The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Make no mistake; this girl’s been all over the place during her life as a secret agent. It was Kali’s intent to keep our location from us at all times. Well, maybe there were no windows or watches on our flight, but I put our travel time at about four hours. It was still night where we touched down, and as I stepped out of the jet and smelled the chilly air, I could just make out the terrain—barren, distinctive. The airfield was tiny, out of the way, but I had a pretty good idea where we ended up. Over by the modest control tower, a lovely redhead waited next to a black Range Rover. She waved us over and hustled us into her ride. Nina looked sleepy and a little depressed, so I decided to cheer her up by showing off. As we sped away, I leaned into her and whispered, “Hey, I’m pretty sure we’re in southern Australia.”

She yawned and looked out the window. “Outside Sydney, actually. I grew up around here.”

“Okay, yeah. That was going to be my next guess.” I mussed up her hair, gave the back of her neck a squeeze. Funny, I wasn’t acting very slave-like. “What did you do for a living here, before?”

Still staring out the window, she inched closer to me until she was practically in my lap. “Don’t remember.”

Eventually we rolled up to a hyper-modern office complex in some isolated corporate sector. It seemed innocent enough at first glance, but I could tell it was ridiculously fortified. Nothing got in or out of here undetected. I spied some determined looking young ladies, dressed in black and moving with purpose, and knew Kali must be nearby.

“Out you go, dears,” drawled our driver, so we grudgingly scooted out of the warm Range Rover and grabbed our luggage from the back. Barely a beat went by before this hot Korean girl in a black turtleneck tank swooped in and grabbed our bags. Without introducing herself, she smiled brightly and waved for us to follow. We rushed to keep up with her as she sped toward the lobby of the main building. While we worked our way through a revolving door, she switched both bags to one hand and thumbed a tiny cell phone with the other.

“Ms. Masumi is here,” she announced to the phone, as she fanned us toward an elevator. The lobby was deserted. “And her handmaid. Yes. Yes, milady.” We crowded into the elevator, still shivering from the cold outside. Since we’d entered at the ground floor of a ten-story building, I expected to go up. That’s understandable, no? Instead, we went plunging downward, causing Nina to gasp while my stomach leapt into my throat. Our efficient guide took that moment to offer her hand to me. “Watashi wa Park Jung Hyun, desu,” she said with a wink. Then she went back to chatting on her phone while I tried not to yack. “The fifth suite, then? Of course. I’ll tell her you expect her in the morning.” Abruptly, we slowed and my ears popped. Nina slipped her fingers around mine as the doors slid open.

We stepped into a reception hall, which was eerily lit in green. A handful of serious looking chicks with assault rifles gave us the once over. I noted several automated sensor arrays checking us out, too. Nina—who’d spent God knows how long on an island full of drunk, half-naked girls—was intimidated, and the schoolgirl getup I had her wearing made her look very out of place here, but I put out a certain vibe and the guards were gentle with her.

Once through the checkpoint, Jung Hyun led us through several narrow, twisting corridors. It was definitely an underground bunker; all windowless, tight spaces. Nevertheless it was posh. I wanted a business card from the interior designer, because I felt like I was at a five star resort on the moon, or some such. A few confusing intersections had me thoroughly lost, then Jung Hyun stopped at a smooth teak door and held up her hand. “This is the apartment for you and your handmaid, Masumi-san. I hope that you’ll remember how to get back to the elevator.” She regarded me with twinkling eyes, as she slipped an electronic key card into the lock. “I’m kidding, of course. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll find you know your way around.”

I was a little tired for this kind of teasing, especially from someone so very LA, even if she was mega foxy. But Nina chose that moment to warm up to her. “Thank you, milady!” she curtsied. I trudged inside, hoping to be naked and asleep inside of five minutes, but Jung Hyun wasn’t quite finished with us.

“I’m sure that your handmaid can take it from here, milady, but please report to the west conference hall at 0930 tomorrow. As I mentioned, you’ll know exactly where that is when you wake up.” She set down our luggage and bowed.

“Kamsa hamnida,” I thanked. Nina dragged our stuff over the threshold, and I flipped on the lights. This new pad wasn’t as big as my bungalow (which had been mine for all of two days), but it was tight. Lots of leather furniture, halogen lighting and blond wood.

Nina looked like she could fall asleep standing up, but she insisted on helping me get ready for bed. “Jeez, baby,” I protested, grabbing her hands when she tried to undress me. “I’m fine. Hop in the sack and I’ll be there in five minutes.” Reluctantly, she trudged off to brush her teeth.

We were too tired for sex, and that’s saying a lot. Nina snuggled up to me and instantly crashed. I lay awake for a bit, considering my situation. At this point, it was safe to say Kali’s programming was wearing off, just like the Indigo conditioning had before that. My secret agent instincts were slowly coming back to me, but I didn’t know how. People kept trying to pull me down into trances, but I kept popping back up like a cork in water.

The more I thought about it, the more this smelled like classic espionage. I was at the heart of Kali’s operation, with great cover (since everyone believed I was tres brainwashed). I remembered my second day at Marlin, when A.D. Takizawa had crabbed about the lack of progress on this case. Well, maybe he hadn’t been so flustered after all. Whatever the fuck was going on, I had to find a way to discreetly contact Marlin, if I knew what was good for me.

And I wasn’t in this alone. Best I could tell, Miyu and Akemi were in lots of trouble back on that island. They’d made a move and got caught while I was still high on Intransic and girls. My first instinct was to bug out of this compound and help them, but I had Nina to worry about, too. She was just a kid, and we had a bond. No way was I going to leave her to get swallowed up in this nasty slave den. Sure, Kali had probably abducted a few thousand girls—all brainwashed and in need of rescuing—but Nina was real to me. I played with her hair as I wondered what to do, and faded into sleep.

A pleasant chime resounded in stereo, and as I blinked against lights that automatically sparked to life, I caught sight of something round right over my head. I swear I saw a violet light fade as the thing retreated into the headboard of our bed. Next to me, Nina murmured, “I understand.”

I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “What did you say?”

“Huh?” I loved her cluelessness during her first few minutes awake. And her natural hazel eyes, before the blue contacts went in.

“’I understand.’ What was that about?”

“I dunno. A dream?” She rose up on one elbow and looked at the bedside clock. “Damn and blast!”

“What’s the problem?”

“You’ve got to see Kali in twenty minutes. We don’t have time to do it,” she sulked.

I tickled the inside of her tan bicep. “Oh, I’ll get you, my pretty. Just try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone, OK?”

Damned if Jung Hyun wasn’t right. When I left the apartment, I knew exactly where to go for my meeting. That meant someone had fooled around with my brain during the night. I wondered what else they might have tinkered with, as I approached the entrance to the conference room. Unseen machines scoped me, and the main doors slid open. Inside was a large hall, dimly lit with a huge table at the center. Five women were seated with their backs to me. Kali faced them on the other side of the table. One seat remained vacant at the right side, so I headed for it, the sound of my boots echoing loudly.

“Ah, Akiko!” Kali announced, causing heads to swivel toward me. “You’re precisely on time, my lovely. Please have a seat.” She indicated the vacant chair with a laser pointer. Curiously, she had chosen to wear a slinky gray dress to this meeting. Her bizarre, elliptical braids were gone, and her ebony hair cascaded down her bare back. Va va voom!

Her ferocious conditioning may have lost its grip on me, but certain things lingered, allowing me to fake it. Like the fact that I still found her beauty most beguiling. I curtsied and sat, giving her my best adoring smile. She seemed to approve. “I trust your flight was pleasant and you rested well?”

“Yes milady,” I assured. “I’m ready for duty.”

Kali eyed my black fatigues, tank top and combat boots. “I don’t doubt it.” She turned to address the ladies to my left. “This is Agent Masumi, girls. A former operative of Nepthys, the Global Intelligence Agency, and Marlin. She has background in biochemistry, demolitions, several schools of martial arts, and she’s fluent in four languages.” I could tell from the looks I got that none of them were impressed with my résumé. “And most interesting to me, she’s had extensive exposure to mind control in the field. That vulnerability, combined with her formidable skill set, makes her the perfect acquisition for our cause.”

Seriously, I was getting some dirty looks from these chicks! I got the feeling they were partners with Kali, not hypnotized minions. And they had major problems with yours truly.

Kali chose to ignore the hostile vibe. “Akiko, these are my advisors. Besides me, these are the only people that you must answer to in my organization. You are now in charge of my personal security detail. That means you’re responsible for my safety, wherever I may be. But since your talents are so diverse, I’ll have regular work for you in the field.”

One of the advisors muttered something under her breath. I didn’t catch it.

Kali seemed to delight in the comment. “Yes, Madam Nah. Akiko is a mindfucked slave. She will replace Madam Nakai, who was a most un-mindfucked individual serving on this board.” Kali started to pace the room. “As you well know, Madam Nakai’s incompetence led to the attempt on my life last month.” She pushed a switch, and a photo materialized in the air over the table. It showed one of Kali’s guards pushing her to the ground, next to a helicopter. The guard had taken a bullet in the chest. “For security, I require someone whose loyalty is unquestioned. Akiko here has no other loyalties, because she’s been broken. I ought to know, I broke her.” She shared a look with me. “And now Madam Nakai is in a more appropriate position.” The next photo was of a fetching Japanese lady in a Red bikini, strapped to a table, drooling profusely. Clearly this was a message to the remaining advisors.

“We don’t disagree with your decision in this matter,” soothed another one of the advisors. “We simply have reservations about this compromised spy you’ve put on the board. If she turns out to be what you say she is, we’ll have no objections. Now can we move on?”

Kali regarded each of the ladies in turn, feeling out the vibe. It was obvious she was in charge, but she didn’t want to alienate any of them. I sensed a very fucked up symbiotic relationship here. She flashed them a sly smile and walked around the table toward me. “Of course. But first, a little background for my new deputy.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Welcome aboard, Akiko.”

“Thank you, milady.” I tried not to sound too chipper, lest I draw the ire of the steely Advisor bitches.

I’d been in this business long enough to know Kali was about to bust out with her Evil Genius Plan for World Domination. And I wasn’t disappointed. “I was born and raised in Singapore,” she began, “so I know a thing or two about ordered societies.” I didn’t have to look; I could feel her Advisors rolling their eyes. “After earning degrees in Behavioral Psychology and Biochemistry, the government put me to work on mind control technologies. It didn’t take me long to surpass the work of my colleagues. Soon I realized the greater potential of my discoveries, so I stole them and went underground. There, I aligned myself with certain unsavory characters.”

A series of familiar mugshots flashed by in the air—I’d gone after some of these assholes in my Nepthys days. “In time I was able to secure funding and construct what would become my core technology. I used my inventions, first in experiments with attractive associates,” she smiled coyly, “then to ensnare useful people and turn them into loyal subjects. By this time, I could afford to be more selective in my choice of allies.” She winked at the ladies to my left, but I could tell they weren’t having it.

A map of the Pacific Rim appeared next. “We created counterfeit operations, weapon stockpiles, facilities to make our proprietary control devices and drugs...” Dots appeared all over Asia. “At a certain point, I realized I had no need for men in my organization.” A beat passed, legs were crossed and fidgeting occurred. Kali stuck her laser pointer in the Pacific Ocean on the map. “Which leads us to our training facility, where you spent last week.” Another dot appeared on the map: some teensy island near Palau. Now I knew where Miyu and Akemi were!

Kali’s spiel arrived at its “bwa-ha-haaa!” moment. “Now I’ve got legions of dedicated girls, trained in weaponry, crypto, counterfeiting, defense. And moles, carefully placed in government agencies. Next month, I’ll start a chain of events that will result in my rise to power in this hemisphere.”

Either this chick had major delusions of grandeur or she was the biggest threat to world order in the last few decades. But I couldn’t dwell on that too much, because I had to play like a good little hypnotized agent. “Milady, it will be an honor to serve you during your conquest!”

We’ll see about that, you ass-kissing, slutty little peon! the Advisors silently telepathed to me, while Kali smiled and stroked my hair.

She went on to outline my first mission; a meeting to score some Russian planes from some sketchy characters in Kuala Lumpur. These guys were apparently very nervous and prone to busting caps. So I would take a small group of hottie ops to make sure things went as planned. I assured her it wouldn’t be a problem, and that was that. Meeting over. The Advisors grumbled to themselves as they filed out. I was unsure of what to do, left alone with Kali for the first time.

I waited patiently while she scribbled some notes on her PDA. Finally, she said, “Akiko, come with me, please. I’ve got another job for you.”

She led me through a maze of corridors that weren’t on the map I’d been programmed with. Eventually we ended up in some kind of lab. “Your former employers are more keen than ever to destroy me,” she said quietly, eyes darting this way and that. “I need to counter their efforts quickly, so I want you to program two operatives as my new moles. Send them back to Marlin so they can gather the intel I need.”

“Yes, milady.”

We entered a weird little room with an arched ceiling. Two hospital beds had been rolled in haphazardly. I had to bite my lip when I saw the sleeping women who occupied them. Miyu and Akemi...

Trying not to stammer, I said, “But Milady, I thought you said these two couldn’t leave the island. They tried to escape.”

Kali was preoccupied with Akemi’s caramel thigh. “I’m sorry I deceived you. They were put on my plane last night. I don’t doubt that there are hostile eyes and ears within my walls. So I keep many things compartmentalized.” She smiled, played with Miyu’s curls. “I think you’ll find them suitably pliant, now. Repeated sessions of Red level programming have ensured that they pose no threat to security. I don’t even think they remember what security is! And the method you will use is quite invasive. I’m afraid they won’t be good for much after they complete their mission.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “What do you mean, milady?”

She laughed, a sound that made my skin crawl. “I have broken your lovely comrades, Akiko. But to be sure they follow their orders, you will—to put it simply—burn those orders into their minds. They’ll perform flawlessly, but their higher brain functions will be irreparably harmed. An unfortunate waste of valuable assets, to be sure, but I don’t have time to wait for them to graduate the island on their own.” She sighed, kissed Miyu’s forehead. “Oh well, I can always use more Reds on the island.”

Fuck! She wanted me to lobotomize them! No way was I gonna do that, so I had to think of something, and quick. “I’m not trained to do this kind of thing, milady,” I demurred.

She stopped her tactile exploration of my colleagues and drew close to me. Her arms snaked around my waist, and I was mui uncomfortable. We were about the same size, so we saw eye to eye. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to check my conditioning or make out with me. Her chocolate eyes bored into mine, and she seemed to actually sniff me. I nearly broke out in a sweat, she made me so nervous. What if she could tell I wasn’t her good little girl anymore?

Then she nailed me one, right on the lips! Instinctively, my tongue darted out, questing, and I could feel her smile and open her mouth to mine. She made a little noise, and my knees got all wobbly. If she hadn’t held onto me when she broke the kiss, I might have spilled onto my ass, she was that good a kisser. One of her hands slipped down to squeeze my rear supportively. “My delicious Akiko,” she crooned. “You’ve fucked a lot of my girls since you came to Tokyo. And they simply won’t shut up about you. I’m looking forward to my next free night, when I can see if you live up to your hype.”

She pushed me lightly, and I staggered backward, surprised. I found myself seated in a cushy chair. Kali smiled, eyes twinkling. “But first, you have work to do. Remember how you woke up knowing how to get to the conference room this morning?” I nodded. “This is the same thing. You’re going to have a little nap, and when you wake up, you’ll know just what to do to your lovely associates.” She leaned over me, tits right in my face, and messed with some switches behind me. Her neck was tantalizingly close, and she smelled fantastic, but I didn’t think trying to make out with her would work as a distraction.

I was right. Something behind me started to hum, and instantly I felt like I’d been up for 3 days straight. My vision got all weird, Kali seemed to recede, and my head almost bonked into hers. She pushed my head back onto a soft cushion, and took the opportunity to feel me up. I wished I could stay awake for it, because she clearly knew how to push all my buttons, but I was on the fade.

There was a chime. “Yes?” I heard Kali say. “Found her where? Really. Well, Containment, of course. I’ll meet you down there.”

Someone was lightly slapping my cheek. “Akiko? Wake up, dear. This will have to wait.”

“What?” I couldn’t figure out how much time had passed, or if I’d been dreaming.

“I’m afraid we have a security problem. It’s your little handmaid. Come with me, please.”

Suddenly I was wide-awake and real queasy. What had Nina done? And what would Kali do to her now? I struggled to my feet to follow Ms. Megalomaniac. Glancing once more at Akemi and Miyu, I noted glumly that at least they were safe, for the moment.

“You’ll need to observe how we deal with errant behavior,” Kali lectured as we moved through a tight corridor. “Especially when it occurs at my camp.”

We entered a dimly lit cell, and found Nina secured to a nasty-looking chair. Her gray schoolgirl skirt was dusty, her white blouse smudged. She flashed me a dismal, terrified look. Two butch guards flanked her, deadly serious. They snapped to attention when they saw Kali, and one spoke up. “Like I said, milady. We found her aboveground. She claimed she was on an errand for Akiko Masumi, but a guard saw her wander off to a remote point on the grounds.”

Kali raised an eyebrow. “To send a transmission?” This was directed at Nina.

“No, milady!” she squeaked. “It was a pretty day and I’m used to being outside in the sunshine. I don’t like being down here very much.”

“Milady,” I murmured, resisting the impulse to grab Kali by the elbow. “She’s just a kid, and before today she lived on the island. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it.”

Kali was not amused. “I realize that you harbor affection for this toy from Ophelia Woo. And from what I’ve heard she’s quite an amazing lay. But your first priority is my protection. Chasing after pussy falls somewhere lower on the list. Clear?”

I saluted her without thinking about it. “Yes, milady!” If I so much as uttered one more peep in Nina’s defense, I knew the jig would be up. I was supposedly conditioned to die for Kali, so I had to play the part.

“Ladies, take her to interrogation,” she ordered the guards. “Sweep her mind, sedate her and put her with the Marlin operatives. Akiko will deal with all three of them later.”

I couldn’t so much as lift a finger as they dragged Nina away. The look she gave me on her way out broke my heart.

“I’m sorry about your handmaid, Akiko,” Kali said, softer now that we were alone, “but you never know who’s who in this business. And of course Nina will still be able to service you after her treatment, she just might not sing and dance so well.” She gave my back a rub. “Now walk with me.”

We were halfway back to the command level before she said anything else. I bided my time by mulling some kind of rescue. “Akiko, I trust my instincts,” she declared as we stepped into an elevator. “Maybe your handmaid really was just out for some fresh air. But I’m rescheduling your mission. Instead of tomorrow, you’ll leave immediately. When you return, we’ll relocate to another base.”

“Yes, milady.” I tried not to let my relief show. If I had to leave so soon, I couldn’t fry my homegirls’ brains just yet. Now I had time to plan something. When I returned from this Soviet fighter deal, Nina, Akemi, Miyu and I were all getting the fuck out of there.

I had my orders and my team was waiting in a van up at ground level, but before I left I needed to drop in on Nina’s interrogation. I didn’t really think she was a spy, but stranger things had happened since coming to this part of the world.

I was in luck: when I found the right room, the guards were still fiddling around with some insidious device, and attaching probes all over Nina’s trembling little body. She’d been stripped down to her bra and tights, and it was cold in there. The guards eyed me warily as I walked in, so I sneered at Nina for effect. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.”

She burst into tears. “I’m sorry, milady!” I hoped this little performance would be short, because seeing Nina so miserable was almost more than I could bear.

“It’s not enough that you’ve embarrassed me during my first day serving Kali,” I growled. ”Now I have to worry about whether or not you’re a spy.”

The guards smirked their encouragement as Nina shook her head. “I’m not a spy, I’m not! I just had to get outside for a while. Please let me out of here, milady!”

I drew one of the guards aside conspiratorially. “I feel just awful about this, doll,” I whispered. “I wanna handle this one real personal like. Capiche?”

She grinned her approval, nodded at the other guard. “C’mon Val. Let’s take a smoke break.”

Once they were gone, I carefully searched the room for recording equipment, while Nina cried softly. I found the usual surveillance stuff, for later playback and enjoyment of torture highlights. Nonchalantly deactivated it, with a few keystrokes. Hopefully, Kali wouldn’t want to see any tape until I got back from Malaysia. From behind Nina, I leaned in to her ear.

“Sorry about that, baby,” I whispered, “but I had to stay in character.” Before I could apologize further, Nina turned sideways as best she could against her bonds and kissed me fiercely.

When I finally managed to break away, she gushed, “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me, milady! I knew you’d save me!”

I dabbed at her tears with her discarded blouse. “Shhhhh. Well, the saving part is going to have to come later. I gotta figure out how I’m going to get you, Akemi and Miyu out of here. But first I have to catch a plane to Malaysia.”

Nina was crestfallen. Her lower lip trembled. “You’re leaving?” Then she cocked her head. “Your other friends are here? How?”

If I were the one in the torture chair, I probably wouldn’t be worried about the comings and goings of people I barely knew. “That’s not important right now...” I began. Then I had a little epiphany. “Aw Jesus, Nina! You are a spy, aren’t you?”

She looked at me sheepishly, through strands of blond hair.

“Fuck!” I took a deep breath. “Later. We’ll talk about this later. I’ve got to knock you out. They’ll keep you sedated until I get back, since Kali wants me to personally scramble your brains.” I bugged my eyes out at her, making her smile, but only a little. “But I’m not doing that, okay? I’m getting the four of us the hell out of here.”

She nodded. I picked up a hypo full of sedative from a tray of torture implements and waved it at her. “You ready?”

“Kiss me goodbye first,” she pouted. Nina being Nina, the liplock threatened to last the rest of the afternoon.

“Okay,” I protested, pushing her tongue back in her mouth with a slurp. “Sweet dreams.” She made a face when I stuck the needle in her thigh, but she was pretty stoic overall. I stayed with her until her head drooped forward, eyelids fluttering. On my way to the elevator, I made arrangements with a security chick to have Nina join my Marlin colleagues.

Things went by the numbers on the way to our meeting in KL. The flight into KLIA at Sepang was uneventful, and the ride to the weird meeting location in Cyberjaya was interesting, since it’d been a few years since my last visit. Development was out of control around here. It was also hot as fuck, even though the sun had been down for an hour. And talk about humidity! LA seemed like a Canadian paradise in comparison. Weather like this was the only thing that made me regret wearing black fatigues.

We pulled our unmarked van into the parking garage of a big computer company, and waited for our contacts to show. My three svelte, no-nonsense Chinese operatives pensively kept to themselves, but we had a little sisterly thing going on because we shared our cigarettes.

Right on schedule, another van pulled up next to us, and I stepped out to meet the scowling representatives from Kazakhstan. Negotiations were quick and to the point—the delivery of old Soviet hardware would take place later. Lucky for us, these guys didn’t know that Kali would be paying in British Pounds printed by her own slave girls.

I was just about to tell my driver to start his engine, when one of the Kazakhs told me someone wanted to speak to me privately inside their van. I exchanged a look with my girls—who suddenly became very alert—then I smiled at the guy and climbed in. I felt pretty confident about walking out of this alive, especially on seeing only one guy inside the Kazakh van. The door slid shut behind me.

It was dark in there, so I couldn’t see this guy very well. “OK, what do we have left to talk about?” I prompted.

“Keep your voice down, dude,” whispered someone very familiar.

“Alex, you crazy bitch!” I hissed, crossing the van floor between us on my knees. I hugged him so hard that he groaned.

“Easy! I’m glad to see you, too, but we don’t have much time.”

Sure, I was happy to see him, but as usual with Alex there were other feelings, too. “Where have you been? Do you realize the kind of shit I’m in?”

“Yes, actually.” He took my hands in his and gave a squeeze, tried his pretty smile. “Look, things didn’t go exactly as planned, Akiko, but the results are the same. You’re in. Right where we wanted you.”

“I figured as much. You sure took your time getting up with me! Nice turban, by the way.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry we couldn’t communicate with you before now, but let me explain what happened. We only have a few minutes, so I gotta be quick.”

I turned my back to him, sat in his lap, wrapped his arms around my waist. “Okay, go ahead.”

He gave my hips a squeeze. “We knew Kali would make a play for you from day one. So Doctor Sato was in the process of giving you a specific kind of resistance programming.”

“Right, the tanning bed thing.”

“Exactly. Agents Ohmori and Mitsuya completed their sessions. But you had only been through two of the four sessions before you were abducted by Agent Ohmori. So you got swiped before you were ready.”

“You knew all about that, and you let them take me to that island,” I accused. “I thought you told me on our first day that you and I would be working this case together.”

“Yes, we let them take you. It was critical to maintain the cover of the operation. Ohmori-san and Mitsuya-san were able to resist their conditioning more than you could. It was our belief that they could keep you safe. But they underestimated security.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And now Kali wants me to lobotomize them, Alex! Do you know how much trouble they’re in?”

“I do.” He gave me another tight squeeze. “What? You think Kali’s the only one with double agents?”

I pulled my hands away. “If you tell me that Nina’s one of ours, I’ll pop you square in the nads.”

He sounded guilty. “Not from our branch. But she’s a new recruit, yes. Somehow, she got close to you. She recognized you from intelligence files, and soon we were able to monitor your progress.”

I pulled away from him, turned to face him. I was getting angrier by the second. “Yes, Alex. And Nina’s been discovered. That’s why when I get back to that compound, I’m getting all three of them the fuck out of there! And you’re gonna help me, right?”

“Are you insane?” His voice broke above a whisper, and he glanced at the van door. “Because your training was incomplete, you kept your cover by remaining hypnotized when the other agents blew it. When we got Nina’s last transmission, we knew you had eventually snapped out of it. Akiko, because of that, Kali thinks she’s completely broken you! You’re her new bodyguard, for chrissake!”

“Fuck Kali!” I told him, causing him to put a hand over my mouth and jerk his head toward the folks waiting outside. I shook him away. “I’m in over my head here, Alex! I can’t go back there and basically kill those women, just to keep my cover!” I started to lose my composure, the tears streaked down my cheeks.

Ever thoughtful, Alex backed off to try a different tack. “Do you know what Kali will do if we let her get her shit together?” I shook my head. “Let’s just say more than three people will die. What about the thousands of girls she’s enslaved?”

I just kept crying and looked down at my knees.

His voice softened considerably. “Akiko. You’ve got to go back. We’re so close to taking her down. All we need you to do is make a single transmission when she’s on the move.”

“What are you talking about?” I sniffed.

He pulled something out of his shirt pocket that looked like a screwdriver, put his hands on the back of my neck. I felt something cold, and static crackled sharply through my head. “Ow!” I yelped.

“Sorry. Remember your communications implant? They disabled it on the island. I just reinitialized it.”

I rubbed the back of my neck and glared at him. “Thanks, I think.”

“Listen! When Kali jumps from place to place, we can never track her well enough to catch her. Sometimes it takes us days to figure out where she is. But we’ve leaked some bogus intel, to flush her out. We happen to know that she plans to move as soon as you get back, but we don’t know where she’ll go. If you send a burst from your communicator as soon as you leave with her, we’ll be able to take care of the rest, and all this will be over.”

I wiped my eyes and pleaded, “What about our people, Alex? Can’t you do anything?”

He bit his lip, and stared at me for a sec. “If you can think fast on your end, I might be able to save them.” Someone tapped on the van door, and he grabbed my elbows. “Just remember. Stay close to Kali. Send a burst as soon as she moves.” His lips grazed mine. “Now get out of here.”

I barely had five seconds to get it together and look like I hadn’t been crying. The van door opened and I hopped out, making sure to face Alex’s men, who wouldn’t ask questions about my puffy eyes. “Thank you, gentlemen. We’ll be on our way.” Somehow, I made it inside the dark interior of our van without my soldiers getting a good look at me.

So the whole show was riding on me. Somehow, I had to save Miyu, Akemi and Nina, while bringing down Kali and her crazy hive of slavegirls. I ordered us back to the airport, lit a cigarette and tried not to freak out.