"Where are we going?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know much of the city. Ever since I got here, I've been... distracted." Amanda blushed.

Xara chuckled and tossed her hair over a bare shoulder, wearing a fashionable shirt and a skirt she might have worn back in their college days. Amanda was wearing the white 'casual' version of her nanosuit. She had been through so many outfit changes and public demonstrations lately she was starting to get used to wearing such immodest clothes, though she still wasn't quite used to the sensation of walking with these hips and especially not the attention her ass was getting as they walked the streets.

"Well, there's the museum. Got a good exhibit on family history there. Whole corridor of samples of old-fashioned clothing from the last two hundred and forty or so years. You can see what our ancestors wore, and they even let you touch the exhibits."

"Why?"

"Sometimes you see a girl or a guy in yoga pants and you just wanna touch, you know? Interactive exhibits let you do that. It's fine, they like it."

Amanda swallowed. "They?"

"The exhibits. Other hypno-strain relatives. Get their brains stopped for five-hour shifts, freeze up their bodies and just stand there mindlessly modeling old outfits and fetishwear..." Xara licked her lips. "Some are even animatronics. You don't know how hot it is to put a credit in the machine and watch a group of people you might have had a nice conversation with a day earlier act out an erotic scenario like a bunch of cheap, poorly designed robots."

"That sounds... Interesting." Amanda thought she might like to see that, but there was a good chance Xara would have her become an exhibit or an animatronic. That was hot, of course, but maybe one day off would be nice? Her ass and pussy still felt sore from yesterday. Xara had evidently stayed up later than she had promised and Amanda woke up with the strap-on still buried between her legs as Xara used her thigh as a pillow.

"There's also the gym. Great machines, lots of hot fitness nuts. There's a pool, a weight room, a squats room... viewing floors." Xara smirked at Amanda. When Amanda blushed but didn't ask for elaboration Xara's lip twitched slightly. "Curious?"

"What's a viewing floor?" The question blurted out of Amanda's mouth before she knew it. That's a trigger too?!

Xara grinned victoriously. "I'm glad you asked! Between every main floor there's a smaller floor with glass ceilings and floors. It's for tourists to keep an eye on and appreciate the art of exercise." She leaned back and made a show of checking Amanda's backside out. "The viewing floor under the squats floor is my favourite."

Mine too, I'll bet... Amanda thought, absently picking at her suit. She had never been one for exercise but being made to think she was could be fun...

Xara smiled and opened her mouth to continue when they hear screaming around the next corner. Calmly, she put a finger under her ear, giving Amanda a wink. "Nyna, what's up?"

There was no response. The sounds of panic grew louder.

Xara's smile slipped as she repeated the gesture. "Nyna, sweet kitty, what's going on?"

When she got no answer, Xara jogged around the corner and flinched back in surprise. Amanda caught up and peeked around with her.

Around the street they saw pockets of citizens in various states of distress and confusion as masked hypnodrones in grey bodysuits pulled them out of buildings and shops. The MILFs at Udders were among them, looking concerned but still somehow motherly as they were led out into the sun. Automated delivery drones hovered over each of the waitresses with a drone helmet hanging underneath. Most flew off to other people around the street but a couple dropped their helmet onto the waitress being held below.

Amanda recognised Daisy as one, just before the helmet fell over her face. The drones holding her snapped a collar similar to Amanda's own around her neck and a grey nanosuit grew out over the expectant mother's bikini until she looked indistinguishable, obscene chest aside, from the drones that had held her moments ago. She and the other MILF stood up and grabbed the other waitresses, and along with the first group of drones marched them away.

Similar scenarios took place all over the street as far as Xara and Amanda could see - citizens on their daily walks or on their way to work or the shops were being captured by drones or turned into them.

"What the fuck? Nyna?" Xara tried calling again to no avail. "Amanda, I think we should go..." Xara grabbed her hand and pulled her back around the corner and into an alleyway between two stores. A shadow passed overhead and before Amanda knew it a helmet dropped onto her. With a gasp she raised her hands to take it off.

Coloured lights erupted in the visor, along with soothing synthetic sounds. Amanda lowered her hands to her side, overwhelmed with relaxation.

"SL6778." A mature, feminine synthetic voice whispered in her ear. "Join your sisters. Convert the hypno-strain. Bring the rest to the Shaft."

What a wonderful idea. SL6778 turned on her heels and started walking back out into the street to search for her sisters.

"Amanda! What are you -" Xara grabbed at her hand from behind and yanked her back.

SL6778 turned her gaze to the assailant. A readout in her visor told her this was not one of the hypno-strain. She raised her own hand to catch Xara's wrist.

"Amanda? Be a good girl and wake up. Clear." Xara sounded concerned. SL6778 twitched an eyebrow, something stirring in her memories.

"SL6778, Amanda does not exist. You are Genecorp property. You are Genecorp infrastructure. Bring the Heiress to the Shaft."

A flood of sound and lights briefly burst into SL6778's brain. SL6778 was SL6778. Amanda did not exist.

SL6778 took a step closer to the Heiress. It had its orders and it would comply.

"Damn it... Fuck," Xara tried to pull her hand free but the nanosuit gave SL6778 more strength than it would otherwise have. It grabbed the Heiress's free hand with its second and began to pull her out of the alley. "Damn it! Implant override zero alpha epsilon two three... pretty kitty, deactivate," Xara spat, finishing with a blush.

Amanda wavered on her feet. She felt confused, but her head was increasingly clear. What had happened? "Ugh..." She tried to lift the helmet off her head but it had fused to her control collar with a band of nanobots. "Xara?"

"I'm sorry, Amanda, I had to override your chip... You're off the grid now," Xara looked more scared than Amanda remembered seeing her. "Get that thing off, then we need to find out what's going on."

"I can't, it's fused on," Amanda gave a harder tug but had no luck.

Xara cursed and reached into her belt, removing a laser knife. She flicked it to a short pink blade and put her free hand on top of Amanda's helmet, licking her lips. "This might be... distressing, but remember that pink can't hurt you, okay?"

Amanda swallowed and nodded. With a quick movement Xara pushed the laser into the neck of Amanda's suit and dragged it in a full circle. Amanda felt the warmth of the knife but no pain, and a moment later Xara pulled the helmet off and threw it down.

They gasped some air in relief and took stock of the situation. Amanda's white suit had shifted to a pale grey with the white wings of a bird across her bustline (and, Xara helpfully pointed out, just above her ass). When they looked out into the street, they could see the same symbol on each of the drones marching and capturing stragglers.

"Why are they all women?" Amanda asked.

"Not quite," Xara pointed out one male drone as a helmet dropped onto him. As his suit changed to match the others, it grew into the same mostly-standard feminine body shape all the other drones had. "Whoever's doing this prefers girls, I guess."

"Like that narrows it down," Amanda grumbled. Why did she have to feel horny now of all times?

A group of drones turned in their direction and began to approach.

"Fuck. Amanda, come on, we've gotta get underground!" Xara grabbed Amanda's wrist and ran. They weaved through the back alleys, more groups of drones appearing from the streets and herding them deeper into the maze.

"Where are we going?"

"The mines. Remember? They're all under us. And there won't be as many eyes. We just need to get to an air vent..."

Amanda yelped as another helmet dropped on her, but Xara yanked her forward at the last second and it bounced off the side of her head. Her hip bumped hard against the corner of a building and she winced in pain. As Xara guided her, she glanced down and saw a scratch in the suit and on her skin underneath, but the suit didn't repair itself.

"Your chip is deactivated; you aren't getting wireless signals. The suit's inert," Xara panted when Amanda asked her why. "In here."

They arrived at a non-descript cylindrical chimney at the end of one alley. Xara used her knife to cut the lock, yanked the door open and shoved Amanda inside. Once she ducked inside herself, she turned the knife's laser to an angry blue and ran it along the outside edge of the door, melting the metal into the frame. She then slammed a bar down to hold the door shut just as it began to thump from the outside.

"Okay, that should hold the door shut long enough for the metal to cool and seal. I hope. I dunno. I dunno what to do," Xara admitted, pacing back and forth in agitation. "We need to get to the Matriarch. She knows everything about Ananke. Come on."

Xara led the way down the abandoned stairway and the girls descended underground.

"You aren't just making some kind of a big gaslighting scenario here, are you, Mistress?"

"No! I don't know what's going on. This has never happened before," Xara grumbled. She shrunk a little at the doubtful look on Amanda's face. "I guess this is what I get for making you doubt your reality so much. But it's the truth."

Amanda followed her down the tunnels, dimly lit by green glowing support beams every few dozen yards.

"I wish your suit was a more garish colour.. Grey isn't very reflective, I can barely see you."

"How do the miners usually see down here?"

"Usually, a sub or two carries a light source, or Nyna can filter their visual input through her system and let them see in the dark enough to work. But she's not responding, so..."

"On our own, then."

They sighed and turned a corner. Xara yelped as she bumped into something.

"Hey... Heiress, is that you?" The foreman asked, holding a light stick to his side. Xara gasped.

"Yes! Good, we need help. Can you take us to the Shaft's access tunnel?"

"I can," the foreman replied, turning down a side tunnel and directing them after him. "No map, but I've been down here often enough. What's going on? All the subs suddenly started attacking the dominants and dragging them to the surface. There's barely any signal down here now and I can't get in touch with anyone."

"We don't know much either," Xara admitted. “All the hypnosubs in town got dronified and started rounding everyone else up, too. I think someone has taken over the AI network... Nyna isn't responding.”

"Oh, that's bad."

"Tell me about it."

"No, not that. I mean, that's bad, but I was talking about that," the foreman pointed at a delivery drone hovering down the tunnel toward them.

"What's wrong?" Amanda asked nervously.

"Those drones can signal boost the wireless signal if they have line of sight to each other, which means wireless in the tunnels might be restored.”

"That's a good thing, right?" Xara asked hopefully.

A squelching noise down a side tunnel had the trio pause. Milo held his light stick down the tunnel a little, then yanked it back as a quicksilver blob lurched out of the shadows towards his hand.

"Shit, the Swarm's active. Run!"

Milo ushered the girls down the tunnel, calling out directions as they reached intersections. The tunnels grew brighter as they reached the centre of the maze, and Xara tripped over an old cart rail as the light dazzled her. "Fuck!"

The Swarm was only a few dozen metres away and tirelessly gaining. Amanda helped pull Xara to her feet as the foreman considered their options. "You need to run to the end of that branch, take a left, and go through the door. Here's the key. Go as fast as you can!" He tossed a key to Xara.

"What?"

"This won't buy you much time, but it'll give you a few seconds. Figure out what's causing this and stop it, and I'll be fine." The foreman grinned at them before running toward the Swarm.

"Wait!" Amanda called. The girls stumbled backwards as they watched the shiny metallic liquid crash over the foreman like a wave, arresting its forward momentum as it wrapped around his body. For a moment it formlessly enveloped him, then it resolved into an exaggeratedly feminine shape with hips almost as wide as Amanda's and a heavy, spherical bust, but otherwise as featureless as a store mannequin and as reflective as a shiny mirror.

"Oh, that's hot," Xara mumbled. Amanda couldn't argue, but she tugged her Mistress's arm and they hurried down the tunnel as fast as they could, the heavy footsteps crashing down after them.

They turned a corner and saw the door, heavy metal set into the stone around it. Xara skid to a stop and unlocked it, looking over her shoulder nervously. "She won't be able to follow us in here, the emergency tunnel has no wireless signal."

"He." Amanda instinctively corrected Xara as the door swung open. Xara rolled her eyes and gestured at the approaching force of nature as she stepped through the door.

"Look at that! I don't care who’s wearing the suit, that's definitely a she."

Amanda turned away from the door to stare. It would be difficult to argue the point; despite the threat the humanoid Swarm was very pleasing to look at. Every step it ran threw its hips to the side and rolled its breasts hypnotically. It was kind of mesmerising -

A hand grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her through the door, tossing her on the floor. "I didn't literally mean stop and look!" Xara yelled as she slammed the door shut and bolted it. "Fucking subs, I swear."

Amanda blushed. "Sorry, Mistress... I thought it was an order..." Xara glared at her for a moment and sighed.

"Okay, whatever. We're safer in here now." She opened a wire gate in the middle of the room that was otherwise littered with rubbish, rocks and old technology parts. "Get in."

Amanda obediently stepped through the gate, but both of her hips caught the edges of the framing. She blushed as Xara pushed her from behind.

"Honestly, I'm starting to regret giving you that shape," She complained. "Who would have thought there'd be downsides?"

The girls stood in a small enclosure with a metal ladder disappearing up an enormous vertical tunnel. "This will take us to the upper floors of the Shaft. Problem is it's gonna be a long climb. A really long climb, with no breaks," Xara sighed. "You can go first."

Amanda turned to the ladder and was reaching for a rung when she paused. "...after you, Mistress."

Her owner smirked, despite the stress she was obviously under. "I'm wearing a skirt. I don't want you perving the entire climb." She gestured at the ladder.

Amanda squirmed. Her suit felt even tighter suddenly. "I'm not very comfortable with you staring at me the whole climb either, Miss..."

Xara waved her off. "It'll be a welcome distraction. It'll give me something to look at while I think."

"Rock paper scissors?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? Just... Be a good girl and go first."

Amanda turned back to the ladder and started to climb. "That's cheating!"

"Yeah, yeah," Xara replied. Amanda thought she could hear the grin in her voice. As she reached the ceiling of the door and disappeared into the dimly lit tunnel stretching through the layers of earth and dozens of floors of the skyscraper, Amanda found the tunnel was just wide enough to let her climb with no more than a gentle bump of the walls with her hips with each rung. Stupid oversized body...

They climbed in silence for five minutes. Amanda was starting to feel like climbing ladders was one of the most unintentionally sexy motions a person could make when Xara made it worse.

"Changed my mind, I don't regret it at all."