The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Anatomy of an Invasion

Chapter 14 – Revelation

The next two weeks were busy, but uneventful.

Stefan did not seem to have noticed the change in his lover, or perhaps he simply did not comment upon it.

Everyone worked hard, the papers began to emerge, and, every evening, they socialised and ate together, paired up and went to bed.

Every night, before they were taken into sleep, the reward was the same, and it never paled.

Julie alternated between writing her own paper, and reviewing the papers of others.

Some of the programmers with experience were turning the journal papers into patent drafts, and these would go out to the attorneys by day, and return for review in the afternoon.

On the fifteenth day, Eve came in with John Landers, just after 11am, and was holding a stack of courier’s envelopes. From each person’s desk, she picked up a neatly printed paper submission, and inserted it into a pre-addressed envelope.

Signatures were scrawled, copyrights were transferred, each patent right was transferred to TAUPAN for a shiny new Australian dollar, and as, the last paper disappeared into its envelope, Eve cut them loose.

“Well done, team.

“You’ve made a stellar effort.

“With the evidence in these papers, I am sure that the women held in the USA will soon be released.

“Your brilliant inventions will also set up TAUPAN to be a very successful, and profitable, company.

“I cannot thank you enough.

“But my sister, at least, will soon be able to thank you in person.

“Lilli is travelling to Australia as I speak. The Australian government has agreed to keep an eye on her, just as they did for the other Australians who were cured in the United States. I hope you will all come to know her soon.”

There was applause in the room.

Everyone knew that this had been Eve’s chief priority in managing this project, and some, such as Cassie, had come to know Lilli very well.

“I also have another announcement to make.

She wrapped her arms around John Landers, and she held him, and kissed him on the mouth.

He smiled at Eve, and responded eagerly.

She waved at the twins to come forward, and Eve and John put their arms around Sophie and Jessica’s shoulders, facing into the room.

“I’m sure that all of you know my fiancée, John Landers. We’ll be getting married in the fall, and I’m so proud of my new little family.”

She kissed the twins, too.

They were clearly very happy with their father’s choice of stepmother.

Eve patted her tummy, which wasn’t yet showing a bump.

“And, girls, you will soon be getting a new baby sister, and I’m sure that she’ll soon be spoiled rotten.”

The twins laughed and clapped, and everyone in the room applauded, enjoying Eve’s own obvious excitement and happiness.

“Finally, as I cannot seem to help myself saying, thank you again, everyone. You all have given your very best to support my projects, and to support the new hospital, and you have all excelled.

“Let it not be said that I am ungenerous.

“I’m very happy to say that I have convinced the university to assign to each of you some stock in our joint-venture company, TAUPAN.

“For your obvious dedication, competence and hard work, each of you will be issued with 1% of the stock of the company. We intend to gain patent protection for all aspects of the scanner, the pathology tests, a new operating system for medical devices, and the many applications of the venom.

“We expect that this company will make each and every one of you financially secure in the very near future.

“Congratulations!”

Doctor Kelly had a few bottles of bubbly ready, and a stack of plastic cups. The mood was festive as the first cork hit the ceiling, and she laughed and as she started pouring a celebratory libation into each cup.

The twins went out of the room, and started to wheel in tables covered in food.

Everyone toasted each other, and Eve smiled at them all, and, as the speeches gave way to socialising in this impromptu party, Julie felt a wave of accomplishment flow over her.

She had done well, she was proud.

She felt like the little girl she once was, having ridden her bike down the big hill behind her parent’s house, pedalling fast, and turning at the last second around the corner, and free-wheeling up to the top of her own driveway.

It had taken dozens of attempts to get it right, but she had done it.

She had doubted at the time that she would ever feel so proud ever again.

* * *

The party continued only until mid-afternoon.

Everyone was enjoying themselves, but they also wanted to return to their real lives, the lives that they had left behind weeks ago.

With the papers submitted and the patents on their way to being filed, the whirlwind of words which had dominated Julie’s mind over the previous fortnight began to dissipate. She was able to start thinking about returning to the mess that must be left in the apartment.

It was well and truly Spring as Julie and Cassie wandered back now, and the weather was beautifully clear and warm, an oasis of loveliness before the Summer heat.

It was also a bumper year for fluff. The cottonwood trees in Union Court always dropped mountains of white, fluffy seeds at this time of year, which flew around campus and piled up in drifts.

They regarded the white drifts only with affection. Undergraduates had always feared the fluff, as its appearance was taken as a sign that it was far too late to begin studying for final exams, but Cassie and Julie had little to worry about now.

All of the trials of the last few months had been overcome, and rather than feeling let down, they were rejuvenated by knowing that they had a lifetime of exploring each other ahead of them.

As they walked into their apartment, they were in for a small surprise, of sorts.

Their poo-brown couch, their CRT television, their mismatched dining table and chairs, the mess.

All were gone.

A voluminous leather settee, an entertainment unit under a massive flat-screen television, laminated wooden chairs and a gleaming glass table-top had replaced them.

The apartment had been newly cleaned, and was spotless, their plants had all been well-cared for and watered, and there was a fresh vase of flowers in every room. The fridge was newly stocked with essentials, and there were two bottles of wine on the brand new dining-room table.

Their new apartment was perfect.

Eve works in mysterious ways, thought Julie.

Julie’s memory stick was back, too, sitting next to the wine, with a post-it note attached.

Julie picked it up, and read the note with a smile.

Thanks for everything, Julie!

Thanks for everything, Cassie!

Hope you like your new “digs”.

Love, Eve and Lilli.
XXX OOO

Julie re-attached the memory stick to her keyring.

That’s nice! I must have accidentally left it in Eve’s apartment.

She didn’t remember what it contained; it had some test data on it, or something.

She could check it when she went into work tomorrow.

Julie and Cassie got out their backgammon set, and opened a bottle of red wine and some chips from their now-well-stocked pantry.

They hadn’t played for months.

They both played hard, taking the game of chance very seriously, but they both found their hands lingering whenever they touched as they were reaching for the dice.

The tension between them was palpable.

But there was no hurry.

They both knew where the day was leading.

When the bottle of wine disappeared, and a draw declared, Cassie pulled Julie up from her chair, and held her close, kissing her.

She put an arms around Julie’s waist, and they walked into Julie’s bedroom, Julie’s head on Cassie’s shoulder, and they both smiled at the new bedclothes, smelling freshly laundered.

They pulled off their clothes, eager, and fast, and, naked, kissed each other and tumbled into bed.

They were on their sides, Cassie holding Julie around the waist, and Julie with her arms wrapped around Cassie’s shoulders.

“Host-form make the best lovers,” whispered Cassie, smiling, and licked Julie’s lips.

Drawing Julie’s tongue into her mouth, Cassie gave it a playful nip, and trapped it for a time.

Julie liked it. It felt dangerous. Just a bit.

They held each other for a time, loving each other, marvelling at how good they were both feeling, how right this all was.

Cassie pushed Julie onto her back, and straddled her, turning around so that she was looking at Julie’s feet.

Cassie pulled Julie’s thighs apart, leant down, and speared Julie with her tongue.

Julie groaned in pleasure.

She opened herself wide, and let Cassie in, her body relishing the warmth and penetration of Cassie’s tongue.

When Cassie lowered her centre onto Julie’s mouth, Julie was ready, and she wrapped her arms around Cassie’s thighs, and began to lick Cassie with the same ferocity she was receiving.

It was magical.

It was as if the two of them had been made only to give pleasure to each other, and they focused on pressing themselves into each other, pressing deep with their tongues, and, soon, with their fingers.

Even as they gasped their first orgasms, they kept pushing in, deeper, deeper, until they had filled each other as deep as they could go, and a final climax filled them both. They were paralysed with its intensity, and all they could do was hold each other as it held them both captive until its power exhausted them both.

They were both sweaty and shivering when Cassie climbed off Julie, and pulled the doona over them both, and snuggled into her back, wrapping her up in her arms.

Julie smiled, secretly, amazed at how wonderful love could be.

Even if this only happened once, she could die happy.

She had a love life, and it was so much better than she had ever thought possible.

* * *

Julie went into work early the next morning.

There was nothing urgent to do. It was far too early for the reviewers to have returned her papers, but after the weeks at the hospital, she was eager to again visit her office again, to immerse herself back into her sleepy academic life, happy, and contented, her career all but assured.

And she was curious about what was on her memory stick.

After last night with Cassie, she still had a pleasant glow between her legs, and smiled to herself as she carried it around everywhere with her.

Cassie had slept in this morning, and Julie looked forward to seeing her soon.

Julie would be glad of her company today.

They need never be separated now.

Cassie had become a constant, loving presence in her life, and Julie knew that she could never live without her.

Maybe getting married would be nice.

When Julie inserted her memory stick into her computer, she checked the images first.

When she saw that processed image of Gabby, with Gabby’s body riddled with worm trails, Julie realised that everything had been tied up in her mind far too neatly, for far too long.

All of the little facts which might have muddled her message had been buried that last night before moving to the hospital.

And she remembered that last evening in Eve’s apartment.

Eve had basically raped her.

Eve had raped her mind.

However, as Julie’s memories returned, she could only regard that time with a kind of sweet nostalgia.

She didn’t begrudge Eve her assistance.

The whole process had, in fact, been rather pleasant.

And Eve had returned the memory stick.

Julie realised that there were still mysteries aplenty to solve.

She still wanted to know.

The first thing she did was to disconnect her workstation from the network.

She next checked all of her old images of the cured women, using the infilling detector she still had on her memory stick.

The results were as she expected.

Someone, probably Stefan, had replaced all of the old images with modified versions. Each had a little bit of noise added to the in-filled regions. Detecting the deliberately hidden worm trails in the doctored images had always been a delicate operation, and now she knew there was little hope of ever again showing that the images had been tampered with.

Julie thought she’d worked out the game that Eve was playing.

The cured women were strange, Cassie had established that, but with Lilli’s counselling, and Cassie’s assistance, Julie thought them mostly harmless.

Even in the uncorrupted images of Gabby, there was no evidence of any worm tissue remaining in the cured women.

She had never felt under threat while working with women who she knew, without doubt, had been host-form, and, although Eve had encouraged her to visit the worms, she had never felt under much pressure to do so. Anjolie had been a loose cannon, but even though she had had clear evidence of anomalies with the cured women, she, too, had accepted that saving the women was more important than the small risk of the worms escaping.

Many of the people under Eve’s purview had ended up in the clinic to become host-form, possessed by worms, but, as far as Julie could tell, the experience had done nothing but improved them. She’d felt the passion and focus of Eve’s team as they had prepared the papers and the patents, but once again, she had never felt threatened by the presence of so many worms so close to her.

The cured women had to be marked, Julie could see that, the cured women had to be identifiable, otherwise world governments would feel under threat and the new clinic would not be allowed to continue.

By arranging for a trojan horse to be put into the Taubett machine to obscure the worm trails, Eve had given a free pass, a get-out-of-jail-free card, to all of her staff.

There was no reason for them to be discriminated against.

Julie didn’t think that anyone she worked with was a threat to society.

She also had a look at the old Taubett firmware, and recalled that she and Cassie had been planning to use the Taubett scanner to have a look inside Cassie.

It was Friday.

She had one day to set everything up.

The six-month anniversary of the hospital’s opening was on tomorrow night at the Uni Bar, so she expected that the whole weekend would be a wipe-out.

Julie rang Anjolie at the hospital to request time on the Taubett machine for that evening. As it was now official medical equipment, it would need a medical doctor like Anjolie to drive it.

She felt comfortable asking. Anjolie and herself were the only two women that Julie was sure were free, the only two that Julie definitely knew had never been host-form. She had never been sure about Eve, or Doctor Kelly. They weren’t normal people, but that wasn’t to be expected: Eve was a brilliant entrepreneur, and Doctor Kelly was an oncologist.

Julie knew that the firmware in the machine at the hospital had been modified to doctor the images.

She believed that Stefan had succeeded in writing a version of the software which could remove the evidence of worm infections, without the doctoring mechanism being visible in a code review.

It wasn’t hard to piggy-back extra code into the device, as there were hundreds of megabytes of test patterns included with the software for its self-tests, run by the device whenever it was booted up. Some of these test patterns consisted of pseudo-random noise, which is exactly what a cryptographically encoded version of Stefan’s modified software would look like.

Julie guessed that the kernel inside the Taubett machine itself must have been compromised to run the extra image-processing code. Stefan’s Ph.D.. topic was related to the security of kernels, so she expected that he had found some way to produce doctored images out of a machine, even where the software had been carefully reviewed before it was allowed in a US clinical setting.

To get FDA approval, all of the source code had to be reviewed by experts before it would be allowed near any patients in the USA. This process was well in train, and was being fast-tracked because of the importance of the Taubett device to “national security.”

With all of the image-processing and kernel work, Julie was amazed at the huge amount the university programmers had accomplished in only a few weeks.

What had Cassie said?

Being host-form was like being on speed?

It must have been good stuff.

All of this work was very impressive, Julie thought, but it made it very difficult do what she intended to do this evening.

If she wanted to see the raw images, she would have to use the old firmware that she’d copied from the backup tape, such a long time ago.

She spent the rest of the day preparing a boot loader for the Taubett machine using the old firmware.

Tonight she would be imaging Cassie’s body, without doctoring.

* * *

Cassie turned up in Julie’s office in the afternoon, and hung around, waiting for her to finish preparations.

Gabby was hanging around, too. Somehow she had picked up on the nature of tonight’s expedition, knew all of the details, and wouldn’t be dissuaded from coming with them.

“You could image me instead of Cassie,” Gabby said, “You’ve already got the scans of me. They’d be better to compare. And I’ve used the scanner when it was here at Physical Sciences, so I can help Anjolie with that.

“And, I think I have something rather special that I want to look at.”

Julie was getting a bit irritated by Gabby. Had Cassie told her everything?

Anyway, it was too late now. The cat was definitely out of the bag.

Eventually they decided to ask Anjolie to scan the three of them.

Julie had been feeling uneasy about her emotions for some time now. After Cassie had returned from the hospital after their fight, everything had been so easy. Julie had fallen into love like a duck to water. She had never felt anything like this before. She simply couldn’t believe that she had found happiness without artificial help.

That evening, the three of them made their way to the hospital, up to the fourth floor.

Anjolie was there to greet them.

And Lilli was with her.

Julie recognised her from the photograph on Eve’s desk.

Lilli was a small woman, and looked to be in her mid-twenties. She must have been barely an adult when the invasion had started, when she had been infected with the worms in that shopping mall.

Cassie knew who it was immediately, and she grabbed poor Lilli in a bear hug. The two had spent countless hours chatting about inconsequentia, and Cassie thought she knew Lilli intimately.

Lilli laughed, and kissed Cassie on the cheek in greeting.

She then began to look very serious.

She took Cassie’s face in her hands, and looked her straight in the eyes.

“Greetings, Earthling!” Lilli said, her voice deep, and commanding.

She rubbed noses with Cassie.

“Take me to your leader!”

Everyone laughed, and Lilli’s voice softened.

“Cassie, finally we meet. I’ve been waiting for such a long time. Thanks for getting me out of that dreadful FEMA camp. And you don’t know how much our midnight conversations have meant to me.”

She turned around, and spread her arms in greeting, so as to include everyone.

“And thank you all. Thank you all for helping me get to Australia, to rejoin my sister. Thank you all so much.”

Lilli spoke with the same rich, exotic East-coast accent belonging to Eve, but she was much younger than Eve, and seemed more playful.

Lilli kissed each of them then, and greeted them all individually.

Julie knew then that ever since that day in Eve’s apartment, ever since she had seen that beautiful photograph, she had loved Lilli, that she had lusted after her, just as she still lusted for Cassie.

But Cassie was only a woman.

It was different from the love she had for Lilli.

Lilli was a goddess.

“Julie, Eve’s told me all about your work.” said Lilli. “I’m looking forward to seeing us all on the inside. I want to know what we really look like.”

Cassie began to regard Lilli warily.

She thought that she detected the same predatory gleam in Lilli’s eye that she now knew lurked inside Eve.

Did Lilli hold the same secret inside herself as Eve? Was Lilli not a women, but a pastiche of women, a container holding the souls of so many?

Lilli had spent countless months in the FEMA camp, holding prayer sessions with women that did not know what the future held, that knew that detention might be followed by an ignominious death.

How many of them had surrendered?Cassie asked herself.

How many of them had given themselves up to Lilli, just as Gabby had given herself up to Eve?

Given a choice between immortality and death, what would anyone choose?

Lilli greeted Gabby, and kissed, and they held each other very close for a time.

Cassie did not know if Lilli was greeting Gabby, or the Eve inside of Gabby.

Cassie couldn’t decide. Everything was so new to her, everything was changing. She would have to watch Lilli carefully, but she knew now that Lilli carried the same charisma as her sister, but that it was a young charisma, playful, not a personality that assumes all it wants by wielding power.

But if Lilli decided to take them, there would be nothing she could do.

It took Cassie a few seconds to realise that the chattering had stopped

Time itself had stopped.

Time had stopped for all.

Except Cassie, and except Lilli.

The others were all silent, and unmoving, in the same slack-jawed trance of those people at the Uni bar, like statues, trapped in a thought.

Lilli ignored the others, and regarded Cassie, questioningly, seemingly attempting to understand her thoughts.

She placed her fingertips against Cassie’s temples, just as Eve had done to Gabby, in that fateful night at the hospital, and just as Eve had done to Cassie, that night above the Uni bar.

Cassie wanted her touch, and Lilli’s cool fingers felt delicious against her skin.

Cassie closed her eyes.

An image began to appeared in Cassie’s mind.

It was Julie, standing in front of Lilli, entranced, embracing, ready to kiss her.

Lilli’s lips were red, and beautiful.

They held so much promise for Julie, a promise of pleasure, and passion, and submission.

But Cassie knew that Lilli’s lips could take away Julie’s soul.

And Cassie was holding Julie, and helping Lilli, feeling the waves of pleasure spilling from that terrifying transaction, the subsumption of one human being within another, and neither Julie nor Cassie were able to do a thing about it as Lilli commenced the kiss, the all-consuming kiss, the kiss that would fill Julie with Lilli’s essence, before Lilli opened hers robes and began to draw Julie into herself, consuming Julie with that smiling, hungry, beautiful mouth, pulling her down into the hungry blackness at the core of her being.

As Julie orgasmed her very self away, Cassie would only be able to hold her, and pleasure her, revelling in Lilli’s power, worshipping Lilli as the goddess that she truly was.

The vision cleared.

Cassie’s heart began to beat in terror, and she broke out into a cold sweat.

Was Lilli showing her the future?

Surely not.

Again, Cassie repeated the facts to to herself.

Julie, at least, was safe. She had never been host-form.

In all of this, one constant had been Julie’s refusal to engage with the worms.

Lilli was still smiling, and her fingertips were still held against Cassie’s temples.

Before the invasion, Cassie thought, we all knew what the future had in store for us, what was in store for every human being on Earth.

Old age, infirmity, and then death.

But Lilli and Eve offer an alternative.

Life, eternal life, joined forever to a beautiful, powerful, benevolent lover.

That’s not so very different from my Christian heaven.

A sense of peace descended upon Cassie, and Lilli dropped her arms.

But Cassie’s thoughts were still all confused.

Consciousness returned to everyone’s faces, and, not even noticing the time they had missed, they began to file into the room with the Taubett machine.

Cassie made sure to lock the door.

Gabby helped Anjolie set up the scanner, and they booted it up with Julie’s version of the old firmware.

Cassie felt the whole situation was completely surreal.

Cassie wanted to understand, what was happening to herself, and what was happening to Julie.

She was terrified of Lilli, she was terrified of Eve.

She was terrified of the future.

But it was a quiet terror, buried underneath a sea of contentment, a wonderful sense of physical well-being.

It was like treacle.

Sweet, sickly sweet, but so easy to drown in.

Cassie was to be scanned first.

Cassie moved behind the machine, pulled off her pants and her T-shirt, and donned a hospital robe. She thought herself fortunate that she didn’t need to remove her piercings for the X-ray scanner.

Cassie climbed into the machine, put her hands by her sides, and held herself still.

“Okay, Anjolie, I’m ready.”

With a single key-press, there was a high-pitched whine as the stepper motors started to move the X-ray laser and the opposing sensor in a spiral.

The machine had commenced scanning Cassie’s innards.

The spectators looked on, but there was nothing yet to see: they had all agreed to look at the scans together.

Although the scan only took a few minutes, Julie started jiggling her foot in impatience. They had to do lots of these, and process the images. Only then would they see what Stefan had been hiding!

Next up was Gabby.

She changed out of her clothes into a hospital gown right in front of them, showing a remarkable lack of modesty, and slid herself into the machine.

Cassie held Julie from behind while they looked on, and it felt nice.

They were a couple now, and Julie looked forward to spending the rest of her life with Cassie, near her side.

Anjolie was next, with Gabby at the controls, and then Julie.

Julie felt comfortable in the group of five women. After an uninspiring start, the worms had brought all of them together, and they had become firm friends. Lilli had always been a presence in their lives, since Cassie’s first day of chatting, and Julie hoped that she would get to know Lilli better.

Finally, Lilli entered the machine.

When all the scans were done, they gathered around the workstation, and Julie moved into the driver’s seat.

They looked at Cassie’s image first.

Julie’s worm-trail detector was not in the processing chain, as this firmware was too old to have included it, so she didn’t expect to see very much.

Cassie’s skull and brain appeared first, and, for the first time, Julie really saw inside her lover’s head.

Julie tapped the down-arrow, and the image moved up. They saw glowing tendrils begin to emerge, and when Cassie’s brain-stem appeared, they saw it was surrounded by a glowing mass.

Julie blanched.

It was worm tissue, wrapped around Cassie’s brain stem, with fine glowing tendrils extending upwards, into the base of her brain.

This was no ancient worm trail.

This was worm tissue, alive, and glowing.

Cassie smiled.

Julie continued to scroll the image, and they could see that Cassie’s spinal column was plaited in glowing, writhing tendrils. All of Cassie’s spinal column had been colonised by fine filaments of worm cells, and, what was more, there were dozens of tiny glowing islands of worm cells scattered throughout her body.

Julie ran her worm-trail detector on Cassie’s image, and now they saw the previous tracks left by the worms. The whole of Cassie’s torso and neck had at one time been host to the worms’ invading tendrils.

She was riddled with trails.

Cassie, still smiling, felt very special.

“Four worms,” she said, “I had four worms. Oh, that was nice.

“And I still have a mistress. I’m so glad. She has been quiet. I’ve missed them since they left me at the Hospital, but I’ve always hoped that my mistress would return.”

When the whole render was completed, Julie zoomed out to see Cassie’s whole body.

They could see that the worm tissue made a long, glowing skein, from the base of Cassie’s spine right up into her brain-stem, and the glowing islands of worm tissue looked like the night sky.

“Those glowing stars in Cassie’s body,” Gabby explained, with some pride in her voice, “that’s what Stefan’s program detects. That’s how the Taubett knows when to make cured women look like normal women. Those bright constellations of worm tissue will hide Cassie’s secret from the world, and she will always scan as normal.

“And the tissue in the spine, and the brain, is always hidden. The Taubett will never reveal our masters to the world. We all get to appear normal. Infected, cured, clean, nobody will see our masters.”

Julie wanted to look at Cassie’s ghostly form for hours, but she could see that Gabby wanted to see her own scan.

Gabby’s skull and brain appeared first, followed by her familiar nose-ring.

How many hours had Julie stared at that thing on her own computer monitor, looking for evidence of corruption?

Well, now she had found it.

When the scanner reached Gabby’s brain-stem, again, they saw a glowing mass appear.

Again, Julie blanched.

Cassie and Gabby smiled.

As with Cassie, they could see that all of Gabby’s nerve tissue had been colonised, and she also had dozens of glowing islands of worm cells scattered throughout her body, pinprick points of alien invasion, left by the worms as markers to trigger deception in the Taubett machine.

As it reached her pelvis, they saw what Gabby had hoped to see.

“Congratulations, Gabby, you sly girl! You’re pregnant!” Cassie said. “You and Stefan have been busy, haven’t you?”

Julie looked on in growing horror as the rest of the foetus appeared. The spine of any human foetus looks like an alien at the best of times, but the way that Gabby’s child glowed in the X-rays, it was clear that it actually was an alien, at least in part.

Gabby’s tiny baby had been colonised by the worms, too.

Julie knew then that the worms had found a way to escape. The security at Lennox Hospital was moot.

There must be hundreds of cured women in Australia now, all of them full of worm tissue.

The Taubett scanner had been subverted, and the evidence of its deceit, the images of worm tissue, would never be seen outside this room.

Julie had always thought that the invasion could not proceed without the worms, and, other than in the hospital, she still believed that there were no worms in Australia.

But with that degree of infestation, both Cassie and Gabby must be under the worms’ control. And if the children of the cured women were infected, where would it end? How could it be contained?

Cassie held Julie from behind, then, and Julie felt a warm pulsing in her spine.

The warmth spread upwards, into her neck, and she felt a burst of arousal, and of love, for Cassie, and for Gabby, whose image on the monitor was only just now getting down to her toes.

“My spine is an antenna now,” said Gabby. “The adult master lives in our spine. It communicates with electromagnetic radiation transmitted from our spinal column. That’s how adult masters communicate.

“I’ve started to feel my baby in the last few weeks,” said Gabby “I know that he’s a boy, and I can feel him in my mind. He already loves me, he loves his mum, and he’s only six weeks. Can you believe that? I can’t wait to hold him, and to feed him, and to help him grow into a man.

“Eve and I will bear the first new humans in Australia, into a brand new world.”

Cassie voiced her thoughts.

“Gabby. That’s beautiful. We look beautiful. We’re all beautiful.”

Lilli looked on in amazement.

“I have never seen this before. All my life, I never knew … It’s so beautiful.”

Gabby continued her explanation.

“The worms are only the juvenile form, the fruiting body. Their role is to infect as many hosts as possible, in as short a time as possible.

“That is not the natural state of the masters. None of us would ever get anything done if we spent all of our time chasing, fucking and infecting other women.

“A worm will remain only while it is breeding to infect other hosts, or until it acquires enough nutrients to leave its larval form.

“When a worm is ready, it will then squirt itself into a hidden channel in its host’s spine, and begin growing, joining its intelligence with the spine, and then with the brain.

“The vaccine does not kill worms. It’s a nutritional supplement. It provides a master with enough arsenic that it can join with its host immediately.

“My master has never left me.

“But I shall bear fruit for the worms, one day, and I am looking forward to it.”

Julie’s feeling of horror was threatening to overwhelm her. She was looking at images of living alien invaders, infesting Gabby, and Cassie too, and they were talking about infecting other women again, another invasion, as if all of the security around the hospital was irrelevant. Surely they knew that they would be stopped? If infected women began to appear on the outside, they would all be killed. They were suicidal.

When Anjolie’s image appeared on the screen, they all saw the mass on her brain-stem, the silvery threads making a skein down her spine.

“The twins,” Anjolie said, “The twins saved me.”

“They educated me.

“They … pleasured me. It was all for the best.”

Anjolie turned to Julie, and held Julie’s cheek with her hand, in affection, but also in sympathy.

“Julie, I think that you are the only clean woman here. You are the only one that has not been taken, that has not given in to temptation..

“And I feel sorry for you, sorry that you have missed out on so much.

“Eve must trust you, Julie, she must know your mind.

“She took a big risk with you and Cassie, you know …

“But you can visit the hosts, if you wish it. You can join us. You can become host-form. You can feel the pleasure.”

Julie did not find Anjolie’s words convincing.

Ever since Cassie had returned from the hospital, Julie had known that something had changed in her life.

When Julie began to display her own scan, she did not know what to expect, but soon breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Finally, her life made some kind of sense.

They all saw the mass on her brain-stem, the silvery threads, the skein running down Julie’s spinal cord.

Anjolie looked surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, as she gazed at the evidence of Julie’s infection.

“Julie,” said Anjolie, “Of all of us, I thought that you were untouched.

“When did you visit the hospital? When did you have the ointment?”

A possibility, too terrifying to contemplate, had been confirmed in Julie’s mind.

Julie finally knew how she was being manipulated, how she had become infected.

Julie knew now that she had a mistress, and knew who had given it to her.

“Cassie,” Julie said, “Cassie gave it to me.”

When Cassie had given Julie her first experience as her lover, Julie had unknowingly been infected.

The venom.

“Cassie gave me the venom.”

The venom contained microscopic, invisible, eggs.

Anjolie smiled.

“Of course. You’re lovers. It does feel nice, doesn’t it? Eve has a most remarkable attention to detail. None of us ever really had a chance.”

Julie could only gaze in wonder at her own mistress, all grown up from a finger-full of venom, grown from a single larvae that had wriggled into her skin, nourished by arsenic, all of those months ago.

Her mistress had been with her for months now, growing, observing, communicating with the other aliens, planning, and, no doubt, pushing her emotions around, directing her thoughts, ensuring that she could do nothing except advance the interested of the worms.

But she felt so normal.

No she didn’t.

Over the last few months, she had felt so much better, so much happier, so much more together than she had ever felt before.

Julie realised that she was no longer an individual. She was host-form. She was controlled by aliens.

It was horrible. She was a pawn of the worms now, just a piece in the puzzle whose solution would be the enslavement of humanity.

But she was also a whole human now. She loved her companions, the women who surrounded her, but they were all trapped in a sick conspiracy to enslave the human race.

No.

Not enslave.

Complete.

The two feelings, of horror, and of love, merged into a single, unfathomable whole, a loss of control, which curdled into arousal, and desire.

When Julie showed the scan of Lilli, they all saw the new world.

Lilli shone like a supernova, the ripples and folds glowing with a light that was wholly alien, tiny rootlets of worm tissue spread throughout her brain.

But the worms were not her master.

She was the culmination of a perfect symbiosis, a vessel for holding humanity within herself, a new life form, no less than a goddess.

All the women surrounded Julie and held her close, feeling her emotions within themselves, enjoying her new sense of wonder, and sharing all the pieces of the story they had collected.

Julie felt a meeting of minds, and shared their thoughts, but now she knew that she was a full participant.

This was better than sex.

This was love, a boundless, overpowering, love which would sweep all before it.

For the first time, Julie understood what the big deal with religion was.

Seeing the future laid out in front of her was a spiritual enlightenment.

But this was no mere superstition.

The world really had changed.

She understood the future of humanity.

The abstract idea of alien invasion had been with Julie for months now, but it had suddenly become real, and close, like a raging bushfire, out of control, almost before she knew it was burning.

But the fierceness of this fire was purifying, and, as it consumed the world, for consume the world it surely would, it would burn out all of the hatred, all of the violence, all of the misery, and decay, and sickness, and greed, leaving the world innocent, and fresh, and new.

All would feel the pleasure.

All would be brought into the fold.

All would be cared for, and loved, and allowed to fulfil their potential.

And soon, maybe in a few years, maybe in a generation, Earth’s humanity would strike out for the stars, just had Lilli and Eve’s people, finally ready to work with a common purpose, finally ready to join the community of life in the universe.

It was overwhelming.

And Cassie was right.

Lilli was so beautiful.

Cassie was beautiful.

Anjolie, Gabby, Julie.

Jessica, Sophie, Joan,.

Anita, Jane.

Maryanne, Sheyda.

Eve.

Lucille.

Stefan.

John.

All host-form.

They were all so beautiful, so very, very beautiful, and Julie loved them all.

Life was beautiful, and Julie loved her life.