suddenly retire and become a consultant at just fifty?” Rhonda asked, knowing he was breaking, waiting for him to take his glasses off and try to break her so she could turn him in.

“Of course! You’re expecting me to tell you everything, cackle like a maniac, and then melt your brain with a stare. Can, certainly can, but why should I? I had forty years with a wife who could be mistaken for a temptress with the right dress. Why would I do such a cowardly thing? I learned my lessons at Great Lakes, same as everyone else. Have I used this power of mine? Yes, of course, we’re not taught to deny it, we’re taught to be responsible with it. I don’t think I wore my glasses a day during Marla’s three pregnancies, and when she spent three years in the final stage of the most painful death that God can inflict on a human being, I made sure she didn’t suffer for a second of those three years. She never had to show a wince, and no kid doctor ever shot her up with drugs. But you didn’t see that. You can’t see that. I’m just another vampire, out to take over my little corner of the world. I’m only sixty-eight, and I’ve spent almost as long helping those with the most extreme powers find a little balance in the world as I did with my beautiful Marla. But what do I know? I’m just a soulless vampire who’s going to have you look into my eyes—” he dropped mockingly into a Bela Lugosi impersonation—“and go blank, and walk out with part of your soul gone. I know what your founders think of us. Tainted by those devils in Japan, by the green harlots, the machines, the jewels, the drugs—that’s not us, never was. But what do I know? We’re all the same at heart, even Isaac, to you.”

He was near hysterics by the end, but Rhonda found something in his words that allowed her to reassure him. “I know our credo, and there’s a big gulf between what you think is right and what I think is right, but I’ve seen enough good even in harems to know that ain’t no good can come of extremes. But something happened here. We both know that, and whatever happened needs to be brought all the way to light. You’ve lived that way for half a century, and I can see it from the kids here. But if we don’t do what we gotta do, then you all die with him. Better one than all, right?”

“If vermin escapes the wreckage of the tower when it’s destroyed, it doesn’t mean it terrorized the tower when it stood. But it spreads into everything else from that day forward, and it festers,” the doctor warned, turning away and returning to his work as a signal for Rhonda to leave.

She’d gotten what she needed. She knew what he meant, and what he had confessed, and what he had seen, and she had to get back to Claudia with it as soon as possible. She sprinted headlong out of the store, hoping she wasn’t too late.

Claudia stood outside the athletic complex with fear in her eyes that she would never show her unit. This was by far the most dangerous part of the campus to attempt to infiltrate—nothing but controllers, no crowd to blend in with to get in or out. The security for a supposedly empty building was beyond that of even the strongest castle. Hulking men with vicious grins and what looked like automatic guns circled the stadium. A living shrine to Michaelsson encircled the football field, with statues, pictures, and quotations along the walls. The messages left by the statues made Claudia wonder if Michaelsson was already dead, but she looked closer and realized that they were just prayers and paeans from those who worshiped him most, or letters expounding on how bad someone was before Michaelsson entered their life.

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me, unless they coach every Saturday at Great Lakes University. Hardly anyone saw him outside of television unless they were on the football team, but thousands of people were his. They might have been brought down by a student, a teacher, or just the constant bombardment of control, but they answered to Isaac Michaelsson. He’s living the vampire’s wet dream, whether he knows it or not—and I think he knows it. The bloodline all traces back to him.

She had to admire his work, even if she had to hate it as well. It only hardened her to do what she had to do. She went to the entrance to the football office and dialed in the first passcode that Collins had given her. The golden gates—steel made to look like gold, Claudia realized—opened like the gates of Heaven, and she passed through, impressed that Collins had been sincere.

There was no front desk, no receptionist, no security, nothing but an Arctic Bear inlay in real gold on the lobby floor and helpful signs pointing the way to the practice facility, weight rooms, classrooms, film rooms—everywhere and anywhere she could want to go, except where she needed to go. She looked around, then took out her smartphone and pulled up the map Collins had sent to her, along with the second passcode, which would unlock the buttons she needed in the elevator. Why would Collins have this? Or still have it? This isn’t the security from the ’80s. Unless Michaelsson really did want a check on things. Or if he wanted to lay a trap. Or if he laid one when he recommended Collins to us, and now it’s closing around me. No pressure, Claudia, really.

She got into the elevator and lifted the bottom panel, where there was a place for a second passcode. She put in the one Collins had given her, and she wasn’t sure whether she should have been surprised to see a new set of buttons appear. Deciding that she had no time to be surprised, she pressed 6b and felt the elevator descend to the deepest levels below the stadium.

She had expected some sort of dark, mysterious maze, full of twists and turns, looking like something out of a movie. What she got instead was a set of hallways as neatly labeled as the ones upstairs, lit by the same institutional lighting she had seen in other parts of the school, with the Arctic Bear theme running through like someone had been paid by the bear. She passed by the lecture hall and made a left by the counseling rooms, stopping at a door so ordinary and unmarked that no one would give a second thought to it. Claudia’s map told her that it was the filing room, where Michaelsson kept his records, and more than records. She tried both of the passcodes that Collins had given her, but neither worked.

“Coaches only! Not even the trustees can access the playbook! You want us to lose by fifty to Northern State?” someone bellowed. Claudia turned at the sound of the voice and stood frozen, staring at his towering, fiery red hair. Godiva, she thought analytically, slamming her eyes shut and shaking her head to break away. When she opened them again, she was still frozen and stunned, but not because of the man’s hypnotic hair.

The door to the archives, the door that was supposed to be locked to anyone and everyone except the staff, stood open for her.

“Call me Red. Everyone does. Did. Has. Just look. Look and see and react. All I ask. All I can do,” he said in low quick staccato sentences, walking away as if nothing had happened.

It was beyond suspicious, and her first reaction was to run. But she examined her reactions and her opportunity and went into the room. Files were scattered everywhere, some in piles, some sticking out of weathered, dented file cabinets. She wasn’t even sure if she knew where to start, since she doubted her mysterious benefactor was filed under Red, but she gave it a shot. To her surprise, there was a card there, meant as much to aid an old man’s memory as to help anyone else in the room. Red: he’s filed with the quarterbacks, remember?

That gave her a starting point, and instead of going immediately to C for Cleveland, she opened Q for quarterbacks and flipped through the files until a face was familiar in faded Polaroid. Reed “Red” O’Rourke, ’90—’94, graduate assistant ’94—’95, rejoined coaching staff ’01, now top recruiter- the note said. That gave Claudia a better sense of how the filing system worked, and she flew first to O, then to C, then had to fight to keep from flying to the bathroom to understand what had happened. The slide rule answered the question, and she took off running out of the stadium as fast as she could. She could do more digging on Cleveland’s sordid history later. She had a bigger problem. “Bill! Get me Collins now!” she screamed into her phone as she climbed into her car.

“You have no fear, so it must be big if you’re panicking this badly,” General Marion replied.

“Sir, we have a Hansel, and I think everyone is following the bread crumbs.”

“Elaborate.”

“I need General Collins. He understands the culture here more than you can. One of the assistants let me into the filing room, and I was able to get enough information to understand what Michaelsson’s doing. This campus is wired to self-destruct, and I know why, and maybe even how. I have enough information to take Michaelsson down this second, but I know what will happen, and I know the most frightening part.”

“Rogue thrall? Guy who couldn’t act, so he left clues to strike fear into everyone? You know where this leads. You’re right, this is trouble. It’s too risky to stay in. Abort and brief General Collins. We’ll redeploy once we know what we’re up against,” General Marion ordered.

“Sir, that second word...”

“Thrall. Shit. Get everyone out of there now.”

“It’s too late for that, sir. I need Collins’s help. We never even set up cover. They knew our names and styles when we crossed the town line, and some of them seemed to welcome us. I’ve lost contact with Brenna and Cynthia, though.”

“And they’re going to close ranks if they know how deep inside you are. That Hansel is likely some yahoo thinking he can pull a coup with your unit as the poster girls,” General Marion warned.

“No, sir. He is... was... an informant. It’s in his records. Collins knew about the files, but not how to get into them. He’s the only one we have who can interpret Michaelsson’s quirks and thought patterns. But if what I think the file said is true, I wouldn’t worry about our Hansel pulling a coup. I’m not even sure he can pull his pants on anymore, and the bread crumbs are his last traces of existence. But I need confirmation.”

“You’re formally accusing Isaac Michaelsson of breaking someone to hide an Eighth Circle violation?” General Marion replied, his voice dropping low.

“He documented the breakage, sir. In detail,” Claudia said, her voice distant and flat to keep from freaking out. “Motive, means, opportunity. It’s all there, sir. Michaelsson sucked the life out of him. I don’t understand the Hansel move now, but that’s what scares me more.”

“Hide this for now. I’ll ask General Collins to join you. Document your captures and recover your unit. Don’t move on the football complex until Collins arrives.”

“Understood, sir,” Claudia replied, ending the call and texting out an order for an emergency meeting.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a petite redhead on a bike, slowing up to look at her, then pedaling hard and fast.