DU: Endgame A-5
“And now your arm is slowly sinking back to earth. The balloons are slowly losing their air, slowly sinking back down. Down, down, down. Feel your entire body relax, Amanda. Down, down, down. Completely relaxed.”
Her left hand fell against the warm patio tiles with a soft click. To anyone else walking by, Amanda appeared to be taking in the sun’s generous rays as she lounged by the pool. Only Megan knew better. She set her drink down and leaned forward so that the older woman could hear her.
“You’re doing so well, Amanda. Hear only my voice. In your mind, I want you to imagine a tall, beautiful staircase. You’re standing at the top of this lovely, lovely staircase. You’re dressed in a beautiful ballroom gown. Can you see yourself, Amanda?”
A faint smile spread across her lips. “Yyyyyesssss...”
“Take a single step down, just one. Everyone is waiting for you at the bottom. It’s a lovely, lovely party. So much fun. You’re going to have so much fun. Another step, and another. Fifty steps to go, Amanda. Fifty more steps. How many steps?”
“Fifty. Forty-nine. Forty-eight.”
“That’s right, step by step, down and down and down, looking so beautiful, feeling so wonderful. As you take another step, you’ll find that you don’t need to count them any more. Take another step. Down, down, down. No need to think. No thoughts, no worries. Step, Amanda. Down and down. Deeper and deeper.”
“Dowwwnnn...”
“No need to think. Not thinking at all, just doing. Just listening to my voice, and taking another step. And another. Down and further down.”
“Don’t... thhhhink.”
“And now you’re at the bottom of the stairs, the deepest level. There’s a bed across from you, a beautiful bed. It’s a lovely party but you’re so, so tired, Amanda. You’re so sleepy, all of those stairs made you so sleepy. Can you feel how sleepy you are?”
“Mmmmnnnn...”
Megan smiled. “That’s right, so sleepy. Climb into the bed and close your eyes. Relax and drift away. Let your mind and your body drift away. Hear only my voice. Are you deeply asleep?”
“Yes. So sleepy.”
Megan felt a hand on her bare shoulder, and she looked up in surprise. A faint gasp escaped her lips. She froze, all thoughts of the hypnotized Amanda instantly forgotten. Master!
“I see you’ve been busy,” he said. He towered over Megan, just as she liked it best. The Master, high above and in control; the slave, on the ground and dutifully carrying out her orders. It felt perfect.
“Yes, Master. She’s very deep in trance. I am going to start to program her, as you commanded.”
“Not here, Megan.” He looked up, suddenly worried. “Implant the trance trigger and we’ll program her remotely later. For now, I just want you to focus on absolute obedience.”
Megan perked up at the mention of ‘obedience.’ She looked up, squinting as the sunlight poured into her blue eyes. “Oh, Master! Can we bring her to the brainwashing room? Can I... can your slave help you brainwash her? She’ll make an excellent slavegirl, I promise. I just... if I can watch, I’ll...”
“I wish we had the time, Megan, but her husband will be here soon. I don’t want the Congressman to see his wife sprawled out on my patio like this. Just reinforce her obedience to me, and prepare her for later programming. Obey.”
Megan’s eyes rolled into her head as the command swept through her. “Yesssss... I hear, and obey. I will obey without question, Master.”
He nodded and turned to leave. “I know you will, Megan. I know you will.”
To anyone walking by, it looks like Cassie is very interested in baked beans. She’s staring at the rows and rows of cans, as if completely flummoxed by the choice between Boston’s Best and Fletcher’s Original. Her mind, of course, is in a far different time and place.
“I’m in the brainwashing room. Master is speaking to Megan. I await my orders. I must await my new orders.” She says all of this to the cans in front of her blank face as I stand behind her, taking notes in my little scratch pad.
“You can hear Master’s conversation with Megan perfectly clear, Cassie. You are a perfect video recorder. What is he saying?”
“Master is happy to have Megan. Megan is a very skilled hypnotist. She will help Master to improve the machine so that it can brainwash many people at once. He wants her to work on her induction script. She obeys without question. Megan must obey. We must obey. Master sends Megan upstairs. He’s speaking to me now. I must obey. I must go to see Lieutenant Rogers. If he does not have any information, I will go to sleep, and Tara will awaken. If he has new information, I will carry out my programming. We will both sleep and forget. We will both sleep and obey. I am walking up the stairs. I am walking out of the mansion. Frank is—”
“Cassie, pause.”
She stops while I finish my furious scribbling. This is bigger than I thought. Why does Avery need to brainwash a bunch of people at once? What the hell is he up to? The Chinese don’t need a dozen mesmerized spies—hell, they don’t even care if Avery has any, just as long as he keeps sending them information about the Navy’s secret weapons.
Tara will awaken. And then there’s that. I have no doubts about why Avery wants Tara to handle Lieutenant Rogers if he can’t come up with any juicy intel. That bastard has turned her into a mindless killer, and now he’s using her as his own personal little murder squad.
“Cassie,” I say, turning her gently until she’s staring into my eyes. “Did you meet with Lieutenant Rogers at the motel? Did he... did he have any useful information?”
“Yes, Paul.” Her dull, unemotional response is the happiest news I’ve heard all day. “I obeyed my programming. I must always obey.”
I feel a tap on my left shoulder. It’s the last thing I could possibly want to feel at this moment, save for the feel of a knife between my ribs. One thing they teach you in PI school is that the first often leads to the second.
I nearly leap out of my skin as I spin around, hands up, expecting to come face-to-face with a goon like Frank. Maybe even Avery himself, come to reclaim his property. Instead I find myself looking down at a little old lady in a floral print dress.
“Excuse me.” Little old ladies everywhere have perfected that one look, the one that oozes disgust and annoyance. This one has it in spades. I wonder if she looks at her grandkids the same way. “Some of us are trying to shop.“
With that, she wedges herself between myself and my mindless partner, ignoring the shocked look on my face and the blank one on Cassie’s, and helps herself to an entire row of Fletcher’s Original Baked Beans. They tumble into her cart like a miniature rockslide. Then she’s off to harass other unsuspecting shoppers. Probably the cashier and bag boy for good measure.
“Ugh, the people you meet in...” Wait a second! Inspiration strikes at the strangest times. “Cassie, are you supposed to meet Madame Franz at the spa today?“
“Yes, Paul. I must obey. I will report what I have learned and then forget. Sleep and forget.”
Shit. Shit shit shit shit. And here I was, sidetracking her at Ralph’s when she needed to be across town like a good little slave. We can’t afford a single mishap if this is all going to go off without bloodshed. A late Cassie and a suspicious Madame Franz... then again, I could make use of this.
“Cassie,” I tell her. “Your mind is still and relaxed. Hear only my words. Hear only my voice.”
ding ding
“Madame Franz? It’s me, Cassie! Hello?”
I burst through the spa’s door like a girl in a sitcom, juggling my phone and keys and purse as I struggle not to spill all of it—and myself—onto the tile floor. I’m late. I am so, so fucking late! Even by my own standards, which are pretty liberal about time, I’m really fucking late. The spa lobby is empty, and I start to picture Madame Franz sitting in the back with a new client. “Oh, that is just Cassie DuBois,” she’ll whisper. “So late. So unreliable. You are much better than her, Miss—“
“Cassie!” She rushes out from the back room and gives me a tight squeeze, just like always. I guess our friendship is saved after all. “Was it traffic, dear? I should not have scheduled you for this late in the day. Come, I’ve been waiting! Next week we’ll try a better schedule, maybe in the morning?”
“No, no, it’s okay!” Why should she reschedule her life around mine? Besides, I just had to come today. There’s no way to explain it. Sometimes, you just absolutely need to do things, right here, right now. “I’m sorry, there was a wreck on the 10 and then I tried to go on side streets around it...” The memories of being stuck in that long line of cars... ugh. Sometimes I hate this town.
“Please,” she laughs. “You’re safe and sound now. Forget about the traffic and come into the back room. I’ve been reading up on a new technique and I’d like for you to be my test subject.”
She practically drags me into the back room. I barely have time to kick off my shoes—Madame Franz loves a clean carpet—before she’s escorting me to the huge, plush massage table in the center. I eagerly climb aboard and lay on my stomach, letting the sweet smell of whatever Madame Franz has burning in the corner fill my nose. I’m trying to place it, but it’s hard, because suddenly everything gets very dizzy. I want to get up, to tell Madame Franz that I need to make a quick stop in the bathroom, but no words come out of my mouth when I open it. I’m stuck on this table like a fish at the market, and for some reason it doesn’t bother me at all.
Madame Franz appears at the edge of the table, and I breathe a sigh of relief. At last, I can tell her how weird things are and she can do something about it. Our eyes meet, and she smiles. She’s holding something. “Cassie, look here.”
She opens her palm to reveal... ohhhhhhhhhhh. The room goes black, I think, not that I care about something as dumb as that. There’s only one thing I must care about. Only one thing has my attention. Only the most important thing. Whenever I see it, I must sleep and obey.
“Are you under my control, Cassie?”
“Yes, Madame Franz. Completely under your control.”
She’s holding an old-fashioned tape recorder to my face. “You will now remember everything you heard at the motel. Repeat it to me now.”
Um, we just fucked for a few hours, why would you want to know about that? “Admiral Morrison is concerned about espionage. He has ordered all transmissions to change codes from One-Delta to Eight-November.” I have no idea what that means, but in a moment, the whole sentence vanishes into thin air. What does she want to know about me fucking my lover? It’s very simple, we get naked and we—“Our preliminary data indicates that the XR-7 may be ineffective against the newest Type 055 destroyers. The open-ocean test is critical to the success of the program. All resources will be placed towards completing it.” I mean, he’s really sweet, don’t get me wrong. Those flowers were a nice touch. But Avery is such a-
“Very good, Cassie. Is that all?” Her finger floats over the stop button, awaiting my answer.
I search my mind, which, in my condition, doesn’t take long at all. My entire life is only four hours long. There’s nothing in it that would interest her more than the things I must remember, and she knows all of those things now. “Yes,” I conclude. “That is all.”
Click. “You will begin your breathing exercises now, slipping deeper into trance with every calm relaxing breath. Obey.“
“Yes.” I take a long, deep breath and hold it, just as I was taught. “Phhhhfffffffff...” In and out. Deep and relaxed. Sleep and obey. I’m floating now, which feels wonderful. Madame Franz is wonderful. I must visit her whenever I feel the urge to do so. I must always listen to her voice. In and out. Deep and relaxed. Sleep and obey.
“Excuse me a moment, Cassie.” Madame Franz turns and walks over to her desk. She sits down in the office chair with an exhausted thud and reaches for her phone.
“Phhhhfffffffff...” In and out. Deeper and deeper. Sleep and obey. I’m a perfect little subject. Who wouldn’t be, if they could feel this good? All I have to remember is in and out. Deeper and deeper. Sleep and obey.
My vision is still consumed by The Most Important Thing, but I can hear its owner struggle through her phone call. “I... oh, I’m sorry. I must have the wrong number, but I was told to call, and... yes. Yes, Mistress. I am deeply asleep. I have received some very important information.”
Behind me, I can make out the slow creak of the door as it swings open. In and out. Deeper and deeper. Sleep and obey. Madame Franz ignores the sound. I ignore it, too, more or less. I have More Important Things to consider. Madame Franz is still on the phone. “Yes, Mistress. Cassie came to the spa today. Admiral Morrison is concerned about espionage. He has...“
A hand presses between my shoulder blades. Madame Franz? How can she be in two places at once? No, I can still hear her over at the desk.
Suddenly there’s another voice, vaguely familiar, far more powerful. The words drop into my mind like lead weights. “Cassie, sleep.”
Sleep and obey.
“Yes,” I manage, before everything fades into blissful silence.