The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Broker

Chapter 4 — The Plan.

“A panic move, and one that was most unwise. If you needed any more proof that this isn’t a seasoned controller we’re dealing with, this would be it. Still, a good move to leave Salt Lake City. When you’re dealing with the Russians, you can’t be too careful if you think you’re exposed. I’m not sure you are, to be honest. The timing’s just off enough that it might be a coincidence—Eagleton could have just as easily been scared off by Jeffrey’s decision to get the divorce, and the fact that he didn’t understand what was going on. I’m assuming you were competent enough to get the phone number that ‘Kelly’ called from,” General Marion said.

“Yes, but it was her old American number—the one she used before she went fully under,” Claudia said skeptically.

“We think that’s a puppet account to avoid scaring the press and relatives,” Cynthia added.

“Common practice. What makes you think it’s in use in this case?” General Marion asked.

“Jeffrey said that she seemed like his wife again, unlike in the break-up call, which we know came from Russia,” Brenna explained.

“Reggie used to do that. All his victims carried clean lines, just in case someone from their past called, so no one would bring the cops in,” Cheryl added.

“Was the Russian number also in Jeffrey’s phone?” General Marion pressed.

Claudia winced. “Don’t know, sir. Jeffrey gave us the American number willingly, so we saw no need to subpoena the phone.”

“I appreciate your gentle treatment of a fellow survivor, but in order to prove the case, we need a way of contacting Kelly when she’s not being puppeted to act like her old self. Now get that number while you still can.”

“An enabler, but a big one. This case what you hoped it would be?” Claudia asked Cynthia.

“Scum’s scum. At least it’s a good start. My girls don’t die without a whole town of leeches helping one artist with a Bates Motel,” Cynthia replied.

“Good. This setup makes me sick. Preying on people’s dreams, using one of the big idols in their business to convince them that this is all above board, ship them off to a foreign country, turn them into—I don’t even know what they become when they get fed to the wolves. Who’s soulless enough to use people like that—and who’s soulless enough to let herself be used like that? Eagleton knows control, and if she’s early Northern State, she’s seen what it does to people. It’s not like she’s being commanded to be a remorseless madam,” Claudia said with a growl.

“And you know that’s gonna be her defense. ‘Who, me? I’m just Number 10, they must have found out my trigger, giggle giggle’ fuck you. Her parties were legendary back in the day. She’d strobe herself out and turn the whole dance floor into a pussy pit. Used to wish I could get into one of those. She’s a total hedonist and kinked more than my hair. Bet she gets paid as much in trances as she does in cash, too,” Rhonda said knowingly.

“Where’d you learn a big word like hedonist?” Brenna teased.

“Men of Wealth and Taste don’t sign up dumb muscle,” Rhonda replied.

“Eagleton’s more useful with a brain than without one. That’s what makes her a good broker. She can tell who’s the easiest to get, and she still has an eye for different kinds of beauty ‘stead of bein’ locked into one ideal. But I’m sure she’d give my sister a call. Fuck, maybe that’s it—ain’t nobody knows where that’s been. We can make her as sick as she makes us in a coupla lays,” Brenna said with an evil chuckle.

“Bang,” Claudia said, echoing the sound with a finger point. “You’ve got my grandpa’s crazy. I like that.”

“Uh, someone wanna tell her I was jokin’?” Brenna said in a stage whisper.

“No, you’re right. Giving her an STD wouldn’t be proof enough of her brokering. People might think it’s dumb luck—or worse, that she’s also a victim. We have to do something that forces the Zhukovs’ hand. Either she gets put to sleep or she is disgraced to the point where she can’t do her job. Either way, we’re not letting her break anyone else. You were on the right track, though. Europe doesn’t care about mental doping, but the physical stuff, they obsess over. The team—and Zhukov—would have to react, especially since drugs are such a scourge in Russia.”

“Ah, you mean switch her... lemonade with someone’s... limoncello?” Gianna asked, making a face. “Gross, but effective.”

“And of course the lab’s safely in France. Ohhh, a B and E job? I’m good at breaking, but Desi was always better at the entering,” Rhonda said in approval.

“It’s not as easy as it sounds right now, but it’s easier and safer than Russia. I’m not feeding you guys to hungry bears. Let’s work our lines, get some more leads, and find out the timing for the next test. We’re scheduled to go in a week, after all.”

The office was abuzz with scouting reports and game files; a casual observer would have mistaken it for a newspaper sports desk, not a secret agency. But Claudia was no casual observer, and she smiled at the skill of her unit as she went over the lists of names that were suspect. Most were married off; others were traditionally behind a false face while performing in the sex trade; still others had no pretenses of what they were. “These guys are good,” Cheryl admitted. “You marry off the more notable ones at auction, so they’re on the D2 rosters and still look like people instead of sex toys. The less famous ones end up in D3, doing God knows what to God knows who. The ones we know went over but never made it on a team are confirmed to be involved in prostitution across Europe from the databases and other information we’ve been able to pull together.”

“Any contact for any of these?” Claudia followed up.

“American phone numbers that are so fake that my sister called, dyin’ of embarrassment for mind-wiped hussies everywhere,” Brenna replied sarcastically.

“We matched up a lot of the old names with their reidentified Russian counterparts. They’ll answer the old cells, but they’re just encouraging people to talk to the team. They sound pretty real, but you can’t fool me on that. No subliminals or other devices detected on the tap,” Cheryl reported.

“That is not their style. They want to dazzle you with beauty so that you want to obey. They use subliminals sometimes, but they hate them. It’s all a game of Monopoly, and the girls are houses and hotels used to take money from everyone else. As for family, the owner page gives it away. Zhukov family, which means no way they’ll use anything but the finest. They are perfectionists. They go to a sparkle shop, and they pass up the best handiwork in the quest for the finest and most dangerous. They order custom work, and they don’t steal from the streets. They think that you pick your own poison, and you eat the poison because you want to die. Their lower operators are not so much controllers, but instead craftsmen. They have a sparkle shop in Turin many years ago. It takes me almost a week to blink away the afterimages, and my father has to carry the necklace with him so I don’t run back in and burn alive when he sets the place on fire. When they kill, they kill completely. There’s no saving anyone,” Gianna said.

“The suspected list is up to eighty over the last eight years. It’s not exactly ten a year—sometimes there were more suckers, sometimes less, but she always got five exactly for the lower divisions. Timing worked like clockwork: leave September first, suspicious family calls around Christmas, answer and renunciation of America by New Year’s, phone active and some kinda trigger in the ringer to get them to act like their past selves when needed to keep people from freakin’ out, bought and sold by the end of the season in April,” Brenna concluded as she hung up the phone.

“Where’d you learn a big word like renunciation?” Rhonda teased.

“I’m cute, not stupid,” Brenna replied, rolling her eyes and dropping a hand to her hip.

“Easy there, cowgirl!” Claudia interjected.

“So how do we connect those eighty to Eagleton? You can’t take a top gun like her down without backlash. Besides, I don’t wanna tell the girls at the bar that their best lay turned out to be a hypnopimp without proper proof,” Rhonda said.

“Combines. Look here, it’s public record that she’s the Seattle representative for the secondary senior camp every year. Now, cross-check attendees at the camp who received overseas deals, and...”

“Every single name we’ve got is on that list. Okay, let’s choke that ho,” Rhonda said, fists clenching more and more tightly as she matched name after name.

Claudia’s mouth pursed. “There’s one last piece... not quite missing, but that we definitely need in order to make a case. How does Eagleton get away with the loot? I’m sure free rein of the booty is part of her reward, but what about the money?”

“Check the Russian banks. There is a special code, G, then a backwards R,” Gianna replied.

“Gimme a day and a name. I charm computers the way my brother used to charm girls,” Cheryl said, elbowing everyone aside, sitting down at the keyboard, and stretching her fingers out like a concert pianist. She began to type, but stopped after a moment and turned around to look at everyone. “This isn’t a spectator sport, with all due respect, Claudia. I work better without people looking over my shoulder, and we don’t know what’s gonna be in those screens. I’m not putting the entire team at risk here.

They took the hint and left her alone, though Claudia fidgeted through the three hours until Cheryl waved her over. “Here, have some shades. They’ve got cheap-ass pixel spirals-but if you’re the least bit not 20/20 you’re immune. If you’re lucky enough to have good vision, shades distort them to safe levels. They’re so crappy that they didn’t even trip the anti-subliminal alarm,” she said. “Look here, just a stereotypical Russian whore, right? Yulia Malysheva, Vladivostok, married to a fishing fleet owner. But look at the spaced out eyes and face, and who in their right mind wears a tank top in Siberia? We all know the answer to that one. The 6′3″ was a clue, so I hacked further, and sure enough, with GR clearance we get...”

“Eagleton’s picture and her real name. Poor Julia Miller. Kid was probably just looking to make a little money and see the world before she had to get a real job,” Claudia said, shaking her head.

“That’s not the only thing. I recognize the coding. It’s a chameleon page—put in a different secondary code behind the GR code, and it can come up as corporate holding, the actual person, power of attorney in Eagleton’s name, or even just display the account in Eagleton’s name. Whatever they need it to do, it does—what they need it to do would depend on how visible they’ve left the victim. This is her paycheck, and every ruble, or Euro cent, or whatever she gets paid in, Eagleton has access to. She can use her card, so she’s fed, pretty, and healthy... but everything goes into the broker’s pocket,” Cheryl said, cutting off her words sharply, sounding ready to kill.

“Screen grab and put it into evidence. Show it in all its guises. I’ll get the final orders slip, and then it’s off to France to debase this bitch,” Claudia said.

“We’ve proven that Bridget Eagleton is behind your wife’s changes,” Claudia said in a serious tone as she went through Jeffrey’s now empty house.

“Is that why she basically gift-wrapped this place for me?” Jeffrey asked.

Claudia nodded. “I can’t say for certain, but it was a pretty good attempt at a bribe to keep you cooperative. As it is, you seemed to not really care, so they bought you off and moved along. I’d keep it, if I were you. It’s a nice place.”

“It was supposed to be our dream home,” Jeffrey said quietly.

“Nothing says you can’t take advantage of Eagleton trying to take advantage of you. She panicked. She’s used to boyfriends she can distort with her silver tongue or girlfriends she can distract with her velvet tongue. And if that didn’t work, a little donation from her past victims was enough. You’re different. You were more determined, and she wasn’t ready to handle it. You might as well get something out of it.”

“I could,” Jeffrey agreed. “And then I’d either forget why we bought it or remember too much of what we wanted to do to cope. You must deal with the worst of the worst in your line of business. I can imagine those kinds of guys and girls, selling off their women—”

“Some husbands get sold too,” Claudia interjected.

Jeffrey went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “They sell them, then move on, find another one, live happily ever after, or get in the pants of the nearest Owl Bar bimbo. Yeah, I get it. I was furious when I thought she was just hiding who she was. I went out and bought a night with a whore. It was the biggest waste of money in my life, and I’m not proud of it. I felt like shit afterwards—nothing else, don’t go there. All that proved is that I love my wife.”

“I understand,” Claudia said.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I keep replaying the last five months in my head—I can’t do anything else. Let me tell you something. Kelly fought back. I didn’t know it then, or I would have helped her, led her home, got her safe—something, anything. But damn it, she fought back.”

“I thought that too with my sister,” Claudia said. “You’re not the only one. All of us lost someone. That’s what it takes to take up arms against the devil himself. If it helps you get through the night, think that way. But most victims don’t know what hit them until they’re down for the count. That’s the life. Controllers survive off doubt and ignorance—hell, many of them thrive on that element, making people trust them because there’s nothing else they can believe, which leads to blind faith, which leads to total blindness. It’s hard to say that anything would help them actually escape.” She offered a hug, but Jeffrey would have none of it.

“I’ve been putting the pieces together, and... this is different, trust me,” Jeffrey said, blushing brightly. “I’d rather not go into details, because I’d prefer to keep the bedroom private, but if you need the evidence, I can...”

“You can skip past the sordid details, but... you think she might have been channeling her sexual overload onto you?”

“The more I think about it, yeah. She called me every night, seven on the nose. She always sounded like she was elsewhere... and wherever she was, she was hot for me, like she was on fire. I was the one to suggest the phone sex, and I, um, bought her a rabbit before she left. Just a little something to help her out since I couldn’t be there for her. She got into it. I mean, really into it. You think that might have had to do with what they were doing to her?”

“Sexual overload is a common reward for the sacrifice of the will. Normally, someone on site takes advantage of them, but the Russians don’t touch their... product... until they’re completely done. It’s an old-fashioned mindset.”

“That’s the thing, though—when we were done, she was almost herself. And don’t tell me they weren’t setting her on fire—I never heard her louder in our own bed. She sounded like herself, but she was so tired, and she couldn’t talk about anything that was going on—she didn’t even talk about her teammates, or life in Russia. It was just wake up, practice, and then she was with me at whatever time it was over there. I thought she was miserable—I didn’t know they were... processing her.”

“It sounds like you were her lifeline. You didn’t know it at the time, so don’t beat yourself up now. Damn, though,” Claudia said, shaking her head in amazement.

“Those were the calls that stopped in October. I thought she’d settled in, but I missed her, so I called her after not hearing a word for two weeks. She was head over heels for Russia and never wanted to come home. It took a while, but, yeah, I was too revved up by our chats to stop now, so I talked her into some phone play, and by the end she was counting the days to Christmas. She seemed... kinda lost. Like she was being pulled in two different directions. I assured her she could do both, and that seemed to help. The daily schedule was back on after that, but she wasn’t as prompt as she had been before, and she sounded a little spacey. Then she didn’t come home on the 21st. The team claimed flight issues, she said there was practice, and then the next call was to tell me she had turned gay.”

“And you weren’t sure what to believe?”

“I didn’t know what to believe,” Jeffrey clarified. “I knew something fishy had happened, but it’s hard to think when your wife leaves you, so I just did the quickie divorce she demanded and, well, you saw what happened after that. I guess they finally took the last of her fight, the part that she was giving to me, and the little bit of me that wanted to trust the team and Kelly’s dreams let me follow along and get on with my life. I’m a little more at peace now. I know she didn’t go down without a fight, that she stood up to whatever they were doing over there, and... this is going to sound awkward, and maybe cliched, but I know it was her love for me that kept her alive. I don’t know what they did to her to cause that gap, or what they did to finally... end... her, but I know she didn’t go out without her fighting for every last inch. I can live with that memory. It’s better than the other one,” Jeffrey said sadly.

“Wait... you said a gap, and then she was really spaced. Yeah, they definitely ramped up the devices. But then you said it was a sudden change. How sudden? Phone sex one night, nothing the next, then she’s not coming home, then she’s gay and wants a divorce, right?”

“Yeah. And that last night, she was really spaced out, and she went a long time before coming. A half hour, maybe longer. Then there was nothing, and the next time we spoke... I’ll never forget her exact words. ‘Girls are more fun, I need girls, I need my team and I will do whatever they assign me to do.’ On and on, and she sounded like she meant it, and she was so cold, liquid nitrogen cold. I snapped back, she snapped louder, and every time she came back with that one quote. She said it over and over again until I just believed her somehow. I should have...”

Claudia stopped him with a hug, and this time he didn’t turn her away. “You had no way of really knowing. If you’re like most people, you’ve only heard urban legends and seen horror movies. You don’t know what it’s like in real life until it happens to someone you love. These men and women are professionals versed in the most vile forms of mental violation you can dream of, normally with multiple weapons used throughout months of daily sessions of control. The Russians prefer straight hypnosis, but it doesn’t mean they don’t use some of the most diabolical weapons ever crafted for it. And if you’re willing to testify in full, you just gave us the smoking gun that will allow us to get some justice for Kelly’s death. Not only did she fight back... if you’re right about the pattern, I think she had it figured out. Once you called her, she had her wiggle room. It was buried in the back of her head, and I think she didn’t consciously know she was calling you. She couldn’t, if she was that out. But she had a trigger and she needed release. The phone brought release. You brought release. That was enough to clear her head, but I really don’t want to know what she was going through. I wouldn’t wish it on Eagleton herself. That nails her to the point where I think I could get a death warrant. You’ll need to give a deposition under oath, but this is undeniable proof.”

“What about the creeps who actually did this to her?” Jeffrey snapped.

“Losing Eagleton as a broker cripples them more than you know. When they’re crippled, they’re vulnerable. It may not be by my hand, but I can assure you it won’t end with Eagleton. We won’t rest until every man and woman can be free of controllers,” Claudia said with steel in her voice.

“Then I have... something else... you might find useful,” Jeffrey said, barely able to get the words out and blushing bright red.

“You’ve done enough, you—oh. Oh, no, you didn’t...”

Jeffrey went to his computer and opened up a folder on the desktop. “After she stopped for two weeks, I realized I needed our little chats as much as she did, and... this is awkward, but if it helps, I’ll burn you a copy.”

Claudia politely turned her back as he worked, and didn’t look back until he handed her the CD. “Thank you,” she said, and she hoped that Jeffrey understood that it was for more than the physical CD.