The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It was a sunny day, the sky bright and blue and cloudless over the city. Gigantic holospheres floated slowly across that sky on fusion-powered engines, some glowing like the ornaments on an invisible Solstice Tree. (They were, in fact, arranged in just such a manner at the appropriate time of the year...) Others flashed gaudy messages against the blue infinity, the technological great-great-grandchildren of the skywriters of a previous era. Most, but not all, were commercials or slogan for one thing or another. TRY COKASTIMS!! MEET VIA MOONBEAM. 40/40 OR FLING IT. THINK SMART; THINK MORAN. HIGH ANGELES WELCOMES MARLA ST. CLAIR. Beyond the messages, off to the east of the city, a steady stream of massive orbital shuttles hauled their gigantic cargoes to and from the stars, the thunder of fusion engines muted by distance. And beyond the shuttles and further south in the Texicala wastelands, at the edge of even the most enhanced of human sight, the descending thread of the orbital elevator that would would finally render the screaming vessels obsolete.

The man stood high up a tower at the city’s edge, amidst the gigantic self-molding crysteel girders that were slowly and methodically forming around him. The tower, like the elevator, like the city, was growing. Behind his back, the center of the metropolis rose tall and proud, graceful white corpspires poking up like the petals of a vibrant new blossom that drew its life from the swampy, blackened, compost beneath.

The man held a piece of hempaper in one hand, and looked down into that morass, six or seven dozen floors below the toes of his brick-red squared-off shoes. Ancient-looking, sheared-off, buildings made of greenish steel and crumbling mortar poked out of the wavering streets of stagnant water. He could see small figures moving around in the buildings, slightly larger ones puttering up and down the waterways where once, decades and decades ago, foul little groundcars had trundled along and belched their noxious fumes. His mouth twitched. Then he sensed the presence, felt the air move behind him, even before...

“Sir?” The voice was tentative. He glanced over his broad shoulder at a new arrival, who stood nervously near the door to the construction gravlift that had carried them both to this point.

“Ah. Harris. I see you ran me to ground. If such a thing is possible in this city.”

“They said... you were up here.”

“They were right.” The man at the edge waved expansively with his empty hand. “Come. Join me.”

Harris eyed the older man for a moment, then moved to stand beside him.

“Don’t worry, son. I’m not planning to jump. Or push you off.”

“Of course not, sir.” Harris stared off into the middle distance.

The man smiled again, or at least moved his lips in same fashion as before. He pointed down to the ruins below.

“Tell me, Harris, what do you see down there?”

Harris looked down, then over at the other.

“Low Angeles.” He said the words cautiously, almost a question.

“Yes. Although I’ve always felt it should have been ‘Baja Angeles’.”

“Sir?”

“Yes. You’re right. Now is not the time to be discussing archaic dialects. Low Angeles it is. Or at least that is its name.”

Again Harris glanced at him. Seemed to screw up his nerve, and speak.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Harris?”

“What do you see? Sir?”

The older man nodded gravely, his dark skin, hair, hair streaks and clothes standing out sharply against the towers, girders and sky. Against the colors flashing overhead.

“I see an object lesson.”

“Sir?”

“You’d say that Low Angeles down there is ugly, wouldn’t you?”

“Uh... yes?”

“Of course you would. Because it is. An ugly reminder of an ugly time.” -Oh so ugly, and yet, people still insisted on living down there, slowly pushed away as HA grows bigger and bigger...— “But in the end, it produced that.” He jerked a massive thumb back over his shoulder. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

Another careful glance. “Yes, sir.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Sir?”

“The Oligarchy’s V-Bombs destroyed... Los Angeles. San Francisco. Seacover. Every city on the western coast of North America. Do you know how many people died that on the final day of that war?”

“Approximately ei..”

“Son, learn when you’ve just been asked a rhetorical question.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“A lot of people. And of course the then-UCNA finally unleashed the ultimate retaliation. Activated the nanobomb seeds in Singapore, and Shanghai and Hong Kong, and Jakarta, and all of the rest. The cities over here are still being rebuilt, and it’s been over one hundred years. The ones on the other side of the Pacific are still... what they are. Always will be, probably. If anyone had still possessed nuclear weapons...” He shook his head and continued. “Was it worth it?”

“The Pacific War led to the collapse of the Eastern Oligarchy and its corporate backers, and the merger of the UCNA with the Europa Consortium to create the UCWH, which was the eventual foundation for United Earth, Sir.” The younger man spoke as if quoting directly from a textchart.

“Was it worth it?”

“Yes, Sir. It... it had to be. What’s the point of anything, if it wasn’t?”

“Do you consider the UE to be beautiful?”

“Yes, Sir.” No hesitation this time.

“Hmm. In some ways, many ways, I suppose it is. Although if I happen to still be around when you reach my position...”

“Sir!”

“...and I ask you that question again, you may change your opinion, at least a little. Maybe not much. But a little.”

They both fell silent for a spell, Harris fidgeting almost subliminally. Finally the dark man continued:

“So, beauty out of horrific ugliness is a worthwhile goal?”

“I... yes, Sir.”

“Ugliness...”

“Sir?” Harris flicked his eyes, looking at his retinal watch. “I... They sent me up here. Because you didn’t answer the calls... and the Senator is about to give her speech. You said that you wanted...”

The dark man sighed. It was the sound of an old, enfeebled, man, completely inappropriate coming from such a solid frame.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Go on. I will be there shortly.”

“Yes, Sir.” Harris escaped back to the gravlift, clearly glad for the release.

The young Doctor sagged against the wall, and scanned through the patient database attached to his mind, arriving after a subjective eternity at the proper ‘page’. The corridor was full; harried humans pushing back and forth, medibots humming by overhead, an occasional Rigellian clittering past, looking as always like a gigantic praying mantis that had taken vows in a monastery. It had been a very bad day. The terrorists, or whoever the vomiters were who had set off the bomb, had done their farking work well; fifty people had died, and many more were in critical condition, the victims packed into the city’s two hospitals, (three if you counted that thing the NeoNaderites and their doctors ran...) If it had been a real bomb, the death toll would have been much worse, but that was small comfort. The fact that the accident had somehow knocked the city communication grid and central database off-line certainly didn’t help matter; he was reduced to using just the hospital’s small-scale emergency backups, and it left him feeling vaguely naked, not being able to call upon his biocircuitry implant to give him whatever data he needed from the rest of humanity’s combined knowledge... He forced his mind to focus on the info for the next patient, outside of whose small cubicle he currently stood, or rather leaned... Human female, currently unidentified, minor cuts and lacerations, still out from the effects of the bomb. He ran a distracted hand through his tangled black hair, further disturbing the blue Doctor streaks that looped over each ear. Best to just put the bednurse on standby and let her sleep it off; she’d wake up with a headache, and could count herself luck...

“Excuse me, Doctor?”

He turned irritably, and saw two human orderlies pushing an antigrav stretcher, with a body on it, completely covered. Another one. His stomach gave a fresh twist. He sighed.

“Yes?”

“Are you in charge of that patient?” A nod towards the blonde woman’s cubicle.

“Yesss?”

“Could you just look here?”

“What?”

There was a flash of l-

The Doctor blinked and looked around. Rubbed his eyes. He must have voided out there for a minute. He needed to get some sleep, but there was no time for that now. Get another medistim, if that thick-skulled roboclerk down at the dispensary could be sweet-talked out of it. He sighed, and looked inward at the info on the next patient. Human female, currently unidentified. Had come through the whole mess remarkably intact: just knocked out by the stunbomb. She could just sleep it off, wake up with a headache, and count herself fortunate. He looked into the cubicle, through the antisepts that framed the doorway and ran around the edge of her bed. A very beautiful blonde woman, her long hair spread out on the gellpak futon in gentle waves, the two bright green hairstreaks looking like old-fashion electrodes plugged into her brain. He was almost able to feel a surge of arousal, but then his penis decided it was just too farking tired. He shuffled off down the hall to the next cubicle.

The man on the corptower stood until Harris was gone, then looked through filtered eyes at the report in his hand. Anyone else would have seen a garble of useless blotches. He saw a block of terse unmoving black text followed by a stillpic of a figure suspended in a purple tube. Finished, he held out the sheet, and then released it. It caught in the cool steady breeze, rose for a moment, then began to tumble slowly down towards High Angeles’ ramparts, and the broken city below. Even as it fell, no longer in contact with the holder’s body heat and DNA, the words and picture faded away almost instantly, the paper beginning to unravel...

He watched it fall as long as he could, then turned and used the lift himself, dropping back down towards the lower, nearly-finished levels of the ‘tower. As the lift silently plunged down its shaft, he rummaged in a pocket, and finally pulled out a small metal object, resembling a small crumpled wad of tinfoil. (Not that anyone used tinfoil anymore...) The black man rolled it absently between his thick fingers, until, suddenly, it opened up, resolving into something like a flat metallic spider-web, which neatly wrapped itself around his index finger like a second layer of fingerprint. He touched the control pad of the lift with that finger, and almost immediately, the lift’s tempo slowed, then stopped. Rose upwards a ways, and stopped again. The door opened, and he stepped out into a deserted hallway, looking very bare and dark without wall and floorstrips, without the gently-shifting chromapaint. Construction had been halted here, and the floor sealed while the rally was underway. Sealed to most people, anyway. He walked down the hall, arriving at an ordinary-looking door. Again he touched the opening pad with the lockcracker, and it activated, popping open the door in a slightly jerky fashion.

The room beyond was also stark and unfinished. And empty. The man closed the door behind him, and stumped across the bare floor to stand before a large window which looked out onto the city center. The window’s Tintglass(tm) had already been seeded, and grown into place.

More immediately than the rest of the city, however, the window looked down onto a wide advertplaza, on which had been set up a equally wide stage, floating on the largest available size of antigrav struts. Already a large, enthusiastic, crowd had gathered, and was spilled out across the plaza. Smaller holospheres hovered overhead, spewing more color, an eye-watering display flecked with the bobbing black dots that were the robocams from various datanews networks and security agencies. The subdued green and blue of the UE flag were in profusion everywhere; rivers of color splashed against the sides of nearby buildings, clothing, even old-fashioned physical bunting, a stubborn hold-over from the distant days before Shareholds and Senate voting blocs.

-But then, when you get right down to it, so is this whole rally. Such things were already obsolete a hundred and fifty years ago. But people still want, need, to see their would-be leaders in the flesh. And in this age of holosims and near-sentient biocomputers, perhaps it is understandable. I feel the urge myself. In my own way.—

He watched the scene from behind the Tintglass, standing motionless as he thought these thoughts. The crowd grew in size and level of Brownian motion, although the microthin pane ruthlessly screened out any noise.

Inside the watcher’s ear, there was a soft beep, and he tilted his head, looking slightly annoyed. A voice whispered a short phrase. He mouthed a barely-audible a reply:

“Understood.”

Whisper.

“Yes, of course I’m watching in flesh. Mr. Harris told me. Now, as I said, don’t call me unless it’s important.”

Silence.

Down on the plaza, the transparent inertia shield was slowly rising into place around the stage, the pieces locking seamlessly together. The holospheres all gave a bright synchronized flash. He knew that they had made a loud trumpeting noise as well, but the window again blocked the sound. The crowd burst into renewed frenzy, and a tall, regal, figure appeared on the stage, waving at the silently cheering throngs below.

From where the man stood, his hands clasped in front of his waist, it seemed as if he could crush that figure between thumb and forefinger. He glanced into the corner of the room, near the window.

There was nothing there.

But there could have been. He could have made three, maybe four, ‘phone calls, and there would be... something... leaning there that could have easily punched though both the ‘glass and that field around the stage.

He really could have crushed that figure, if he wanted to. Point. Pull the trigger. He had done similar things in the past, and worse, and calmly walked away. But this time, if there had been something leaning there, after using it, it would have back up the gravlift, and from there, probably, despite what he had just told Harris, follow the unwound remains of the paper down into LA.

-Beauty out of supreme ugliness? No, not beauty. Merely... preservation. A holding action against encroaching entropy...—

And unless someone either ran “Smith” to ground, or came up with some other solution, the next time he stood in a room like this, there would be something leaning in the corner.

And when it came time for the billions of UE Shareholders to hook themselves, one way or another, into the central voting datacore, and decide which powerbloc to put into power in the UE Senate, Reconstuctionist Justin Ingersoll would be chosen as president of United Earth. Compared to the men Smith dealt with, Senator Ingersoll’s grey, corporate, biocomputerized, masters were models of truth, light and purity.

Nevertheless, the man at the window’s lip curled into an unconscious snarl at the thought.