Zabzik
Part V
13
Avalanches begin with the stirring of a few inches of snow. The cataclysm that brought down a multimillion dollar company and that caused disruptions even in secret levels of government began with a random note on a computer bulletin board, one devoted to the discussion of games and gaming. It was in the form of a query from 733t 73XXX, who happened to be a junior attending a school in central Florida.
P33ps, whas happen 2 zabzik????? Sssssssooooooo sloooooooooowwwwww. NE boddy herd from Silversword r HaxXxer????? WTF???
Over the next 24 hours a few people replied to 733t 73XXX suggesting that the problems might be with his modem, with his head, or with the gaming company set up by Alan Berman and Ivor Karsh, ZZinc. The company’s greatest success was Zabzik, though it had other interests as well. Perhaps, someone suggested, ZZinc was setting up new servers, as it did now and again to meet the increasing Web traffic that the spreading popularity of their game caused.
As it happened, one of the gamers 733t 73XXX had asked about, the one who played under the name of Silversword, was dead by the time the initial query was posted. Silversword, aka Dinah Lemley, had been a 37-year-old woman who lived and worked in Washington, DC, though her online acquaintances, who assumed she told the truth when she claimed to be a 22-year-old straight male, would have been astonished to have learned that. Lemley’s exact job description was both nebulous and classified, but she had been working with an intelligence agency on means of inducing hypnotic states with the use of intense role-playing games, enhanced by near-subliminal reinforcements.
By the time Lemley realized she had not only turned over all her game points, her fake Zabzik money, to the character called Shock, but had also cleaned out her savings and checking accounts, forwarding the money to a numbered account in a Carribean bank, she was an emotional wreck. The only thing she could think of was that she had somehow let her own research leak out and that they—a terrorist cell, the Other Side, somebody—had seized control not only of her computer but also of her mind. Racked with guilt and convinced that she would not survive an inquiry in any case, Lemley overdosed on sleeping pills. She would have been amazed to learn that a lone college student, one Wynn Brandon, had independently replicated the most crucial part of her own research.
The agency for which Lemley worked investigated her death, but wrongly concluded that the IT specialist had feared being outed as a lesbian and had killed herself because of that. The investigation took just a week, and by the time it had been concluded, the first stirrings of the avalanche had become a shattering roar, and the world had shifted for millions of players of Zabzik, for the company that had created it, and most of all, for Wynn Brandon.
Wynn had stopped going to class. What was the point? A degree was a way of opening the door to a life of work and the pursuit of wealth. She had no need to work now, not with a fortune in her offshore account, and the wealth she had amassed would allow her to live any way she wanted, free of . . . restraints. Her computer skills were directed now at creating a new identity for herself, one that she could assume when she left the U.S. to embark on a lazy journey to somewhere new. She thought of establishing a new identity for Shock as well, but to tell the truth, she was beginning to get tired of that particular toy. She could recruit others. When the time came for her to leave, she’d kiss Shock goodbye and maybe turn her loose to become a whore. Or maybe leave her thinking she was a dog, a real bitch. Wynn got the giggles thinking of Shock naked in the park, squatting to pee while outraged mothers put their hands over their children’s eyes.
Wynn glanced up from her laptop. Right now Shock sat naked in front of the main monitor, headset in place, groaning and writhing, one hand working at her hot wet slit as the other cradled the game controller. Another seduction, more money to be transferred into the swollen account. “Good girl,” Wynn purred, though she couldn’t tell if Shock even registered the sound of her voice.
Turn her into a right little bitch. Oh, that would be fun. Maybe another week, Wynn thought. Then it would be time to decide what to do with poor little Shock.
“Listen,” Karm whispered into her ear as their bodies ground together, breast pressing against breast, stiff nipples rubbing each other, engorged clits sending waves of pleasure. “Listen, darling Shock, listen to me.”
“Yes,” gasped Shock. They were making love on the soft green grass beside an oasis pool, one of Zabzik’s sapphire-blue perfect ovals of water. A crowd had gathered to watch the two naked women writhe together, bodies slick with sweat and slippery in the sun. “Yes, Karm. I missed you so much!”
“Listen,” Karm said again, her breath hot and fragrant, cinnamon-spiced. “Let my words go deep within and let them find root there. Listen.”
Shock heard the whispered words, forgot them as soon as she understood them, just as ordered, and groaned in anticipation. When Karm turned atop her and presented her with a glistening pussy, she lapped it eagerly, her own hips bucking in frenzied orgasm as Karm sucked and nibbled at her clit. Oh, it was all good, but the best was coming. Shock obediently teased and licked Karm’s clitoris, pulling it between her lips, polishing it with a soft tongue tip. Oh, release! Yes!
She came and came again, crying out wordlessly, her throat clenching and her toes curling with the power of her orgasms. After an eternity of bliss, Karm rolled off her, turned, cradled her, stroked her breasts and nibbled her ear and whispered again, for a long time. At last she asked, “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Shock said.
Karm got up and reached for her discarded armor. “Then kneel,” she said.
Shock knelt on the grass before her, legs spread to keep her pussy open, the way that Mistress Wynn had instructed her.
“Hold out your chains,” Karm said.
Shock put her arms out before her, the chains clinking.
With a flash of the sword, Karm struck the chains close to the manacles. The metal sparked and fell away. Shock’s hands were free for the first time since her enslavement.
“Look at me,” Karm said tenderly.
With tears flowing down her cheeks, Shock raised her head. It was just on a level with Karm’s pussy. Shock could not help licking her lips at the sight. “I love you,” Karm told her.
“I love you,” Shock whispered back.
And with a savage blow, Karm struck off her head.
Brazil, Wynn decided. That would be the first stop. She would have Shock find some female player, someone more beautiful and maybe even more suggestible than herself. Wynn would have her send photos, would make sure she was good fuck-toy material, and then would have Shock plant the necessary suggestions. Her new...well, victim was the word, wasn’t it? Her new victim would believe she had won a trip to Rio, would fly there, and would step off the plane right into Wynn’s arms. And then the fun would begin, yes.
Feeling horny at the thought, Wynn glanced possessively over at Shock.
Who lay back in the chair, limp.
Frowning, Wynn set aside her laptop and got up. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
Shock didn’t respond. God, she looked sick, she looked dead.
Winn tore the headset off. Lacey’s eyes blinked up at her, unfocused and dazed. “Ahh,” she mumbled.
“What the hell are you doing, slut?” demanded Wynn hotly.
Lacey shook her head. “C-can’t. . . play any more.”
“The fuck you can’t. You’ve got some recruiting to do, slut.”
“N-no. Can’t.”
“Slave Shock!” snapped Wynn. “You will do as I command!”
“She’s dead,” Lacey said, smiling. “All dead. Her head cut off.”
“Listen to me, bitch!” snarled Wynn, slapping her across the face so hard she left an angry red handprint. “Slave Shock! Listen to me!”
The naked girl surged out of the chair and struck back, a slap that made Wynn’s ears ring. “Shock is dead, you bitch!”
“Goddam it!” Wynn touched her cheek, not believing what had happened. “Slave Shock, you listen to me! Put on your bracelets! Now!”
For a second Wynn thought that Shock was actually going to defy her direct order. But the other girl lowered her gaze and murmured, “Yes, Mistress.” From a table beside the chair she picked up the handcuffs and fastened one around her right wrist. She turned submissively and let Wynn fasten the other to her left wrist, behind her, her hands touching her ass.
“Go to your cage,” Wynn ordered, and Shock plodded to the door of the room kept for her. Wynn opened it, pushed her inside, and then locked the door behind her. She stood rubbing her cheek and frowning. What the hell had happened?
Only one way to find out. Wynn settled into the armchair, noticing that the cushion had a dark stain of pussy juice on it. Hell, Shock must have been carrying out her orders, seducing players, implanting suggestions. Maybe the connection had been interrupted or something.
With a grunt of irritation, Wynn pulled on the headset and entered Zabzik.
She seemed to be standing on the margin of a blue pool, with a purple evening sky above, glittering with the scattered diamonds of Zabzik’s bizarre constellations. A fountain in the center of the pool gurgled, and an evening breeze rustled the fronts of the palm trees that bent over the water. No one was there, not a single player, although the oases were always the center of intense activity in the world of the game.
Wynn spent some moments equipping herself so she would blend in, conjuring up chain armor, a sword, and a helmet for her alter ego in the game...though in her case her avatar looked almost exactly the way she did in real life, except that the eyes were different, more commanding, like an eagle’s, not weepy and peering.
When she was ready, she paced around the clearing, looking for some sign, some clue, of what had happened to Shock.
Nothing.
She stood beside the pool, wondering what in the hell was going on. It was early evening, prime time for Zabzik players in at least three time zones. They wouldn’t all be offline, unless something very weird had happened on the Web.
She had just about made up her mind to take off the headset when she heard the faint clank of metal on metal behind her.
Wynn spun and saw a silhouette outlined against the lurid sky of the desert beyond the oasis. Something familiar about it, something—
“Hello, bitch,” a well-known voice said.
Wynn felt a deliciously evil smile curving her lips. “Well,” she said, unsheathing her sword. “Slave Karm.”
14
Tek watched anxiously. His Mistress had commanded him not to interfere, not to don his own headset, but to pull her out if things took a bad turn. He balled his fists and listened to both sides of the conversation, Wynn’s voice coming over the computer speakers, though without the headset he could not actually see her. Cassie gave a quick nod, his signal, and he started the CD. If only they had enough time.
The two women circled each other, warily, swords drawn. “What the fuck did you do to Shock, Slave Karm?” Wynn demanded.
“I freed her,” Karm responded. “I cut off her head.”
“You screwed up her brain for good, then,” Wynn said, with a nasty laugh. “Don’t you know that after all this time Lacey isn’t there any more? She’s long gone. All that was left was Shock, and if you killed Shock in the game, you made little Lacey crazy in the real world.”
“Better than being your whore.”
Wynn suddenly whirled her sword and struck, but somehow Karm got her own weapon up in time. Sparks flashed and metal rang. “I’ve made myself fast,” Wynn said.
“I’ve been practicing,” Karm returned.
“Give up, Slave Karm,” cooed Wynn, on the move again, circling to the left. “Serve me. I command you.”
“Go to hell,” Karm said evenly.
“Oh, you will serve me in the end,” Wynn said, chuckling. “You’ll take Shock’s place. I need someone to help me for a few days, and you’ll do. I may even let you make love to me. You have a nice, soft tongue.”
She struck then, a savage forward thrust that should have skewered Karm, but somehow she wasn’t where she should have been, she dodged aside a fraction of a second before the metal could bite, and a whistling stroke of her sword made Wynn stagger and nearly drop her own weapon. “Slave Karm!” she snarled. “You will obey me!”
“Karm isn’t here,” the other figure said.
“You’re karm,” Wynn said.
“No. Karm is dead, too. I killed her,” the other woman told her.
Wynn felt the first creep of doubt. “I know you. You’re Cassie.”
“Cassie stands behind me, as Lacey stood behind Shock.”
Wynn cut the air in blinding slashes, driving forward. The other parried, striking fire in the darkness. The air rang like a bell. “If you’re not Karm,” panted Wynn, “then who the hell are you?”
Now the other figure began to fight back. Her sword whirled and flashed, and Wynn desperately parried, giving ground. If only she had time to reach up and rip the headset off—but the illusion of Zabzik was so damn real, and it told her she would be cut, she would bleed, she would die—
A blow numbed her hands, and she lost her grip on the hilt of her broadsword. She heard it sing away on the air, felt the bite of a swordpoint against her throat. “Kneel,” the other woman said.
Wynn did, her mind reeling, amazed that she had the illusion of sand underneath her bare knees. God, she would fix Cassie for this, she would kill the bitch, she—
God damn.
Wynn felt panic rising in her throat. She had done what Cassie ordered, she had. . . . had. . . .
Night sounds in her ears.
Voices in the wind.
Voices in her mind.
“You are Slave Wynn,” the other woman said. “I am your mistress.”
“. . . my mistress,” Wynn heard herself saying, horrified at the words.
The other woman said, “Call me Karma.” * * *
They reached the house well after midnight. Cassie saw to her relief that a high fence surrounded it. The gate stood unlocked, as she had ordered. Tek climbed out of the car, opened the gate, and waited until Cassie drove through to shut it again.
The front door was unlocked. As ordered.
Wynn, naked, her headset in place, masturbating and whimpering as the game took her to an even deeper state of submission. She wouldn’t notice them. Cassie yelled, “Lacey? Where are you?”
An answering shout. “In here,” Tek said. That door was locked, but Cassie found the key in the pocket of Wynn’s cast-off jeans.
Lacey staggered out, naked, hands manacled behind her. Anger flaming in her face, Cassie sorted thorugh the keys on Wynn’s ring, found the small one that fit the handcuffs, and freed Lacey. “Where are your clothes?” she asked.
Lacey just stared at her, a tremulous smile on her lips.
“Get her something,” Cassie ordered Tek.
“Yes, Mistress.”
In the end they settled for an ankle-length white trenchcoat. Cassie cuffed Wynn’s ankle to her chair before she and Tek wiped the house free of their fingerprints. Then they took a submissive, quiet Lacey out to the car and drove away.
No neighbors had noticed them. No one reported seeing them in the neighborhood.
Two days later when the authorities raided Wynn’s house, they concluded that she had cuffed herself to the chair. Judging from her appearance, they said, she hadn’t left it in two or three days, not even to go to the bathroom.
By that time Wynn was far gone.
And so, in a way, were Lacey, Tek, and Cassie....
From the Washington Leader:
Congress Asked to Probe Net Scam
The Federal Trade Commission has asked Congress to authorize an investigation of the collapse of ZZinc, the company that designed and released the computer game Zabzik.
In recent days players of the game have reportedly lost millions of dollars, under the influence of suggestions that may have been implanted in the game itself. Co-designers Alan Berman and Ivor Karsh, whose initials were incorporated into the game title, have disavowed any knowledge. . . .
From the Wall Street Advisor
Hacker Arrested, Charged in Zabzik Scam
Wynn Brandon, a 20-year-old college student, has been charged as the hacker who rewrote the code of the popular Zabzik computer game, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars in funds sent by players of the game to an undisclosed offshore bank.
Meanwhile, the parent company, ZZinc, has declared bankruptcy and all access to the game has been removed from the Internet. . . .
From a memorandum marked “ULTRA,” the highest level of classification:
RE: Interrogation of subject Wynn Marie Brandon
After intensive examination and questioning, the interrogation team has determined that subject Brandon is not competent to advise the Agency with regard to indoctrination programs she designed and implemented in the game Zabzik. Subject has manifested symptoms of deep schizophrenia, which have been nonresponsive to pharmaceutical or psychiatric treatment. Subject admits her complicity in the scheme but will give no details, even under “most extreme” persuasion. The usual chemical inducements have not been effective.
Investigators wish to report that subject no longer seems to have the capacity to use, let alone work with, computer programming and is fixated upon sexual gratification. Subject insists on being referred to as “Slave Wynn.” She is, in a term no longer accepted in psychiatric treatment, an extreme nymphomaniac eager for sexual congress with partners of any gender or orientation and should be maintained in strict solitary confinement. . . .
From the campus newspaper:
No Progress in Disappearances
The three students who vanished last term have not been found, and the F.B.I. has offered little hope in the case.
Lacey DeMore, Ted “Tek” Carter, and Cassandra Taylor all stopped coming to class and apparently left the University at about the same time. Though no sign of foul play was discovered, authorities believe the three may have been kidnapped.
The ocean was a tropical ocean, the beach was blinding white sand, and the villa overlooking it had cost close to a million dollars.
That was all right. They had millions more left.
They were a long way from home, but now this was their home.
Cassie and Lacey were sunbathing nude on the terrace overlooking the blue ocean. Lacey had stretched out her left hand to hold Cassie’s right. Lacey couldn’t be away from her for very long at a stretch. She became anxious and almost childlike.
Tek, wearing red swim trunks, brought out a couple of drinks. “Ladies,” he said.
Cassie raised her sunglasses and smiled up at him. Tek had gotten so tan in the last months. Well, they all had, but on him the dark skin really was appealing, making the hard muscles of his torso stand out. He gleamed with a soft sheen of sweat.
“Thanks, Tek,” Lacey said, sitting up without a trace of self-consciousness to take the Margarita he offered. She sipped it and smiled. “Mm. Just right.”
Cassie took her own drink and sat hugging her knees with her left arm as she sipped it. “Everything still secure?” she asked.
Tek stood beside her, looking down at her and Lacey, two beautiful young girls, four round breasts, two gently swelling bellies, two willing pussies. Cassie thought he was the luckiest guy in the world.
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “I’ve diversified the money into four different numbered accounts in four different countries. There’s a computer trail that launders it and makes it untraceable. We can live like this for the rest of our lives and no one will ever know.”
No one would ever know.
Sometimes Cassie felt a little pang at that. Her relatives, Tek’s, Lacey’s. Lacey’s boyfriend Eli. Nobody.
But that was the price you paid for this.
That and the constant feeling of arousal, the eternal demanding need.
Cassie had faced great temptation. She knew the names and numbers of hundreds of potential slaves, former Zabzik players who would just need her quiet assurance to travel to wherever she demanded and perform whatever service she ordered them to do, just at her firm statement, “This is Mistress Cassandra.”
So far she had resisted that temptation. So far Lacey and Tek were enough to keep her drive for more and more sex under control. She had heard the same suggestions that Wynn had heard during their confrontation.
She had thought she could resist them completely.
That had not entirely been the case.
She leaned over and caressed Lacey’s breast, bringing the sun-browned nipple to sharp erection at a touch. “Mm,” she said. “Horny again?”
“Always,” Lacey said, her breasts gleaming in the hot sun, slippery with sweat and tanning lotion. Lacey leaned close to kiss her, offering her tongue.
“Mm,” Cassie said again, pulling away. “Why don’t we. . . blow Tek together?”
Lacey giggled. “I’d like that.”
“Tek, you don’t need those trunks.”
It hurt a little too that when she spoke to Tek that way, his eyes glazed and he obeyed with the automatic movements of a robot, of a figure in a game. He shucked the red swim trunks and stood nude, his cock already stiffening.
Lacey had rolled onto her knees, her face bright and eager. She waited, her big eyes on Cassie, begging for the word.
“You can start,” Cassie said.
That was something else. The ordinary motions of living...eating, drinking, going to the bathroom...Lacey and Tek managed quite well. But anything special, anything that might give pleasure, required her approval. Though they never used the words any longer, she was Mistress Cassandra to both of them. Would always be.
Lacey was making hungry little moans as her tongue teased the swelling purple head of Tek’s cock, swirling around the glans, making the member stand up firm and quivering. Cassie leaned in, smelling the metallic aroma of male arousal. She began to suck and slurp at Tek’s cock, too, and the two girls trapped it between them, opening their mouths, spreading their lips, their tongues meeting, their cheeks pressing together. Cassie swept her hand lazily across Lacey’s thigh, and Lacey spread her legs obediently, letting Cassie dip her fingers into her hot and already slippery slit.
With her other hand Cassie began to frig herself, dipping a finger deep, pressing it against slick flesh, teasing and tormenting her own clit. Oh, God, she needed this. Needed it five, six times a day, and got it from her two slaves...no, from her two friends, from Lacey and Tek. She sucked and fucked and was sucked and fucked in return. She took Lacey’s tongue in her mouth, in her pussy, in her ass, and she returned the favor. She sucked Tek’s cock, let him fuck her tits and her pussy and her asshole, or watched as he did Lacey.
She couldn’t help herself. That’s why the two of them, Lacey and Tek, played a pirated version of Zabzik every evening, not for long, for an hour or so. That kept the conditioning strong. Kept them in the mood to serve her.
Oh, God, if she could only stop. . . .
Tek was groaning, his cock twitching. Cassie cupped his swollen balls in her hand and felt the spasm starting. “Take him in your mouth,” she whispered, and Lacey sucked the head of his cock into her mouth, her cheeks bulging. Tek jerked as he came, then pulled away, his dick beginning to soften.
Cassie kissed Lacey, plunging her tongue into the salty sea of cum that Lacey held for her in her mouth. She rolled Lacey over onto her back, lay on top of her, pressing her breasts against Lacey’s firm, yielding breasts, sucking and sucking. Lacey opened her legs, and Cassie, kneeling over her, moved her knees apart, too. Tek, well conditioned now to her needs and her signals, knew just what to do. He knelt behind Cassie, between her spread and inviting legs, and, with a cock already grown hard again from the lewd display the two girls had given him, he took Cassie doggie-style, giving her a shivering quick orgasm just by plunging himself into her tight pussy. Another, better one began to build with each masterful stroke.
“Let him make you come,” Lacey whispered, her cum-sticky mouth kissing Cassie’s cheeks and throat. “I love it when you come on top of me. Let him make you come, Cassie. Fuck her, Tek. Make her come on top of me.”
Oh, God, Cassie thought, feeling her pussy clench tight on Tek’s engorged dick. Oh, I should stop, I shouldn’t make them play the game any more, I should . . . I should. . . .quit being their Mistress, I should. . . .mmmmm. . . . .
She came again, jerking in a hot spasm of orgasm that took her breath.
Tek kept pumping, and she knew she could come again, harder, better.
Maybe, she thought, maybe I’ll quit.
Lacey’s hands caressed her ass, and Lacey cooed happily, innocently pleased that Cassie had come once, childishly eager for her to come again and again.
Oh, God, yes! Oh...mmmmm....Tek’s plunging cock was so hot, so hard. Lacey’s mouth, locked on hers, so yielding, so eager to please, springy, teasing tongue still spiced with the taste of Tek’s cum, mm, and her nipples were so pleasant, squirming against Cassie’s with the slipperiness of their mingled sweat, mmmmmm.
Maybe I’ll...quit....
Maybe tomorrow.