The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Inside the football stadium, things were busier than ever. Claudia looked surprised, but Collins strode through as if he belonged amid the chaos, acknowledging the occasional nod thrown his way, but never stopping to engage. “Beauty of controllers and the controlled-you can work longer hours if you’re half-asleep anyway,” he said.

“What are they preparing for, and why are they so out that I may as well be invisible and you may as well be wearing a football helmet? Sir,” Claudia asked, adding the last hastily.

“Marions do have that knack for remembering respect at the strangest moments. I’d say the spring festival, but I think you know that’s not correct. Not this year. Not with everything else that’s happening. Records room isn’t much further. You still have that passcode Red gave you?” Collins said, not wanting to waste any more time.

“Umm, he entered it for me. I didn’t see him... he kinda knocked me out. Oh, that’s a bad sign. I need to learn more resistance. Permission to beg for your mercy in not telling my team I was knocked out by a Godiva?”

“Red always had a knack for subconscious implantation and extending that blink of an eye that you never think about. His wideouts never strayed off route, even when they should have. You can’t trust him, but I can. The fact that he leaked it to you at all is a sign of breakage. If what you’ve told me is correct, and if I’m correct in how I think the breakage and his resistance are shaking out, he’ll be along shortly.

“Back for more? Okay, but I can’t let you make us lose to the Bulldogs, not on our field. You can make us lose every other game if you have to, but not the Northern State game. So I gotta keep my eye on you... not my hair, my eye, and I’m not Coach Michaelsson,” Red said, coming up behind them and tapping in the passcode. Collins watched his fingers and winced as the light turned green and Red turned to leave as if called by a dog whistle.

“Forgive me,” Collins murmured before raising his voice and taunting, “Thought you said you were gonna keep an eye on us, Mickey D!”

“Sir, what the hell? Again?” Claudia said.

“My eye is not the one in the front of my head, you should know that. You won the national title! I just kept the success and honor alive,” Red said, brandishing a comb like a knife.

“And you have no idea how much you did. Thank you. You’re a good kid, Red. I don’t know what pain you felt, and what Isaac had to do to you to kill it, but you’re a good kid,” Collins said in a gentler voice.

Red blinked and went rigid, then marched off like someone had wound a key in his back. Collins let out a long breath. “That is damning evidence right there that Isaac was the one who broke him, no one else. Isaac used the incident itself as a trigger to keep him out and keep him quiet. Otherwise, he’s programmed to be himself,” he said as he went through the locked file cabinets. “What Isaac forgot is who helped recruit Reed O’Rourke, and who slept on the floor so the recruit could be comfortable on his official visit. That’s when I learned—” he stopped and ripped open the file cabinet marked I- “he loved really bad puns.”

“Oh my God,” Claudia whispered, understanding the full scope of what had happened. As Collins pulled out folder after folder, her face grew paler and paler. “Isaac, International, Intent, Insurance-oh, that bastard. Why leave crumbs when you can keep a whole loaf in the fridge?”

Collins looked at the Insurance files and put them in his case before flipping open the Intent file. “All photos. All dated during the slump. All with Isaac across the face. He was breaking people above him. And no one blinked at Joe Strait being a thrall. Isaac just didn’t want to be AD. He always strived beyond the athletic department.” He riffled through the pictures, putting them in a pile and muttering names to himself. “That’s half the trustees and the presidency. He owns this place de facto. Shameful, shameful. The ultimate goal of power is not power.”

As Collins stowed away the evidence of Michaelsson’s violations, Claudia opened the International file. “Elena Zakharova- true presence controller heavily recruited by the Zhukovs, but chose to defect. Can hold things down hard and keep the Alpha Omegas from breaking away. I can attest to the truth of that. Petr Lindgren, born reflective with no known vampire relatives for two generations. Can be a near heir if you like football instead of football. Okeke, Spinoza, Omori, Vega- he was scouring the world for people he could barely control. Just enough to have them lost in mantra, and then deliver it with an iron fist to those less powerful than them. He was waiting for this day. He knew it was coming. Why didn’t he just...” She shook her head, still trying to comprehend the scope of the bomb that ticked away in the heart of Great Lakes. “My God... it’s like we’re the bomb squad, and they called us to a scene and we discovered Fat Man.”

“Why? Then they’d lose to Northern State,” Collins said. “These are the crucial pieces. I watched Red put in the passcode, so if we need to come back for it, I have it.” He took the International file from Claudia’s hand and put it in his briefcase, then led her to the men’s room.

“Sir, is this—”

“Do you trust me?”

“No, sir. But I believe you have your reasons for whatever you’re doing.”

Collins laughed. “Marion to the bone and blood,” he said with a smile as he opened the door of the bathroom and led her to the last stall. He pulled the flusher to reveal a secret passage. “This leads back to the dorms. It let us avoid autograph hounds and get to some more interesting postgame ceremonies.”

“Postgame ceremonies. Rivalries. All this for a rivalry? Letting the unthinkable happen for a rivalry? It’s the only answer warped enough to be right,” Claudia said.

“Not a rivalry. A focus. Isaac was constantly worried about the controllers he cultivated, owned, shaped, and made into decent human beings. One slip, and he’d lose them on the recruiting front. The Northern States, the Hollywoods, the Rams- they would all win. He failed in one, and he saw what dishonor was doing across the board with the Internet boom, so he let it go until Cleveland was caught. Then he tried to flash cut it. Didn’t work. But he was prepared for that. Brought in the meanest of the mean and took them down himself...”

“Yes, I think I mentioned we met Elena. Brenna will need the Pink Room because of Elena. Even the Alpha Omegas are afraid of Elena. And there’s what, fifty others actively enrolled? Is that what you have in mind? Is that the nature of your game?” Claudia asked, pulling her gun.

“And here I am with the means to destroy the evidence- which would mean I was acting under Isaac’s influence, and you’d be more than entitled to put a bullet in what was left of my head. There. Hold the bag. I’d be worried if you weren’t worried, and much more worried if you didn’t take the evidence. Now, if you don’t mind, let me prove my case.” The smile on Collins’s face was worried, but proud, as he handed her the suitcase and pointed to a tunnel leading left. The discarded t-shirts and other paraphernalia revealed its true purpose.

“Is this where you and the Alpha Omegas celebrated victories?” Claudia asked with a laugh.

“No one, not even Isaac Michaelsson, could keep boys from being boys forever. So if those little flings led to long-term relationships, or at least proper and safe practices, it was better than beer to celebrate beating a major rival,” Collins replied, keeping a straight face.

They walked a little further along before Collins stopped and pointed at one of the branches. “I’m pushing fifty. There’s a word for guys my age who do panty raids on college girls. This is your task. You’ll need to- oh, yes, I forgot the Elite teams are strictly lethal enforcement. Good thing I brought a spare. Take this, find out the situation, and if you make someone break out peacefully, great. We’ll worry about the other internationals when they appear, but Zakharova is the only one who’s had repeated run-ins with us. She’s too dangerous to leave on her game during the worst part of this storm.”

Claudia saluted, took the plastic case that Collins proffered, and went up the secret passage through the closet that contained the Alpha Omegas’ weapons-grade outfits. The bedroom was empty, except for Elena, who lay on her back in such complete relaxation that Claudia knew she was frozen solid by her sisters, not naturally asleep. Too easy, Claudia thought, when the light went on and she turned to see Sheila right behind her.

“We have her sleeping for four days as it is. No need to make it forever. She really does have a good heart. She just breaks things when she gets upset. If she didn’t have a good heart, she’d be in Russia making dolls. Go fight them,” Sheila said, her voice low, her fingers ready on her blouse buttons.

“Been there, done that. Knowing what I know, I don’t think smothering her in sisterly love will be much help. Besides, I’m not here to kill her. I want the same thing you want, to get her out of the way while the storm blows over so she doesn’t break anything, or anyone, else.”

“So it is true, and it is going down. Look at her. You know what she did to her cheerleader. She got so over-excited that she shattered the pledges we were working on. We’ve spent all Rush Week putting them back together, and I think we did okay for a bunch of college kids. We’re not dumb, and Isaac did all right by her. If you were around her and everything she had dreamed about had been pulled away, wouldn’t you be scared? He made a grave mistake. First in, last to leave. I’ve heard everything from everyone, and it was wrong... but if you told me what Cleveland did, I’d have done worse, and get on your high horse all you like, you would have too. Maybe I’d have found the kids and tried... but for all I know, we did and killed their pain for him,” Sheila said sadly.

“Doesn’t look like that. That’s not his kind of shame. And how about you? I thought you were more effective when you made your blouse tighter.”

Sheila smiled. “You’re just going to have to believe that some of what they taught us stuck. It’s going to be rough, but Alpha Omega is dedicated to the future of this school. We’ll make you proud, one way or another,” she said, near tears as she turned her back and slipped her blouse off before turning out the light and leaving. Claudia heard her voice in the distance, reassuring the other Alpha Omegas.

The time was enough. She grabbed Elena’s wrist, gave her the sedative, and retreated back down the passage, where Collins was waiting for her. “Sir, with all due respect to you and your quality of character, you have one weird alma mater,” she said, wiping her brow.

“Not weird, just scared witless. I guess they recognized their own threat. But now that that’s out of the way, let’s get out of here. I’m kinda sick of football,” Collins replied, turning towards the passages that would lead back out into the daylight.

Rhonda crouched behind the Volvo. One of the most powerful men in the world, the undisputed king and god of this campus and everyone who’s come through it in three generations, and he drives a fucking Volvo. Yeah, okay, it’s custom in the exact colors of Great Lakes, and okay, it looks like he’s had a lot of work done on it, but it’s a fucking Volvo. A less disciplined woman would have shaken her head in disbelief or distaste, but Rhonda remained still, except for one hand tagging up the warning on the side panel as the other held a Magnum against the back of the car. She had a mission to complete, and her team was relying on her not to fuck it up.

Wish I could do it with a real gun, not one of these little toys. But an M-16 doesn’t fit as nicely in a messenger bag. Semper fi.

She waited, patient and still, until close to dawn, when Michaelsson emerged from his castle- alone, through the front, wearing a mask of supreme confidence, exactly as Collins had said he would. She checked her phone to make sure her orders hadn’t changed- and they had, not to stop her, but to amplify what she was doing. She had to do this fast and smooth, so she rose from concealment and cocked her gun. Michaelsson was in her sights-

Then he swerved left, opening his arms to greet the petite redhead who rushed towards him, coming right up against him with trouble on her face.

Then he fell back against the pavement, a red stain blossoming against his crisp white shirt.

Rhonda told her jaw that it was not allowed to drop in shock or confusion as she stared at the dying man and the near-catatonic shooter who seemed to be waiting for the police to come for her. “That little—” she muttered, flying out from behind the car and shaking the woman repeatedly, both to get the .22 out of her hand and sense into her head.

“H-h-h-e r-rr-aaa...” the woman struggled to say, but even without Rhonda shaking her, the words wouldn’t come. Both of them could see the light going out of Michaelsson’s eyes until the reflections stilled and he lay dead in front of the shrine to all that he had built.

“He cared more about preventing shame than admitting shame. Why did you- oh, shit, you came here to forget, didn’t you? And he- or someone- we’ll talk later, I swear. Get the hell out of here, kid. Go. Trust me, just go. They won’t find out about you, I swear on my grandma’s grave. Just run!” Rhonda snapped. Her authoritative tone snapped the woman out of her daze, and she dropped her backpack and ran as fast as she could into the woods that marked the end of civilization for a hundred miles.

Rhonda smiled and waited for the police to take her away.

“She murdered our hero in cold blood, stood over the body, and laughed! How dare you interfere with justice!” the police chief screamed as he looked over the paperwork. As much as he knew it had to be wrong, every authorization checked out in the computer and the signature of Special Agent William Marion was a perfect match for the file. “Fine. McConnell! Kelly! Bring that... woman... out. She’s being remanded into federal custody.”

Rhonda came out between two officers who would have both killed her with a look and seemed to regret having other people’s eyes on them. Rhonda inclined her head to General Marion. “I would salute, sir, but as you can see, my hands are otherwise occupied.”

“I’ll accept the gesture,” General Marion said darkly.

Once Rhonda was run out to the car, and the local police had returned to their station, she said, “Sir, next time I have to make a tag, may I have the latitude to select my method of disposal? I’m more effective at hand to hand, and choking him would have been faster.”

“I thought you did choke. No woman of Wealth and Taste I know carries a .22, or has to shoot point blank.”

“I didn’t. That girl stalking us- Kim, it said on the backpack-she got to him before I could. Post-control madness, but I couldn’t risk having her snap and shoot me, or worse, so I told her to run, and she did. I won’t stop the cops if they find her. She doesn’t get federal protection.”

“Wrong,” General Marion told her. “Howard and Lucatelli were camped on the perimeter. They spotted her and tailed from a distance. No one thought she’d shoot first- we assumed you hadn’t wanted to kill her with a stray. But since you took the time to tag the message before he was shot, we couldn’t wash our hands of the matter and let you rot for her crimes. They know, and they will know. General Collins has been forced to disavow our actions.”

“Shit! I knew he couldn’t be trusted! Once a thrall, always a thrall!” Rhonda said.

“Not like that. He had to disavow us to have the authority to list Michaelsson’s crimes. They’re controlled, not stupid. Enough leaked after Cleveland’s death for everyone to know that things would explode, just not the extent of the explosion. It’s bad enough that the FBI is arresting ten people we’ve classified as control victims for obstruction and endangering the welfare of a minor. Mindcrime is being even less kind. We have an explosion on our hands, and that’s why we have a major issue with you.”

“So I should have shot the innocent just ’cause she was gonna do what I was ordered to do?” Rhonda snapped.

“No! That was inevitable! No, one thing... one really little thing, Rhonda. Or should I say KIM?” General Marion replied, raising his voice on the last word and slamming the backpack into Rhonda’s gut.

“Oh, shit! So that’s why they were calling me Lil Kim. And here I thought it was a rap joke.”

“No time for jokes. We had to have Cheryl hack the records and make you Kim. As far as they know, they can’t prove you actually pulled the trigger, but the hate kept you behind bars. They’d cook the evidence and keep you there if we didn’t intervene- but that’s the one lie we have to tell. If it ever came out that Michaelsson was killed by one of his own, the rats would be freed. As it is, you have the nuts- some of whom were time bombs planted by Michaelsson-fighting the sane controllers, and everyone else torn between them. So far, there’s been no off-campus taking of prey, so the honor is holding, but the success is falling apart. For now it’s a riot instead of a rebellion. We need to keep it this way and clear the record, but to do that, we need to know what happened, just in case we managed to create a serial killer in the middle of all this. She’s being held in our brig. You’re going there too. I hope you don’t like Dallas enough that you want a return visit.”

General Marion’s words hung in the air, a threat plain as paper to Rhonda as they headed for the airport.

She kept her head up as she was led through the cells. Most contained controllers who had been captured and now awaited the proper punishment, but here and there she saw a familiar face; she recognized one of the Valley Walkers and wondered which of their hate-fueled missions had gone awry. She looked in each cell and stopped before the hand came on her shoulder, because she recognized the petite redhead and her disproportionately long legs. Kim was curled up in the corner of her cell, facing away.

“She won’t speak to us. Her brain’s like a pinball machine right now. Everything’s bouncing around and getting flipped back up. If we can get her sane enough to return to the world, then we can seal the record. Otherwise, you’re a civilian doing life for a crime you didn’t commit,” General Marion warned as the door closed behind Rhonda.

Rhonda approached cautiously, not sure how to handle this. “Hi, Kim. Name’s Rhonda. See, I don’t make you guess.”

“I guessed already, that’s cheating! I killed him! I belong here! You’re trying to save me, but it’s too late, it’s too late. I killed him and I’d do it again and again and again! I gave him my soul so it would stop crying, and it wasn’t enough. I know you! I’ve seen you before! You don’t know, do you?” Kim babbled hysterically.

“Someone hurt you before, huh? I thought so. You were too freaked to remember, but I figured that out. You realized he allowed the same thing to happen to others, didn’t you? Hey, I’ve only got two regrets ’bout what you did- that I didn’t get to pull the trigger, and that you didn’t burn him alive.”

Kim smiled back through her tears and came to sit on the bed with dragging steps and every inch of her tensed up like knotted rope. “I don’t mean them. I don’t feel guilty at all about him. I mean you,” she said, waving her arm around the cell in a sweeping gesture that almost got Rhonda in the head.

“What?” Rhonda asked.

“You don’t- it wasn’t you, and- you never opened it, did you?”

“Not my business. I don’t poke around other people’s stuff unless I get direct orders to. What’s in there? Pictures? Your teddy bear? All the stuff that reminds you what your name is when you start thinking you’re just Arctic Bear Student #24601?”

“You know about the backpacks... of course, because of the two they took. I... believed in him, you know. But I couldn’t believe blindly. I learned that when I was twelve. I even had cookies at his house, and I thought he... but he let it go on forever, didn’t he?” Kim pressed. “He knew, and even though he knew, he let them...”

Rhonda realized that Kim was pressing something about the Men of Wealth and Taste themselves. “Fine, I’ll go through your stuff. Good thing I got stuck carrying it, just in case I get to keep it for the rest of my life,” she said wryly. She opened the bag and pulled out the first piece of paper she laid her hands on. “Ewwww, you had to do a W halftime act? You know lesbians don’t go for that shit, right? It’s the ones who aren’t there for the basketball you gotta worry about.”

“You like to laugh- is that how you cope with it all? I used to laugh, but it reminded me of when I giggled.”

“You... us...we saved you the first time, is that it? You didn’t have to guess because you’d already met us.”

Kim nodded, quick and sharp like a bird. “I followed every step. Got the phones from your people so I could see what you were doing. What your plan was. If you were going to... I knew what I was doing was right. This act brought no shame, to me or to anyone. I didn’t kill him out of revenge. I did what I had to do, what he would want me to do, what I knew had to be done. And...” She pointed insistently at her backpack.

“We’ll talk a little more about that later. General! Some interesting reading for you!” Rhonda shouted, reaching through the bars of the door to hand General Marion the flyer.

She hadn’t expected him to turn a sick, pasty color. “Rising Star Modeling and Dance. That was a black day for us. We botched the initial raid so badly... but we followed through. It took five years to flush out the real owners of the operation and send them to the Eighth Circle, but we rooted them out. We had to send a lot of parents, too. No wonder you couldn’t trust us. No wonder at all,” he said.

“Should I call the guard back, or should I ask for Anna?” Rhonda said with a smile.

“You killed innocent people in that raid. I wasn’t going to have you slaughter my students, even if they did learn how to control. No one’s heart should be so black,” Kim bit back.

“No victim can ever be a controller...” Rhonda whispered.

“For Kim’s sake, I’ll spare you the exact details, but Rising Star was the sickest of the sick. They used their ‘graduates’ as suicide dolls. They had eighteen, nineteen-year-olds running the classes so that if someone did get it and shoot, well, they were sorry to hear it, but they were still safe. The layers of that rotten onion are why we now act preemptively and proactively on Eighth Circle offenses.”

Rhonda turned to Kim and put a hand over hers gently. “So you couldn’t escape the chains, and you went to Great Lakes to forget.”

“And to try and prove they weren’t all assholes. Turns out they aren’t all assholes. But the professors... I’d kill them all right now if you let me go. They bring us all shame. If they found out what the one sicko was doing, took him into the student center, and beheaded him in public, the celebration would be greater than if we beat precious Northern State for the national title. But no one said anything, no matter what they saw. They get the hell they chose, and they earned it, and I hope they suffer as long as those little kids did...” Kim said, slipping back into hysterics.

“Well, you’ve got the right instincts for the 8-ball squad, but it’ll take years of training and therapy before your mental balance returns enough for me to be comfortable handing you a gun,” General Marion said.

“Just please keep bringing me the paper in here, and I’ll know enough to know if I can know. But please let Rhonda get back to work. I don’t like being so... naked,” Kim said, pulling back her backpack and hugging it close.

“The school where no act shall bring shame, by its own credo, did so by hiding its shame, and in doing so created its most shameful day and our most shameful waste. One’s shame is another’s greatness, after all, and our school must balance that to rebuild. And I am honored that I have been given the opportunity as university president to rebuild alongside you. It is my duty to do this, uphold what is left of the trust that was broken, and stop the further breaking of that trust. Thus, I bring to you what we know...” Collins preached in a press conference to the Arctic Bear faithful a month later to put out the fires of riot and end the days of doubt.

“And unless you didn’t plan on keeping your lunch, we really don’t need to hear that,” Claudia noted to a round of enthusiastic nods. She flipped to one of the news channels and lowered the volume.

“So, you think they can find the balance?” Rhonda asked.

“Well, none of their Greeks or their athletes have transferred. Least the rats aren’t runnin’ free,” Brenna answered.

“From what Kim said, that might not be a good thing,” Rhonda said.

Claudia shook her head. “The most frustrating part of this whole shitstorm is that Michaelsson’s ethics worked when applied honestly. Sheila showed me. Some of their actions during the shakeout showed me. It was almost like Michaelsson wanted this if something like this happened. Maybe it was too easy. Maybe it was designed to fall apart. Maybe the Elenas of the world will come back with a vengeance. So far, so good. General Collins- no, President Collins now- will be good for them, but I wouldn’t send my kid there in the near future.”

“It worked too well, that was the whole damn problem,” Cynthia snapped. “It worked so well that the worst could hide out ’cause he was makin’ the system tick. Michaelsson realized it, so it went on. We oughta keep tabs on those professors, just to make sure they don’t turn the place into a giant harem, but I think we done good. At least the pitchforks are on both sides. With any luck, they’ll all kill each other and we won’t have to worry ’bout them. The rats were tamed... just turns out the Pied Piper wasn’t real.”

“That’s a different classification,” Cheryl pointed out. Cynthia stuck her tongue out at her. Cheryl ignored her and added, “Kim wasn’t alone. Remember my gypsy friend? For a loose definition of friend? Something was bugging me about the way he was being held together by spit and baling wire. I did some code cracking in England and begged a couple of favors from people with access there. Guess who hired the Emma? Viktor Craig. Lance’s dad. She went under because he called her off. She wasn’t compromised- she was reassigned. They knew what evil was in that castle. So I guess vampires really don’t live forever.”

Everyone took a moment to reflect on what they had seen and what had happened- a moment of contemplative silence that was broken when Gianna ran in, pale as a ghost. “The breakout is beginning. We have a feed from Detroit, yes? Remember that reporter?”

Claudia went to the guide and pulled up the right channel. All too cheery, the black woman in the unflattering navy blue skirtsuit said, “One man’s actions can’t taint the memory of a true legend. Let’s move on to the biggest, most amazing festival of the winter, the Spring Football Spectacular!”

“One reporter going full bimbo doesn’t make for mass breakage, but we do need to be on high alert. Shame begets shame, and honor can never truly exist at Great Lakes,” Claudia warned. “Cheryl, start combing the web for further reports. Gianna, tap your international sources to see if any of Michaelsson’s internationals are at work. Cynthia, you’ve still got connections in the youth sports community, right? Rhonda, be ready for...”

There was no such thing as down time for Elite 1.