The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Amelia was converted, and she knew Veronica was converted, and Veronica was converted and she knew Amelia was converted. Neither one of them had discussed this, or what their next plan was, but there seemed to be an unspoken understanding between them. And though neither one of them had planned it ahead of time, they found themselves waiting outside the newspaper club office on Monday morning, and in one look, both understood what they were going to do next.

Veronica and Amelia went into the newspaper office together. Inside, the place was as busy as it usually was; the whole staff was there, to their mutual relief; they could get them all at once; and the faculty administrator was even here today. She usually stopped by once a week to look over the pieces the team had in the works, and today was that day.

It was perfect; everyone they wanted to convert, together; Veronica stayed by the door, not wanting to rouse a panic; but as soon as the moment was right, she would reach over and lock it, trapping them all in to give the power of influence time to take full effect; but she would wait until the moment was right.

Veronica watched Amelia as she walked through the newspaper room to the head of it, where Elena’s desk was located, and where Carol Harris was also standing.

No one else was looking at Veronica or apparently that concerned about the fact that she was just standing by the door and looking in at them all.

It was funny to her at first that, even though she had become Haigure she still remembered everything from her pre-Haigure life, where things went and how they fit; the fact that Elena’s desk was located where it was, the schedule by which the faculty administrator came by... it made sense when she thought about it; with all that knowledge she could be more useful to Haigure’s cause, but to her there seemed something particularly erotic in being erased to remember none of those things and none of herself. At least for the moments she was most directly being conditioned she could achieve that feeling of fading away; but would never have it beyond that. She was herself whether Haigure or not and there was no getting away from that.

Amelia was saying something to Elena now, and Elena was nodding her head and waving her off. Amelia shot Veronica a look and Veronica wished for a thumbs up signal. But no, that would have been too conspicuous. The tight nod she got had to be enough.

Amelia was walking over to the room’s sound system. The Haigure subliminals played all over campus but none had yet been set to play in this particular room, that is, not yet. No one had infiltrated them before Veronica and Amelia.

Amelia was hooking up her phone by aux cord, and a few seconds later the sound Veronica had been craving... that she hadn’t even known she’d been missing, flooded the room... The subliminals came in all genres; and Veronica loved them all, but this particular kind was heavily synthesized with thumping bass; it would better serve what they were hoping to do today.

The music coming on was Veronica’s queue. It would keep them all calm, and distracted. They wouldn’t mind so much that she did this, if they even noticed. Veronica reached over to the door she’d kept herself so carefully stationed near, and turned the lock to keep everyone barred inside.

No eyes had seen her do this; all eyes were still set on the work they were looking ahead at, the work that they were doing; but the music had only been playing a moment and already Veronica imagined there was an impression of light relaxation about each person she looked at.

They’d already been exposed to the subliminals for days and days; by now their minds had accepted them and knew what to expect; and the leotards had become so normalized to them that no one cared, or even noticed that Amelia and Veronica were wearing them. They all just went on with working. But they had them all trapped now; they could get underway with their conversions earnestly.

Veronica left the door, her task there complete, and met Amelia about halfway into the room. When they had come to stand in front of each other, the impulse took each of them over. They didn’t need to have planned any of this when they could be so confidently steered by commands they couldn’t remember and words they couldn’t hear. They each reached up to touch the other’s leotard and smooth it under their hands.

Veronica imagined Amelia was feeling the same thing she was. When Amelia touched her on her leotard, it felt like getting strokes to her naked skin, only even better, because with each petting her leotard pulsed hot energy between her legs and up into her insides; Amelia shuddered when Veronica did; her leotard was pulsing energy into her, too.

When each of them moaned in response to this mixed stimulation; from the touch and then from their leotard’s elaborating on that touch, it was the thing that drew the attention of some of the people in the room around them.

“I didn’t have the chance to tell you before, Elena,” Amelia spoke up. “But I had the chance to go do that Haigure interview. And I got one of their leotards to wear for myself. It just feels the greatest... even for the person touching it. Every time I touch Veronica’s it feels like it’s bathing my hands in warmth; it makes my hands tingle all throughout. You guys should all come around and touch us, too. It will feel good on your hands. It will feel good to do.”

There was a hesitation in the room; they wouldn’t all come at first, but after only a few seconds three or four other newspaper staffers came over to them.

They touched them hesitantly, with fumbling hands.

The few that had come forward were nervous in their touchings; they petted at the leotards, at Veronica and Amelia as if they were petting a strange animal they were afraid might bite them; but Veronica didn’t care, and Amelia didn’t seem much like she did either. The sensation was pleasing.

Before just she and Amelia had been touching each other; but now there were four hands on them all over; because each of the four college girls who’d come over had one hand on Veronica and one hand on Amelia like they were trying to compare the textures of each of their leotards. Sometimes a hand slipped too far and was petting on their naked skin; Veronica knew she couldn’t actually say what Amelia was feeling but she imagined it was a lot like what she was feeling herself; exalted by touch; Veronica turned and shimmied slowly under the hands, as if caught in a slow motion dance.

She had to keep turning and then turning back to seek more of the contact. It wandered onto her back; when she tilted her neck and arched it, it slid over that, to her face, then over again; she felt daring nervous hands flirt with smoothing over her backside, though they were never so daring to touch to her pussy.

But no matter where the hands or their touch wandered, they always came back to Veronica’s leotard. It drew them like a magnet, and the four girls standing around them didn’t seem to want to stop touching its material.

Veronica remembered what it had felt like under her hands. Hot, silky, almost thrumming with power, almost alive. Feeling the pleasure of touching it go into her palms— a strange place for such a sensation but not an unwelcome one— then spread through her arms. Like holding hot liquid contained in something else but with that pleasurable edge; the energy coming on in pulsating waves that eventually made it all the way through the body.

It was even better because Veronica had a leotard of her own and the two had gotten a feedback loop going; one affecting the other than the other again; amplifying each other until Veronica had felt like a furnace of the energy... and it had just been starting at that point.

It felt good to be touched; it was most important that these four girls touch, because the leotards could teach them that way, and so Veronica had to keep her own hands from getting in the way and obstructing. She couldn’t touch right now, because it was more important that they have priority. But she could miss it a little bit, that was alright; she could let herself remember and let herself think and let the arousal increase in her... it might not even have been her own idea. It might have been her leotard... it might have been the music. Still she twisted slowly in their hands with eyes closed no longer able to be of Amelia or what she was doing— it had to be the same— she twisted and her mind was consumed in an irrepressible fantasy and she just had to speak it aloud so all of them could hear it—

“Just imagine,” she rasped, her voice thick with the intensity of her experience. “How much better it will feel... to be wearing a leotard yourself... especially when you can rub it against someone else’s.”

She had to gasp out the end of the idea because the idea was so erotic to her; she’d found a fantasy she knew would be a favored one of hers; and hands passed over her face... but it need not stay a fantasy. It had been irrepressibly necessary to express; now it was irrepressibly necessarily to act out; the owners of the hands understood that too, because they withdrew them; and Veronica and Amelia embraced standing while their four easiest recruits stood around watching; but Veronica thought she could feel other eyes on her too from elsewhere in the room.

She and Amelia embraced and slid the fronts of their bodies together in a rhythm that came easily to them even standing; Veronica had never done this before. She’d been a horny mess since putting on her leotard, since putting on Herself it felt like now because the thing was so inseparable from the concept of her own self-image. But her conversion has not been a personal thing, a sexual thing. She’d had nothing to fuck but her leotard— or more accurately nothing to let fuck her, since it was thing that always took the initiative. She’d had no other person, no one to engage with sexually until this moment; but it was more than that. It felt like when they had only been petting each other; but it felt more. There was hot rippling pleasure being spread between them and through them at once and they were both furnaces that kept shifting and kept feeling it more; generating more and more of the same energy so it had to be shining out of them.

It was raising them to temperatures too hot for thought and they were sweating and slinking the insides of their leotards. And the sweat was spilling and they were slicking their outsides; which made them glide against each other, generated greater and greater degrees of heat. Through the corner of each eye Veronica saw more people had gathered to stand around them and watched amazed— or frozen or both, unable to look away. It was newly erotic again even though it had been this whole time; this was rediscovery, a new facet... the music was playing into their minds and now they were each finding the image of Veronica and Amelia sliding together hypnotic— hypnotized by the music, but the image of them moving... obsessed by the idea that it would be so good and sexy to put a leotard on... that it would let them in on unimaginable pleasures, like the ones they had to be reading in the movements of Veronica and Amelia’s bodies, in the expressions they had to be seeing on their faces.

And only Veronica knew, but she had snuck a whole stash of leotards into the room during after hours last night; she had a key to the door like they all did, in case any of them wanted to work late-night on a particularly tricky piece; and she had used it to carry enough leotards in here for everyone in the newspaper club; they were safely stashed in the counter cabinet along the far wall, on the second shelf; but it wasn’t time yet to announce them.

Too many people had failed to come over and watch; too many were still at their desks, even if some of those desk-seated resisters were looking up, too. They all needed to beg for their leotards together— they already owned them all, the people in the room just didn’t know it yet. They hadn’t yet been made to accept and embrace the truth but they would get there. They just need a bit more time to be influenced. But when they all begged together for their leotards, then it would be the right time for Veronica to hand them out.

Until then she could just keep enjoying herself. She could feel Amelia’s pussy streaking against hers when their bodies brushed together; that added other sparks of erotic thrill to the rising temperature of the heat; it was so constant that there might have been hundreds of orgasms in it or just one; and the knowledge that it was also a tool, to think the music was using them and had put this idea in their heads... or the one who directed the music was using them... Lilith, though Veronica had never yet seen her and she thought Amelia had... that she used them both so well, her puppets to do this mission for her.

And this further enslaved them to her and to their own Haigure, but it enslaved the people around them too... made them more and more willing to get into leotards themselves. Everything about this was hot and got hotter. Veronica just wanted to keep moving against Amelia, and her eyes were only on her and on nothing else... in the periphery she saw the watching faces but she would not turn to look at them. She would keep looking at Amelia. In that moment she loved her, and was so happy to be serving with her.

But of course that moment couldn’t last forever.

There was a loud throat-clear from the area of Elena’s desk.

Veronica and Amelia stayed embracing but stopped moving; Veronica looked over Amelia’s shoulder but Amelia had to crane her head back.

It had not been Elena who made the noise; she was sitting at her desk looking like some cross between terror and shock— a look that Veronica had never seen the competent newspaper editor ever wear before.

No, it had been Carol Harris who’d made the noise, from where she stood to the side of Elena’s desk. She didn’t look afraid, or even surprised. She just looked very judgemental, and maybe even slightly annoyed... She cleared her throat again.

“That will be quite enough, girls. The whole university may have decided to take on a more lax policy in both dress code and the displaying of public affection, but I’m the organizer of this club and I still have authority over what happens behind its doors. Both of you stop it right now. If you want to carry on that way, find somewhere private to do it.”

It didn’t bother Veronica at all. “We’re not bothered if you’re bothered, Carol. Are we, Amelia?”

Amelia was still craning to look towards Elena’s desk. “No, I’m not bothered at all.”

That incensed her. “Now, listen! I’m telling you I won’t allow this to happen in my club!”

“But you’re only one person,” Veronica pointed out. “If we’re going to be kicked out of here, I think we should all take a vote. Who wants us to stay, and keep enjoying ourselves?”

And by extension let everyone else keep enjoying what they were doing too, but Veronica didn’t have to say that part. They all understood that much without having to hear it.

Everyone who had stood up to come over and watch the two of them more closely raised their hands; and some still sitting at the desks raised their hands too, so they had an easy majority.

Carol looked angrier. “Well if you’ll refuse to listen to me, I’ll just have to go and find another staff member to back up my authority. I’ll take this straight to the dean’s office if I have to!”

Veronica fought a laugh it seemed Amelia was also fighting. If it got all the way to the dean’s office it would be met with a very short conversation, and then the dean would take their side.

But it wouldn’t even go that far.

Carol had gotten all the way to the door, and was finding it locked.

“Did you lock us all in?” Carol asked them hysterically.

“Just until you’re all ready to accept Haigure into your lives,” Veronica answered, since she had been the one to actually lock the door.

Amelia’s contribution had been no less important than hers; the music she’d put on had been doing its job well. There would have been a widerspread panic if it had not done all the work of softening minds up first. There was some grumbling from the deskpeople, but it was muted. No one seemed truly frantic except Carol. Even Elena was sitting solid-still staring in shock at what unfolded before her.

“You can’t just— just lock the door— I’m—” she hiccuped, “your administrator, you have to listen to me—”

As she had been making such pleading entreaties, pleading with reality not to be what it was, pleading to them not to do what they would, maybe... Veronica and Amelia had been advancing on her, and they had her backed into the doorway’s alcove.

“Let us touch you,” they said together. “You’ll feel so much better after.”

She was shaking her head over and over again, but caught... the subliminals had been working on her too. They had probably been the reason for her anger; she was trying to cover up for them, trying to make up for them. She needed to be angry to prove to herself she wasn’t being affected, wasn’t attracted to what she was seeing... wasn’t aroused by it. She was in denial and overreacting because of it. That made the most sense to Veronica. She couldn’t imagine anyone actually just being unaffected Haigure, by all of Lilith’s creations— couldn’t imagine anyone just being angry and outraged with nothing else going on.

But though Carol had been nervous, she didn’t fight them; and when they both petted her hair, she seemed to calm down, a wild animal made tame; and Amelia leaned in to kiss her face, probably whisper in her ear how much she wanted to be Haigure deep down, if she would only let herself...

Amelia seemed to have it under control now, so Veronica left her to take Carol the rest of the way to where she needed to get too, and she stood back up and stepped out again into the main area in the room.

“You’re all starting to feel pretty turned on, aren’t you?”

The people standing were more keen to answer truthfully. Most of the ones who were still sitting looked like they were lying by their silences.

“It felt good to touch us, didn’t?”

The same phenomenon repeated.

“You should all touch each other, if you like; help each other out with the arousal you feel. You’ll know what to think; just enjoy yourselves.”

The touches between those girls already standing were hesitant again. But having touched Veronica and Amelia first had shattered the ice, and though there was still reluctance this time there was less of it than before. People standing grouped off into twos and threes and fours and trained curious hands over forbidden places standing, some sitting came to rise and group off... some standing came to sink and sit on the floor with their groups and kept touching each other there.

Surprised gasps and withheld moans filled the air; the music would show them what to do, how and what they should want and how to want it... Veronica didn’t need to worry about them. In time all the staff would be touching each other, and then they would be ready for the final reveal. She could ignore them for now; she’d done what they needed for them, and the rest would take care of itself.

Where she needed to direct herself now was Elena; Veronica thought if she didn’t, Elena would sit there forever, the only holdout, more stubborn than Carol. She needed more personal attention; and so Veronica weaved her way through standing girls and floored girls, and finally reached Elena’s desk.

Having Veronica sitting perched on it looking down at her seemed to unfreeze her shock.

“Kara was right,” she said, and Veronica couldn’t interpret the emotion of her tone. Was it bitter? Regret? Anger? Recrimination? She couldn’t tell. “She was completely right that there was something wrong about Haigure— and I should have listened— and I didn’t— I didn’t—”

Veronica slid from the desk onto Elena’s lap.

Elena looked very much like she wanted to shove Veronica off onto the floor but she didn’t.. Veronica hugged in closer.

“There, you can feel my leotard through your clothes can’t you? Doesn’t that feel good?”

Elena bit her lip, shook her head. She might have been tearing tears of rage or frustration but she didn’t speak.

That was fine. Veronica had her arms slung over Elena’s shoulders, and her body was pressed as close to hers as it could be while she straddled her... she knew Elena could feel the heat of the leotard throbbing into her even through her clothes... it was only a matter of time now... she would have her.

“Aren’t you tired of fighting, Elena? You’ve been fighting all this time and you’ve never even known it. Hearing this music everywhere you go whispering into your head... hearing it right now... you’re naturally resistant, it’s been happening without you even knowing a bit. And it’s so... tiring to fight all the time... you just... want to let go...”

Elena sucked in a breath. “This is the part where you try to manipulate me,” she said. “I know all the manipulation tactics— I’m a reporter... I was before I was an editor... and even if I don’t totally understand what’s going on I know when someone is trying to manipulate me. You’re no different than a hundred people I interviewed who all wanted to talk me around to seeing the story their way and abandoning journalistic objectivity... I didn’t cave for them. I won’t for you.”

Veronica had guessed right. Elena was going to be the holdout. But even the sharpest stretch of steel in her stubbornness would eventually blunted by pulsing heat. The leotards would get her too, and then she would wear one on her body.

“But you’re so tired now,” Veronica coaxed. “You—”

Elena shook her head. “This— this is you trying to confuse me. Telling me what you think I should feel, what you want me to feel... you think if you say it often enough you’ll manipulate me into feeling it. It may work on other people but not— me—”

Veronica hugged her tighter. Elena grunted from the pressure.

“But it did turn you on to watch is before, didn’t it?” She asked, against Elena’s neck making it hum there.

“What are you... what is...?” She sounded confused more than stubborn that time.

She might be able to list manipulation tactics all day long, but if Veronica wasn’t strictly using a defined tactic anymore, what could she really do? She wouldn’t play into Elena’s hands and let her keep her mental defenses. She wanted to throw her off of them.

“I just want you to feel good,” Veronica said, and kissed Elena’s neck that time. She kept speaking into it, sending her sounds to vibrate there... she thought it would be a pleasing sensation for her. “That’s all any of us want... you’re our editor and we love you and want you to be happy... and this will make you happy...”

Elena was shaking her head like Carol. Which meant she was on the defensive and Veronica could press in the offense even further.

“It’s a lie,” Elena protested. “It’s just a lie to trick me.”

“Everyone in this room is feeling good. They will feel even better when they put their new leotards on. They will never want to take them off again. Why would they? You can feel how good a leotard is, any leotard... you can feel it through you clothes. Imagine how much better your own will feel.”

The words were not coming from her. They just rose up inside her and she said them, but they weren’t hers. Even the counterstrategy to Elena’s calling out had been too clever for Veronica to get on her own. Someone else moved in the room with an invisible hand, pulling her little puppet strings, pulling everyone’s... giving strings to them and then pulling them... but Veronica only had room to focus on one thing so she had to forget that because the thing had to be Elena. She was so close.

“You’ve been feeling my leotard heat you up all this time. You thought you could protest and protest and that would save you but beneath your notice it was still touching you. Thawing you. Turning you to face it as all living things must incline to a heat source... you want to draw closer to the warmth, you want it on your own skin.”

Elena was sweating. Veronica could feel it in the places her skin rested against her... that meant she was aroused or feeling the heat of the leotard or both.

“You’re back to your old tactic,” Elena said feebly. “Telling me what to feel... confusing me...”

“How do you feel?” Veronica redirected. “Tell me in your own words.”

“Hot,” Elena whimpered.

“Because of my leotard,” Veronica provided patiently.

“It’s not a natural thing,” Elena tried to excuse. “That’s the reason... that’s why...”

“It’s making you hot,” Veronica repeated. It was good that Veronica was admitting this now, anyway. “But once you accept it it can give you relief... it can make you come, and feel all better... then it won’t be frustrating you, making you feel worse and worse... it will do the opposite; improve your mood, your satisfaction... and keep doing it... won’t that be nice?”

Elena made a non-committal noise. She was less resistant but still seemed reluctant to fully break down and agreed.

“You just have to admit it... then you don’t have to feel this way anymore.”

“So hot...” Elena moaned... “Will... will it make me cooler?” She sounded a little nervous about it.

“It will keep you perfectly comfortable all the time; completely control your body; and give you pleasure that resolves... that sounds good, right? That’s something you want...”

Elena seemed to be teetering on the point of agreement, but Veronica didn’t give her the chance to speak. She put her mouth on Elena’s and kissed. And kissed and kissed and kissed— the leotard was sending energy into Veronica’s body that controlled her, then she transmitted it through her kiss into Elena’s mouth... and Elena shivered and shivered; kissing Elena was turning her on more; being a tool again in a more explicit way was pleasing too. Elena was moving with her, she was clearly enjoying it too.

Still Veronica had to make sure that Elena was completely convinced. She kissed her harder. Then harder... she was angling her head back from the force of it... trying to impress the idea physically on her body... trying to press it in, make it sink through... Elena turned her heave away. “I want one,” she heavingly admitted. “I’m ready for my leotard.”

Veronica smiled. It was the only thing she had been waiting to hear.

She stood from Elena’s lap, and looked back over the room.

No one was sitting at their desks: everyone was grouped off, writhing on the floor as they touched and were all touched back. Even Carol, in the alcove with Amelia, was looking enthusiastic; kissing her too; they were all ready, there was no one left who was resistant, no one left who would resist. They were all ready. Veronica was sure. “What do you all want?” Veronica asked and commanded all eyes to her. “What do you all want now?”

Everyone was looking at her; they all had the same desire now, that had gotten into their heads one way or another through all combined methods.

“Our leotards,” they said as a chorus. “Please, give them to us... please...”

They were all begging together the way Veronica had hoped she’d hear them do. It proved her belief right. They were ready. She wouldn’t keep them waiting any longer than she really had to.

She stepped to the counter cabinet and opened the cabinet door.

She pulled the stack of leotards out; her hands were hot when they touched them; it felt good even to touch them like this, and there was a feedback response with her leotard when she did; she’d missed it when she’d had to stop touching Amelia with her hands, but she had it back now.

She threw the leotards out, dispensing them and girls moaned when they caught theirs. They were a blur as they undressed and got their leotards on, Elena and Carol too.

The task was done and they could all enjoy themselves now.

Campus had just gotten worse and worse, and as Kara walked across it she almost didn’t have the will to go to class. What was the point when the school was falling apart all around them? When the spread of Haigure was just going further and further? It was demoralizing.

Kara’s other friends knew she felt this way; the Haigure takedown group had been going around everywhere together, these days.

Even Steph and Selina were coming on campus on days they weren’t at school; sometimes after school, sometimes every night, staying into the evening. Kara gladly paid their cab fare home to Selina’s house every night. She just liked having her sister close to her; physically seeing with her own eyes that she was still okay, that Selina was okay too, which meant their house was a safe place for them both to be in still; and Selina’s mother was still safe… it was an easy confirmation, Kara didn’t have to worry. She could just look over at Steph and see: that she was alright. She worried about her all day when she went to classes.

Luckily Jamie had easily dug up some more of those noise-cancelling, blocking headphones almost as soon as Kara had told her that Steph and Selina would be joining the group. She was their newest member but she’d really gone above and beyond. Kara didn’t know what they would have done without her; it gave her some peace of mind, at least, to know that her sister was immune to the influence of the subliminals when she couldn’t be watching her.

Yes, the Haigure takedown group had closed ranks; they did not break off into pairs anymore; they went around to each place everyone needed to go, and if the person in question needed to leave the group they left them there— such as for classes— whittling their numbers down until one pair was left and got themselves where they needed to be. They always co-ordinated it so the last two people were going to the same place so no one had to be on their own; if it were possible, the people who had already become Haigure were becoming even more bold, and all of them feared that a lone straggler might be cornered and held down. Kara had seen it happen to Adelyn all that time ago; it felt like an age though it had only been a week, or possibly just under it… she never wanted to see it happen again.

If people were just going on campus errands and didn’t have to stay in anyone place for several hours, as for a class, the whole takedown group would stand outside and wait for the person to come back. They went everywhere together, they never separated; and Steph and Selina were there as often as they could be.

Kara would even have had them sleeping on the floor of her dorm room, if not for the fact that, with two converted roommates, it would have been more dangerous for them there than at Selina’s house.

But today, all of them had discussed it; they were going to skip class; they could do something better than serve their GPAs; they’d been doing it when they could, sabotaging Haigure wherever they could. An underground resistance was the best they could do when they were so outnumbered and getting more that way all the time.

So for now they were circling the campus; looking for opportunities with every step. It was important to go in numbers, though guerrilla operations usually called for solitary actors who could flee a scene very fast. They could not risk that in their case; any lone actor could be caught and converted. They had to keep their full number together at all times; they couldn’t afford to shrink it down in anything other than the case of absolute necessity; such as class attendance— but maybe they would all be doing less and less of that in the days to come.

Sometimes the despair weighed heavily on Kara. Was anything they could do really going to make a difference in the end, when they faced such a monolith? But in the moments of destruction, of dealing damage to the Haigure campus groups, and everyone who belonged to them, the despair was beaten back, and kept at bay.

“There,” Jessica said, pointing; there was another of those constantly iterated tables covered in folded leotards; a stage with a speaker.

The group of them ran up, bursting through the crowd, causing a moment of chaos, and turned the table over. They were all careful not to touch the leotards… they didn’t know everything they could do, but they seemed to have some unnatural qualities; so instead they had to kick them into a scatter; one of them was ready with a bag, and special gloves, and they gathered as many as they could into it; and then all of them had to run again.

They were chased for a while, but all of them ran in formation, zigzagging away and then coming back together. Eventually their pursuers gave up.

Behind the chemistry building, they tried burning the bag of leotards. They had scattered the ones they could not safely take; already Kara was making a mental note for herself that next time, they should all wear gloves and bring bags. But that would all depend on if the leotards would burn.

It took a bit to make them catch; but they all breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the thing finally go up in flames. It set off an acrid smoke they were all afraid to breathe; they dumped the burning bag in the garbage can behind the building and left it there, to keep running.

They moved further along the campus; they came to some of the free-standing speakers; some of the ones that helped put out the subliminal all the time, corrupting the remaining free students who didn’t have the protections the takedown group did. They chose Alexa to be the scout; to keep the lookout; she indicated to them that no one was watching at that moment; no one was close by.

They were in a bit of an open area, between some trees, a park-like space and a few campus buildings; it was wide-open and flat with low hills so the sound of the subliminal could travel across it vastly; these few speakers provided much sound for a great radius; if at least they went down, this corner of the campus would be a silent refuge, at least until they were replaced. Kara hoped any students who passed through it would notice; would remember what the feeling of silence was, what a relief it could be to an oversaturated mind. Hoped it would help at least one person resist; remember that things had not always been this way.

They attacked the speakers stands first; there were three of them, and the speakers sat atop them. They worked together, and got the stands to tip, smashing each speaker brutally into the concrete of the walkway that ran between nature and campus building; the sound of the speakers smashing was so loud it made Kara’s heart race in her ears; surely it would draw attention; but they had sent all three over, and now only silence could be heard where they stood.

“Now,” Alexa said, gesturing with a hand without looking at them; and they all understood without looking for confirmation. By appointing her to the task, by trusting her, they saved valuable seconds; they started running and she caught up with them easily. They kept moving on.

They reached the clubfront for Haigure Fit itself. The door was shut, and the shutters down; Kara gestured to Zoe, who withdrew a spray paint can.

They all closed ranks around her, standing there trying to look nonchalant while also completely obscuring what she was doing. But Zoe had lots of a experience with a spray-can; and a natural touch for it too; she tracked it across the window, and left the message behind in bright yellow, “You can’t erase us—” they had all agreed on the phrase together. The people who remained after whatever happened to them in the conversion process weren’t quite themselves as they had been, free; they were like overwritten duplicates, reformatted, just slightly glitched, slightly off; and something fundamental about each one had been erased, just as the message implied.

It may have been their most important act of resistance for the day: they had agreed on it at their last takedown group meeting. The message had multiple meanings. First, it conveyed to the Haigure group that there were still opponents, and told them in no uncertain terms, not uncertain at all, that they, the opponents, could not be so easily gotten rid of, so easily converted and replaced with Haigure-selves. A reminder they would keep being a thorn in Haigure’s side, and would find ways to become so.

But that was not the message’s most important meeting. It was really meant as a signal to the other students who were still free; an attempt to foment further resisters; people who would join their attempts to resist, even if none of them were ever formally introduced to each other. People who’d start using guerrilla tactics of their own, who would disrupt Haigure in other ways of their own imagining.

Beyond that, it was meant to be a beacon in a night. To shout to those still unconverted that not everyone on the campus was a Haigure supporter; to break the illusion of uniformity and unanimous agreement; to get any onlookers to start questioning, to wonder why there was a group against them, in the hopes that those onlookers would would eventually question Haigure so much that they would become completely against it and find ways to protect themselves, and fight.

Doing it was worth it. Even if not even one person had their mind changed, even if nobody learned to question Haigure, even if no one was inspired to start sabotaging them too. If only for their own sanity they had all collectively needed to say it; to assert that they were here, they still existed as themselves, they still hated Haigure and refused to ever become part of its organizations.

When the door to the club open, they had to go; Zoe had just finished spray-painting the message up. They crossed campus again; found a wall of fliers advertising the club; they all broke off in a line, and started tearing the fliers down from the wall.

It was satisfying to feel paper balling in her fists; to tear something, express her frustration physically.

They got the whole wall clear; they hunted some others down; tore down every flier they could find. It was meant one less person seeing the club’s advertisements, one less person being subjected to another source of barraging from Haigure Fit; one less point of influence. One less person who would be informed of their existence— if it was possible that there was anyone left on the whole campus who didn’t know about them yet. They could hope; they could try to protect them, if they were there.

Once they’d cleared the last of the walls they’d found, they all knew they had to call the day there; they’d really pushed it; and they needed to make sure they’d gotten away with it unseen, consequence free. Until they knew that they couldn’t do anything else.

But it was a good idea for them to go and debrief. They went back to the building they tended to meet in, the building that was usually empty; they found their favorite table on their favorite floor; and they all sat down around it together.

“It wasn’t so bad for a first time,” Kara said first. “I think... we set them back a bit. I already had some thoughts I think we can use. Since we know those leotards can burn now, we should all wear gloves next time, and bring bags; that way we can get more of them at once, and we can pass around the lighter between us to set all our bags on fire. Then we can take out even more of their leotards; so that’s one thing we can do better, anyway.”

There was a general murmuring of agreement.

“I think it was a good idea that we all wore black; maybe next time we should mask ourselves too... I don’t think anyone got a really good look, but just to be safe...”

“I had another thought,” Zoe spoke up. “When we were tearing down the fliers. We’re trying to foment resistance with what we do; not only just set our enemies back, but if anyone does decide they want to start resisting, they’ve got no way to find us, or join forces with us. If Haigure Fit can advertise, we should too. We need our own fliers; then they could find us.”

Jessica frowned. “But we have to think about safety, too. If we’re trying to keep our identities secret, so we can’t get in trouble, then if we give people an obvious way to get in touch us with us, our enemies can trace their way back to us, too.”

Zoe frowned. “That’s a good point.”

Jamie put up her hand. “We could set up a location, and a time; weekly; change the information and put up new fliers every week; and then one of us can go to the location and collect the people; and if we’re still suggesting things, that one of us can be me. I don’t mind doing it.”

“That sounds like a good enough idea for now...” Zoe agreed. “We can keep thinking about it more; are you sure it’s safe enough by yourself though?”

Jamie nodded rapidly; Kara admired her again; her bravery, her helpfulness. “I’ll make sure to scope the area out with a glance first. If anything looks dangerous, I won’t approach. But it’s not as if they can hide themselves. If they’re already Haigure, they’ll have to be wearing leotards... so I’ll be able to see that even from far away. I can take care of this all, choosing the locations, the times, printing the fliers; then we can put them up together.”

“Thank you, Jamie,” Kara said, sincerely.

Jamie nodded.

But Kara felt her face falling into a frown.

“It’s not enough, though. They’ll make new leotards... we need to understand more about them, who they are, how they do what they do... we need to find some way to get intelligence on them; I just can’t think of how... we can’t keep fighting them blind, if we ever want to actually make an impact, we have to know what we’re dealing with.”

Kara thought it was a good point, though she’d said it. Everyone else seemed to think so too.

“Maybe there’s someone we could follow,” Alexa suggested. “Someone who would lead us back to... a base or something. Some place we could watch... we could try to observe and get more information that way. But who could we watch...”

She frowned in thought.

Zoe hit the table in non-verbal exclamation. “I’ve thought of it. If we could find someone who’s been newly converted... today, or yesterday... if we followed them around... they might lead us somewhere.”

That jangled Kara’s memory.

“The first night,” she said. “The first night Haigure Fit was opened... I saw a girl go in free, come out converted... they’re converting people all the time in there. We just need to watch for someone free to go in, then wait for them to come out; and then we can follow them, and, like Alexa said, maybe get somewhere or see something.”

Jamie was the one frowning now. “Is it safe to go back to a place we vandalized just an hour or so ago?”

“We’ll watch from across the quad,” Zoe piped up immediately. “But I think it’s a viable plan. We should head back out.”

The group got up and walked back out again, and ventured to the quad.

They stood, shaded by trees in their little clump; Kasumi was the further forward; she’d said strangely little throughout the entire day. Sometimes Kara wondered if, for some reason, the state of things was bothering her most of all since she said so little. Even now she looked bothered, judging by her expression.

After a long beat she spoke, a first for that day. She had used to be chatty.

“If we let her go in— whoever she is— we’re sacrificing her for information.”

It was a heavy statement. It made Kara sad; the others looked uncomfortable too.

But there was no alternative.

Eventually, a tall girl still wearing street clothes passed near to the clubfront; the she ducked inside.

Kara felt like she had felt before, when she had stood here on the first night, watching. Except this time she was not standing alone, by herself. She had a team behind her now. Standing with her. It made it a little bit easier to be there.

After an hour or so, the tall girl came out, now wearing a leotard the color of sea foam. She was holding a scrap of paper; looking at it, then a few steps more, moving past a trash can, she discarded it.

She was getting away, but the group turned back to each other.

“We should follow her,” Jamie said.

“We should go to that trash can and get the paper she was looking at,” Zoe countered.

“We can’t stand here arguing,” Kasumi spoke up. “She’s getting away; and we’re increasing the chances that someone walks by and throws something over the paper so we can’t find it. We’ve got to decide on something.”

“A vote,” Jessica chimed in. At times like this Kara was glad for her tendency to always seize hold of the leadership position.

“We follow her.”

Only Jamie’s hand was raised.

“We go for the paper.”

Everyone else’s hand went up.

“Fine,” Jamie said, a bit grumbly. “But you’ll be sorry if the paper is a dead end and she’s gone without a trace. She could have been our lead.”

They didn’t have any more time to waste, though, so they hurried off in the direction of the garbage can.

The paper the tall girl had discarded was sitting on the top of the pile of trash inside the can so it was easily retrievable. Kara reached in, grabbed it, and held it out for everyone to see.

“You’re invited to...” Zoe trailed off. “It looks like Jamie’s not the only one who had the idea to hold secret meetings at changing locales announced by paper only.”

Jamie flushed; Kara wondered why. It was a similar idea... but a reasonable similarity. Did she fear the others would become suspicious of her? Didn’t she know she’d more than proved herself? Didn’t she know hoe valued she already was.

“It’s okay, Jamie,” Kara said, putting a hand on her arm. “It’s not your fault these creeps had the same idea as you. Your version is better, anyway.”

“Much better,” Alexa echoed, still scrutinizing the paper Kara held forth in her other hand. “It says this meeting, whatever it is, is happening to night in that auditorium.”

Jessica pulled out her phone. “That’s just in a half-hour from now.”

It had been a good plan; but Kara was only thinking now of how dangerous a plan it was. They would willingly be going to the place all their enemies were congregating, at least tonight... And they didn’t even know what exactly it was that they were going to find over there.

Together, the group headed off together in the direction of the on-campus auditorium. There was still a half-hour to go but already the Haigure-ites were gathering; so the takedown group had to skulk far enough back to be safe; to be unspotted. They stayed across the parking lot, crouching low behind a few cars.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Zoe said. “Maybe they don’t change locales every week. We can come back more than once and watch them, if that’s true.”

Kara wasn’t sure if that could really be considered luck; but it at least gave them a better chance of being able to collect further information.

They kept watching as the half-hour counted down to the starting time. They had all been excited by the break in their case, their investigative brilliance; excited to learn something about the people they were u against. At least now they knew they met somewhere outside the club; and there was a chance they met here every time that they met; maybe the only thing that changed, meeting over meeting, was the actual meeting time.

But this euphoria at finally making headway faded as the minutes ticked by. Because the sheer volume of people arriving, and then going into the auditorium was the most disheartening thing Kara thought she’d seen all day. The most disheartening thing Kara thought she’d seen ever since Haigure had started its unfolding spread across the campus. There were so many of them it seemed to erase everything they had done that day. In the face of this many converted, what could they really do? That feeling was chewing at Kara all the time... it was back stronger than ever now that she was staring at the increasingly arriving numbers of people.

Alexa reached out and put a hand on Kara’s arm. Her girlfriend’s presence in that moment was the only thing that kept her from going into the despair completely.

But Jessica was pointing, wearing a look of horror.

“They’re not all college students.”

Kara looked were Jessica was pointing to; sure enough, there were adults, non-college staff adults. Which meant that they had to be coming from Rosedale. This was a pan-Rosedale thing, now... it wasn’t only contained to the campus anymore.

Kara had known that, already, on some level, since her sister had described to her— since she had gone herself to look over the town.

But it was one thing to imagine that Haigurified Rosedale townspeople wearing their leotards... it had been possible to imagine they were just wearing them for enjoyment, just for the pleasure. It had been possible to tell herself that they hadn’t been a bigger part of anything.

But to see them turning up here, to attend the secret meeting in the auditorium... it made them part of the conspiracy too. Which meant the conspiracy was trying to spread beyond Rosedale’s university... maybe it was trying to spread beyond Rosedale, period... Kara had never even let herself think of that before, but it was a new horror...

“Oh, Kara,” Alexa said; she sounded deeply sad, and Kara tried to look and see what Alexa was seeing.

Then she did, and wished she hadn’t.

It was her own mother, filing into the auditorium with the others; she spotted Rose’s mother too, and Rose’s sister; seeing them hurt almost as much; they were like family to her too. Or they had been... she didn’t know if she would ever speak to them again.

A notification chimed on someone’s phone; the half-hour had passed. Everyone was inside.

The group looked at each other; saddened by their latest discovery.

“We knew it had spread to Rosedale,” Jessica said, trying to make sense of the unintelligible. “But I don’t think it hit home for anyone until they saw all those townspeople... I knew some of them... from visits into town... who knows what else is going on over there.”

Even Jessica sounded a bit demoralized, even in spite of her tendency to put on bravado.

“We should call it a night,” Jamie suggested, kindly. “There’s not much more we can do here anyway.”

“But—” Kara protested, as she saw everyone else start moving again. “What about— trying to observe? Shouldn’t we try to get inside? Shouldn’t we try to witness what they’re doing, see what’s happening?”

“And how do we do that safely?” Zoe asked. “We don’t know what the layout is inside. They could have a guard standing at the door. If we staked the place out and had someone already planted inside before people started arriving, then maybe... but we can’t just go in there without any information. It’s going to take planning. We have to know what we’re doing. We have to know what we’re up against.”

“That’s what I’m trying to help us do,” Kara snapped.

“Kara,” Alexa said quietly.

“We need to know what we’re up against, like you said,” Kara said, still testy. “The way to do that is to go inside... and see what they’re actually doing; then we can learn something, we can figure out how to better take them down.”

Zoe didn’t seem to take well to being snapped at.

“We should call it a night,” Jamie suggested, kindly. “There’s not much more we can do here anyway.”

“But—” Kara protested, as she saw everyone else start moving again. “What about— trying to observe? Shouldn’t we try to get inside? Shouldn’t we try to witness what they’re doing, see what’s happening?”

“And how do we do that safely?” Zoe asked. “We don’t know what the layout is inside. They could have a guard standing at the door. If we staked the place out and had someone already planted inside before people started arriving, then maybe... but we can’t just go in there without any information. It’s going to take planning. We have to know what we’re doing. We have to know what we’re up against.”

“That’s what I’m trying to help us do,” Kara snapped.

“Kara,” Alexa said quietly.

“We need to know what we’re up against, like you said,” Kara said, still testy. “The way to do that is to go inside... and see what they’re actually doing; then we can learn something, we can figure out how to better take them down.”

Zoe didn’t seem to take well to being snapped at.

“And we have to do this the smart way, not the dumb way that will get us all captured and converted. Jamie’s right; there’s nothing more that we can do tonight, we need to regroup, we need to plan, we need to assess the risk.”

“Kara,” Alexa said more forcefully. “Are you sure you’re not worked up about this because you just saw three people you love go in there? And you don’t know what’s happening to them, and you can’t help them?”

Alexa knew her too well. She didn’t like it; that was the reason for her moodiness, her snappiness, but she wasn’t about to admit it. She could admit it to herself, but not out loud.

And she had not seen Rose go in; she hadn’t been with her mother and sister, but she had to be in there, too. So there were four people in there she loved... going through who knew what... and she was out here, helpless, and she didn’t even know if there would ever be a way to rescue them at all.

She was crying tears of anger; but she was too angry to speak at all anymore.

Zoe relented in her counter-aggression. “I’m sorry, Kara. That’s rough. But we’ll... we’ll meet again tomorrow, we’ll come up with a plan, we’ll find some way to see what’s happening inside.”

Zoe looked a little awkward about, but she gave Kara a pat on the shoulder. “Now we should all focus on going home to our dorms, though. And we can think, tonight, if there’s anyone we know personally we might be able to get into the takedown group... any roommates or friends left who aren’t converted yet... Jamie can get more headphones for them too. We can increase our numbers. We’ll all just... think about what we’ve seen. And then we’ll regroup.”

Kara couldn’t argue anymore. And when Alexa put an arm around her shoulders, she let her; they all moved together, dorm to dorm, seeing everyone safely home; then it was just Kara and Alexa.

Outside Alexa’s door Kara finally spoke.

“You know you don’t have to patronize me,” she snapped. She was still feeling pissy. “You don’t have to tell me what I’m feeling. God. You can be such a pain sometimes.”

Alexa snatched her arm back. “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, Kara. But that doesn’t give you the right to take it out on other people. This invasion isn’t happening at you. It’s happening to all of us; and it’s equally hard on all of us; you’re not the only one suffering.”

“Oh, why don’t you go find someone else to psychoanalyze,” Kara snapped; she stormed off to her own dorm, and left Alexa behind.

Once in the safety of her room, she dialled Steph’s cell number on her phone.

To her relief, Steph answered on the third ring.

“Hey, Kara,” Steph said. She sounded tired. “How are you?”

“I needed to hear your voice,” Kara exhaled. There was one person she loved who was still safe, at least. “But how are you?”

“Um... glad for the headphones you gave me and Selina. Things at school and in town are getting weird. Even more than before; people are just full on making out all over the place. And Rose’s sister went into the teacher’s lounge today and locked herself in there; all the teachers were wearing leotards when she let them out.”

“I know it’s later than you usually visit; it’s too late for me to see you tonight, but I wanna see you again soon, okay? We made a big discovery tonight and we’ll try and schedule our next debrief so you and Selina can be there.”

“Thanks, Kara.”

“I love you, Steph,” Kara said tearfully. “So much. Stay safe.”

Kara hung up the call.