The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Rouge’

(mc, f/f, nc)

DISCLAIMER: This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

* * *

‘Rouge’

Part Three

* * *

She returned to consciousness slowly, like a bubble rising through glycerine.

She was Task M-6x2.

She was a maintenance task.

She had been wound, her program loaded into her mind, and she waited patiently to perform and obey.

She was still in the Stack, mounted properly in her position, legs spread, hands at her sides. The cradle she was reclining on had disengaged from the one above, leaving several feet of airspace between her mouth and the pussy it had worked.

Enough space to stand in.

The awaited command ticked over in her mind and she rose. She was naked, and would remain so, which was as it should be given the nature of her task. The nature of her nature, for she was her Task and her Task was her.

She was a maintenance task. M-6x2 walked erect on bare feet through the Stack access room and into the room beyond. Other slaves were there, some naked, some in thrallskin, but M-6x2 was not programmed to interact with them.

Naked, she was fitted neither with thoughtcontrol nor sexcontrol, but her Task had been preloaded into her mind and was now unwinding, and she had no desires other than that which it gave her.

First, she was to feed herself. M-6x2 walked to the feeding stand. Another slave was there before her, and M-6x2 positioned herself behind the waiting slave.

Was the waiting slave M-6x1? M-6x2 wondered without wanting to know. The slave was pretty, with shiny black hair and tawny skin.

A slave in thrallskin arrived with a cart. On it were stacks of large bowls, which the slave began to place on the feeding stand.

The slave standing in front of M-6x2 took one and proceeded to the food tube. M-6x2 did likewise, lifting the smooth ceramic from the perfect embrace of the bowl below it in both hands, turning, and walking eight steps to the right. The neatly overlapped bowls reminded her slaves in the Stack, which lightly spiked her pleasure level.

She waited for the other slave to finish filling her bowl, admiring the golden shoulders without focusing on them. M-6x2’s focus was already occupied with her own obedience. Then the other slave moved away, and M-6x2 took another step, positioning herself in front of the clear tube that jutted from the wall. Holding the bowl beneath the tube with her left hand, she reached forward with the right and pulled lightly on the tube.

Food flowed out into the bowl.

When the bowl was filled to the level programmed into her mind, M-6x2

released the food tube. She pivoted right, and walked into the feeding room.

There were several slaves in the feeding room. Nude, they stood in the dim red pulse of the feeding light, their bowls to their lips, swallowing in time.

M-6x2 joined them.

She raised her bowl. At the pulse, she sucked food from the feeding bowl.

All the slaves fed as one.

Slaves finished with their food lowered their bowls and left the room. M-6x2 fed in time until her bowl, too, was empty. She waited for the next pulse, lowered it, and left the room.

Her program instructed her to place the bowl on a wheeled cart outside the feeding room. She stepped forward, and then stopped, letting her hands rest at her sides. Her first subtask was finished.

She waited for her program to unspool.

It did, in time with her breathing or her pulse or something far beyond M-6x2’s comprehension. She was to embark on a new phase of her life as Task M-6x2. Now she was to be cleaned.

M-6x2 walked through the other slaves in the maintenance atrium to the cleaning room. The sound of hissing water reminded her of the hiss that filled her ears while in the Stack, but that thought vanished as her programming unrolled, filling her mind and leaving no room for extraneous things.

She entered the first chamber, and approached a nozzle. M-6x2 raised a hand, touched the wall button below the nozzle, and the water sprang on, warm and vigorous. Methodically, M-6x2 wet her body all over.

Once she was entirely wet, in accordance with her program, she left the nozzle and entered the next room. Several similarly wet slaves had preceded her, and she placed herself obediently behind the last of them.

The line moved quickly, or slowly, and then M-6x2 was at the head of it. In room ahead, four slaves in thrallskin were washing the slaves undergoing maintenance. M-6x2 waited until one of them beckoned her.

M-6x2 approached the glossy red slave, raising her arms above her head. The other slave filled a sponge with soapy water, and began to clean her.

The room was quiet, the crash of water from the wetting and rinsing rooms the only noise beyond the faint soft rasps of washing. The cleansing slave controlled M-6x2 with her hands, turning her body, tilting her head, spreading her legs. M-6x2 obeyed placidly and was cleansed. The water on the cleansing slave’s thrallskin glittered and danced.

The cleansing slave stopped, and stood erect. M-6x2 recognized from her programming the indication that she was now to enter the rinsing room. M-6x2 complied.

The rinsing room was similar to the wetting room. M-6x2 approached a nozzle, pushed a button, and turned slowly beneath the water spray.

She rinsed for the amount of time her program specified, then proceeded to the next room. Again, a queue of naked, dripping slaves, which M-6x2 joined. After some time, she was at the front, and a slave in thrallskin, holding a towel, beckoned to her.

Drying took a shorter amount of time.

M-6x2 left the drying chamber when the slave drying her indicated that she was finished. She stood for a short amount of time in line behind the smooth dark back of the slave ahead of her, and then was beckoned to a chair by another slave in scarlet thrallskin.

The chair was molded plastique; M-6x2 sat down in it as indicated by the hand on her shoulder. It was warm from the uncountable number of other slaves who had sat there before.

The other slave washed M-6x2’s face, combed her hair, and applied lip coating and other skin treatments. M-6x2 stared upward, enjoying the touch of the other slave’s fingers, the cosmetics brush. More than that she enjoyed the blank, glassy look in the other slave’s eyes, eyes that were empty of will even as they carefully considered their task. M-6x2 knew her own eyes were the same, and she rejoiced. There was space in her mind for rejoicing; for this sub-subtask, obedience was merely sitting still.

Firm soft hands on her shoulders, and M-6x2 was obediently rising, the cosmetic slave’s glassy eyes dropping from her mind, and walking to the exit of the room. The cleaning rooms had formed a half-circle, and now M-6x2 was once again facing the maintenance atrium.

She waited.

Her program advanced. She was completed. M-6x2 was to return to the Stack, and then cease to be.

She passed again through the other slaves, the other Tasks, each of them as blissfully mindbound as she. The cradle which M-6x2 had arrived on had moved on, but it did not matter which cradle she was loaded into, or which Stack, just as it did not matter which mouth sealed around her sex and which sex she herself suckled upon. All Stacks were the same. As were all slaves.

A Controller stood by the Stack entrance. M-6x2 approached her.

“This slave is to enter the Stack,” she reported.

“Understood. You will approach Stack four, and wait for an open cradle. When one is presented, you will install yourself.”

“Yes, Controller,” M-6x2 replied, and felt her pleasure level rise again with the immediate reality of her own direct obedience.

She walked to Stack four, and waited. The Stack moved, a cradle descending, the cradle above it pausing, and a slave was revealed, reclining on her cradle, legs spread, body relaxed. She was blonde, glassy green eyes staring emptily, mouth just lightly still working, a fading physical memory.

M-6x2 waited.

The slave stilled. Then, smoothly, she rose from the cradle, standing, pausing, and walking smoothly away. There had been no place in her mind to acknowledge M-6x2. No reason to.

M-6x2 took her place, turning around, sitting back, feeling the promising emptiness of the air between her legs and the lingering bodywarmth of the surface under her back.

M-6x2 finished.

The Stack began to move, taking F29-X05-C down with it. The familiar sound of programming embraced her ears, enfolded her awareness. There was no need to open her mind to it—her mind was not, could never be, anything but open.

For a moment, she could feel the stars in her brain, and almost smiled.

* * *

Cardy waited impatiently.

Mella was coming. Thank Goddess, Mella was coming. She could take charge, find Jane and Siobhan, get Cardy out of this stupid suit that she didn’t seem to have the willpower to take off, and get the four of them out of here.

She shivered. She was so aroused.

It must be something in the oil. Or in those damn shots she just stood there and let them give her. How could she have let that...

She was horny like she had never been horny before—she kept catching herself rolling her thighs just a little to get the thong moving against her sex. She wanted so badly to touch herself.

She was such a fuckup. Mella would laugh at her.

It was so hard to concentrate. Her thoughts, like her body, were slippery, hard to keep hold of. She could feel her pulse all through her body. All over, under her skin, in her neck, in her pussy. Especially in her pussy. Pulse, pulse.

Mella was coming. Coming to save her.

Where was she?

“Mella?” she asked.

“Wait right there.”

Wait right there. It was a command, and a thrill ran through Cardy’s body as she realized she could obey. Would obey.

Must obey?

Obey Mella.

“Okay,” Cardy couldn’t help but respond. “I’ll wait.”

“You will wait. You will relax, and wait right where you are.”

“Yesss...” Cardy hissed. “I will relax, and wait...” It was so fucking hot...

Her nipples were gleaming scarlet buttons, waiting for someone to flip them. She had to concentrate to keep her hands at her sides, away from her pussy, her tits. They twitched.

Wait right here. She would wait right here. Mella had told her to.

Wait, Mella had...?

That wasn’t... wasn’t...

Cardy frowned, and fought to hold onto the thought. Something was wrong. Mella didn’t... didn’t sound like that. Didn’t speak like that. It was Mella, though, it was Mella’s voice...

Not a voice. A subvocalization.

It was Mella’s voc-channel.

It wasn’t... Mella.

It wasn’t Mella.

Fear swirled out of her heart and mingled with the sexheat making her body glow. Oh, Goddess. They have Mella.

They are coming to get me.

Mella or not, she wanted to obey, lusted to obey. The fact that she knew it was a slick plastique-clad robot she was obeying and not her friend only made it hotter.

Oh, Mella. They got you.

She had to get out of here. There was no time, no time at all, but her legs stayed locked in Wait Here obedience and her pussy encouraged them, rewarded them for not moving. Her whole body glowed as it fought her.

It felt so good to obey.

She heard the click of footsteps. Only the Controllers wore shoes.

No.

Her mind was slick and hot and maybe that helped her, helped her as she twisted the words and twisted her thoughts. Wait Right There. It meant nothing. She could always obey, because where ever she was, was There. She would be obeying equally well if she walked right down the aisle and into the next room.

Click. Click. Click.

She would be obeying. She would.

Her legs believed her. She gasped as, stiffly, they moved, carrying her forward. The sudden motion made her crotch pulse again with need, but her hands were at her sides, swinging, and she was walking away, away from-

A woman in glossy white plastique stepped out in front of her at the end of the aisle, pivoted, and stopped.

Her legs had taken her the wrong way.

“Stop,” the woman said, and in Cardy’s ears it was Mella telling her to do so, Mella’s voice which commanded her, her heels tapping together as she halted.

It was delicious to obey.

Cardy quivered in place, wanting and fearing and needing and so fucking horny.

The woman—the Controller—looked at her, her face impassive. Cardy, standing at attention, staying Right Here, looked back. The woman was tall, and lean... and even in her swirling, pulsing emotion Cardy found room for surprise.

It was the girl whose clothes she was wearing.

The girl in red. The one who had described her as an “unrecognized slave”. The one whose bright red gloss now stretched so fucking erotically over Cardy’s much larger tits. Whose thong was deep in Cardy’s ass and stretched skintight over her slit.

Cardy needed to fuck her.

But she was in white now. She had on heels—tall heels but thin flats—and her nude sex was not covered by a glistening white thong front. No wires ran into her body.

Cardy’s tongue could slide right in.

She spoke, and Cardy stiffened to attention.

“You are Cardelia Moore,” Mella’s voice and the girl’s lips informed her. “Confirm this.”

Cardy’s mouth opened before her voice caught up. “I, am,” she croaked.

“You will follow me, Cardelia Moore. You will not attempt to leave my presence. You will not attempt to overpower me. You will follow me and obey my commands. You will not deviate. Confirm this.”

So horny. “I,” Cardy managed, “I...”

The girl’s blank blue eyes caught hers.

“You will follow me, Cardelia Moore. You will not attempt to leave my presence. You will not attempt to overpower me. You will follow me and obey my commands. You will not deviate. Confirm this.”

“I. I will not,” Cardy swallowed, “I will not deviate.”

Mella’s voice.

The girl’s lips. They moved again.

“You will follow me, Cardelia Moore. You will not attempt to leave my presence. You will not attempt to overpower me. You will follow me and obey my commands. You will not deviate. Confirm this.”

“I, I will follow you. I will not, not attempt to leave your presence.” Cardy was panting. “I will not attempt to overpower you. I will follow you and obey your commands. I will not deviate. I, I confirm this.”

Just please let me fuck you.

The girl stared at her for a moment. The silver cones on her ears were doubtless speaking to her, programming her just as she would soon program Cardy. Was programming Cardy. Had programmed Cardy. Her blank eyes looked the same right now as they did when she spoke. Neither activity required her to think.

I will not deviate.

Cardy needed to taste her...

“You will follow me now,” the girl said, and pivoted in place. She began to walk.

Cardy had expected guards. Black-clad drones, come to carry her off, kicking and screaming.

Cardy stared needfully at the girl’s ass as she followed obediently behind.

* * *

If Siobhan stopped moving, if she stopped doing, she was going to break down and cry.

She was walking, stark naked, down the corridor Jane had taken. Jane was nowhere in sight.

They had gotten her.

Keep it together, Tough Siobhan told her.

She’d hesitated too long. Seeing Jane like that, fully slave-clad, red and glossy and with those empty, glassy eyes, walking and pivoting with those silver things on her head... and Siobhan had been naked, and trying not to be seen.

Jane had gotten away. Walked through a doorway and vanished.

Siobhan had frozen. She should have pursued, should have caught up with her, but... she’d been naked, and scared.

Jane could be anywhere. There were thousands of them.

And they all looked the same.

We’ll find her, Tough Siobhan reassured her. We just have to keep looking.

The corridor came to an intersection—red-clad slaves walked stiffly past her, backs erect, eyes unfocused. The air was warm but Siobhan had goosebumps.

None of them were Jane.

Which way?

Left, Tough Siobhan answered.

Siobhan started walking in that direction. Just ahead of her was a chestnut-haired slave that she found herself keeping pace with. Part of her envied the woman, envied her her clothes and her certainty and her total lack of confusion and fear.

Tough Siobhan didn’t comment.

They passed some doors, but they were closed.

Jane could have been inside any of them.

What are we going to do, she demanded of Tough Siobhan, if we don’t find her?

Then we will find some food, she answered, and then we will keep looking.

Other women passed them, headed back the other direction. Siobhan’s heart accelerated as an Asian one approached, but no she was too short and her face was different, larger cheekbones, a more rounded chin. Like all of them there was no awareness in her glittering black eyes.

Jane looked like that now, too.

Siobhan wished she had some clothes. Maybe she should go back and take one of the cut-off skinsuits. At least then she wouldn’t be totally naked.

The woman she was following pivoted, and a door on the right opened. Inside was steam and large steel sinks and women with long spoons. The chestnut-haired woman walked inside.

None of them were Jane, and then the door closed.

Siobhan stood there.

Keep going.

She turned, pivoted almost, and envied the slave passing the other way. They weren’t so different, really—Siobhan had a goal, to find Jane, and she was being told what to do. Of course, she was the one telling herself what to do, but it wasn’t so different.

Only she was naked and scared and didn’t belong, and the glassy-eyed girl was home.

Another intersection, another half-dozen crimson-clad women who were not Jane.

Turn right.

Siobhan did so, entering a slightly thicker flow of traffic. Like a cattle drive, she thought, only without cowboys and all the ropes are in our heads. Their heads.

They were all so young. She had known what Rouge was, what they did, but none of these women were over thirty. Somehow, she hadn’t realized what an entire colony without older people would be like. She was twenty-eight, a junior member of the team. But junior to no one here. The very oldest slaves looked like her peers.

There was no way to tell how old they really were.

Did they remember?

She fell in behind another slave, black and lean and tall. She could have been an athlete, once. Much tougher than Siobhan. But now she walked and turned and obeyed perfectly whatever those silver caps on her ears told her to do.

Ahead of them was a bank of elevators. Slaves waited to board them. One pair of doors slid open; three slaves stepped off, right to left, one after another, as though they were on a string. Two slaves stepped on and rotated to face the doors.

One of those slaves was Jane.

Run, Tough Siobhan demanded.

The doors were closing, sliding shut, and she didn’t know if they would stop for her, if they would stop before they pinched her in two or held her trapped as the elevator ceiling came down and snapped off her head. But Jane was in the elevator and there were no floor numbers and if Siobhan lost her now she would lose her forever, so she ran and leapt into the closing doorway.

The closing doors didn’t quite touch her before they hesitated, then opened again.

Siobhan looked up from the floor.

Jane hadn’t even noticed.

It was Jane—she looked strange, strong and powerful and mindless all at once, standing stiffly under the sway of the silver earpieces and whatever they’d done to her in the dressing room. Siobhan was looking right up at her crotch, bare except for the thin red strip of the thong, and she saw the wires which vanished under it and marveled at how oblivious Jane was, to stand there erect and ready to obey even as her friend dove into the elevator in front of her.

The doors closed. The elevator began to descend.

Get up. Wake her.

Siobhan stood up. “Jane?” she asked.

Jane stared at the door.

Come on, work at it.

“Jane!” Siobhan demanded. She touched her, putting her hand on the slick red shoulder. The second skin Jane was in was warm and slippery. “Jane.”

Jane stared at the door. There was no emotion on her face.

Siobhan frowned. “Jane!” She took hold of the other shoulder, shook her. Jane didn’t respond.

How? How could they have done this to her so fast? Is it permanent? Oh please don’t let it be permanent...

Tough Siobhan was silent. Siobhan looked at the other slave in the elevator, a slim brunette. The angles of her body gleamed under her slick red suit, boney where Jane was fit. Her eyes were equally devoid of thought, equally focused on whatever now ruled deep within her mind.

Siobhan looked back into Jane’s eyes. She could almost pretend that they were paying attention to her.

“Jane,” she whispered. “Talk to me Jane.”

“Hello, Siobhan,” Jane said.

Siobhan jolted. “Jane?” No reply. “Jane, what have they done to you?”

Jane’s lips moved, but her dark eyes remained fixed on the door. “They have... they have dressed me, and fitted me with sexcontrol, and fitted me with thoughtcontrol, and now they are instructing me. I obey.”

Its the subvoc, Tough Siobhan said. Still in her ears. She can still hear us. She thinks we are them.

She obeys us, too.

The elevator slowed and the door opened without a chime. Jane pushed forward, and Siobhan didn’t hold on but scrambled out after her.

“Jane? Where are you going?”

“I am obeying thoughtcontrol and sexcontrol,” Jane said, without turning. She paced down this new corridor in precise time with the other slave, left legs rising, right legs rising. Women already in the hall moved to the same rhythm.

“But where are you going?”

“I do not know. I obey.”

Siobhan kept pace with her. She wanted to stop Jane, to grab her, but if she did that then maybe the people telling her what to do would ask what was wrong and Jane would tell them and they would come for Siobhan.

At least then she wouldn’t be naked.

Stop it, Tough Siobhan chided.

“Jane, please,” Siobhan said, “where are you going?”

“I do not know. I am following sexcontrol,” Jane replied levelly. “Sexcontrol will guide me to my task.”

Sex control? What was that?

Siobhan looked at the wires tucked into their neat little pouches on Jane’s thighs and her eyes widened.

Jane turned, stopping, pivoting and moving down a different hallway. The brunette kept walking. Their legs still moved in perfect syncopation as they parted ways.

Siobhan kept pace, unsure of what to do, unwilling to lose Jane.

Jane had no such worries.

Then she stopped and rotated again, stepping towards a door which opened for her. Suddenly there were voices, a low muttering, startling Siobhan as she followed her friend into the room. She hadn’t realized how silent Rouge was until sound returned.

The room was large, very large, and the ceiling, as high here as in the corridor, now seemed low given how far away the walls were.

Filling the room was a forest of women.

A forest of glossy red bodies, standing erect, hands flat at their sides. The women’s heads seemed at first glance encased in metal orbs, like the one which removed the silver ear caps back in the undressing room, but Siobhan quickly realized that impression was wrong, that these were only half-spheres, half-circles really, screens that curved in front of the women’s faces, hanging perhaps a foot away. Each standing slave was faced with her own screen, blocking all view of the room. Siobhan could see a hundred heads and not one face.

Cords dangled from the ceilings, reaching down to connect to both the women’s heads and to the screens in front of them. The cords were plugged into the silver earpieces, into the private screens.

All the women were speaking.

Constantly, or almost. Speaking in rhythm, most of them muttering the same thing, strange counterpoints of other words mingling with the soft baseline...

“I obey. I am rouge. I obey. I am rouge. I obey.”

Jane was walking through them; Siobhan followed, staring around through the thickets of bodycurved red sheen. Red—and white. Mingling with the stiff red bodies were stiff white ones, just a few, standing or moving slowly.

Jane was approaching one.

Siobhan couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bluff this one. Not right now. She stopped, hid behind a glossy red woman reciting softly in time.

The lips moved above her as she peered around the glossy body at Jane. “I obey. I am rouge. I obey. I am rouge. I obey.”

Siobhan looked up at the woman’s face, close enough now to see it. It was illuminated, her cheeks bathed in light, an image reflecting in her glassy eyes, and Siobhan realized what the screens were. They were vidscreens. Siobhan rose a little to look.

The woman, and now Siobhan, was looking at the picture of a corridor, was moving smoothly amongst the traffic of slaves.

It was like looking through someone else’s eyes.

No, ears. Little lenses on silver earcaps.

The slaves were all on remote control.

Thought control.

And this was a control room.

The woman kept whispering about obedience.

Siobhan realized that she had stopped paying attention to Jane. Quickly, she looked around for her. She hadn’t gotten far.

Jane was on her knees.

Siobhan stared. Jane was on her knees, on the floor, and her hands were around her ankles, leaning her body backwards. The woman in white was in directly front of her, staring into the empty air above Jane’s head.

Then the woman in white widened her stance, and walked forward onto Jane’s face.

Siobhan could see Jane’s mouth open and then it was covered by the woman’s sex.

Siobhan hid behind the woman in red, the remote control, and watched as Jane serviced the Controller. She couldn’t see Jane’s face, but she could see the flexing jaw, the slowly undulating neck. The white circle which outlined the other woman’s crotch looked from here a little like a halo.

Oh, Jane.

The woman she was hiding behind changed her cadence, and Siobhan let it distract her.

“I obey. I am rouge. I am a harvest task. I am a harvest task. Lift the leaf. Pluck the bud. I am a harvest task. I am rouge. I move forward. Lift the leaf. Pluck the bud. I am rouge.”

She looked at the screen. The view had changed—the woman was now in a garden, facing one plant in a long row of them. Siobhan watched the screen as glossy red hands reached, lifted, plucked.

Somewhere—maybe even in this room—some other drone was right now telling Jane to suck on that woman’s pussy.

And who was instructing those doing the instructing? The women here, standing mindlessly erect and feeding thoughts to their puppets, were as wide-eyed and entranced as those they operated. Siobhan let her gaze drift from the woman’s glazed eyes to the wires attached to her silver earpieces, and followed those wires to the ceiling.

Who was up there?

Why bother having these slaves here at all?

A woman behind her spoke in a clear voice.

“Intruder,” the woman said.

* * *

The Controller stepped back, and her mouth was empty.

She licked her lips; they were wet and had an intriguing taste.

She was Rouge.

She was a reward task. She was SR49b2. She was sexreward.

Controllers were not fitted with sexcontrol; SR49b2 would be their sexcontrol.

Jane blinked.

She was a reward task.

Thoughtcontrol instructed her to stand. She obeyed.

She was Rouge.

The Controller she had rewarded was leaving. Jane waited, patient. Her own sexcontrol was a gentle tongue, twisting, guiding. Its pleasure was directional; it was natural to move in the direction of pleasure.

It moved her forward, now. It was pleasure to obey.

She was a reward task.

She was Rouge.

Forward. Angle. Angle. Forward.

Another Controller. Tight, shining white. A strong jaw. Busty.

She stopped. Sank to her knees. Gripped her ankles. Waited to pleasure.

The Controller stepped forward, straddled her face. Her sex was on Jane’s mouth, and Jane opened her mouth to please it.

She was SR49b2. She was Rouge.

Jane Lee had never felt so good.

* * *

Consciousness returned, and she focused her awareness to discover who she was.

She was Task D00853.

This task would involve variables. Her first subtask was to be fitted with sexcontrol and thoughtcontrol. Thrallskin.

The pulse in her mind arrived and activated her, and she rose from the cradle and joined the line of slaves awaiting their thrallskin. The slave ahead of her was short, with skin so dark it was almost purple. There was room in D00853s tranced mind to admire her.

Together, they stepped forward. Soon the dark skinned slave was fitted with sexcontrol by the slave before her, and then she in turn was inserting sexcontrol into D00853.

As the other slave was borne away, the taste of D00853 fading on her tongue, D00853 knelt and turned to find a tall, peach-pink slave behind her. Her flesh tasted warm and good, but D00853 was obedient and felt no desire to linger here, mouth to crotch. Her only desire was to obey her programming. Tasting the other slave was an unimportant pleasure. Only obedience mattered.

Her sexcontrol was operational now, and briefly guided her forward. She rode the conveyer into the thrallskin applicator and felt her sexual excitement warm further as she was sprayed with oil, felt it break into open flame as her thrallskin closed around her, enfolding her in its scarlet tightness.

Her sexcontrol was inactive now, preventing her arousal from peaking and perhaps impairing her obedience. D00853 was thankful for that as she was for all things.

Her ability even to be thankful, however, was fading, as internal thought slowly drowned in the drugs the oil on her skin was feeding her. She was barely aware as the sphere closed around her head and the thoughtcontrol antennae were attached to the anchors in her head and made tight.

For some time she obeyed thoughtcontrol without awareness. Thoughtcontrol guided her through the corridors to her destination, sat her down. Thoughtcontrol raised her hands and attached new cords to her antennae. Pushed buttons on a console.

Her awareness slept.

When D00853 found herself awake enough to obey programming as well as direct thoughtcontrol, she found that she was speaking.

“Carmella believed that Cardelia was in contact with several people at the Journal. Their names are Mark Hoff, Abigail Neuvaugh, Ang Wu-Nie, and Christof Lem. In April, Cardelia contacted Carmella...”

It was uninteresting. The aware portion of D00853s mind, satisfied that she would continue to access memory and obey thoughtcontrol without having to actually focus on doing so allowed itself to lapse back into reverie. She would obey. She was Rouge. To know that was pleasure forever.

Her lips continued speaking for some time.

* * *

Cardy was trembling.

She could run away. She could. She wasn’t enslaved or compelled or even hypnotized.

But she didn’t want to.

Their elevator opened—an elevator up—and the skinny girl in the white plastique of a Controller stepped out. Cardy followed her.

The lust was passing. She still wanted the girl—wanted to suck on her sex, to lap at her chest and taste the inner corners of her mouth—but it was fading now and being diluted by other emotions. Fear. Regret.

A desire to obey.

She didn’t have to. She just was.

Although here she was, walking at the girl’s heel like an obedient pet, Cardy still had a hard time thinking of the girl ahead of her as a Controller. As anything other than the awkward slave whom she herself had stripped naked, who tried only weakly to escape her. The girl was not powerful. She was just a slave.

Whose hand now held Cardy’s invisible leash.

Cardy could run. The girl had told her not to but Cardy was not under some geas, some compulsion. If she wanted to, she could run away again.

It just felt so good to follow her. To obey.

In her mind, she was escaping. She could picture it, picture her foot turning and leading her in a different direction, avoiding whatever fate the girl in white was leading her towards. She was so close, it would only take just an iota of decision and she could escape...

But she kept walking obediently behind that smooth ass with just a thin white string disappearing between its cheeks. Lusting for it and more importantly obeying it.

Cardy finally had to admit to herself that she was thinking about deviation just so that when she did not deviate she could know she was obeying. That she was making the decision to obey.

And obeying felt so gooood...

They were at another elevator. Cardy stopped a pace behind the girl, looked at her shoulderblades. Looked at her hair, bound up behind her head.

I wonder what’s going on in there? Is she a robot, now? A zombie? Mindless? Or is she like me, not compelled but seduced into doing what she’s told? Cardy blinked at her own admission, and the thought that followed it.

And is it so bad?

The doors opened. Two women in glossy black emerged, eyes hidden behind black visors. For a moment, Cardy thought they were for her, had come to drag her off, but they passed by her and her slick white Virgil without the slightest acknowledgement of their presence.

They don’t need to get me.

I’m already gotten.

No. She frowned. I’m drugged and I’m following the path of least resistance. But I can resist. I know I can. And there are still things I will not do.

She wasn’t sure if it was a declaration or a prayer.

They entered the elevator and rose again. The girl had about-faced. Cardy looked at her, looked into her for some sign of independent thought. Stared openly, since no one here cared.

She was beautiful. And quite mindless.

Cardy still wanted to lick her, to run her hands over those almost imperceptible hillocks on the girl’s chest, slide them down between her legs to the sex she so enticingly displayed. Cardy forced herself to focus on the girl’s face.

There was nothing there. Blank blue eyes, empty and glassy. Her mouth relaxed and expressionless. Silver cones owning her ears.

Cardy wondered what they were saying.

The door opened. As the girl stepped out, Cardy turned to follow her but was stopped by the sight that greeted her.

The surface.

Mars.

They had flown in at night. The hours of sneaking across the surface, avoiding the monitors and the jagged rocks, crawling and slithering and scuttling furtively—Mars, in Cardy’s experience, was a dirty and stomach-clenching place.

From up here, it was beautiful.

The glass—no, couldn’t be glass, there was barely an atmosphere out there—the clear windows were floor to ceiling, curving along the exterior edge of a long wall. Beyond them, Mars. Rolling hills and rounded craters and that salmon-colored dust. Stars twinkled in the navy blue sky. They were at least ten stories up.

Somewhere behind her, the sun was setting.

“You will follow me.”

Cardy realized she’d been staring, which meant she hadn’t been following. She had forgotten to follow.

Not mindless yet.

Of course, now she was curious where they were going.

The girl led her along the corridor, the window wall on their left overlooking red dust to the horizon. Below them were some smaller buildings and a series of flat panes the size of football fields, under which green plants were slowly darkening to black. Cardy wondered whether those had come before or after the wholly enclosed artificially lit greenhouses she had actually been in.

They had been in. The team.

Mella.

The girl stopped and turned in place, facing a door on the interior wall. It was wooden, burnished, and had brass knobs. The girl took hold of one and turned it open. The door swung inward.

Inside was a large room, mostly empty. The rear half of it was raised up, like a stage. In fact, it was a stage. There were perhaps twenty women on it, most in red plastique but a few in white and one totally naked. The naked one was standing next to one of the women in red and peering around her at one of the women in white; another red-clad figure was on her knees in front of the white-clad one, leaning backwards, holding her ankles.

Closer to Cardy was a large white desk, a swoop of material parallel to the floor held up by two metal struts. A woman sat at the desk, her back to the door, watching the performance.

Cardy’s Controller walked up and stopped at her elbow.

So did Cardy.

The seated woman—crimson-coated, like most of the performers, like Cardy—paid them no heed. Cardy’s girl simply stood there, looking blankly towards the stage. Cardy did the same.

Onstage, a woman in white had come up behind the naked girl. Cardy frowned. Although they were in the Rouge skinsuits, all of the women were also wearing makeup, their faces whitened, lips rouged, perfect blood red circles on their cheeks. None of them spoke. They looked like Raggedy Anne dolls in fetish clothes.

The nude woman—her mahogany hair reminded Cardy of Siobhan’s, although it was cut shorter and clasped behind her head like all Rouge slaves’—spun to face the woman dressed as a Controller who had approached her from behind.

None of the women in red—were they trees? Scenery?—paid any attention as the naked girl fled, her steps high, her motions exaggerated.

Exit, stage right.

The other woman in white stepped back from the red-clad on her knees. The kneeling woman rose and turned slowly round. She approached the woman in white who had just run off the naked girl, paused, and sank to her knees again.

“Do you like pantomime?” the seated woman asked.

* * *

There was only one way out of the room.

Siobhan had checked. When that other Controller had noticed her, and she’d run, Siobhan had circled the room, scanning for exits. She wasn’t sure whether it had been Tough Siobhan’s idea or her own, but she was positive that there was only one door out of the crimson forest.

Now, she was waiting down the hall.

There was a piece of equipment there, a silvery metal cabinet of some sort on rollers. If a Controller came by, she could hide behind it.

She ignored the passing slaves.

Her stomach was unhappy. How long had it been since she had eaten? Twelve hours? A day? There was no way to mark time in this hive. No way to know when they had gotten here, when they had been caught, when Jane had been... had been...

She was really hungry.

The door opened, but it was not Jane, it was a different slave. No, not a ‘different’ slave, a slave. Jane was just hypnotized, drugged. Siobhan could rescue her.

Tough Siobhan was quiet on the subject.

She had almost resolved to leave and find food when the door opened again, and this time it was Jane. Just as the slave had done, Jane walked smoothly to the center of the corridor, pivoted, and began to walk away.

Siobhan caught up with her.

“Jane?” she subvoced. Nothing, of course.

“Jane, talk to me.”

“Hello, Siobhan,” Jane replied emotionlessly.

“Jane, stop,” Siobhan demanded.

Jane stopped.

Then she resumed walking.

“Why did you start walking again?” Siobhan demanded.

“I obey thoughtcontrol. Thoughtcontrol instructs me to enter the Stack. I obey thoughtcontrol.”

“The stack?” Siobhan paused, then realized. “What is the stack?”

“I do not know.”

Asking Jane where she was going would be equally useless. Somehow those women in the crimson forest were guiding her, whispering turns in amongst the ‘I obey’s and ‘I am rouge’s. Or one of them was, whichever one was guiding Jane at the moment.

They walked together down the hall, turning once.

What could she do? She had Jane’s ear, thanks to the sub-voc. But she couldn’t compete with whichever mindless drone was guiding her. Couldn’t stand here directing Jane until she fell asleep or went hoarse.

“Jane, take off your, uh, ear things.”

Jane kept walking.

“Jane, take off your ear pieces.”

“They do not come off,” Jane replied flatly.

“What?”

“My antennae do not come off. My antennae connect me to thoughtcontrol. My antennae are part of me. They cannot be removed.”

Jane stopped and turned again, moving into a door which slid open for her. There was a short queue of scarlet suited women. Jane stopped at the end.

Siobhan leaned against the opposite wall. Its grey concrete was cool against her nude back. She was hungry, and tired, and she needed to go to the bathroom. Where were the bathrooms, anyway? None of the doors had signs. Not that she could go into the wrong one. Here on Mars, they were all ladies’ rooms.

Siobhan chuckled hopelessly at the thought of paired doors, each with a silhouette in a skirt. A skirt, and little conical antennae for ears.

Jane stepped forward.

She was going to have to find somewhere to go. Could she leave Jane here? Would whatever was in this room occupy her long enough for Siobhan to slip away and return? Siobhan pushed herself off of the wall and headed into the room beyond.

The slaves there were being stripped, their glossy red skinsuits cut front and back and peeled off, the little sex eggs plucked from their bodies by the fingers and mouths of glistening just-peeled women crouching near the floor. The discarded skinsuits were piled on a silver tray in the arms of a drone.

This was another disrobing room.

It all came together. The Stack. The naked women, the tubes that were elevators full of chairs.

They were going to take the antennae off of her.

Siobhan forgot all about her needs.

This was her chance, and if she missed it, Jane would be shuffled into one of those seats and lifted off into the Stack. Siobhan would never find her again, and even if she managed to, who knows what they did to the women in those seats? She could still see the metal skullcap lifting from the head of the woman in the other room, before she rose and walked smoothly to the back of the clothing queue. Her eyes had almost glowed with no-thought.

Deep brainwashing. Not just someone telling Jane to obey, but Jane being programmed to obey. That’s what they did in the Stack.

But before that happened, they took off the antennae.

Jane stepped forward.

The slave in the disrobing room lifted off her thong and let it drop, then raised her hand and cut off Jane’s skinsuit, slicing front, slicing back, and peeling the halves off of Jane’s unresisting arms. Sliding the plastique down her slick, oily legs. Jane, like the women before her, glistened, neck to toes.

Her sex was somehow more naked, oiled like that. Siobhan could not not look, needed to look. The paired wires running up into it, and into Jane’s ass, were now drawn taut, vertical red lines, the discarded skinsuit hanging from them.

Siobhan watched, and waited, her heart racing.

Jane stepped forward, onto the mouth of the slave in front of her, and the slave licked and probed and slid out a wet black and red egg. Her eyes as blank as before, Jane turned in place, and the slave tongued and fingered and pulled a second one from her ass.

Then it was Jane’s turn on her knees.

Siobhan waited until Jane was finished servicing the woman behind her, then stepped forward, sliding in behind Jane as Jane robotically gathered up the other woman’s skinsuit and placed it atop the other suits heaped on the tray. Jane paused, waiting for the woman ahead, then moved forward again as the silver sphere was opened for her.

Siobhan slipped in and to the side. Into the room with the Stack. Three elevators hummed with life. A woman, a slave, was rising from the far one.

The redclad slave closed the sphere around Jane’s head. There was a soft hissing sound.

The slave opened the sphere. The antennae were gone—no, they were in the sphere, and the redclad took a moment to remove them as Jane stepped away. Walked towards another short queue of naked, glistening women.

This was her chance.

“Stop,” Siobhan demanded. The antennae were gone, but not the earplugs.

Jane stopped.

And then began to walk again.

“Stop,” Siobhan repeated, running to her.

Jane stopped.

And began to walk.

“Stop!” Siobhan put a hand on Jane’s shoulder—it was slick with oil, and warm.

Again, Jane stopped, hesitated a heartbeat, and then resumed moving towards the queue. The front woman was already leaving it, walking towards an open shaft and the seat which reclined there. Siobhan’s hand slid off her.

“Dammit, Jane,” Siobhan said, and realized she was talking out loud, “stop!”

Jane stopped. But then started again, and then she was at the back of the queue.

Siobhan was looking around, worried. There was a Controller in the room, menacing in her glistening white, standing by the entrance to the dressing chamber. Standing by the entrance to the machine that had taken Jane and made her... this.

She must have heard Siobhan, but did nothing, did not even look over.

The woman now installed in the Stack was lifted up, her chair connecting to and locking with the one above it, her breath now brushing the sex of the woman above her. A new, empty chair, rose from below.

The queue moved forward.

Her only chance, and it was dwindling fast.

Siobhan walked up to Jane, and took hold of her arm. “Stop,” she hissed. “I command you to stop.”

The woman at the front, tall, muscular, was moving to the empty seat. Jane stared blankly into the curly black hair in front of her.

“Jane,” Siobhan said, forcing as much calm into her voice as she could, “Jane, you have to snap out of it. Snap out of it, Jane. You’re not a slave. You’re not one of them. You’re a free woman, an intruder, you don’t belong here.”

The woman in the Stack rose to the sex of the woman above her. The line moved forward.

Jane stepped forward in sync.

“Dammit, Jane, stop it! Wake up. You have to wake up. Please, I know they’re not speaking to you, I know they’re not. Please, Jane, remember who you really are.”

Jane’s eyes remained blank and fixed.

“Jane, speak to me!”

“Hello, Siobhan.”

“Goddamnit, Jane, don’t you remember who you are?”

Jane stared ahead. “I remember who I am,” she said.

Jane stepped forward.

“Then what are you doing?” Siobhan demanded, and it was almost a whine.

“I am entering the Stack,” Jane said, and stepped forward in turn. Only one woman remained ahead of her. “I must enter the stack. I must obey.”

“No! No. You do not have to obey. You don’t.” Everything blurred for a moment and Siobhan clenched her eyes. “You are not a slave, Jane.”

Jane said nothing. “Answer me,” Siobhan demanded weakly.

“I am a slave,” Jane replied. “I am Rouge. I am a slave. I must obey.”

Siobhan dropped her arm and stared at her.

Jane stepped forward.

She would never find her again. If she got into that... that machine, they would wipe whatever was left of Jane and hide her somewhere in this vast hive.

The woman with the curly hair rose to the sex of the woman above her.

Jane stepped forward, towards the Stack.

“Stop,” Siobhan demanded, and Jane did. Then she started again.

“Stop.” Again, a pause, a second, and then Jane moved forward.

“Stop.” Pause, step.

“Stop... stop, stop stop stopstopSTOP STOP!!” Siobhan roared, out loud, and put herself in front of Jane, pushing against her, blocking her from the chair.

She stood there, pushing, not crying, just breathing hard. Crying a little.

Any second now the women in white or black or both would come and drag her away, and Jane would get into the chair and rise into the ceiling and kiss pussy and get brainwashed.

And they’d brainwash Siobhan, too, and neither of them would ever remember-

“Siobhan,” Jane said.

Siobhan looked up. Jane was looking at her. Actually looking at her.

“Jane?”

“Siobhan,” Jane said, and her eyes were glassy but she was there, somehow, she was definitely there. “Siobhan, you don’t understand.

“I want this.”

Siobhan’s arms went weak.

“Let me go, Siobhan. I want to enter the Stack and I want to become a slave. I want to obey.” Jane stared right through her with dark, glittering eyes. “You don’t understand, Siobhan. It feels so good. It’s the best thing I have ever felt. To be Rouge. To be a slave. Please, Siobhan, let me go.”

Siobhan whimpered.

Jane’s hands came up and took hold of Siobhan’s where they pressed against her chest. Gently, she drew them aside.

“I want this,” Jane repeated. “I really, really want it. It feels so good, Siobhan. So good, to obey. It’s all I want now. Please, let me go.”

Jane stepped to the side. Siobhan stared at her, stared into her eyes which were deep and black under the tranceglaze.

Then Jane’s head rotated forward.

She walked to the chair, turned in place, and sat herself down in it. The little metal skullcap slid down atop her head.

The chair lifted up into the Stack.

And Siobhan was alone.

* * *

She felt wonderful.

She was in the Stack, as she had been instructed. There was a pussy inches from her mouth, and she could feel breath on her own sex. Dimly, she was aware of programming being loaded into her mind that would result in contact with both.

She had obeyed. She was Rouge. She had entered the Stack. She had told the intruder the things which she had been instructed to say, and had entered the Stack.

Now they were putting her to sleep, that they might better rewrite her mind. Joyfully, erotically, she embraced it.

* * *

D00853 stopped speaking.

She waited to obey.

Thoughtcontrol came. “Task D00853 is completed. Confirm.”

“Task D00853 is completed. I obey. I am Rouge.” she said.

“I am now learning task Lc992. Confirm.”

“I am now learning task Lc992. I obey. I am Rouge.”

Lc992 remained seated. Thoughtcontrol would guide her. She was aware that she was in a small room, facing into a walled desk area. Her thrallskin was tight and good on her body. She waited to obey.

“I am learning task Lc992. I press the button at my right hand.”

Lc992’s hand touched the button instantly.

“I obey. I am Rouge. I watch the screen rise. I obey. I am Rouge.”

From the desktop, a vidscreen slid upwards. Lc992 watched as it rose to a position directly in front of her.

“I obey. I am Rouge. The learning screen will instruct me. I obey. I am Rouge. I am open to the learning screen. I watch the visual display without focus. I obey. I am Rouge.”

The vidscreen crept to life slowly. Lc992 was watching without focus. Slowly, in the blackness, there was twirling motion, rotating undulations of black on black. Lc992 watched them without focus, but she could start to feel them in her mind, twisting softly.

“I am Rouge. The visual display is hypnotizing me. I am being hypnotized. I obey. I am Rouge. The visual display is hypnotizing me. I obey. I am Rouge. I am being hypnotized by the visual display. I obey. I am Rouge.”

There was green now in the black, swirling, thick oil that Lc992 felt on her mind. She was dizzy, a little, and felt her awareness being lifted from her unresisting brain and borne away by the twisting spirals on the screen.

“I am Rouge. I am hypnotized. I am Rouge. I am hypnotized.”

Lc992 stared at the screen now without thought. Her lips moved when it signaled her to move them, confirming her trance.

TC0021512, the Task which was controlling her, switched Lc992’s thoughtcontrol to the pre-programmed learning feed, and awaited its own new instructions.

* * *

Cardy, the woman in the chair and the girl onstage with Siobhan’s hair all watched as the girl who looked like Jane was drawn up into the air by thin white strings. The onstage girl’s painted lips formed an ‘O’ of dismay, while the white and red face of the Jane-alike was blissful and blank as she disappeared above.

Curtains closed.

“Sic transit Jane,” the seated woman said. She turned in her chair to look at Cardy. “Would you like some food?”

Cindy stared at her. She was young, in her late teens, with pale skin and fine hair so blonde it was nearly white. Her eyebrows were only just visible; her slick red thongfront hid—she would be nude there anyway, Cardy thought.

She wasn’t wearing the silver antennae.

The woman was looking back at Cardy placidly. Without looking away she spoke off to her side: “SP-2q5, bring a chair in for Cardelia.”

“Yes, Director,” the lanky girl in Controller’s clothing replied. She swiveled in place and walked towards the door.

The seated woman said nothing else.

Cardy licked her lips. “You, you’re wearing a slave’s clothes,” she said.

“I am a slave,” the woman replied.

“But... but she called you ‘director’.”

The woman shrugged. “I am the Director. I am also a slave. Those two facts are not contradictory. In fact, they are mutually reinforcing.”

“Are you Dr. Rouge?”

She smiled. “Do I look Vietnamese? Come, Cardelia, don’t you recognize me?” Her smile twisted ruefully, self-mocking. “Ah, how fleeting fame.”

Cardy stared at her. She didn’t look- wait, she couldn’t be...

“Yulia? Yulia Lenkov?”

The woman nodded. “I was.”

“But... but...”

Yulia—the Director—looked to the side. “Your chair has arrived,” she said, and the girl approached the desk and placed the chair down next to it, just behind Cardy. It was identical to the chair the Director was seated on, silver metal and red leather.

The Director gestured. Cardy sat down. The leather was cool on her bare ass.

It was her. The nose, the face. It was Yulia, but forty years younger. Yulia Lenkov, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, world-renowned journalist, veteran of three wars and an assassination attempt, was now eighteen years old.

And a slave.

“Where are my friends?” Cardy asked.

“Various places. Carmella has already been converted and is currently Task Lc992. She is a learning task; Rouge is loading her mind with knowledge. Prepping her for her next job, you might say. Jane... well, Jane you just saw. She is in the stack now, being brainwashed. And Siobhan. Siobhan is loose, for the moment. We’re still learning from Siobhan.”

“Learning?”

“Of course. Your little break-in was an excellent opportunity for Rouge to learn.”

“This was... planned?”

“Precisely so.” Yulia tilted her head a little. “We could of course have acquired you whenever we wanted.”

“But you let us break in.”

“Indeed. As I say, this has been an excellent learning experience. For Rouge.”

Cardy swallowed her bitterness. “Glad we could help.”

“You will be.”

She clenched her lips. “When did you know?”

“Well before you left Earth.”

“You tricked us.”

“Tricked you? Manipulated you, perhaps. The Director lightly tapped the side of her head. “What’s in your ears is not so very different from what’s on hers,” she said, nodding at the glossy white girl standing at attention by Cardy’s side.

“You used our subvocs.”

“Once we had Carmella’s. Before that, no. But we knew all about you, Cardelia. Every piece of equipment you had, everyone you spoke to, all your plans. We’re very security conscious.”

Cardy’s head swum. It was all a setup.

Suddenly she wanted the earplugs out, out of her ears, away from where they were whispering who-knows-what right into her brain, but she wouldn’t dig for them in front of this woman.

It wouldn’t matter anyway.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some food? You haven’t eaten in almost two days.”

Cardy closed her eyes to gather some composure. “The condemned’s last meal?”

“If you like. Hardly condemned, I would say. You will love being Rouge.”

“You’ll make me love it.”

“Yes.”

There was a moment of quiet. Cardy wondered whether the numbness she felt was natural, or if they were putting it into her. Keeping her docile.

“So,” Yulia said. “Would you like some food? Or should we just get on with the brainwashing?”

“I’d love some food. Thank you.”

The Director nodded. “Bring the food,” she said. The girl rotated and left.

Cardy understood, for the first time, that very soon she was going to be Just Like That.

“You came here to expose RougeCorp,” she said. “To destroy it.”

Yulia nodded. “And I was caught, and reprogrammed,” she said. “Now I am an obedient slave. Now I am Rouge.”

“But you’re the Director.”

“I am exceptionally intelligent. Rouge makes the best use of its resources. Rouge has programmed me to be Task 0—the Director.”

“What happened to the real Doctor Rouge?”

Yulia slid a hand across the surface of the desk, and flexed a finger. Silently, a smooth screen descended over the curtains closing the stage.

She flexed another finger, and a complicated schematic sprang into being. It was replaced by another, and another, glowing red traceries on the white screen, one replacing another, the Director’s fingers stroking the desk surface.

Then they stopped changing. A pulsing green light slid slowly down one red line.

“The slave once known as Hanh Rouge is currently Task C55q8. She is moving a sled full of parts to a fabrication facility.”

Cardy stared at the screen. “She’s a drone?”

“A drone. Yes.”

“You took over?”

Yulia laughed. “No. Not at all. I was taken over. I’m as much of a ‘drone’ as she is. I am Task 0, Cardelia. That means that I am the Director. Yes, I guide Rouge, through a descending network of Sub-Directors and Overseers and Controllers right down to the Thralls, whose waking hours are spent entirely without conscious thought. I make their decisions for them.

“But I will enter the Stack tonight like any other slave, and when I emerge, I will be some other Task. I might push a sled, I might water plants, I might be thoughtcontrol. I have been all these things. And when I leave here to enter the Stack, another slave of exceptional intelligence will replace me, programmed to be Task 0.”

“But... why have a Director at all? If there’s some computer running things.”

“The computer does not run things. Someone has to make decisions, Cardelia. The computer can only follow directions. It controls us, but it cannot decide.”

“So you can think for yourself.”

“I can think for Rouge. I care nothing for myself. All my thoughts are about serving Rouge. I am programmed to guide Rouge, to make decisions that will benefit Rouge. That is what I do. What I am. I am Task 0.”

“But... you have free will.”

“Not like you think of it, no. I’m as programmed and obedient as anyone else here.” Yulia leaned forward. “But, Cardelia, I don’t want free will.”

Cardy shook her head. “And this is what you’re going to do to me. What you’ve done to Mella.”

“Yes.”

The food arrived. It was a salad, in a large glass bowl, well-tossed and served with an oil and vinegar dressing. Some sort of firm strips were mixed in with it, tasting like soy. Cardy looked at the fork, and something kept her from thinking of it as a weapon.

“We don’t have meat,” the Director observed. “My apologies.”

Cardy ate. She was ravenous.

The Director watched her for a while, then turned to face the screen. Cardy watched it over her bowl. The picture changed, from the schematic to a video feed. It took Cardy a moment to realize they were looking at the world from the perspective of a thrall.

“Cameras in the antennae,” Yulia explained.

She flipped around. A corridor, long, full of moving slaves with glossy red legs all swinging in time. An arboretum with a thousand miniature apple trees. A machine shop. A chemistry lab.

“What’s that?” Cardy asked. They had stopped on a darker feed, a room lit by standing lights on poles. A slave walked by in a non-standard skinsuit, large bare ovals exposing her thighs and belly, her arms and breasts. Her uncovered skin was coated in sweat and dust. Her muscles flexed slowly as she walked by, prominent both where they were exposed and under her skinsuit.

“New construction,” the Director observed. “Slaves working there need to sweat more, so their thrallskins are of an open design.”

“Why don’t I want to escape?”

“The drugs you have been given are making you docile, and you have already been receiving obedience programming for some hours.”

“Oh.” Cardy put her fork down. “Do you remember, Yulia?”

Yulia turned to her. Cardy’s bowl was empty.

“Please clarify your question.”

“Do you remember? Being free?”

She nodded. “I do. I remember my life as Yulia Lenkov with complete clarity.”

“Then how can you do this?”

“Because I love it. I love what I am, what I do. Being Rouge is the greatest pleasure I have ever known. To be Rouge is to be without doubt, or fear, or uncertainty. To be blissful in everything you do. Rouge has erased my will, Cardelia, but it has given me a life of perfect joy.”

“A life of slavery.”

“Exactly.”

“You’ve been programmed to believe that.”

“Of course I have.” She shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“It does.”

“You won’t think so soon.”

Cardy looked away. Looked at the girl standing next to her, eyes glazed over, waiting at attention. How old was she? Physically, perhaps twenty. But she could be a mother, a grandmother. Like Yulia, she could be any age. Or she could be twenty the first time, and never have known any life but this one. Never have made any of her own choices at all.

She would be like this forever. A slave with an empty mind.

Cardy would be too.

“Why,” Cardy whispered, almost to herself. “Why do this?”

“As an alternative,” Yulia replied. “An alternative to Earth. To laissez-faire me-first self-destructive self-gratification. Rouge is a different model for humanity. A chance to spread and grow without bickering and backstabbing. Here we are all Rouge. We all want what is best for Rouge. And we are all happy.”

“Without freedom.”

“Why do you value freedom, Cardelia? Because it makes you happy?” The Director gestured at a sweating slave on the screen, methodically sharpening a drill bit. “She is happy. Ecstatic. All the time. So why does she need freedom?”

“It’s more than that.”

“Is it? Is freedom a goal in and of itself?”

“Yes.”

Task 0 shook her head. “That’s not a logical conclusion. It’s a religion. A faith.” Her eyes were ice blue. “One we shall convert you from.”

Cardy just looked at her.

There was nothing more to say.

“Are you ready?” Yulia asked.

Cardy couldn’t bring herself to say ‘yes’.

Yulia leaned back into her chair, and as she did so her eyes faded, the intent sparkle in them dimming until they were empty blue windows. She turned in her chair.

“Take her to a conversion room,” Task 0 instructed the girl in white. She turned to Cardy.

“You will follow the Controller. You will do as she instructs you. You will not resist.” The direct commands excited her, and Cardy hated herself for responding to them. Her nipples were tight. “You will obey the Controller. You will be converted. You will not deviate. Confirm this.”

“I will not deviate,” Cardy whispered.

0 nodded. “Go.”

The girl turned in place, and walked for the door. Cardy stood up and followed her.

At the door she paused, turned to look at the Director.

“Why... why did you tell me all this? Why let me in here? And why you—?”

“You will not deviate,” the Director replied firmly.

Cardy blinked. “I will not deviate,” she said, and rotated to follow the Controller.

The door closed behind them.

* * *

The corridor looked familiar, which was unusual.

Siobhan’s stomach hurt. She had found a room where they were growing bananas; they hadn’t been ripe, and she had eaten too many.

She had gone to the bathroom in a dusty closet somewhere.

None of the doors would open for her, so it was pot luck where Siobhan could go and where she could not. She was hopelessly lost anyway. She had no idea how far underground she was, no idea which direction anything was in. She had taken several elevator rides with slaves, their eyes as glazed as their tight red skinsuits were glossy.

Now she was here, which was as the same as any place else.

At least it’s not cold, Tough Siobhan commented.

Thanks.

Jane was gone. Happy, and gone. Tonguing and being tongued in her sleep as her mind was slowly reshaped.

Siobhan sighed. All the women around her were blank-faced and blissful. Barely thinking behind those empty eyes.

This corridor did look familiar.

Then she realized—it was the same one where she had lost Jane. There, on her right—the entrance to the stack, the room where the slaves were stripped and stacked or released and wrapped in tight red rubber. The room Jane had never really come out of.

Siobhan drifted inside.

Her memory was correct.

It was the room. The line of redclads was shorter, only eight women, but as Siobhan stood there another two entered and joined the queue. Neither of them were Jane, or Mella, or Cardy.

She was quite sure they’d been captured by now.

In the room beyond the women were stripped, and Siobhan snuck by the naked woman having her antennae removed to enter the room with the Stack. Four tubes—the room Jane had entered the stack had only contained three. So these weren’t the same, and Jane wasn’t going to come rising from this one any time soon.

But what would Siobhan do if she did?

Siobhan looked across the room, at the Controller standing in her place by the dressing hall. A woman of average height, black hair, brown eyes, pink skin. Average bust under glossy white rubber. Glassy, mindless eyes that nonetheless managed to see her, but were not programmed to care.

I’m going to do it, she told Tough Siobhan.

Go ahead.

Siobhan walked across the room, directly towards the Controller. Stopped two feet away.

“I’m an intruder,” she said.

The Controller’s blank eyes stared at her.

“Please process me.”

The Controller considered her for a moment. Siobhan’s heart leapt a bit when the white-clad woman’s glossy lips moved, and said:

“Intruder. You will remain where you are...”

* * *

Task SC-1e09 was a processing task.

New preslaves had been acquired, and SC-1e09 was processing them. The one she was processing now was an Asian woman with rich golden skin and dark nipples. SC-1e09 lowered the implantation helmet until all the needles were in place. The preslave smiled.

SC-1e09 could picture the stars that glowed in her own mind, and her Pleasure at her obedience quickened a pulsebeat.

She drew the belt over the preslave’s belly. She lubricated the sexfeed and slid it into the preslave’s ass and into her sex, and tapped in the programming sequence which had been loaded into her mind as the preslave undulated a little in pleasure.

SC-1e09 observed the preslave a moment. All appeared to be correct. SC-1e09 went to the next processing station.

The preslave here seemed unusually focused, but the thought dampeners had worked their magic and the preslave’s dark blue eyes were roaming slowly about the ceiling.

Something...

“This slave requires a Controller,” SC-1e09 said. She stood and waited.

A Controller approached. “Report, slave.”

“This slave recognizes the preslave being processed. This slave possesses knowledge about this preslave.”

SC-1e09 awaited command.

The Controller spoke. “Your knowledge is known to Rouge. The knowledge is irrelevant. You will forget the knowledge. You will forget this preslave. Then you will resume your task.”

“Yes, Controller.”

SC-1e09 waited as the knowledge drained from her mind. The preslave’s face grew less familiar, until she was a stranger.

Then SC-1e09 resumed her task.

She drew the helmet down into position around the preslave’s head. This drew the preslave’s attention, as it often did. The preslave’s eyes settled on SC-1e09, and her breathing sped up to unanticipated levels.

SC-1e09 watched the preslave carefully. If she calmed down, SC-1e09 would continue the processing. If not, SC-1e09 would summon her Controller again.

The preslave spoke.

“Mellaaaa....”

SC-1e09 waited.

“Do... ittt....”

Her breathing slowed. SC-1e09 observed for another moment, then fastened the restraining belt, lubed the sexfeed, and inserted it, one plug at a time. The preslave enjoyed that a great deal, her pelvis undulating slowly as she neared but did not reach orgasm.

This was not uncommon. SC-1e09 moved the vidscreen into place, and entered the programming sequence for this slave. She watched as the needles entered the preslave’s brain.

She then moved on to the next processing station.

When SC-1e09 returned, the “S. Toole” in the corner of the vidscreen had been replaced by “F29-X06-F”. The slave’s eyes were wide and glassy.

SC-1e09 released her, and summoned a Controller. She felt no need to watch as the Controller led F29-X06-F away to the Stack.

* * *

END ‘Rouge’