The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Sole Survivor

By Stub

mc mf ff md in sf

Chapter 10 — Sabotage

“Do we really need to kill her, Alex?”

“I don’t know, Lani,” I said. “I hope not.”

We were in Lani’s office, watching remote vid recordings of the local Arbiter, trying to add information to the database that Lani had created on the aliens. I remembered the first time I’d seen Kara, in her blue fishbowl helmet, walking up to White Building with her Sentinel companion. Now we were watching her replacement, and it seemed like she was almost at the point of collapse, just like Kara had been. It was hard to tell, but this Arbiter seemed older, and maybe not as healthy as Kara, so the effects of starvation and sensory overload were taking their toll at a faster rate. I saw her stumble up a curb as she entered a building, and her legs trembled as she recovered her balance.

Kara had spent hours watching these vids with us, providing insight into the capabilities of the aliens’ agents, but I could tell that she wasn’t happy remembering those dark times. Finally, I’d told her to go back to her translation project. I’d have Lani flag any vid that needed clarification, and limit the time that Kara had to watch her replacement waste away.

“We need to get ahold of that helmet,” I said. “Anatoly and I both agree. There’s so much we could learn from a piece of alien hardware like that. But we can’t figure out how to get to her without dealing with the Sentinel.” I pointed at the red-clad super-soldier that always accompanied the Arbiter. “We’d like to get at his gear as well, but I don’t think we’re going to have any luck immobilizing a killing machine like him.”

“Can’t we trick them into separating?” Lani asked. “Set up a false report, like we did last time, and like, lure them into a trap?”

“We’ve thought about it, but the alien controlling these two has been on high alert since that incident in Oakland. They’re much more cautious when approaching converted people now.” I saw the Arbiter leaning heavily against a doorframe on the surveillance vid. She wasn’t going to last much longer. “I haven’t been able to come up with a plan, and you heard Anatoly’s idea earlier. It may be the only way.”

Lani frowned. “He’s evil Alex. I really hate that man.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and hugged her to me. “I know, Lani. I’m working on it, trust me. But until I can come up an effective plan for the diabolical Dr. Kinslov, we have to play along. He and his minions have no problem with violence, and I’m not risking him hurting any of you girls.”

“How are you going to deal with him, Alex? It seems like he’s got eyes and ears everywhere, and those guys he controls are scary with all the weapons they carry.”

“I’m sorry, baby, but it’s best if I don’t tell you. What you don’t know…”

“OK, I get it,” she said. “You just make sure you’re as worried about your own safety as you are about ours.” She turned to give me a quick kiss, then went back to watching the vid. I liked how serious she was about her work—she looked adorable the way she bit her bottom lip when she concentrated.

I left her to her job, and went to check in with Param. I really missed my old friend and former lab assistant—dealing with this shell of his former self was tough. Still, I knew his abilities, and I knew that I could count on him completing the tasks I gave him. What bothered me lately though, was that I found myself treating him more and more like a servant, or a robot, thinking more about his output capacity than about the man. Logically, it shouldn’t concern me; there was no benefit in “giving him a break” from his duties, since his down time was just an endless loop of normal behavior that didn’t add anything to the equation. In any case, I had commanded him to make sure he took care of himself physically, for my own piece of mind. The rest of the time, of course, he worked non-stop on my plan for world domination.

I guess the actual term would be world re-domination, because the human race was definitely not in charge at the moment. The alien ships returned to the atmosphere every eight days, media channels played the same mind-altering programming around the clock, and the planet’s population continued to decline as more and more people died when their normal behavior didn’t meet the needs of basic survival.

The concept of having everyone just go about their business under alien rule sounded good in theory, but some cracks were starting to show. Jill had mentioned that store shelves weren’t always stocked now; for whatever reason, supply chains were being disrupted downstream. I hadn’t done any research on it, or made any real projections, but I couldn’t see the human race lasting longer than another year without some major shakeups.

It had me wondering about the aliens’ long-term goals for Earth. There had to be something major going on somewhere else on the planet—some purpose other than watching the human race wither away under the auspices of normal behavior. The problem was discovering what they were up to. It wasn’t like their activities were reported on the nightly news.

I was sure it had something to do with the military, since all the world’s soldiery had been carted off who-knew-where for the aliens’ “special project.” Kara knew that our local Sentinel was an Army sergeant named Mateo Colon, and I suspected that quite a few more of our military personnel had been converted just like him. The prospect of facing several thousand red-armored killers was just a little daunting, and was a major reason that we dedicated so much effort toward staying hidden.

I found Param in his office, exactly where I expected him to be. One of the few advantages of mind-controlled drones is that they don’t wander off unexpectedly.

“How’s it going, buddy?” I said.

“All of the projects are meeting their projections, Alex. I expect the translation effort to reach its sixty percent milestone within ten hours. Completion in another one hundred and forty. The neurological data analysis is five percent ahead of schedule. The—“

“That’s fine, Param. I’ll read it in the reports.” I sighed and headed down the hall to my office. On the way, I saw Scarlett headed in the opposite direction. Without a word, I took her hand and guided her into the office, closing the door after us.

“Why haven’t you freed more women, Alex?” Scarlett was laying on my couch, wiping sweat and cum off her stomach with a tissue.

“Why? I don’t know,” I said, looking up from my display. My naked ass was sticking to the leather chair. “I guess I haven’t found a need for more women. You five are more than I can handle already.”

She laughed. ”I was starting to feel a little left out. It had been, what, five days?”

“Um, I’m not really sure…”

“Well of course you’re not,” she said. “You’re getting pussy whenever you want. It’s those of us on the other side of the equation that have to take turns.” She was smiling as she said it—there was no animosity in her, and I don’t think she was psychologically capable of jealousy. Still…

“Why would you want me to free more women, then? Do we need a specialist? Someone who needs to be freed in order to do a job?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I just see all these women working away under the aliens’ control, and I want them to be free. I want them to feel all the good things that I feel since you took their controls out of my head.”

“Even if those good things mean a lifetime of absolute devotion to me?”

“Well of course. What do you think I meant by good things? Belonging to you is wonderful, Alex. I think you should free every woman in the world, and have them all be in love with you.”

I groaned. “I don’t think I could get around to pleasing every woman in the world. And you’d have to wait a lot more than five days for your next round.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” she said. “There’s a deep satisfaction in belonging to you. I think every woman would love to feel that every day, for the rest of their lives, regardless of how much sex they get.”

I had to chuckle at that. “I doubt that very much. While I’m glad that I have you four and Kara, I’m not looking for anyone else to be permanently bonded to me. I might free someone else if we really need her help, but for now, I’ll just have to suffer with the same hot, horny women that I already have.”

I was glad that Kara wasn’t around. With her abilities she’d probably see what was really running through my mind. The reality was that it was almost addictive, the feeling of strength—of power really—that came from having five beautiful women totally devoted to me. Sometimes it felt incredibly right, and other times I felt incredibly guilty. I knew that under the old world’s mores, it was reprehensible to have complete control over another human like I had now, especially when sex was mixed in. The thing was, the moral state of this new world was still being decided, and I had no idea if the old values could, or should, survive.

My ethical musings were interrupted by a knock on the door. Not waiting for an answer, Jill walked into the office. She smiled at Scarlett’s state of undress, and when she saw me sitting naked at my desk, she reached for the buttons on her blouse.

“Can I…?” she asked.

“No, Jill. Sorry. Not right now. What did you need?”

She pretended to pout, then lit back up again. “Actually I needed both of you. We’ve had a breakthrough.”

“Really?” I said. “In which project?”

“Come see,” she said, turning to leave.

I shuffled into my pants, and followed her out into the hall, barefoot and bare chested, watching her round ass moving among the work spaces. She stopped at a desk with a large vid display. A young Indian man was seated there, staring at the image.

“Rahim,” Jill said, “Pull up the frequency display.”

The screen changed to a series of wave patterns. A small, soft hand slipped into mine, and I turned to see Scarlett, dressed but without shoes or a bra. I squeezed her hand and nodded at Jill to continue.

“We’ve been passively reading satellite transmissions, scanning for anything to do with the aliens. After Dr. Kinslov’s nano-trackers showed the Arbiter’s base at the old Alameda Naval Air Station, we concentrated on signals from that area. They band-hop in a pretty complex pattern, but we’ve closed in on their most common frequencies.” The top waves on the vid flashed briefly. “Using those freq ranges, we’ve been able to isolate transmission sources.”

“Wait, Jill,” I said, “are you telling me that—“

She grinned. “We found them! All of them!” Rahim switched the display, and a U.S. map appeared, sparkling with hundreds…thousands…of red pinpoints.

“Oh, my god!” Scarlett squealed and rushed to hug the blonde engineer.

Oh my god. My heart sank as I stared at the vid. They were everywhere.

Anatoly was a bundle of energy, sitting next to me. I tried to stay calm, and take in the data from the seven vids arrayed around our “situation room.” Lani, Amber and Kara were standing next to me. Jill and Scarlett were at two of the terminals.

“The call’s gone out,” said Stephan, Anatoly’s tech expert.

“Alert the teams,” the Russian said.

On the largest vid, remote cameras showed a crowded intersection in the city of Alameda, not far from the Naval Air Station. The emaciated body of an old woman was lying on the sidewalk. A converted man in a rumpled suit stood over her, phone in hand. As people passed by, they would stop to look, until the businessman assured them that he had already called an Arbiter. I watched the dispassionate looks of the drones as they nodded their understanding and went about their normal behavior.

“Who was she?” Lani asked.

“Michael found her,” Anatoly said. “No one, really. Another anomaly in the aliens’ plan. She starved to death in her house.” Kara and I looked at each other, both of us knowing something about being hungry.

“Are you sure about this plan, Anatoly?” I asked.

He blew out his breath in exasperation. “Alexei, I have considered all of the alternatives. There is no other way. I admit that I am puzzled by your…would you call it a “Boy Scout” mentality? Did you think we could win this war without killing?”

I felt my face heating in embarrassment, then flushing in anger. Who was this hairy little gnome to call me out for showing compassion? I was all for killing the aliens, but I was still hesitant to murder converted humans. He could call me a Boy Scout if he wanted to, but that wasn’t going to stop me from trying to save everyone, without exception.

Probably thinking that he had chastised me properly, Dr. Kinslov went back to studying the monitors. “Have the teams check in,” he told Stephan.

The four sniper teams arrayed around the intersection all radioed that they were in place and ready for action.

“Good,” Anatoly said. “Expect the targets in four minutes.”

I reached out and took Lani’s hand. The time on the vid ticked past.

Five minutes later, Anatoly was out of his chair, standing behind Stephan, dancing from foot to foot. “Where are they? My calculations were perfect.”

On the other side of Lani, Kara suddenly gasped. “Alex!”

Voices erupted over the comm system, and everyone seemed to move at once. Stephan leaped up from his chair and ran to a packing crate, pulling out an assault rifle and checking the load. Anatoly had his pistol drawn, swiveling his head as he looked or listened for something.

I was out of my chair as well, Glock in hand. “What is it?”

“They must have found us,” Anatoly said.

“The Arbiter is really close, Alex,” Kara said at almost the same time.

I knew that an Arbiter meant a Sentinel as well. I wasn’t sure that our three guns would be enough to protect all of us. Then I saw the three other techs in Anatoly’s crew move to the weapons crate. Was everyone that worked for him a converted killer?

“Where are they, Kara?”

She closed her eyes and spun in place, using her unique mind like a radar. She stopped, facing the wall to the left of the entrance. “There,” she said, pointing. “They’re coming from the street. Toward the door.”

I moved to the back of the conference room, pushing chairs out of my way. When I got to the back wall, I grabbed the edge of the massive fakeoak conference table and heaved. The girls all joined me, and with a crash, the table tipped on its side. It was more than two meters wide, so on its edge I couldn’t see over the top. I hoped it’s dense construction would provide some protection. I peeked around the end to see why Anatoly hadn’t joined us.

Stephan and the other three minions had moved in front of us, taking a position facing the double doors into the conference room. Anatoly stood directly behind his lead technician, fastening his ballistic vest around his bulging belly. Funny that he hadn’t mentioned bringing weapons and armor when we prepared for this operation.

“How did they find us?” Jill asked, moving near me.

“I have no idea,” I said, “but we should have been more prepared. We assumed too much.” Anatoly must have heard me, because he turned to glare, but a noise from outside the doors drew his attention away.

The conference room that we had converted into a command center was across the Bay from our ambush site, in the middle of downtown San Jose. Far enough away from the operation to escape notice—or so we thought. Unfortunately we were also too far away to call Anatoly’s troops back for support. There was no reason that the aliens should know we were here, unless they were somehow monitoring our transmissions. We thought we were so careful in disguising our electronic footprint…

I waved Kara over. “Can you tell what they’re thinking?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. I can’t actually feel them. I think it’s the helmets. But I can feel the alien whispering to them.” She shuddered, and I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’m so glad I got that voice out of my head.”

Whispering to them…transmitting to them. The alien was reading the signals from his servants’ helmets, and sending his own instructions, along with jolts of pleasure or pain. Could their signals be disrupted? I took Amber and Kara by the arms and practically dragged them toward the EM generator that was supposed to be hiding us from detection. The plastic box sat on a pallet, it’s control terminal resting on top.

I took Amber’s face in my hands, looking into her eyes. “I’m commanding you…do everything I say, immediately, and precisely. No questions. No hesitation.” Her eyes widened, but she nodded.

I kicked the side of the EM device, jarring loose the side panel. Ripping it away, I knelt to examine the guts of the machine. I found the main modulator, and took out my pocket tool.

“Kara, keep listening,” I said. “Tell me if anything happens to the alien’s whisper.” She nodded and closed her eyes. “Amber, take the generator off line, and get into the code of the test program, you need to reset it’s parameters to cycle through the higher bands, starting at three gigahertz.” She tapped away at the terminal while I reached with the tip of my multitool to disable the frequency limiter. It shorted in a shower of sparks, and I gritted my teeth as bits of hot metal singed my hand.

There was noise from outside the doors. Gunfire. I knew Anatoly had other minions nearby, and assumed that they were engaging the Sentinel. I watched Kara’s face, and she didn’t flinch at the noise—her concentration was on the alien.

“The test just finished, Alex,” Amber said. She looked worried, but I knew my earlier command would keep her on track.

No reaction from Kara. “Try nine gigahertz,” I said. She tapped again at the console.

The gunfire had stopped. I saw Anatoly’s men, each on one knee, guns aimed at the door. The scientist had moved behind my table barricade and was watching around the far edge. I motioned my other girls to the floor, and stood to put my body between Kara and the doors.

“Wait,” the former Arbiter said, reaching out to touch me. “It’s getting fainter.”

“Amber, slow the cycle,” I said. “Be ready to stop when Kara says, then turn the power output to max.”

Kara had her palm pressed against my chest. Her eyes were still closed, and her head was tilted to the side in the classic pose of someone listening to a faint noise. “Almost…” she said. “It almost gone…”

“Now!” she cried, opening her eyes to look at me.

An explosion boomed behind me, and I flew forward into Kara. Something solid hit my back, then my shoulder, my legs…my head snapped forward, and I fell, landing heavily on top of the screaming woman. I heard guns firing, girls screaming, Anatoly roaring in Russian, but I couldn’t turn my head to see.

I must have blacked out, because the next thing I felt, I was being dragged across the floor. I was on something, a cloth maybe.

“Hurry!” Lani screamed. The sounds around me changed—we must be outside. The going was louder now, scraping along the concrete. Car doors.

“Get him in. Lay her in the back. Kara, get up front.” Several hands grabbed at my clothes, and I was lifted up. I figured I was the “him” Lani was talking about.

“Go, Jill, go!”

“I’m telling you, Alex, you have to kill him before he kills you. How many times do I have to repeat it?” Kara sat in an overstuffed recliner, her broken arm in a sling. Lights on the plastic cast flickered as the ultrasonics did their work helping the bone to heal.

“I don’t want to kill him if I don’t have to, Kara. I get that he’s a violent psychopath, but he’s also a brilliant scientist who could be crucial in the fight against the aliens. I promise, I’ll have a solution to the Anatoly problem in a couple of days.” She raised her eyebrows, but didn’t pursue it any more than that.

I was stretched out on the lumpy matching couch, that was several centimeters too short for my frame. My back and legs were numb from the subdermal pain blocks, and stiff from the bandages. My head throbbed.

Scarlett came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of sandwiches. She set it on the coffee table, then knelt on the floor next to me. Behind her, an older black woman followed with a tray of lemonade.

“Set that here, Mrs. Williams. Thank you,” Scarlett said. “Go to your room and take a nap now.”

We were in a house—selected at random by Jill—that was four blocks from the Stanford Neuroscience Center. Dr. Li was still stationed there at my instructions, and had taken care of our injuries last night. The exploding door had peppered my back with shrapnel, but none of my wounds were critical. When I’d been knocked forward though, I’d landed on top of Kara and broken her arm. Amber had one small cut on her leg, but everyone else had escaped without a scratch. It was hard to believe we hadn’t all been killed.

The Arbiter was at the Center, in a coma. The doctors didn’t think she would make it, that her organs were shutting down from starvation, and her brain activity was almost nonexistent. Kara couldn’t sense any of her thoughts, but we weren’t sure if that was natural, or caused by having worn the helmet. It was sad that we didn’t even know the dying woman’s name.

My gambit had worked, to a degree. Jill told me the story in the hospital later that night. When Amber turned the EM generator to full power, both the Sentinel and the Arbiter had fallen to the ground. The red-armored soldier had thrashed around in pain, and the bubble-headed Arbiter had writhed in ecstasy, pulling at her breasts and rubbing her crotch through her skirt. It sounded like a failsafe had kicked in when their control signal was disrupted, disabling them with overwhelming sensation. Soon, both of the alien helpers were unconscious.

Between the five of them, the women had managed to roll my dead weight onto a large tablecloth, and drag me out the door. At Kara’s insistence, they picked up the odorous, feather-light body of the Arbiter, and brought her along. Anatoly had started to protest, but from the way Jill told it, Kara faced him down, with my pistol in her good hand. He knew that she was the only one of the girls capable of doing something violent, so he backed off. With Kara covering the rear, they’d piled everyone into the van and made their escape.

“Where’s my satphone?” I asked Scarlett. “Any word from the other three?”

“They’ll be back in an hour or so,” she said. “You just rest, Alex.” She ran her hand down my arm, avoiding the patches of angry purple skin where I’d been bruised in the explosion.

I leaned back and closed my eyes. Her light touch made my skin tingle, and when she ran her hand down the front of my sweatpants, my cock sprang to attention. While I drifted in a pain-killer induced euphoria, I felt cool air and then warm lips on my hardening shaft. I’m not sure how long I drifted like that, but it had to be the most relaxing time I’d had since the aliens landed.

I came back to reality when I felt a second pair of lips, and a second tongue, joining Scarlett’s in teasing my sensitive skin. I opened my eyes to see Lani’s dark head moving up and down in my lap. I touched her silky hair, and she sat up and gave me a smile.

“Hi, lover,” she said.

“Hi, yourself,” I said. “How did everything go?” The other girls were moving around the small living room, each one giving me a smile as they passed.

“I think we’re OK for now,” Lani said. She moved up to give me a kiss, and Scarlett regained sole possession of my cock. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Wonderful actually.” I nodded my head toward Scarlett, just in time to feel her take me all the way down her throat. I groaned a bit, but not in pain.

Lani chuckled, and sat back on her heels beside the couch. “I think the containment box for the helmet is working,” she said. “We followed our drone driver in the van for a full day. He moved six times, and parked in the open for hours at a time. We didn’t see any signs of being followed. Param kept watch on the transmissions from Alameda, but there wasn’t any noticeable change.”

“Where is it now?” I asked. I ran a hand through Scarlett’s hair as she took me deep again.

“Parked at the airport,” she said. “We have some R-C employees monitoring the security cameras until we move it.”

“What about the Sentinel?”

She shrugged. “No clue. He wasn’t in the wreckage of the office building. I have a feeling that Anatoly has him.”

I nodded. “I think so, too. I’m worried about what he’s going to do with that alien technology.” I reached out to touch her cheek. “You did great, Lani.” I raised my voice so everyone could hear. “You all did great. I’m really proud of you girls for taking care of everything.”

There were smiles all around, and the mood in the house relaxed after a nervous few days. As if the release of tension was some kind of unspoken permission, things went from serious to sexual very quickly. Kara pulled Jill into her lap for a kiss. Lani peeled off her top and rejoined Scarlett at my crotch. I was still worried about a hundred different things, but for a little while, I’d let all of us relax. I groaned out loud as I felt Lani’s tongue.

“I’m worried, Alex,” Lani said in my ear.

I kept my eyes on the white stucco building down the street. “I am too, Lani, but it needs to be done, and I’m pretty much the only one who can do it.”

“I know, baby, but I don’t know what we would do if anything happened to you.”

“We talked about this—you’ll keep trying to win this fight, no matter what.” I could hear her breathing through my earpiece, but she didn’t respond. I checked the van’s display. “Eight minutes,” I said. “Are the aliens on schedule?”

“Like clockwork,” Amber said over the comm. “The pulse will hit in seven minutes and forty-three seconds.”

“Good,” I said. “Everyone get in the cage and seal it tight. Call me back when you come out.”

“Good luck, Alex.. We love you.” The channel went dead before I could reply.

I chuckled to myself. This was probably the dumbest thing I’d ever done, and there was a good chance that I wouldn’t come out the other side. In seven minutes, odds were I’d either be dead or an alien puppet. Too bad that my last sight as a free human being would be this ugly industrial neighborhood in San Jose. Why hadn’t Anatoly chosen somewhere more scenic for his hideout?

I got out of the van, keeping my face covered with a scarf I’d borrowed from Amber. No telling how far out Anatoly’s surveillance perimeter was set. Movement was awkward in the black body armor; I wasn’t used to wearing this kind of heavy, rigid clothing. Opening the cargo door, I retrieved my backpack, then waited as the seconds ticked down on my watch.

At precisely six minutes until the alien pulse, I opened the metal box on the floor of the van, and dug out the blue globe of the Arbiter’s helmet. I wasn’t as smooth as I’d been in practice, but I got my D-glasses on, fit the breathing mask over my nose and mouth, straightened all of the wires and tubes coming out of the helmet, then lifted the surprisingly light contraption over my head. As I settled it down over my face, I keyed the glasses with a blink. The cameras mounted on the outside of the helmet turned on, and I was looking at the van through artificial eyes. External microphones brought the sounds of nearby traffic to my earpiece.

When the top of my head touched the inner dome of the helmet, the collar irised, slowly but firmly, around my neck, sealing me off from the outside world. My survival now depended on the strange hybrid of human and alien technology surrounding my skull.

The display showed that I was running fifteen seconds late. I put a hand on my holstered Glock for reassurance, and set off down the road toward the mad scientist’s lair.

We’d managed to track Anatoly back to his hideout after the Sentinel attack. I think the chaos of that day had rattled him, and he made a mistake. When he and his minions had packed up the Sentinel, and whatever equipment they could carry, they didn’t notice that one of the devices they took wasn’t theirs. It was the real-time tracker for the aliens’ electronic emissions that Jill had built. The one that constantly synced its location with the main system back at Rollins-Chiu. Rahim had noticed the signal moving away from the site of the attack, and alerted Param. Before someone in Anatoly’s camp noticed the mistake and turned off the device, the signal had sat for hours at the location in front of me.

The white building was headquarters for Caravaggio Technologies, Inc., a sometimes-competitor of Rollins-Chiu. Where R-C had focused on consumer technology, CTI was more about pure research. They had similar facilities to what we had in Orange Building, but on a smaller scale, and with more of a focus on hard science. It made perfect sense that Anatoly would pick this place for his hideout.

My timer ticked down to five minutes as I reached the front door. As I suspected, it was locked, but I had gamed out as many contingencies as I could before deciding to go ahead with the plan. An awkward reach into the backpack brought out a half-meter pry bar, and the door popped open with a loud crack. I had forgotten that I was wearing a large globe on my head, and I knocked the hard blue shell against the doorframe as I pushed through the door. The scene in my glasses flickered briefly, and I had to remind myself to be more careful.

I stopped just inside the front lobby. It looked identical to dozens of other Silicon Valley office buildings, with a large security and reception desk, flanked by elevators and security turnstiles. I drew my pistol, and thumbed off the safety as the five people near the desk turned in my direction.

This was the first of several calculated risks I’d taken with this plan. Anatoly had figured out how to free his minions from the non-violence conditions of the aliens’ control, but I was betting on the fact that he would not want those drones exposed to the EM pulse after they had been “fixed.” They were most likely inside the Faraday cage with their master. That left regular, converted minions to man the front desk while the alien eggs were in the sky.

I watched the five men as they watched me, but none of them made any attempt to intercept me as I made my way toward the left bank of elevators. I didn’t know if they deferred to the Arbiter’s helmet, or if they simply had no normal behavior to handle a guy with a blue head entering the lobby. I kept the gun pointed at the ground as I crossed the wide tiled floor. I blinked up the floorplan and checked my bearings. Three minutes left.

There were two likely locations for Anatoly’s safe haven, with the largest space taking up part of the third floor. The other possibility was in the basement. Knowing what I did about the paranoid little Russian, I pushed open the stairwell door, and headed down.

Sure enough, as I entered the bottom level, I saw four men standing stiffly in front of a metal door set into a riveted bulkhead. A panel next to the door had several indicators, all set to green, and a red “In Use” sign was lit above the lintel.

I admit that I was rushing, and probably got lazy after cruising past the guys in the lobby. I didn’t notice the four men in front of the door reaching for their weapons until it was almost too late. One by one, they dropped into a crouch and raised their pistols.

I knew there was a corridor to my left, but my peripheral vision was limited by the cameras on the outside of the helmet. Hoping for the best, I dove sideways, landing hard on the shoulder that was still sore from the explosion. Bullets whipped past the opening and buried themselves in the door to the stairs. I crab-scrambled backward down the side corridor, expecting the drones to come charging around the corner at any minute.

My precious time was ticking away while I waited. Two minutes. No one appeared. I guessed that the minion guards at the door to Anatoly’s Faraday cage were programmed not to pursue.

I needed options. I pulled off my backpack and took out the tightly wrapped package inside. I was going to use it to destroy the power supply to the cage, but I wouldn’t even get near the power unless I took out those guards. Or maybe…maybe I could…

I blinked up the floorplan again. There was the closet that probably held the conduit for the Faraday cage. My plan had been to get inside, and disable the power, then find a way to destroy the integrity of the cage, but those guards were blocking my access through the door. I saw that the back wall of the closet backed up to an office that opened off this side-corridor.

I saw two possible actions here: if I placed the charge against the shared wall, there was a chance that I could still destroy the cage’s power; or I could throw the bomb at the guards like a grenade, and hope that the damage to the cage was enough to disrupt its protection. I was used to making critical path decisions like this, but usually not this fast, or with this much at stake. One minute. I had no choice, I went with my gut—it had served me well in other crucial situations this year.

The door to the office was locked. I drew my pistol and aimed at the handle. Strange, but this was the first time I’d actually fired at anything besides targets. The camera positions on the helmet made aiming awkward, but I managed to squeeze off six shots in under ten seconds. I kicked the door open, and headed for the back wall, keeping my D-glasses split between my eyeline view and the floorplan. Thirty seconds. I set the charge for ten, stuck it against the correct spot on the wall, and ran for the door.

I think my decision to try this option had a lot to do with not wanting to kill those guards. Other than that, it was not a great plan. I didn’t know what the wall was made of, or if the charge was strong enough to breach it. I also didn’t know exactly where the power conduit was in the two-by-two meter room. If it was on the front wall, or shielded by something else in the closet, the explosion might not even reach it.

It was too late for second guessing now. I got to the corridor and ran to the right. Five steps down the hall, a boom through my open microphone almost blew out my ear drums, and a pressure wave pushed at my back and fluttered my pant legs. Through it all, I watched the timer on my glasses. Fourteen…thirteen…twelve…eleven…ten. I stopped in my tracks and hit the master switch on my electronics, killing all of my feeds. I was swallowed by darkness and silence. I counted in my head. Six…five…four…three…two…one…

Was it over? I hadn’t felt anything. Had I counted too fast? Did the pulse even happen? I caressed the master switch, wondering when I should turn my feeds back on. I was worried that time dilation inside the helmet would make me jump the gun and turn on my electronics too early. But if I waited too long, there was a good chance that Anatoly would burst out of his Faraday cage and put a bullet in my chest while I stood here deaf and dumb.

Then I realized that my mind could play tricks on me, but my body couldn’t. I touched my fingers to my wrist, feeling my pulse. Twenty beats later, I was confident that the EM event was over. Time to see how it all turned out. I hit the switch.

“—Alex! Say something damn you! Oh my god, Amber, he’s not answering. Are you sure we’re on? Alex! Al—“

“La…Lani…I’m OK.” My mouth was really dry, but I managed to croak out a reply.

“Alex! Oh my god! Did it work? Are you still you? Well of course you are if you just answered me. But maybe that’s just your normal behavior talk—“

“Lani! Enough! I’m fine. The helmet worked. At least I think it did. Everything’s still in flux here. I’m ditching the helmet now. Tell Atu to bring up the van with the containment box.”

“Yes, yes, Alex. Anything you say. Oooh! I’m so happy I could cum right here! I love you, baby!”

I had to laugh. “I love you too, Lani. I’ll still be on the comm, but I need you to be quiet unless it’s an emergency, OK?”

I fished the last item out of the backpack. It was a two-pronged contraption with metal hooks and a couple of heavy duty servos. We hadn’t figured out how to get the helmet off in any kind of normal way—there wasn’t a switch that loosened the iris around the wearer’s neck. That made sense of course, since the helmet was only meant to be put on, never taken off. I assumed that the alien controller unlocked it remotely when the current occupant died. In my case though, I needed to trick the helmet into letting me out.

The seal around the wearer’s neck could expand and contract by a small amount, to allow for the movement of an organic creature within the rigid structure of the helmet. It had a limit though, so the opening couldn’t simply be forced open. I placed the hooks between the edges of the iris and the skin of my neck. The servos kicked in, prying the edges of the iris open by about two millimeters, then relaxing by one. The natural give and take in the seal slowly allowed it to open, pulse by pulse.

I stayed focused on the end of the corridor, gun in hand, while the device did its job. No one appeared. Finally, I was able to lift the alien fishbowl off my head. It was a relief to use my own eyes and breathe real air, even if the corridor was choked with smoke. I set the helmet on the ground, and detached one of the external cameras.

Using the camera, and my glasses, I peered around the corner. My explosion had blown open the power room door, and I saw one of the four guards lying on the ground. Although they were choking on smoke, the other three stood in place, looking down the corridor. I couldn’t figure out if they had changed or not—the EM pulse only opened the brain to suggestion, it was the embedded media messages that actually changed behavior.

From a pocket on my vest, I fished out a small black box. Checking my comm earbuds to make sure they were in place, I hit a switch on the device, and stuck it to the wall just around the corner. The soothing strains of classical music—complete with embedded alien signals—echoed down the corridor.

The door to the Faraday cage clicked open, and the three guards stepped back. Mike and Eddie emerged, guns still holstered, followed by a coughing Dr. Kinslov. I gripped my pistol, waiting for Anatoly to bark out orders to hunt me down. Instead, he stood calmly, blinking against the smoke.

I checked my time. I needed to get the Arbiter’s helmet away from here before any response by the aliens could arrive. Atu should be out front with the van by now. He would drive the helmet away, allowing the Sentinel to follow him for a short while, then seal it in the containment box, hopefully making it disappear from view. I’d taken a huge risk, giving the alien our location, but the helmet was the only way I could think of to act against Anatoly while he was vulnerable inside his cage.

I couldn’t wait any longer. Leaving the camera on the floor so I could see the group, I stepped back, deeper into the side corridor, and took up a shooting stance.

“Anatoly!” I shouted around the corner. “I’m Alex. I have the power of command. Your normal behavior is to obey my instructions. Tell the men around you to stay where they are, and walk by yourself down the hall to me.”

In my glasses, I saw the Russian’s head swivel around when he first heard my voice, and several of his minions had reached for their holstered guns. But after I finished speaking, everyone simply stood in place. Anatoly broke away from the group and walked calmly toward me. I backed up a couple steps, and waited.

The psychopathic scientist turned the corner and stopped, seeing the gun aimed at his face. His bushy beard parted as he grinned.

“Greetings, Alex,” he said.

One of the naked blondes huddled in the bottom of an iron cage. Her breasts and belly showed permanent marks from a whip of some kind. Another was shackled across a padded bench, her head covered in a shiny leather hood, her ass and pussy stuffed with buzzing black dildos. The third was tied to a large wooden frame, loop after loop of rough rope wound around her limbs, and tight around her large breasts.

“Anatoly, what is this?”

“These are my whores,” the Russian said. “Dasha, Stephania, and Kalina. They are bad girls that I must punish frequently.”

Scarlett and Amber pushed past me into the dimly lit room. “You sick fuck,” Amber said. She found a ring of keys on a hook, and headed toward the shackled woman.

I turned Anatoly to face me. “What else haven’t you told me?” I asked.

“I was born near Kaliningrad. My mother worked in a factory, and my father was a city official. We owned a house on—“

“Enough, Anatoly.” It was hard to remember to treat him like a drone, after dealing with his strong personality for so long. “What other projects do you have in progress, in this place, at this time, that you haven’t revealed to me yet?”

Recognition flickered across his face. “Ah. The Plan. Yes, yes. Come with me.” He grabbed at my sleeve and set off down the hallway.

The mansion that he had commandeered from its former owners was large and tasteless, which didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was that he didn’t live in a bunker surrounded by a hundred killer minions. Seeing the “normal” life of my enemy had come as a shock; from the three girls in his dungeon, to the four star chef who cooked his meals, to the chamber quartet who lived in a back room and played music to help him relax.

Of course there were other discoveries we’d already made—ones that were more important to the fight against the aliens. The sedated and restrained Sentinel was stashed in a warehouse well away from the rest of his operations. His setup at Caravaggio included all of his scientific and nanotech research, which was currently being dismantled and moved to Orange Building. His personal living space was the only thing left to examine. I knew he would keep his most important projects close, but so far, I hadn’t seen anything earth-shaking.

We went upstairs, to the third floor. An old-fashioned thumbprint scanner opened a door into a windowless room. Half of the equipment inside looked like it belonged in a museum. I recognized the shortwave radio set from my grandfather’s old Scientific American magazines. A world map was tacked to the back wall, with hundreds of red, yellow, and blue pins stuck in it. Cyrillic notations filled the margins.

“Anatoly, what is this place? What project are you running here?”

“This is the communications center for The Plan. Over seven hundred humans who have not been converted. Politicians, military officers, corporate executives, scientists, anyone who was smart enough to have a contingency in place when the aliens appeared. We are coordinating our efforts toward destroying the aliens, and establishing a new Earth.”

I couldn’t believe it. Seven hundred unconverted people around the world? “Damn it, Anatoly, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Because, Alexei, part of the plan was to have you killed.”