The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Sole Survivor

By Stub

mc mf ff md sf

Chapter 18 — Ghost in the Machine

A starry void. Giant ovoid ships passing by Jupiter, their decks filled with Chrxjthal waddling about, or riding in carts, their little nodules quivering with conversation. Like a ghost I flickered through their ranks, listening, and surprisingly, understanding. They were getting close, decelerating toward the planet of the fighting beasts, where their brothers had created an army to defend them, to drive off the evil Achssa’adir who threatened their families...

Above the blue planet, the Commander was pleased as he moved about the control ship. Preparations were almost complete. The sixty-four factories were nearly at capacity with newly-trained fighting beasts. The transport ships would be here in thirty-one rotations, and they could finally return to their beloved home...

The Sub-Commander of Factory Twenty Three drove his cart past the rows of machinery, trying to get his environment suit to stop chafing under his left arm. Assembly of the stasis pods had slowed to unacceptable levels. The worker beasts stood around idly while the resource crews looked for additional raw materials. If the pods could not be built in time, he would be forced to destroy his excess inventory of fighting beasts before they returned home. It was a disgraceful failure in planning, and he was sure that many of those above him would be demoted. That would create opportunities for beings like him, and he twitched with the thoughts of his increased allocation of breeding females...

I’d been through this song and dance several times in the last year, waking up from some trauma or another in an unknown bed, with a pounding headache, and a million questions about what had happened while I was away. This time was different though, for several reasons. The biggest one being that I couldn’t move a single muscle. I could feel my body—or at least I imagined that I could—but any commands to move an arm or raise a leg resulted in nothing but frustration.

My hearing was OK, if the whir and beep of medical machinery was any indication. My sight...well, I couldn’t seem to open my eyes at the moment, so that answer would have to wait. I had a...something that smelled like plastic and antiseptic covering my nose and mouth. A breathing mask? Was I really that bad off? Well, if I couldn’t move my body, that was certainly an indication.

“Alex? Dr. Li, his eyes are moving, I think he might be waking up.” [Oh, please, baby. Please wake up...] Was that Lani? God I loved that girl.

A blinding light hit me in the left eye, as someone peeled back my eyelid and shone a penlight at me. My right eye got the same treatment. When it was over, the afterimages had me thinking back to our battle with Albert, and the dazzling white of Maria’s rage as she tore into the being who had killed her family.

“He’s coming around, finally,” Dr. Li announced to the room. “The latest tests show his hormone levels are stable. I’ll take him off the paralytic slowly, but he should be able to talk in about twelve hours.”

Twelve hours? I had too many questions to wait that long. But then again, the bright lights had faded from my retinas, and the darkness felt so relaxing...

“I think the relevant question is, do you trust your visions?” Vivian, Anatoly, and my three arbiters were seated around my hospital bed. I’d told all of my other girls that I needed break—having to hear in their minds how much it hurt them when I was hurt, was giving me an even worse headache.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Where did they come from? There’s no more link to Albert, since he’s on ice in the lab, or to the network, since I’m not plugged into the helmet. How could I see alien ships out in space?”

“The people in the boxes,” Anatoly said.

“What?” We all looked at him.

“Think about it, Alexei. Everything that the aliens do is based on their natural means of communication. If you were still connected to the aliens’ network with just your own mind, what would you see? You described how Albert envisioned things, and it was nothing like human sight. And yet your dreams were in full color and with sound, correct?” I nodded at him. “So, logically, if these scenarios are real, they must have been translated at some point, from alien to human. I know of only one way that we’ve been able to bridge the gap in perceptions, and that is through the ‘torsos’ as you call them.”

“But was that something current, something I received from them while I was unconscious? Or was it a lingering memory from my time in the alien network?”

“That is a good question,” the Russian said. “If it was in real time, then we have, as you heard in your vision, thirty-one days until the ships arrive. If it was a memory from the battle between you and Albert, then the time is shorter.”

“Yes, there’s a bunch of ships on the way here,” I said. “But there’s also the fact that they’re going to freeze millions of soldiers and stash them somewhere until they can come pick them up later. And if they can’t build enough pods to do it, they’re just going to kill them before they leave. Plus, now that I think about it, what has happened to all of the female soldiers? I can see them being used as workers in the factories, but what will they do with them when the aliens stop producing more Sentinels?”

Everyone in the room was silent, lost in their own thoughts about the approaching doomsday. Thirty-one days...that would put it at July 23rd, because today was...

“Holy shit,” I said. “Did any of you realize that it’s been a year since the invasion?”

Vivian laughed dryly. “What, do you want to have a party?”

“I’m just saying, it’s hard to believe that we’ve been dealing with aliens for that long. A year ago today, I was sailing along on a calm Pacific Ocean, my only worry in the world being to get out of the way of an approaching weather front.”

“I was getting in the car, about to drive Erica and AJ into Santa Cruz for some summer clothes,” Vivian said.

“I’d just gotten off my shift at the coffeehouse...”

“...on the phone with Dwight arranging our vacation to Fiji...”

“...telling my dad that I’d just dented the fender of his car in the mall parking lot...”

“Yes, yes,” Anatoly said, waving his hand around. “And I was in my laboratory where I always was. Reminiscing about this anniversary is irrelevant. We need to decide whether we believe Alexei’s visions were real, and if so, we need to see what we can learn from the people in the boxes.”

I was so caught up in memories that I almost missed it. “Wait,” I said, “they’re still alive?” The torsos from Fresno had died almost instantly when Curtis killed the alien there, and I assumed the ones here had followed suit.

“According to the cameras we left in place, yes.” Anatoly tapped on his ever-present pad, and then showed me a straight-down view into several of the torso boxes. Bubbles occasionally formed in the mouths of the bodies, and while we watched, one of them twitched. “Vivian has not allowed us to go back to the base, but I have been keeping track of things as best I can.”

Vivian had been under strict orders to get everyone out of the blast radius as soon as things went bad, and to not let anyone return until we saw what the alien response would be. So far, it looked like there hadn’t been any.

“The people in the boxes,” I said, “do you thing the device in their room is keeping them alive?”

Anatoly nodded. “It makes sense that their basic physical needs were handled by a computer. It’s how I would have done it.”

I had to laugh at that. If there was one person in the world that I could ever see chopping people’s limbs off, and peeling open their brains, it was the complicated little Russian.

“I wonder if they’re dreaming,” Megan said.

“We’ll have to see if we can find out,” I said.

Mateo looked up as I entered the room he used as his office.

“Glad you’re here, sir,” he said.

“It sounded urgent,” I said. I pulled up a chair and sat heavily, still not up to my normal strength.

“It could be sir. I have concerns about our new addition.”

“The Sentinel that we captured at the mansion?”

He nodded. “We’ve managed to wean him off the alien signals, and Dr. Li gave him the same meds that Curtis and I take. Everything’s progressing well, but he...ah...sir, it’s about his attitude.”

“Really? What’s got you worried, Sergeant?”

“Well, first off, he’s a full bird Colonel, and he seems determined to assume some type of command. We’ve explained the structure here, and I know we don’t have actual ranks or anything, but I’ve tried to clue him in on the command hierarchy. He just says that a real soldier should be in command of this fight, and that when he’s completely healed, he’ll be ready to take charge.”

I raised my eyebrow at that. “Really?”

Mateo nodded. It was hard to tell his feelings behind his half-mask, but the way his jaw clenched told me he wasn’t terribly happy with our new recruit.

“And how do you feel about that, Mateo? He is an officer after all.”

“Sir, as far as I’m concerned, the United States military ceased to exist over a year ago. I know that I still act like I’m in the Army, and Curtis is still a Marine, but we’ve talked about it—just between the two of us—and well, I think we just do it out of habit. Soldiers are conditioned to find their place in the group, and do the job that their superiors order. When I woke up from being controlled, I considered all of you to be my group, and my place in it is helping you in your fight against the aliens...sir.” He smiled briefly as he said that last word.

“And you think Private Wright agrees?”

“I know he does, sir. He’s actually more adamant about it than I am. I sent him away—told him to run an errand to Lawrence Livermore—just to get him away from the Colonel. As the only fully functioning Sentinels around here, you can imagine what would happen if those two got into it.”

I could, and it wouldn’t be pretty. “So what do you think I should do, Mateo?”

“I don’t really know. You could try talking to him. The colonel I mean. Maybe he’ll listen to you, and change his mind. But I should warn you, sir, with all due respect to his rank, the guy’s a real prick.”

“OK, then. Tell me what you know about him before I give it a shot.”

“Well, his name is Andre Freeman, and he’s a West Point grad. Probably in his mid-forties. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, where he was a logistics officer for ASOC. That’s Army Special Operations Command. So he knows something about Special Ops, but he’s a REMF, not a shooter. I actually think that the aliens considered him less valuable to their war than either me or Private Wright.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because we both have an extra comm channel in our helmets. When we’re under EM cover, like now, Curtis and I can actually talk to each other on this soldier-to-soldier channel. But when I tried to talk with Colonel Freeman, he could hear me, but couldn’t transmit back. I think he’s been processed as a front line grunt, while Curtis and I were probably intended to be something like squad leaders. I suspect it’s because we have better combat training than Colonel Freeman, and the Blue Motherfuckers don’t care about anything other than fighting ability.”

“That sounds about right,” I said. “They think we’re animals, so they would value the most dangerous of you over the ones who weren’t as good at fighting. You said before that they rely on your training to fill in the details of the commands they give you, so trained fighters would be better than trained stylus pushers.”

“Of course that made the colonel even more adamant about asserting his authority,” Mateo said. “He’s definitely got an ego.”

“So,” I said, “recommendations?”

The sergeant fidgeted with his hands, and looked down at the floor for a couple seconds, then raised his head. Knowing the kind of soldier he was, I was sure he was looking me in the eye, even though, with his opaque visor, there was no way to tell for sure. “If he becomes a problem, sir...if he threatens our mission in any way, then he needs to be neutralized, officer or not. If it comes down to it, I’m confident that Private Wright can take him out. Or maybe we can find a way to control him, like you did with Anatoly. I know that sounds harsh, sir, to talk about sacrificing a potential asset, and one of the few free humans, but I believe in you, and our cause, more than the rules of a military that doesn’t exist any more.”

“Thank you, Mateo. That means a lot, coming from you. But don’t discount the colonel just yet. Let me give him a try.”

I felt totally selfish for doing it, but my frustration was about to overwhelm me, and I’d only found one solution for when I got too tense. I guess there were two technically, if I felt like getting drunk, but with my newly-modified brain, I didn’t want to experiment with how alcohol would affect me. Instead, I was going with the tried and true one that Cassie and Amber had shown me a couple weeks ago.

Jill and Mei came into the bedroom together, both of them smiling at me. I could hear their thoughts, and they had no resentment at being called away from their jobs in the middle of the day. They were happy that they got a chance to be with me, even though they were heavily involved in their separate projects. That just made me feel more like a prick, but I needed their help, and today I was prioritizing my productivity over theirs.

“Hey, Alex,” Jill said. “I got your message. Did you want to see me?”

“And me, as well,” Mei said.

“Yes I did. I’m sorry to take you away from your jobs, but I need some help. I’ve had a bad week, and I’m feeling a little frustrated, so I immediately thought of my beautiful girls.”

Both of them beamed at me, and Jill immediately reached for the zipper on her skirt. Was I that transparent? I stretched back on the bed and watched them. Jill slowly took off her top, giving me a dramatic reveal of her matching royal blue bra and panties. The color was stunning against her pale skin and blonde hair. Mei was watching her as well, and I could hear her mentally taking notes of how the other woman dressed and acted.

When both girls were in their underwear, Jill crawled onto the bed and ran her hand up my leg and over my chest. Mei followed her on the other side, and while the blonde unbuttoned my shirt, the dark-haired girl went after my pants.

“I’m sorry you’ve had a bad week, Alex. I heard from Kara about what happened with the alien, and about Maria. And Cassie told Scarlett who told me about your talk with the new Sentinel.” [Tell me what I can do to help...]

I was down to just my boxers, and Mei was doing her thing, rubbing against me with her entire body. [He is so tense...]

The two girls looked at each other and I swear something passed between them. I couldn’t hear it, which was weird, but it felt almost like my connection with the three ex-Arbiters. With a coordinated push, they got me to roll over on the bed. Somehow I ended up on my stomach, with my head resting on Jill’s firm thighs, while Mei slithered over my back, rubbing at my tense muscles. She must have ditched her bra, because I felt the points of her nipples drag across my skin.

“Do you want to tell us what’s wrong, lover?” Jill said, as she stroked the stubble that was just starting to grow in on my head. I noticed her consciously avoiding the spot where the wires poked out of my skull. “Maybe we can help.”

“It’s just that we’ve most likely got twenty-four days left until the alien transports arrive, and take away millions of soldiers to fight in a war on some distant planet, and I don’t have any way to stop them. They’re going to either freeze or kill the ones they don’t take, and probably kill every female soldier that they used for workers but don’t need any more. Then on their way out of the solar system, they may or may not kill everyone on the planet. Oh, and our new Sentinel is an ass that thinks he can give orders to my people!” Letting it all out made me feel better. I let Mei’s caresses relax my muscles, as I ran my fingertips up and down Jill’s smooth leg.

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” Jill said. “Everyone’s working really hard, and I know it seems hopeless, but we all have faith in you. Haven’t you proved over and over again that when there’s a problem, you’ll find the solution?”

I snorted. “Ninety percent of our success has been dumb luck and desperation,” I said. “I’m not doing well having the fate of the human race on my shoulders. When we had all the time in the world, that was one thing, but knowing that we’re under this deadline is driving me crazy.”

In an amazing display of flexibility, Jill bent at the waist to kiss the top of my head. “Something will come to you, Alex, I’m sure it will.” I was surprised to hear that their thoughts exactly echoed Jill’s spoken words. There was no doubt in their minds that we would meet any challenge.

I’ve always had a healthy ego, I’ve admitted that before, but it had taken a serious beating in the last couple months. Hearing Jill’s thoughts now, and the confidence she had in me and our plan, was bringing some of that back. I ran my hand up her thigh and under the leg of her panties, touching her smooth skin, and hearing her sigh. Mei had tugged down my boxers, and straddled my bare ass, rubbing my shoulders and brushing her tits against my back. I heard the intensity in her mind, her determination to do this small thing for me with all of her heart, so that I could relax and go on to do the big things that would help everyone.

It was a heady mix of thoughts and emotions that I got from both of them, and it had a double effect; my confidence returned, and my anxiety fell away. Well, and my cock swelled to iron harness underneath me, so I guess it was a triple effect.

Their thoughts, and my mental change had me active now, restless, wanting to do something rather than lie there and accept what came to me.

I pushed up off the bed, spilling Mei off to the side, and grabbed Jill’s ankles. She squeaked in surprise as I opened her legs, and got between them, but didn’t try to fight me. I didn’t bother trying to undress her, I just tugged her panties to the side.

[Do it. Please, Alex...] Her arms went around my neck as I covered her body with mine, and rubbed the head of my cock in her barely moistened entrance. [Let me help you, baby...use me...shove it in...]

I took her advice and drove forward, getting just the tip in on the first thrust. Jill grunted, but her excitement was overruling any pain she felt. She wrapped her legs around my waist and tried to pull me closer, while her arms tugged my head down so our lips could meet. Her moisture started to flow, and as I tugged back and trust forward again, I made it in about half way.

My next thrust got a little assistance, as with one hand, Mei teased the place where Jill and I were joined, and with the other pushed down on my ass, trying to shove me deeper. Jill moaned as I hit bottom, and her warm pussy absolutely gushed around my shaft, making wet, sucking noises as I pulled back.

[Harder, baby. Fuck me...]

Jill was usually quite vocal when she was turned on, but all I heard in my ears was her constant moans. Did she realize that getting her dirty talk directly from her mind was even more intense for me? I didn’t “hear” just her spoken language, it was more of a gestalt of words, emotions, and attitude. I understood what she was telling me, but I also felt how much she was enjoying me taking charge, and how happy she was that she could help me when I needed it.

Again I took her mental advice, and drove into her hard, gathering her legs on my shoulders and bending her almost double as I pounded deep into her flooded hole. I still wasn’t back to full strength after my battle with Albert, and I honestly hadn’t been keeping up with my normal workouts, what with everything going on in the world, so I was sweaty and breathing hard in just a few minutes. But there was no way in hell I was going to slow down; it felt too incredible.

Jill squeezed me on every stroke, and Mei rubbed my slick back, and fondled my swinging balls as I drove with a single-minded purpose into my woman’s accepting pussy. I felt powerful and clear-minded for the first time in a long while, and I must have grinned like a maniac as Jill squealed underneath me, her legs trembling in my arms, and her hands clutching at my shoulders as she came hard. And I’m sure the grin was still on my face as I drove into her one final time and exploded, her twitching hole milking all of the frustration right out of me.

I let her legs down, but stayed on top of her, soaking in her warmth, and kissing her lovely lips. Mei laid down beside us, and soon the kisses were coming from all directions.

I wasn’t the least tired after the intense workout. Instead I felt alive. And fortunate, when I realized how hard this fight would have been if it weren’t for these women. Not just for things like this, but for everything that they—happily, and without question—did to help me.

[Thank you, thank you, Alex. God that was amazing...]

I laughed at the fact that she was thanking me. I rolled off from her, and ended up between the two, gathering them to me and covering myself with their warmth like a blanket. I was coming to the conclusion that my connection between sex and clear thinking was a real thing—I could only guess that it had something to do with my constant use of the Arbiter technology, which tied action and thought to pleasure. My body was grounded in the feelings of soft skin and gentle caresses, but my mind took off on a journey through the maze of of possibilities that our current situation presented. I felt like I was seeing things from a new perspective; not the ground-level drudgery of before, but something higher and clearer.

As Jill fell asleep tucked against my shoulder, and Mei snuggled in close, lost in her own thoughts, I took apart the problems facing us, piece by piece, and started to rearrange them into something that I knew I could deal with.

“Perimeter check.”

“All clear, sir.”

“Thanks, Mateo. Amber, you watch the skies, and you watch my back, Sergeant. I’m taking the group in now.”

“Roger that.”

“Good luck, baby.”

I smiled at the frown creeping onto Colonel Freeman’s face as he heard our comm chatter. Definitely not by the book. I remembered how General Yorikame had laughed at it in Salt Lake, and felt a twinge of loss that he was gone.

The Colonel was as imposing a presence as any other Sentinel, but even beyond that, I felt more wary of having him at my back than I would have with anyone other than maybe pre-conversion Anatoly. I waved him forward to take point down the stairs, surprised to see that he kept his rifle slung on his back, while the rest of us “civilians” had our safeties off and were ready to rock and roll at a second’s notice.

“The room on the right,” I called to him as we entered the basement corridor. The pickups in my Faraday helmet caught some muttering sounds, but no actual words as he headed through the door.

I almost ran into his back as he stopped short, just inside. His head was tilted down at the first of the torsos.

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” he said, shuffling forward to look in the next box, and finally allowing the rest of us to enter the room past his bulk. By the time we were all inside, the space was pretty crowded. Anatoly and Mike moved the mattress out of the way. Cassie was using a tiny port in the side of one of the boxes to draw samples of the orange gel. Kara, Elizabeth and Megan stood in the corner, their arms around each other and their heads leaning in to touch in the center.

The three women hadn’t talked much about what happened that night, and about Maria’s death. I’d asked Kara, but she said they were dealing with it among themselves, and that they were fine. I wasn’t so sure, though, and had asked Dr. Montoya from the Neuroscience Center about the possibility of a collective mind suffering from PTSD. She’d said it was certainly possible, and had given me a list of indicators to watch for.

I didn’t want to drag the girls into more conflict than I had to, so I’d only brought them with me in case I couldn’t make this connection alone. I let them have their collective privacy while the rest of the crew worked around them.

The stand was still there next to the generator. Anatoly took the Arbiter’s helmet out of his pack and set it up, trailing the wires out to the left, where Jason had just set up an office chair for me to sit in—no rolling around naked on a mattress this time.

The front wall was opaque, not letting us see Albert’s old habitat. Cassie had a theory that the aliens’ skin was light sensitive, so it made sense that he would keep the curtains closed by default. Still, it made the room seem smaller.

Colonel Freeman finished his inspection and turned to me. “So this is a typical setup for the ‘wardens’ as you call them?”

I nodded. “As they call themselves. Environmentally controlled habitat right next to a room with eight human torsos and the generator-slash-processor that runs the show. Lines go upstairs to the communications gear, which transmits both internally to their fellow aliens, and through the translation of the torsos to the human minions.” Like yourself, I didn’t say out loud.

“So every alien has at least eight humans chopped up and stuffed into boxes?”

“Yes,” I said. “Anatoly, what’s our total count?”

“We estimate over fourteen thousand of these wardens around the world, which means one-hundred and twelve thousand torsos. There are also close to eight thousand aliens who control the factories and live in the orbiting ships. We don’t know how heavily they rely on interaction with humans, and therefore can’t estimate their need for human brains to translate their commands.”

“So maybe a hundred and fifty thousand people mutilated by these creatures? That’s insane.”

“Colonel, we’ve seen that many blown up in a single second in Salt Lake City, and we’ve lost probably that many in the last six months here in the Bay Area just through starvation and misadventure. We’re looking at eighteen million Sentinels being abducted off planet in three weeks. So while I agree, what’s happened to these people is awful, my only hope right now is that we can use them to save even more.”

The colonel’s jaw clenched under his half-helmet, and I knew that I’d already gone too far. So much for diplomacy—I don’t deal well with idiots or narcissists. “I don’t need a lecture from some jumped-up techno-dictator like you,” he growled. “If you hadn’t already brainwashed all of these people to worship you, I’d have you removed immediately, so that the professionals could run things.”

I tensed as he clenched his armored fists, but he must have seen Mike, Jason, and Vivian moving to his flanks with their rifles at at their sides, because he exhaled and swiveled his head to look around.

“So what do you hope to accomplish here? From what I heard of your last attempt, it took five of you to defeat a single alien, and one of the women died in the fight.”

I felt the radiating anger of the three ex-Arbiters at the colonel’s insensitive words, but I tried to remain calm. “We’re going to explore the alien network without the strain of having to fight against the warden. The people in the boxes are still alive to translate my thoughts into alien signals, and I’m hoping to gather intel on their plans.”

“You’re doing what? Sending your brain inside the aliens’ system? How do we know that you won’t come back as some kind of mind controlled double agent for the other side? All of this stuff is a waste of time. We should be looking for weapons, and a way to recruit more soldiers, rather than messing around inside people’s heads.”

“Colonel, I’m not going to take the time or the effort to explain it in detail, but trust me when I say that we will not win this war with weapons. We need to address the way the aliens control us. If they can’t get their soldiers to obey, then their whole mission is a bust, and they have no reason to take them away. If they can’t control the population, there’s no reason to stay on the planet. But if we go around trying to shoot them, they’re just going to nuke whatever parts of the world that they don’t need to produce soldiers, and then go on with their plans.”

“What the fuck do you know about how people act in times of war, boy?” he roared. All of my shooters brought up their guns, and Vivian spoke into her helmet mic. I heard the heavy thump of Private Wright in the hallway. “I know about war, and I’m through listening to you and your bunch of scientists and brain-freaks.” His hands clenched again, and he rocked his shoulders, making the armor plates clash.

The second he took a step toward me, he went down in a heap. His armor scraped the concrete as he twitched on the floor.

“Sorry, sir,” Mateo said over the comm, “but I couldn’t let him go on any more. I had to hit the takedown button.”

“That’s all right, Mateo. I tried to show him what we were doing here, but it was obvious that he wasn’t going to go along no matter what I said. We’ll just have to keep him on ice until we figure out what to do.”

Curtis stomped into the room, and took the spasming colonel by the shoulders, dragging him out, and up to the waiting truck.

“Well,” I said to the room, “that was exciting, but we need to keep going. Anatoly, are we ready?”

“Yes, Alexei, the helmet is, as you say, ‘good to go.’“

I sat back in the chair with a sigh, and took off my Faraday helmet. “OK. Kara, are you ready if I need you?”

“We’ll be there, Alex,” she said from behind me.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, thinking incongruously about my link between sex and clear thought, and how it would feel to get a blowjob while I surfed the alien web. With no Albert to threaten me, I hadn’t shut down my pleasure receptors, so it would probably feel pretty fucking great. When I opened my eyes again, Anatoly was next to me with the connector in his hand. I took it from him, and plugged it into my harness.

“On my mark,” I said, as I sat back and tried to relax all of my muscles. I closed my eyes again, and braced myself.

“Now.”

The human mind is an amazing thing. It’s capable creating whole universes in the imagination, which is what I was experiencing at that moment. The first time I’d explored this “space”—the range of EM frequencies used by the aliens—it had been bright lights and pillars and white ribbons. That had been with the three ex-Arbiters, and a little bit of sex. The second time, it had been corridors and pathways. The white light stuff was still there as well, but so were the three women. And when Maria joined us, the light went from bright, to deathly hot, but the motif stayed the same.

Now, flying solo through the alien maze, I was no longer burdened with the perceptions of the others. It was just me, so was it any surprise that my mind created a world of network diagrams, flowchart lines, and critical path symbology? I’d taken what my brain was given, and made it my own. I was overjoyed at the change, since it would ease my task. It was like living in a world where people crawled around on their hands and knees, and then suddenly finding myself able to walk upright.

Lines spun away from me into space, and as I touched each of them, a label appeared—mothership, warden command, warden common-use net, factory supply net—hundreds of channels of alien communication waiting for me to explore.

The only problem was, the first time I tried to extend my consciousness down one of the lines, I was brought up short, frozen in space, unable to move forward. I managed to wriggle my way back to my starting place, and tried another line with the same result. I was hitting the alien version of a firewall.

I quickly learned to identify which lines were protected and which ones weren’t, and by the time I’d raced through them all, my options were pretty limited. I was allowed into the local node that controlled the environment in the habitat, communications, and transmission of instructions to the minions. I also had access to a common net for wardens in this portion of the world. The first node I came to on that line was the alien stationed in Redding, but I didn’t push any further, since I wasn’t prepared for another mind-battle at the moment.

Seeing that I was pretty well limited to this location, I settled down and explored the intricacies of Albert’s former base. A lot of technical data spun past me, but there was no way I would remember enough to be effective—not without some way to record what I was seeing while it was flashing through my implants. Maybe Anatoly could think of something, but I didn’t know if he could prepare it in time.

I noticed that some branches I followed had critical path marks on them, indicating that some operation absolutely had to happen for me to access that path. The thing was, I didn’t feel any interruption as I passed through that mark. It seemed to happen smoothly and automatically, but without it, I would be stuck.

Then it hit me—it must be the torsos. Since I was accessing the network through an Arbiter’s helmet, everything I did had to be translated from human synapse language into Chrxjthal EM-speak. That was the critical step that had been flagged. It had to happen for me to go down a path, but it was happening so fluidly that I didn’t notice it actually taking place.

The next time I touched a node line, I tried to slow down as I approached the translation. It still felt like I zoomed past it, but I had eased up enough to detect small ripples in the line, four of them. Why four and not eight? Ah, right, because I was on the Arbiter’s path, getting the female signals, and not the male.

I returned to my “home base” of the helmet’s transmitter, and tried again, zooming down a node and trying to slow enough to see what I was passing. I did better this time, and I “saw” the EM signal as it changed color from a greenish-grey, to a yellow-orange. Each ripple in the line caused it to change a little bit as it moved through, which must be my brain’s visual representation of the translation process.

I tried maybe a dozen more times, but I couldn’t slow down enough to examine how the brains of the female torsos were used in the process. I needed to change something; either come at it from a new angle, or add a new perspective.

I sent the signal to Anatoly to bring me out, and as he covered the helmet with its EM-blocking mesh, my consciousness came fully back to the basement room.

The three women had come out of their corner, and were standing in front of me, watching.

“I need your help,” I said to Kara, and without question, she nodded and started taking off her clothes. The other two did the same, while I levered up out of the chair, and waved at Mike and Jason to bring the mattress back into the center of the room.

I stripped down as well, and was the first to lie down. One by one the others joined me, pressing bare flesh to bare flesh, until the four of us were back in our synchronized little world. Only this time, instead of looking for the balance between our two sides, I took charge. I waved at Anatoly, and when he uncovered the helmet again, I led my three muses into the world that I’d created.

I explained to them in words, images, and emotions what I was trying to do, then sent us down a node. As we reached the translation point, I tried to slow down. I drew the others’ attention to the ripples in the line as we passed, and then brought us all back to the start.

The three women were adding to my strength in this world, but didn’t seem to do much for my control. Four more times I went down a path, but couldn’t seem to stop myself where I wanted.

I was just about to give up, and have Anatoly get us out of there, when I felt the equivalent of a mental tap on my shoulder.

[Let me try...]

I couldn’t tell if it was just Kara or all three of them speaking as one. In any case, I loosened my grip on the reins to my manufactured reality, and let the trinity take over.

Everything shifted, going from neat, precise lines, to fuzzy swirls, and splashes of bright color. We bounced along, like balloons caught in a strong breeze, until we reached a place where the chaos spiraled down to a single point, and passed through a hole in the fabric of the world. As we got closer to the opening, our progress slowed, and just before we would have been swept through, we stopped.

Around the rim of the hole, four faceless mannequins reached out their arms to gather bits and pieces of color. They squashed these down into precise cubes, mixing all of the hues together until they formed a homogenous grey. Then they released each block and let it get sucked through the hole.

Obviously, I was watching Kara’s mental representation of the translating process. But where my mind-picture had failed, their’s had succeeded, since we were now suspended in front of the avatars of the four female torsos. I tried to reach out to the closest one, but couldn’t seem to touch her.

I was a little shocked when I was politely but firmly pushed out of the group mind, and left to float alongside the other three. Separate, yet attached by the thinnest thread. I felt a brief sense of apology from them, but nothing in the way of explanation. The women moved closer to one of the featureless dolls, and their appearance changed until they were an exact copy of the thing in front of them. The next time that the the torso-avatar reached out to gather in more stuff from the environment, the new doll in front of her reached out and took her hand. All four mannequins stopped their work, and turned their smooth faces toward Kara and her companions.

Something passed between them, but I was on the outside looking in. For several second or several hours, the two beings “talked” like neighbors gossiping over the back fence, gesturing with their hands, and switching their poses. I floated among the virtual chaos, anxious but not wanting to interrupt.

Finally, my companions moved away, tugging me behind them by my thread. The four avatars went back to their task of turning color and light into dull grey blocks.

[Get us out of here...please...]

Kara’s request was heavy with emotion. I quickly sent the signal to Anatoly, and a couple seconds later, I felt the room around me again. We came back to reality as our bodies separated on the mattress, but I quickly gathered Kara back up as I saw her tiny body racked with sobs. She pressed herself against me as I cradled her in my arms. The other two looked almost as bad, like they were on the verge of losing it.

“Oh my god, Alex, you wouldn’t believe what those poor women are going through. I can’t...I can’t even describe what I felt when I touched them for just a few seconds.” She looked up at me, her face blotchy and red, her eyes anguished. “We have to kill them. Please, Alex, put them out of their misery.”

I was exhausted as I walked into the vet clinic that night. I’d gotten Kara and the others out of there without killing the female torsos, but because I wouldn’t, none of the women would talk to me. I’d actually left four minions on guard there in case they tried to come back and do it themselves. They had gone back to the house they were using, and I had to come here to deal with yet another urgent matter.

In the room where we’d originally kept Mateo, Colonel Freeman sat in a large metal chair, his head covered in metallic mesh. Private Wright stood in a corner, his large-caliber rifle in his hand. Mateo met me at the door, and we went over to the subdued Sentinel.

“He’s conscious, but immobile, sir,” Mateo said. “I have his kill switch right here.” He handed me a metal cylinder with a red button on the end.

I stood in front of the seated man as Mateo backed away.

I rubbed at my tired eyes, but then straightened up and squared my shoulders. “All right, listen up Mr. Freeman,” I said. “First of all, I’m not going to dignify your recent actions by using the rank that you’ve disgraced so badly. We’re at war, and the last thing we need is dissension, especially from someone who came so late to the party that he doesn’t understand any of the rules of this new world.

“And it really is a new world, Mr. Freeman. Even if we get back to the population levels we had before this invasion, humanity has been fundamentally changed. If we survive, we’ll have to create a new society from the ashes of the old one. It may be great, or it may go down in flames within a year, but it won’t be the same as we had before. That’s why no one here has any respect for your old rank, only for what you can do to help us in our fight. And right now, your contribution is exactly zero.

“I’ll tell you a couple things, and then I’m going to give you a choice. Several choices actually, but it will be up to you to decide what your future holds. I don’t have the desire or the resources to force you to do something against your will. But I’ll remind you, Andre—can I call you Andre?—that you don’t have the backing of the military any more. You don’t have much in the way of advantages, other than your modified body, but we’ve already shown you that even that isn’t much threat against us.

“I don’t want to believe you’re a bad person, or a bad officer, but the truth is, you woke up on the wrong side of your armor when we released you from the alien control, and I can’t have someone with your attitude working for me. And yes, I said working for me Andre, not the great rebellion, or even ‘for the good of all of humanity.’ For better or worse, I’m in charge here. Not by choice, but by default. I’ll tell you right now, that before the aliens got nasty and took out a lot of good friends, over a third of the free people in the world considered me the leader of this fight, including a two-star general and all of his staff. That’s the kind of support I have Andre, and at this moment, you have none.

“So here are your choices. Continue to be belligerent toward me and my people, and I will either have you killed, or dump you outside the gates of Ft. Hood, to be reabsorbed into the alien army. Or you can lose the attitude, and promise not to work against us, and you’re free to leave. You can make your way anywhere in the world—I don’t care as long as you don’t interfere.

“My third option is one that I hope you’ll consider carefully, and that’s finding a place in our fight, and actually helping to end this invasion and the genocide of the human race. After your earlier outburst, I doubt that anyone would want to work with you here in the Bay Area, but I need help in another location. We need global intel, and for a few months we were getting it from Satellite Command at Cheyenne Mountain. Soon after General Yorikame was killed at Salt Lake City, we lost touch with the rest of his staff, and believe that they’ve been converted. That doesn’t mean that their equipment is destroyed or that their expertise has vanished, it just means that they need someone in command to run the operation and get us the intel we need in the coming weeks.

“I’m offering you the job, Colonel, if you want it. I think with your background and the equipment at Cheyenne Mountain, you can be an asset to me, and that’s what I really need right now.” I set the kill switch on the floor. “You can tell Sergeant Colon what you decide, and maybe we’ll talk later.”

I left the motionless Sentinel and turned back to Mateo. He looked at me strangely, as I put my hand on his shoulder. “OK, I’ve said my piece,” I told him. “I’m leaving the decision up to you, Sergeant. You figure out when and how to release him. See what he has to say, and If you believe him, you’ve heard what his options are. Report to me by 0800 tomorrow.”

He turned to stare at his immobile prisoner as my words sank in. “Yes, sir. I’ll get it done.”

“Good. After that, I’ve got something else to discuss with you. Be ready to head back to Alameda by noon, OK?”

I was thinking of just pulling out a cot and falling asleep here, until I remembered that all of my girls were home tonight, and that Lani was probably cooking dinner. That anticipation alone should be enough to keep me awake on the drive back.

“So do you understand what I’ve described to you, Mateo?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve got the basic idea. Like you said though, my mind will probably construct a different reality than what you or Kara had.”

“That’s right, but there are certain things that will always be there, you just have to recognize them when you see them.”

“And what am I supposed to do when I make contact, sir? If I make contact.”

“Just say hello. Find out as much as you can. Be your charming self.” He laughed at that, and some of the tension left his shoulders. “But don’t make any promises. Don’t commit to helping them until we find out if we can. Copy?”

“Copy, sir.”

“Good. Let’s get you positioned over here. Now I’m going to go in as well, but there’s two systems running in parallel, one for males and one for females. I’m actually going to be on the female side. No jokes,” I said as I saw him open his mouth. “I’m going to try to smooth the way for you if I can, but it will be up to you to find the male torsos in the network.”

He closed his mouth and nodded grimly. “I won’t let you down, sir.”

“I know you won’t, Mateo. You can’t at this point. We’re throwing up a dozen Hail Mary’s in a row, and hoping that all of them score. All we can do is try. Let me just say though, that I’ve come to rely on you for a lot in this fight, and I know I’ll be asking a lot more before it’s over. You’ve given me a thousand percent effort every day. Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.” His voice sounded a little choked up, but then he pushed himself upright in his chair and cleared his throat. “We should get started.”

Anatoly had watched everything silently, but now he stepped forward and handed me the connector from the Arbiter’s helmet. Standing between us, he checked his pad again, and then turned to the sergeant. “Alexei has told me about the communications channel that you share with the other man, Wright.” Mateo nodded. “He has a special way to alert me if he needs to sever his connection to the alien network, and I have set up a way for you to do the same by using your special comm channel. I will see an indicator on my pad and I will cover your head to disconnect you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Mateo said.

“Don’t wander too far, Mateo,” I said. “If you get out into the wider network, they may try to regain control. Stay close where there’s no alien consciousness to interfere.”

He was biting his lip, looking a little overwhelmed at all of the instructions coming at him. I reached out to pat his shoulder. “Enough talk. Let’s do this.”

Kara got out of the car at the rear of the Admin building, followed by Elizabeth and Megan. They unconsciously linked hands as they came toward me. Kara’s elfin face looked lifeless with her set mouth and wary eyes. “What did you want to talk about, Alex?”

“Look, all of you, I know how strongly you feel about this—I can feel how you feel about this—but I need you to listen to me, please.”

All of them stared at me, and then in unison they nodded.

“I know that the women in those boxes are in distress; that they’re miserable, and hopeless, and they want to die. But I need you to think about all the other women locked in Arbiter’s helmets, slowly starving to death, and the over eight million female soldiers who are probably going to be exterminated in the next three weeks.” I pointed toward the metal doors leading to the basement. “The four of them may be our best chance to do some real damage in this fight, to disrupt the aliens’ plan and save millions of people.”

They weren’t glaring at me any more, but they weren’t entirely convinced either.

“We’ve been able to contact the other four...the men. Well, Mateo has, really. He’s had to endure their constant pain to try to get through, but he’s made a connection, and gotten them to understand what’s happening. And they want to help. Mateo said that they originally wanted to die, too, but now they know that they can do something to strike back, and they’re actually dealing better with the pain.”

Now they were curious. Their eyes looked a little unfocused, and I could feel them communicating among themselves.

“But the best part, is that Cassie has analyzed the solution that they’re floating in, and along with Dr. Goldberg, she’s come up with a way to chemically reduce the pleasure or pain signals that they’re receiving, just like we did with all of you when you got your helmets off. We’ve already started trying to ease their suffering.”

I think I finally had them. They hadn’t seen any way to get relief for their sisters in the torso boxes other than to let them die. Now there were other options.

“You know that I’ll do everything I can to help them, but I also need their help. And your help. Please. You’ve got to get through to them and make them understand how important they are; how they can save the lives of millions of people if they’ll just work with us.”

I saw a tear leak down Kara’s cheek, and then she let go of her companions’ hands to leap at me. I caught her as she wrapped her arms around my neck, and her legs around my waist, and peppered my face with kisses.

I was nervous, but satisfied with the level of purpose in the activity around me. I would say that I was pleased, but I’d shut off my pleasure receptors again—against Dr. Li’s advice, and over Lani’s strident protest. I looked around the room, and saw that nearly every person with some measure of free will was here to observe. Private Wright had perimeter security, and Amber had electronic overwatch, but everyone else was crowded into the former storage room. The mattress on the floor had shrunk from a king to a twin size to allow for more spectator space.

I’d worried about Mateo being in the room, watching when the three women and I stripped down and piled onto the bed. We’d never really discussed how his Sentinel conditioning had affected his sex drive. The process had effectively castrated him, and even if it hadn’t, his broken back meant he had no feeling below the waist. But did he still want sex? Was he going to be jealous if he saw us rolling around naked? Did he maybe have a secret crush on Kara, since they’d known each other when they were both alien slaves, and now he had to watch her rubbing her naked body against mine?

I wanted to avoid any jealousy or resentment creeping in to our proceedings, so, for the first time, I lied to the young sergeant. I told him that it would help him focus better if he was screened off from the rest of the activity. Minions had tacked a curtain to the ceiling, that hid the mattress from his view. It was probably a hollow gesture, since he was a smart kid, and most likely knew what was going on, but it at least gave some cover to the lie.

Vivian came up to me, smiling brightly. “I talked to Jeb. He said he’d head out this morning and give us a report by late afternoon.”

“Good,” I said. Jeb was a survivalist, and a former member of The Plan, when it had just been a bunch of people talking by radio. He’d had a friendly relationship with Chase Zaluski, Vivian’s husband, and by extension with her. When we’d decided on our target for this test, she’d re-established contact with him, and gotten him on board.

Cold Bay, Alaska, was a small town nestled right at the point where the Aleutian peninsula ended, and the Aleutian island chain began. It only had three hundred residents, but because it was the largest settlement in the region, it also had an alien warden. It was the most remote place we could think of to attack, and the place least likely to get people killed in an alien retaliation.

Jeb—who’d never given us his last name, or where exactly he lived—was the closest Unconverted person to the town, so he would be our eyes and ears, and also get all of the civilians out of the way in case of reprisals.

All of the pieces were in place. I guess it was now or never.

There were no pep talks this time. We all knew our jobs and just went about them. I couldn’t laugh at myself right at that moment, but it flickered through my mind how odd it was, that part of my job was getting naked in front of twenty-five people. It didn’t help when Lani whistled at me as I took down my pants.

Anatoly was in charge of the technical stuff, although Vivian was the one watching over him in case a judgement call was needed. Cassie hovered over the torso boxes, looking at each limbless body as if she could see how her chemical cocktail was working on their nervous system. My three muses were right beside me. Time to do it.

I took the wire harness from Anatoly and plugged it in. The lab minion watching Mateo gave a thumbs up from behind his curtain. I laid back on the narrow mattress, and one by one my trinity joined me.

A totally incongruous thought ran through my head; if we had created a communications device this complex and convoluted back in my Rollins-Chiu days, JJ Chiu would have fired me on the spot. I felt some sadness at his memory, but put it aside, and sank back on the padding, feeling the strength of the three women building around me. I gave Anatoly the signal.

The alien grid was becoming familiar territory, but every time I plugged in, it was different. I guess just like two dreams are never the same, two synaptic interpretations of electromagnetic alien networks are never the same, right?

I led the way, the combined presence of the three girls trailing behind me like a comet’s tail. I found a node where human and alien signals met, and released the women to establish contact with the brains in the boxes.

[Find out where the bridge is...] I sent to Kara, and felt her acknowledgement.

Somewhere in this maze of connections, there was a bridge that allowed the Arbiters and Sentinels to communicate; some way to span the gap between the systems designed for each gender. I had a presence on both sides of the divide, but needed a way for them to talk to each other. I hadn’t been able to find it when Mateo had first gone in, which meant he’d had to act solo through that entire mission, but he’d still managed to pull it off.

Kara and the others had flowed into and around the node.

[They’re doing so much better, Alex, Thank you for helping them. And thank Cassie. One says the bridge is here...] A connection glowed at my feet, leading off into the distance.

[One?]

[They have no identities any more. Their existence is only what Albert allowed them to have, and their names are what he used to call them, One, Two, Three, and Four...]

Her story was sad, but I didn’t have time for sadness right now. I set off down the glowing path, dragging the three behind me. It ended at another node; nothing special, simply another junction that I hadn’t explored before.

[Hold here] I would use the women as my anchor in case this didn’t go well.

As I sent my brainwaves down the connection, a prickling sensation encompassed my “body.” The further down the line I went, the sharper the sensation. It started to feel familiar, similar to what had happened when Alistair the Alien had attacked us in Salt Lake City—all-encompassing, body-wide pain. Muted now, either by interference from the female side, or by my modifications, but getting stronger, the further I went.

I was worried for Mateo, who had to endure this, and probably more, moving through the other side of the network. He’d said, after his first dip in the alien grid, that the pain was severe, but something he could endure, and I’d been forced to believe him. Now, as I experienced just a fraction of what he must be feeling, my respect for the young man’s determination went up several notches.

[Sir? Alex?] It had taken all of this to finally get the sergeant to call me by name.

[Here, Mateo.]

[Roger, sir. Ready to commence...]

It seemed that the male torsos were more able to reason than the females, or maybe they were just the more aggressive to attack, being constantly drowned in agony.

[Hold for now. Let me check the other side...] I reached out for my anchor, and touched the combined consciousness of the three women.

[They’re scared, Alex, but they’re willing to try.]

[Good. The burden won’t be on them so much as the male side. Try to keep them calm, and tell them how much we need their strength. You girls have always been my rock, show them how it’s done...]

A flash of something came to me. It might have been happiness, or it might have been love. Either way, my dampened pleasure centers felt it as just the smallest pressure.

Time had little meaning here, but it still seemed to take quite a while before I heard anything more.

[We’re ready, Alex...]

[Mateo?]

[Ready here, sir...]

[Good...execute...]

My perceptions swirled, flickering through colors and patterns, through smells and physical sensations. When it stopped, I was looking at a room through red-tinged lenses. Objects in the room glowed with odd auras, from yellow to purple. The view changed, as my camera moved. Looking down, I saw my armored hand turn the doorknob, and exit into the corridor.

Behind me, my angel followed. Somehow I always knew where she was; the cool blue of her mind was like a salve to the fires that raged in my head.

I had a target. Everything vanished but my goal, and the obstacles in my way. The door in front of me was an obstacle, but my armored fist destroyed the lock, and I was past that particular hurdle. The air tasted odd, but my lungs were fine, adapted to the alien air.

My target was there. I didn’t have my gun, so I reached for him as he stumbled backward. He looked like Master, but I couldn’t feel him in my head, so it couldn’t be him. My true Master had given me my instructions, and shown me my target.

I felt the squishy, pulpy mass of his head between my hands, the little knobs of skin sending electric tingles through my palms. He didn’t make a sound as I squeezed tighter, but his tiny arms slapped at me, barely registering through the armor on my chest. Something gave way under the skin, and my fingers sank in deeper. I lifted him off the ground, and flexed my shoulders, putting all of my power into finishing my task.

I felt a deep satisfaction as his head imploded, and my hands soaked in his yellowish blood. I’d done my job, fulfilled my assignment, and if Master felt that I’d done it well, he would reward me with a lessening of the pain.

I dropped the limp body to the floor, and headed back to the corridor. I had new instructions now. Not a target, but a mission. Take my angel as fast as possible to the place called San Jose.