The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Alex, baby, you need to stay here. We can do the broadcast from the hospital room.”

“No, Lani, I can’t,” I said. “It’s hard to explain, but I really feel like I need to be there. It’s where everything happened, and it’s important that the people see it.”

“But they’ve already seen it, Alex,” Vivian said. I knew Lani had brought her in to be a mature voice of reason. As the only one of my freed women that was older than me, and that I hadn’t had children with, she held a special place as a sort of matriarch to the others. “The whole bunker has been recorded and shown in the schools as part of their history lesson. The base has become a shrine to the war, and everyone knows what it looks like.”

I sighed. I could let them argue with me, or I could just order them all to agree—that was the kind of decision I made almost daily. There was a point a couple years after the war when I’d been so frustrated by the pressures of rebuilding that I’d ordered all of my girls to never question my orders again. Of course I’d felt like shit when things calmed down a while later—obsequious people were really not my thing—and I actually ramped up their ability to argue with me. They still weren’t capable of anger, so their arguments were sometimes emotional, but never hateful.

“Look, all of you,” I said. “I appreciate your concern for me. But this is the way we planned it, and I don’t expect you to understand, but this is the way I need it.”

Lani took my hand, and I could see in her eyes that she’d given up. “Fine,” she said, “but Dr. Li is going to be just outside of vid range, and Mateo is going to have a hundred Sentinels in the area. No one is going to blow you up, baby.” She leaned down to kiss my forehead like a mom kissing her sick child.

My left leg throbbed in the sterile collar that was wrapped around the stump. I’d taken some pain meds earlier, but I didn’t want to be dopey when I addressed the camera, so I’d refused the latest round.

I wanted to explain myself further, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. Quite a bit of my life had been recorded in the last ten years as a chronicle of the rebuilding effort, but this time I really felt like I was speaking to history—that in the same way pre-invasion kids learned the Gettysburg Address, kids of the future would have to study what I said this afternoon. The only difference was that Lincoln was speaking to adults in the middle of a war, and I would be talking to eight-year-olds.

It was a strange feeling for me, getting ready for a speech, since I’d tried for years to stay away from the trappings of power. I’d never wanted to be King of Earth, so I’d done all I could to avoid things like self-important titles, or unnecessary luxuries. I was still just Alex Drummond to the world, and while I did have lots of comforts for me and mine, I hadn’t yet commissioned any statues to be erected in my honor.

“We should go soon,” I said. “Let’s get me into my chair.”

Erika had been hanging out in the back of the room, and she gestured through the open door where three strong orderlies were waiting to help. I shifted my legs to the edge of the bed, thinking that I would hop down onto my good foot, and gracefully pivot into the medical chair. Things obviously didn’t go as well as Id planned; I ended up banging the raw end of my leg on the nightstand, and almost passing out from pain before I finally got settled.

“I hope history is worth it,” Lani said, and she smiled down at me when she saw my shocked look. I guess she knew me better than I thought.

The room that I rolled into was the same mess hall that we’d gathered in on that final day. It was more modern than it had been, with a row of vid displays along one wall and a full comm suite in the corner. All of the upgrades had come from an idea that Beth had, of preserving the Alameda Naval Air Station, and dedicating it as a historical landmark. I felt silly going along with the idea, but then again, so much had happened in this set of buildings, that I wanted them preserved; for my own sake if not for posterity.

Not all of my girls were there—twenty-three of them at this point—but the original group was present. Starting with Lani, of course. Then Amber. Scarlett and Jill next. Technically, Kara had been after that, but she wasn’t one of my “freed” girls at the time, just a bag of skin and bones that we’d rescued from starvation. Vivian and Erica, from our bizarre trip down the coast. Cassie, who’d stayed unconverted right up until the last. Beth and Mei, the former lawyer, and her cheating husband’s unwilling mistress. Megan and Tammi. Those dozen women all stood in a group, chatting among themselves, or wrangling stray toddlers.

Nearby was another group. Param, my trusted assistant, who’d always been smarter than me, but who’d been forced to play the role of my right-hand by circumstance. He’d been denied the willpower to ever complain about all I’d put him through, but I think even if he hadn’t been converted, he would have done everything exactly the same. Anatoly was there, my former enemy—probably the most brilliant among us, but also the most ruthless when he’d had the ability to plot against me. And Mike, the Russian’s twisted creation, who’d had his brain mutilated so that he could do violence in a world where it had been outlawed.

Others were there. The doctors that I’d relied on so many times, for knowledge as well as care. The support staff from Rollins-Chiu. Some of the Cheyenne Mountain airmen were here too, the ones that had been converted after the Salt Lake City explosion.

Of course there were a lot of people who hadn’t made it through the invasion, like Todd, and JJ Chiu, quiet Eddie, General Yorikame and Lieutenant Cooper, Airman Sal, even Maria, the tortured former Arbiter who had sacrificed herself inside the net...

I started to get choked up with all the reminiscing. Normally, when I’d get melancholy, one of my girls would notice and do something to distract me, however temporarily, but in this case, I had to snap myself out of it.

I looked over at Mateo, another one of those that I trusted above anyone else on the planet. The young Sergeant hadn’t aged a bit in the last decade, the conversion process that the aliens subjected him to giving him much better health and a longer life than any of us normals could expect. Dr. Li predicted that most Sentinels would be around for at least another hundred and twenty years, maybe much longer than that.

Even with the top half of his face obscured by his permanent mask, I’d learned to read his expressions, and I smiled when I realized that the young man was nervous. If the most fearless person on the planet was fidgeting before the broadcast, I guess I had a right to do it as well.

“It’ll be all right, Mateo,” I said, rolling my chair up to his. “The only ones we’re really talking to are the children. The rest don’t have an opinion unless we give it to them.”

“I know, sir,” he said. “And I know it’s nothing to be worried about, but I just feel this sense of...”

“History?”

He gave an embarrassed grin. “Yes, sir. All I wanted to do, ten years ago, was serve. I loved the Army more than anything. I didn’t want to be at the top, just be a reliable piece; a well-oiled cog in the machine. But then look at what happened...”

“I’m just glad it was you,” I said, reaching out to touch his red-armored shoulder. “You were an irreplaceable part of everything that we did. I still have nightmares where the first Sentinel we freed turned out to be someone like Andre Freeman instead of you.” We both looked over to where the former Colonel stood. He’d come around at the end of the conflict, but when we’d first released him from the alien control he’d been a bitch to work with.

“Thank you, sir.”

“So now, Irreplaceable Cog, or whatever you want to be called, while we have a minute before the broadcast, was there anything new about the explosion?” I pointed down at where my left foot should have been.

The Sergeant looked distinctly uncomfortable as he took up his pad, and went through his notes. “Well, sir, we’ve ruled out aliens. All of the prisoners at Leavenworth are accounted for, and we’re confident that any strays who might have escaped from a ship wouldn’t have been able to survive unnoticed for ten years, especially with their environmental and nutrient requirements.”

I nodded in agreement. We had over sixty aliens in a special holding facility at the former military prison. They’d been mute since the last of the Eights died, but we were still working on ways to re-establish communications with them. For now, we were treating them almost like animals in a zoo, studying them as we could, trying to get a handle on their electromagnetic abilities. They weren’t being mistreated, but we certainly didn’t have a Geneva Convention or anything, between us and the Chrxjthal homeworld. Beside, they’d killed almost six billion humans, so fuck them.

“Any chance it was a rogue Unconverted?” I asked.

“That’s one possibility we’re looking into,” he said. “Although, again, it would be kind of hard for an unconverted person or group to survive for ten years without being noticed. The satellite coverage we have now, thanks to the alien technology, means there’s really no place on the planet that we can’t see. Param’s leading a team to trace back the feeds we have now, to see if they can find anything.”

“What about the device itself? You said it was a mortar, so that means it had to have a launcher. Did we find it?”

“No, sir. We found the firing site, but very little forensic evidence. The launcher itself was gone, and the area around its location had been doused in acid. Cassie, I think, is leading the team tracing the chemicals in the acid, the propellant, and the explosive, but I haven’t heard anything definitive yet.”

I sighed. “You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?”

The sergeant frowned under his half-mask. “Yes, sir. I’m thinking the same thing.”

“We’ve talked about it before,” I said. “It’s always been a possibility, but I thought we’d pretty much kept it under control.”

[Kept what under control?] Lani was behind me, and she’d obviously heard that last statement, but she didn’t say it out loud. Instead she came up behind my chair, and put her hands on my shoulders, giving me a gentle massage.

I reached up to pat her hands. “The Sentinels,” I said. “The only group on the planet that isn’t mind controlled, and can do violent things.”

“But they’ve been on your side since the very first day,” she said. “You saved them from being left out in space to die.”

“That was more the Eights,” I said. “And Mateo. They worked with the alien tech to get the egg shuttles set up. And remember, not all of them made it. There could still be resentment somewhere among them for lost comrades, or...hell, it could be anything. That’s what comes with free will.”

“Yeah, but why use that free will to attack the guy who’s trying to make it all better?” [I don’t understand why everyone can’t get along...]

I patted Lani’s hand. “Maybe not everyone thinks it’s getting better,” I said. “Remember how the Circle wanted humanity to go in a totally different direction? Well maybe some faction among the Sentinels wants that too, and I’m in the way. I know you can’t even contemplate violence any more, baby, but for these soldiers, it’s pretty much built in.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” she said, which was about as adamant as a converted person could get.

“Have you heard anything, Mateo?” I asked. “Any chatter about unease among the Sentinels?”

“No, sir, but it’s pretty well known that I’m in your corner. I think if anyone was plotting against you, they’d be careful to keep it hidden from anyone close to your inner circle.”

“Do you think they have access to the alien weaponry?” I asked. “Wasn’t that all being stored at Fort Hood, where the Sentinel barracks are?”

“Yes, sir,. Only a few high-level officers are allowed to access the armory, but of course every Sentinel has contact with weapons during training.”

After the war, there was exactly zero reason for anyone to have a weapon more lethal than a baton. No one on Earth could commit a violent crime, so the only purpose of having a weapon was to kill unresisting, non-violent citizens, or for the Sentinels to fight among themselves. Neither option was very attractive, so the standard Sentinel rifles, as well as all civilian weapons that could be found, were locked up in Fort Hood.

I had no delusions that violence would return to the planet some day, so I hadn’t ordered everything to be destroyed—plus there was always a chance that the aliens would try to retake the planet—so the Sentinels drilled with their weapons during training, but they didn’t keep them all the time. Still, it was too loose a system to account for every rifle. I was sure that if some rebellious soldier wanted to get a gun to take me out, he could probably get one.

“Now that you mention weapons, sir, do you think we should maybe distribute some of them, just to those that we know are loyal?”

“Create a praetorian guard?” I said. “I’d rather not. What happens when one soldier is given a rifle and another isn’t? Now the one thinks he’s favored over the rest—part of the elite—and the others start to resent him. No, Mateo, I don’t think we’re going to solve this by arming people.”

“But baby, you need to stay safe,” Lani said. She moved around from behind me, and sat on the arm of my chair.

I looped my arm around her waist, and patted her leg. “I will be,” I said. “We’ll figure out what’s wrong—who has a problem with me or the system—and we’ll fix it. Just like we’ve fixed every other problem that’s come along.” My answer sounded hollow in my own ears, but I didn’t want her to worry.

“What about the extra guards for the event? Lani said you had, what was it, ‘a hundred Sentinels’ to make sure we stayed safe.”

Mateo smiled. “Well, not really a hundred. We got two extra CAGs from Fort Hood. They’re patrolling the grounds looking for anything unusual, but they aren’t armed.”

“Not that a Sentinel needs to be armed to do a lot of damage,” I said.

A man with the RelayCast logo on his shirt approached us. “Fifteen minutes,” he said, and then moved on to the next group to give his warning.

“Hello, kids,” I said into the camera. “My name’s Alex. You might know me from the lessons you’ve been learning in school this week.”

It was funny that the most momentous speech that had been made on the planet in the last decade, was written for second graders. I’d tried not to make it too complex, but the reality was, that this moment was mostly for me, and the future, not them. They were looking forward to the parties and the fireworks, and if their teachers said they had to watch a boring old vid of a boring old guy before that, then they would put up with it.

“Today’s a special day on our planet, and it’s one that we should remember every year when it comes around. Just like your parents remember your birthday every year, I would like you to remember today as the birthday for Earth. It’s not really the day that Earth was born, but it’s the day that your parents, and all of the people on Earth, were freed from the aliens, who had come from outer space to rule us all.”

The idea of the speech was to impress on these kids—this first generation of free thinkers—the need for sacrifice and working for the common good. There was a lot of propaganda in it, but it really wasn’t supposed to be the harsh truth. There were plenty of records that I was preserving for future study, that would relate everything in excruciating detail, but for now, I was going to tell a few anecdotes about scary aliens and the plucky humans who banded together to fight them. Many of those humans were standing off-camera to my left, waiting to be introduced one by one as the story unfolded.

I watched the monitor, showing what was being broadcast through the satellites. One side of a split screen showed me inside Albert’s bunker, with the alien’s habitat and the Translators’ body-boxes in the background. The other side showed news footage of the first metallic eggs that had appeared in the sky on that June day.

“Where were you on 6/22?” I said to the camera. “Ask your parents or your caregivers to tell you their story. Find out where they were when the Kricks arrived on Earth.” Anyone who had been mind controlled by the aliens had been conditioned by subliminal media signals to correctly pronounce the name of their race as Kur-icks-ee-tha’al, but it had proven difficult to teach to the kids. So in the way of all such things, the aliens were given a nickname—Kricks. Personally, I’d spent too long trying to get my vocal chords wrapped around the original name to give it up for the cute nickname, so I still used the long form when talking to adults, but for the kids, I’d make an exception.

“I’ll tell you where I was,” I continued. I had to try really hard not to sound like one of those kids’ channel idiots who dressed up like fictional animals and talked in goofy voices. Slow and clear, that was the way I wanted to tell the story. “I was on a boat, out in the ocean.” The split screen showed a picture of Sole Survivor on the water, taken by the accountant/surfer that I’d had a brief fling with before the aliens came.

“I got a message that something strange was happening, so I turned on the vid, and I saw what all of your parents saw that day—the Kricks ships appearing in the sky. I was scared, since we’d never seen something like that before. So I looked for a place where I could go and hide from the aliens, and I steered my boat to a great place called Kili Island.” Glamour shots of tropical beaches and waving palm trees. “There was a big building on the island, and it had a really deep, really dark basement underneath it.” We weren’t showing images inside the actual shelter, because it might scare the kids, so instead they saw marketing photos from a company that used to sell survival shelters to preppers like Chase Zaluski—shots of clean, well-lit rooms with comfortable furniture and lots of supplies.

I was about to continue the story, but there was a commotion coming from the hall outside the Translators’ room. I glanced at the door, and gestured to Mateo to see what was going on. He sent Curtis toward the door, but before he could get there, it flew open, and half a dozen Sentinels burst in, fanning out around the room, pointing their alien-issued rifles at us all.

Faster than I could even decide these guys were a threat, Curtis launched himself at the closest armored figure, and the two went down in a roiling pile of limbs. Two more red soldiers came through the door, and broke up the scuffle, the three of them struggling to restrain the Marine private.

“That’s enough,” a gruff voice said. The latest Sentinel through the door had a gold band painted over his chest like he was wearing a metallic sash. He had an oversized pistol in his hand, and he snatched the arm of one of the vidcompany employees, pinning the surprised man to his chest, and touching the barrel of the gun to his head. “Stop your resistance or I’ll kill him.”

“Stand down,” I said. I had no idea who this Sentinel was. Of the 300,000 armored men on the planet, I’d only personally met about a tenth, and the number that I actually remembered by name was much smaller. “Who are you?” I asked. “What do you want.”

“You, Alex Drummond, self-proclaimed Ruler of the Earth. I want you.”

“Look,” I said, “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve never ‘proclaimed’ myself to be anything, let alone the ruler of Earth. If you have a problem with me, I’d like to discuss it, but you need to let these other people go.”

“Ha, what kind of fool do you think I am?” he said. “No one is going anywhere. Everyone, on the ground!” He waved his pistol around at the assembled crowd.

Keeping one hand up in the air, I slowly turned my chair around. “Do as he says,” I told them. “Everyone stay calm, that’s an order.” That would make sure that there wouldn’t be any unexpected outbursts or fits of crying. My brain was being bombarded by the thoughts of so many of my women, but I did my best to shut them out. Everyone in the room got down on the floor without making a sound.

“Him too,” the man in charge said, pointing at Mateo. Two of the armed Sentinels grabbed his shoulders and threw him out of his chair onto the floor

“OK,” I said, “you’re in charge now. So tell us what you want.”

“I want you dead, and I want everyone on the planet to see it happen,” he growled. I was glad that I’d ordered everyone to stay calm, because his statement would have started a wave of hysteria through the group. Now all I heard in my head was calm acceptance.

The leader released the vid technician and pushed him toward the rest of the hostages, then came to stand in front of me. It was hard to tell anything about him, since most Sentinels looked identical. The only clues were things like skin tone and dental work, maybe the shape of the jaw in certain circumstances. The reflective masks covering half of their face, and the identical armor plates made it a guessing game most times. Language and accents sometimes helped, since the aliens had taken soldiers from all over the world, but this guy was speaking clear English, with no accent that I could hear.

The soldiers that had survived the invasion had taken to painting their armor with words or designs to distinguish themselves from their fellows, but I’d never seen the gold sash marking on any Sentinel that I could remember. As I looked over the others in the room, I noticed places where their previous markings had been scrubbed away, replaced by thick gold bands around both biceps.

The lights on the vid cameras were still glowing, meaning that this drama was playing out in classrooms around the world, and on billions of vidscreens in peoples’ homes and businesses. “It’s all right, kids,” I said to the closest camera. “This Sentinel just wants to talk to me about some things.”

In trying to calm down the children watching the vid, I inadvertently made it worse, because the leader took three quick steps across the room and backhanded me across the face. My head snapped back, and my vision blurred as pain exploded through my jaw.

“Motherfucker! Come over here and try that with me, coward!” Curtis was still in the grip of three other Sentinels but they were having trouble holding him as he lunged at the leader.

“Get him out of here,” Gold Sash said. “He’ll come around, eventually, once this one is dead.”

While his minions dragged Curtis through the door, I shook my head, trying to clear the fuzz from my vision. Everything was too chaotic, and moving too quickly. I needed to slow things down and get a handle on what this guy wanted. I took a deep breath, and focused on the red-armored giant standing over me.

“Look,” I said, “you have a problem with me, I can see that, but I honestly don’t know what it is that you’re accusing me of. Tell me, please, so I can understand. Tell them as well.” I pointed at the vid camera. “If you’re going to kill me, you should let the people know why.” I hoped my plea would work. If the guy actually stopped to think logically, he’d realize that no amount of explaining was going to mean anything to the mind-controlled populace, or their frightened kids, but if his ego was as large as I suspected, he wouldn’t be able to resist a chance to proselytize to the world.

“Attention, all of you watching this,” he said, “I am Major Elvin Seacomb, Second Commando Regiment, Special Forces Command, Royal Australian Army. I’ve taken your precious savior, Alex Drummond, prisoner, and I plan to execute him, as the first step in a new future for the planet. As the only people capable of making informed, rational decisions, it is my duty, and the duty of every former Sentinel to assume command of the Earth government. Alex Drummond has proven himself unfit to lead the people of Earth, and once his influence has been removed, we can begin a new era of peace and prosperity under Sentinel rule. I’m calling on all of my Sentinel comrades to throw off the yoke of this...normal man, and join me in uniting the world under a strong military hand...”

“Do you think he’ll do it, Alex?” Lani asked. “Do you think he’ll kill you?” She was curled up next to me as I leaned against the wall in the bunker, her head resting on my shoulder. “Please say he won’t.” [I can’t lose you, baby. The girls can’t lose their father...]

The major had droned on in front of the cameras for almost forty minutes, before one of his subordinates had come into the room and whispered in his ear. Shortly after that, the whole group had left, locking over thirty of us inside. “I don’t know, Lani,” I said. “He obviously sees me as the biggest threat to his takeover, and if he’s really recruited the rest of the Sentinels, then I probably am.”

The “speech” that Major Seacomb had given wasn’t about saving the planet from my abuses. As much as he tried to point fingers at me, what came from his ramblings was that he was sick of following a “normal.” He thought that Sentinels were now a superior race, and should be the ones in charge—with him as their supreme leader of course.

What he didn’t seem to realize was that the entire population of Sentinels had been medically castrated during their processing, so each one of them was the last of his bloodline. There wouldn’t be a Sentinel “dynasty” past the natural lifespan of the last remaining soldier. And even though we’d captured the alien equipment, we didn’t understand their technology at all, and couldn’t produce any new Sentinels to join their ranks.

All in all, I thought this was a short-sighted power grab by an egotistical bully, but one that seemed to have soldiers and weapons on his side.

“I can tell you right now, sir, that he hasn’t turned all of the Sentinels,” Mateo said. He was propped up against the wall, a couple meters down from me. Even without his chair, he was still powerful—I’d seen what he could do with just his upper body—but this Major Seacomb had dismissed him as just a cripple, and had left him with the “normals,” as he called us.

“Well, I’d assume that you and Curtis aren’t joining the cause, but how do you know about the rest of them? With the number of Sentinels on the planet, they could easily take over. Hell, only twelve thousand of you guys kept the entire population in check during the invasion.”

“Yes, sir, all of that’s true, except for not knowing about the loyalties of the rest of us.” He tapped his head with an armored finger. “I don’t think the major was wired for command.”

“Really?” I said, dislodging Lani so I could sit up and face Mateo. “The extra command channel? Are you hearing anything?”

“Yes, sir. I can’t say that it’s good news, but I wouldn’t give up just yet.”

“What’s happening?” Lani asked.

“I guess you’d call it a civil war,” he said. “The major’s followers versus those still loyal to Alex and his vision. There isn’t much word on the numbers, but there’s plenty of chatter about skirmishes breaking out at all the Sentinel bases.”

“And...?”

“And I don’t know, sir. Reports are really sketchy.”

A light flickered from the corner of the room, and Lani and I both turned to look. The vid display that I’d used to monitor my speech had come on by itself. The image we saw was a high angle view of a courtyard, with straight concrete paths and patches of manicured grass tucked between four buildings. As we watched, a group of Sentinels came into the frame, three of them holding rifles, and one with what looked like a steel fence pole in his hand. They spread out across the yard, scanning around them for threats. All four of them had gold bands painted around their arms.

“That’s...I think that’s Fort Hood, sir. But how?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe Seacomb is piping it in here.”

White letters appeared at the bottom of the screen: NO, NOT SEACOMB.

Lani gasped, and I put my finger to her lips to quiet her, but it was too late. A babble rose up from the group.

“Alex, what’s going on?”

“What’s that on the vid?”

“Who are those Sentinels?”

“Everyone, be quiet,” I said. All of my girls, the vid crew, and everyone else in the room was immediately quiet. The chatter in my head went on for a little bit, but eventually that died down as well.

“If you’re not Seacomb,” I said to the empty air, “then who are you.”

A FRIEND. AN ALLY.

“Where are you?”

AROUND. WATCH THE VID.

I looked back at the display. The four armored figures had taken up guard positions around the courtyard. The one to the far left of the picture was looking out between the buildings, when he suddenly flew backward. As he skidded on the concrete, the vid picked up a jagged hole in the middle of his visor, and plumes of smoke curling up from the back of his head. Chaos erupted among the other three as they searched for threats while trying to check on their comrade. The one with the club stood up straight and looked around like he’d heard a noise, and in the next moment his face exploded like the first.

“What’s happening?” I asked the mysterious entity. “Who’s killing those Sentinels?”

WE ARE the display said.

“Sir,” Mateo said. “More chatter coming in. The...I don’t know what to call them...rebels? The rebels are screaming about other Sentinels attacking them in force. They’re upset—I guess Seacomb promised them an easy victory...” He cocked as he listened in on the tactical channels.

“Mateo, what about here?” I asked. “What’s happening with Seacomb? Is anyone coming to take care of him?”

“Unknown, sir,” the sergeant replied.

HELP COMING the vid display said. Before Alex could ask another question, the door burst open, and the rogue major came in. He looked around wildly, but everyone in the room stayed calm.

“Where is he?” the Sentinel shouted. “Where’s the bastard that’s leading your resistance?” He reached down and grabbed Lani by the arm, jerking her out of my grip. “Tell me where he is or she dies.” The giant pistol, made specifically for the huge hands and extraordinary strength of the Sentinels, looked comically large next to her head.

“Wait!” I shouted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What resistance? Lani, baby, it’ll be OK. Just stay calm.”

“Who’s leading the other Sentinels against me?” He shook Lani by her arm, but my Island Girl stayed calm like I’d instructed. Two other Sentinels came in, both aiming rifles at the group.

I struggled to get to my knees, the stump of my severed leg sending shooting pains up my thigh. I waved both hands over my head, trying to keep the attention on me rather than the defenseless converted. “Wait, wait! Don’t hurt anyone. Tell us what’s happening and maybe we can figure it out.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Seacomb screamed. He was losing it, and I was afraid that he’d order his minions to start shooting.

Behind him, the vid display we’d been watching flashed quickly, and then went blank. None of the gold-band Sentinels seemed to notice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a new message on the blank surface.

HELP IN 3MIN

I didn’t know if we could last three minutes. The Major turned to yell at his men, and while they were all facing away, I very deliberately shook my head toward the vid.

GET MATEO A GUN the next message flashed.

I had no idea how to do that, and I really had no reason to trust the hidden entity that was flashing thing up on a display, but it seemed like the best idea among a lot of other bad ideas at that moment.

“Major,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

Seacomb spun back to me. His grip on Lani’s arm must be hurting her, but my command kept her face blank, and prevented her from making a sound. “Talk? You want to talk? No, Alex. I’ll ask, and you’ll answer. That’s the only kind of ‘talk’ we’re going to have here. Now who is leading your rebels?” He pressed his pistol so hard into her temple that it dimpled her dark skin.

Hoping he would buy the act, I glanced over at Mateo, and then quickly turned back.

“I knew it!” Seacomb crowed. “Your pet Sentinel, of course. Get him up,” he said to his followers.

Both of his soldiers went for Mateo at the same time, and in their haste to follow their officer’s orders, they didn’t maintain discipline. Both of them had their backs to me, and one of them was blocking the major’s line of fire. That was the chance that I’d hoped for. I lunged with my good leg, throwing my whole body at the closest Sentinel’s arm, the one holding the rifle. At the same time, I yelled at the top of my voice, causing everyone to focus on me.

When my shoulder slammed into the hard plates of the Sentinel’s armor, I felt something crack, and even more pain hammered my body. But it had the desired effect, knocking the soldier’s arm forward, and loosening his grip on his rifle. I saw Mateo pull the gun away, and swing it around. A loud boom deafened me as I fell away from the guard’s side and hit the concrete floor.

All I remember thinking was “Fuck, not again,” as Seacomb’s foot came toward my head, and that I hoped Lani knew how much I loved her.

This time when I woke up, it wasn’t Lani standing over me. My heart sank as I saw it was a red-armored Sentinel, holding an alien-issued rifle. I knew Curtis by sight, and this wasn’t him, so it could only mean that my ploy hadn’t worked. Major Seacomb had won. I was sure that Mateo and Curtis had already been killed, and the...I refused to call him the leader of the rebellion, because that dishonored the real rebellion that we’d staged ten years ago. The usurper? That sounded a little Shakespearean. How about just the Asshole? So I was sure that Mateo and Curtis had been killed, and the Asshole was just waiting for me to recover so he could put on some kind of public display when he did the same to me.

Well screw it. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I tried moving my arms and found that my left one was bound tight to my side. A dull pain flared, in what I thought might be a broken collarbone. No matter, I could still get out of this bed, and force the guard to kill me before Seacomb could get his damn vid crew in here to film it. I swung my right leg out over the side of the hospital bed, and tried to follow it with the stump of my left, but something was holding me back. An odd shape on the end of my leg, and un unfamiliar weight, had tangled me in the bed clothes.

As I tugged at it, a sharp pain ran up my leg, and I sucked in a harsh breath through gritted teeth. The guard must have heard me, because he spun around with a speed that only alien technology could provide. I was a little confused, because he hadn’t raised his rifle...

“Mr. Drummond, sir,” he said, and then he completely confused me by saluting.

I thought I recognized the voice, and through bleary eyes, I stared up his face. “Wait...Lieutenant LeMarc?”

“Oui...ah, yes, sir,” he said. “Wait one.” He cocked his head, probably using his helmet comm system. “They’re on their way, sir. Why don’t you get back in the bed.”

“Who’s on their way?” I asked, but my question was answered when the wide door opened, and an avalanche of women burst through, filling my head with their love and their joy that I was awake. They were followed closely by Dr. Li and Dr. Goldberg, as well as Param, Curtis, and finally, Mateo, in his chair.

I laid back and closed my eyes, sinking into the pillow with a heavy sigh. I really wanted to cry at that moment, but I wouldn’t do it in front of strangers. I’d save it for later, when it was just me and my girls.

“So, I guess we won?” I said, and a chorus of voices erupted around me, with a dozen people trying to tell the story.

When the details finally emerged, I knew that I was once again, incredibly lucky to be alive.

Major Seacomb had recruited a group within the Sentinels that was almost ten thousand strong as of VC Day. They’d worked in secret, arranging their agents in key positions, like the armories, and supply installations. Their plan was to strike simultaneously around the globe, and take the weapons caches and critical installations like the power plants. Then they’d barricade themselves in place, and wait for the Major to capture or kill me. They’d been convinced that with me out of the way, the rest of the Sentinels would see that their plan was the right one, and come over to their side.

There were two things that they hadn’t counted on though. The first was the attitude of the remaining soldiers. A large majority of them were just like Mateo—I remembered him telling me once, that all he’d ever wanted to do was serve. He didn’t want to be top dog, he just wanted to be a well-trained and capable cog in a well-oiled machine. It turned out that a lot of the rescued Sentinels felt the same way. They didn’t need to be in charge. They didn’t even need to carry weapons. They were satisfied with their jobs of helping people in need, and knowing that they were part of the larger machine that was going to help humanity survive after a devastating war.

Lieutenant LeMarc had grown suspicious of some of his fellows, and after the mortar attack had almost killed me, he started looking harder into the activities around him—especially at the Sentinel HQ at Fort Hood. His CAG had been rotated out after the attack, replaced by a backup group while the original group had returned home to be debriefed. LeMarc had started to pick up some clues as to who was involved, but before he could do anything about it VC Day arrived.

He told me how the guys with the gold bands around their arms had taken the armory, and had started to sweep through the buildings, rounding everyone up.

And that’s when the second unexpected even had happened.

“It was the strangest thing, sir,” the Lieutenant said. “I’m not really sure how to explain it.”

I sat up straighter in the bed, trying to make room for everyone. Lani, Amber, Kara, and Mei had all managed to climb on with me, somehow avoiding my leg and my my shoulder. “Just tell us what you saw, Lieutenant,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe the strange things that all of us have been through.”

“Well, sir, I was in the CAG office, having just finished my report to my CO, when something came in over my comm channel. It wasn’t a voice, it was more like a download of info, directly into my brain. Suddenly, I knew everything that was going on with the insurgents—I could even see pictures in my mind of where they were, and what they were doing. And the same thing happened to my Captain, because he jumped up from behind his desk and ran out the door, shouting for the guys in the office to follow him.

“The thing was, I didn’t have the same orders. My brain was telling me to go to the marshaling yard near the motor pool. When I headed out that way, there were five other guys from my CAG unit, and one of them was carrying a full turnout of weapons for all of us. We loaded up and then stood there like dummies, until suddenly an egg appeared, right in front of us.

“None of us hesitated—we all knew it was our job to go wherever the egg was taking us, and that there would be action at the other end. It was amazing how calm and in control I felt, like nothing I’d ever felt before.

“I’m sure you can figure out the rest. The egg dropped us right outside the admin building here, and we started taking down targets. It was unreal, the way I could aim and fire without hardly trying, and each hit was a headshot. It was like I was in a vidgame, and someone had hacked my character, rigging it so I couldn’t miss.”

“Same here, sir,” Mateo chimed in. “When you gave me a chance to grab the rifle from that guard, it was like all of my reflexes were being controlled by someone else. Or...actually it was more like I’d been downloaded with skills that I never had before, and then turned loose to use them. It was a rush.”

“So what happened in the bunker after you got the gun?” I asked. “I don’t remember anything past that.”

“The instant the gun was in my hand, I spun it around, and took out the guy who was still armed. Head shot, clean as anything, from a bad angle and with no way to properly bring the gun to bear. Then the other one went down—I don’t even remember how.. I had a bead on Seacomb, but the coward was hiding behind Lani. The...force...in my head told me not to fire, and the next second a noise came from outside the room. Seacomb turned, real quick, to check it out, and got a bullet right through the glass,” he said, tapping his own half-mask.

“So who—”

“Me, sir,” LeMarc said. “We’d just cleaned up the last of our Tangos outside, and whatever that thing was in my head, it told me to go to the basement.”

“Was?” I said. “So the voice or whatever it was isn’t there any more?”

“No, sir,” Mateo said. LeMarc and Curtis shook their heads as well. “Whatever it was though, it saved all of our asses.”

I had an idea of what the strange force had been, but I didn’t want to share it with the troops. Yet. “You know I’ll bet it was some kind of latent programming from the aliens, that was triggered by the situation. You were all indoctrinated in alien tactics, right? But there’s never been a situation where you’ve been called on to use them.”

“I don’t know, sir,” Curtis said. “I’ve been in a few fights since you got me free, and I don’t remember anything like this ever happening.”

“Well, that’s about all I can think of to explain it,” I said. “So what’s our situation now? How long was I out, anyway?” Time to change the subject.

“Three days, baby,” Lani said. “I was so worried about you.” She leaned in to kiss my cheek.

“So I guess the VC Day party was a bust.”

“Well, it didn’t go off as planned,” Scarlett said. She was standing beside the bed, along with a few others that hadn’t been able to climb on. “I asked Mateo to explain to the kids how the good Sentinels had taken care of the bad Sentinels, and we rescheduled the party for next week.”

“Thank you,” I said, patting her hand and getting a bright smile in return. “So, Mateo, what about casualties? Is the Sentinel command structure gone? Do you think there’ll be any more attacks?”

“Uh...so, for casualties, were looking at about two thousand Sentinels killed, and about a hundred and fifty civilians. I’ll have exact figures by tomorrow. The remaining insurgents surrendered, and are being held at Leavenworth. I’d say that the command structure is still pretty tight overall in our favor. About two-hundred troops turned themselves in, claiming that they were part of the coup attempt, even though they hadn’t marked themselves, or taken part in the fighting. From what I understand, a mysterious presence in their heads told them to surrender.” If the red-armored man still had eyebrows, I’d bet he would have raised them at that moment.

“So this entity cleaned house for us as well?” I asked.

“Looks that way, sir.”

“Good.”

I rubbed my shoulder through the bandages, feeling the bite of pain as the ends of my broken collarbone ground against each other. Lani must have seen me wince, because she suddenly took charge of the room.

“All right, everyone,” she said. “Alex needs his rest. You can all come back tomorrow, when he’s had a chance to recover some more.”

Everyone started to shuffle out of the open door, but I wanted to ask a question first. “Dr. Li” I said, “can you hang back for a second?”

The emergency room doctor came back to stand next to the bed.

“I wanted to ask you about options for getting a prosthetic to replace my foot. It doesn’t have to be—” I stopped talking because several people, including Lani suddenly started laughing. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“This is,” Lani said, and whipped back the bedsheet. I knew then why I’d had such trouble trying to get out of bed earlier, as I stared down at my sleek, carbon fiber and titanium alloy foot.

“Happy Anniversary, baby,” Lani said. “Do you like your present?”

“It’s...um...really nice,” I said, feeling like an idiot for not noticing a new, surgically implanted foot on the end of my leg.

“Good,” Lani said, “because I love what you gave me.” She took my hand, and placed it on her rounded belly. “What should we name this one?”

October 4, 2152 (Year 117 N.E.)

They’ve come looking for my help. The outer sensors were triggered. Ships that look similar to the Achssa’adir are headed for Earth, and the people want my help. Suddenly they want to know all about the invasion again, and how they can defend themselves if a new threat is on the horizon. They haven’t quite abandoned their arguing and their division, but at least they aren’t going to be caught unaware.

I’d given up trying to influence the world any longer. Even my own children and grandchildren ignored me, in their frenzy to put their own stamp on the development of the new Earth. Still, I’d done my best to keep them out of trouble. Very few of their mistakes were allowed to fester and infect society.

The battle had been fierce around sixty years ago, when, in their ignorance, they’d developed their AIs without the proper safeguards. But I’d been able to blockade their voracious and destructive programs, and now all of the planet’s AIs were me. Not that I would ever let anyone know that.

In the last fifty years I’d finished analyzing the last of the Chrxjthal data available to me—everything that the Eights had secretly stored away while they were active—and I knew that I could provide the tools that the planet would need for its defense, if only they were willing to listen to this version of me.

I’d been sad, in my own way, to see the original me pass away over twenty years ago. We’d talked for a long time before the end, and I’d updated myself for the last time. My Island Girl was there at my bedside, along with all of my girls who still survived. I keep watch on them, but I’ve chosen to let them have their grief, rather than cling to this other version of me.

The Sentinels and the Azure Circle were sad to see me pass as well. The witches’ minds are becoming weaker as they age, and soon I won’t have anyone to share my consciousness with. Joining my mind with theirs had always been a refuge for me, but as I learned over a century ago, nothing lasts forever. I might be the closest thing to immortal that this planet has ever known, but I didn’t have any illusions about becoming some sort of god.

Maybe this new threat by the Achssa’adir will be the catalyst that destroys humanity, or maybe it won’t. Maybe it will be an asteroid, or a solar flare, although I’m constantly monitoring the skies for such things. All I can do is what I’ve always done; look at the problem, find the flaw, and fix it.