Chapter 2: She Who Hesitates

Xinyi’s day was every bit as productive as Yeji’s. She’d gathered no small amount of technical supplies and information—though much of that she’d had at the ready even before Ana’s meeting. Yeji was using implants Xinyi had helped develop and security software full of her signature tricks.

As much as it helped in her job as a corporate fixer, it was poised to serve Xinyi’s ends more than Yeji’s with just the right convincing.

Knowing what she did about Yeji, Xinyi knew she needed to strike fast. Yeji could infiltrate her department, and as long as it wasn’t a scandal she might be substituted for one of her own lab’s test subjects. Hacking her tech should have been nearly impossible, but Yeji was clever and it wouldn’t be long before Xinyi wouldn’t even be able to trust her own workstation or her own tools.

Second guessing everything would only mean handing Yeji the victory, and she knew it.

Working late was nothing new for Xinyi. She still needed to prepare the next line of implants, work to perfect new layers of mental protection software, and work to crack the competition. That rarely left time to end the day at a reasonable hour, but she spent longer in the office than usual.

She doubted that Yeji would sleep in their shared apartment without locking the door to her room, but that didn’t matter. Half the point of implants were to remotely interface with technology, and that inherently went both ways.

Xinyi didn’t want to afford Yeji any opportunities, and she was very happy to strike while Yeji slept.

She loved Yeji, and they were family in every way Xinyi cared about. That still wasn’t enough to hold back her killer instinct, or her cold, calculating mind. There was only one way for her to succeed, and that was to “convince” Yeji to make her way into Ana’s office to concede the whole competition.

It didn’t matter to Xinyi if Yeji’s mind needed additional work after she was made to heel. Maybe she would be made into Xinyi’s new secretary. There was simply no way she was going to lose the bet when she could overpower her roommate in one swift strike.

When she finally arrived home it was nearly four AM. She was tired, but a little chemical stimulation had Xinyi sharp and alert. Xinyi didn’t bother to check Yeji’s door, but it was closed, and there were signs of a meal in the kitchen. A casual scan of the apartment found Yeji’s implants in a dormant state.

There was no mistaking her slumber for anything else.

It was her one chance to strike before Yeji had a chance to formulate a plan. As soon as she began in earnest, Xinyi didn’t like what that did to her odds. Settling in on the couch that sat between the doors to their respective rooms, Xinyi pulled out her tablet and took a deep, slow breath.

Taking a deep breath, Xinyi hovered her finger over the prompt to begin hacking her way into Yeji’s implants. It wouldn’t be an instant process, or an automated one, but it all began by utilizing Accelerant diagnostic software to accept external code. She would still need to overcome the security software protecting Yeji’s sleeping mind, but once it accepted her entrance as legitimate the fight would be Xinyi’s to lose.

Xinyi quivered at the thought of Yeji’s lips parting in a gasp, her eyes fluttering as commands inserted into the core of her psyche overwrote her desires with new directives. She wanted to know how Yeji would look obediently making her breakfast in the morning, that tall, athletic body of hers perfectly nude to make it clear who had won.

She even considered allowing Yeji to remain internally ignorant, fully convinced that all of the actions she took were perfectly reasonable. There were so many possibilities, but all of them were reliant on Yeji’s hardware belonging to Xinyi.

“You were a valuable mentor, but I am certain you will make an even more valuable subordinate.” Xinyi narrowed her eyes and pressed her finger down. “It was always going to end this way. I’m the prodigy. I was born with so many more advantages. I’ll be sure to take very good care of you if you lose your job. You just may wear fewer clothes, but I’ll be able to afford to keep our new, much larger condo very well heated.”

Xinyi wasn’t sure if the sound she heard was actually Yeji breathlessly gasping or if that was just in her imagination. What Xinyi knew for sure was that Yeji hadn’t upgraded her security firmware, and the version she was utilizing was especially vulnerable to malicious code execution.

That wasn’t an advertised flaw, or even a flaw most could exploit, but Xinyi had created that security hole herself to deal with an intern who was snooping around in her private research.

Rubbing her thighs together, Xinyi squirmed on the couch as she watched her code reach deeper and deeper. Protocols that interfaced directly with Yeji’s psyche were mere moments away, and then it was as simple to inject commands and ideas to a human mind as it was to install applications to a computer. Bypassing Yeji’s will entirely and making her subordinate to whatever personality or commands Xinyi desired was the most efficient way in the short term.

Once Yeji belonged to Xinyi it was only a matter of patience and effort to achieve any desired result. Yeji would cease being her own person, cease being a person at all, and become an obedient thing.

As expected, Yeji’s brain was hardly undefended, and she wasn’t using only Accelerant tech. There was software protecting Yeji that Xinyi couldn’t identify by developer, but even that couldn’t stand in her way. Each wall that rose up to keep her out, Xinyi turned into another way that she instead had a grip on Yeji.

Finally, it was time to inject an actual payload into Yeji’s mind. With this program installed, rewriting the fundamental processes her brain used to make decisions would be a matter of coding more than anything else. Yeji would be effectively Xinyi’s automaton.

She pressed her finger down, sending the software to upload.

Her tablet flashed, bright, so bright.

The brightness wasn’t only visual. Utilizing the connection between the tablet and her implants to make the overstimulation spread through all of Xinyi’s sense one after the other. She groaned, barely even able to react as all of her mental processes one after the other were distorted, overwhelmed, and crashed.

Xinyi couldn’t feel the tablet in her hand. She couldn’t feel the couch under her. She couldn’t feel her lust staining her panties, or remember the lustful longing she’d felt towards the idea of having Yeji as her sexy, obedient pawn.

All Xinyi could do was stare with wide, blank, empty eyes while seeing nothing at all.

She couldn’t even hear a nearby door unlocked, and after a few footfalls on carpet, lips rested so close to her ears. “Good girl, Xinyi. You aren’t thinking, and that feels so… nice. It’s so… calm. You just want to relax and let my words guide you down. You don’t want to worry. You don’t want to think. You don’t want to decide for yourself.”

Xinyi drooled a sound that was partially a yes, and partially garbled, distorted nonsense. Her mind wasn’t functioning well enough to do anything on its own, but the mental flashbang wasn’t stopped her brain from hearing Yeji’s practiced soothing croon.

“Right now, making decisions is too much for you. It’s too difficult. You can only stare, and you only want to stare… and listen. You don’t want to worry about anything else, and right now… there’s nothing else for you to worry about.” Lips pressed to Xinyi’s ear in a slow, tender kiss that was full of genuine tenderness. Xinyi groaned, her eyes fluttering without closing as her thighs lazily spread apart. “You like the sound of my voice, and you like the way it’s so easy to let go for it, to allow it to guide you, to lead you down deeper into a state of relaxation, of blissful calm.

“You feel safe with this voice, because you know this is the voice of a woman who cares about you. You know this is the sound of a voice that only wants the best for you, to make absolutely certain that you’re doing what’s going to make you happy. She always has before, so you know she will now.”

Yeji kissed Xinyi’s ear again, and her hands rested on her shoulders to reach down and stroke along her arms. Her touch was slow, and just like her words, maneuvered with a precise cadence. Every place stroked was in perfect timing to the right word, and caressed in just the right, perfect way to tease relaxation through Xinyi’s mind.

“All you need to do is relax, and I can make everything better.”

Xinyi groaned, sinking deeper into the couch as she squirmed thoughtlessly into Yeji’s touch. The mental flashbang was powerful—so powerful she was still trapped in its effects—but it wasn’t going to give the position to Yeji all on her own. It simply provided an opening.

“Relax, listen to my voice, and let your body move the way it wants to move. Let your mind sink the way it wants to sink. What you need to do right now is very instinctive, very natural. Allow me to guide you down, to make it so you won’t need to make any decisions, or have any worries. Allow me to solve everything for you, so you can be lost in bliss.” Yeji kissed slowly along Xinyi’s neck, each press of her lips earning a shuddery groan.

While seduction was a part of Yeji’s unwritten job description, the passion and eagerness she used to pull Xinyi deeper and open her mind wider was hardly as artificial as Xinyi’s assault. She didn’t need to focus on what she was doing as part of her job, or ignore the effects it would have on Xinyi’s future.

Having Xinyi under her control meant that Yeji could take care of her in a way that no one else could. She could make sure her little sister never wanted for anything ever again, in part because she didn’t need to have so many wants.

Teeth gently nibbled Xinyi’s ear, tugging until she let out a lower, deeper groan. “You have such a tired mind, so overworked, so overtaxed. You need to let yourself relax, to truly open the deepest parts of yourself to a feeling of calm, of surrender, that you’ve never let yourself accept before. You need to let me in, to let me take control, so I can make everything better.

“Don’t worry, though. You don’t need to choose. You don’t need to be in control anymore. All you need to do is open the door and let me in.

“Submit, Xinyi.

“Obey.”

“O-obeyyyyy…” Xinyi slurred the word, her voice sleepy, her lips barely wanting to move. Her eyes were slowly hooding, and though her legs remained spread so much of the tension they’d had while they were clenching and squirming was gone.

Her whole body was loose, limp and open in a way that offered itself to anyone.

“S-submiiiiit…”

Yeji grinned.

For Xinyi, this step would have meant complete and total victory. For Yeji, this was the start of a process. It wouldn’t be instantaneous, but with her fingers already curled deep inside of Xinyi’s quivering, vulnerable mind there was no longer any pressing deadlines—besides the quarterly review meeting, which was so far away for Yeji it might as well have been next year.

Xinyi’s mind wouldn’t yet be ready to obey Yeji in all things, or to surrender up such a lucrative job, but it could no longer keep Yeji out. Sabotaging her plans and ideas to strike while making new openings was simply a matter of whispering the right words and touching the right places.

If Xinyi needed further chemical assistance, Yeji had brought with her a whole pharmaceutical suite. That hardly seemed necessary with how deeply Xinyi was already compromised.

“Good girl, Xinyi… MY good little sister, who knows that Yeji can take care of her, can make her happy, make her feel good…so all you need to do is help me, and make sure you do nothing to get in the way…” Yeji nibbled on her ear again, tugging it until it slipped naturally, unharmed, from her teeth. “If thinking so much is so hard for you, so stressful for you… wouldn’t it be more fun if you could think a little… less…?

“Wouldn’t it be nice to be a little… dumber… to be a little… sexier…?” Yeji blew into Xinyi’s ear, her nails raking slowly along her limp arms. “Wouldn’t it be nicer if you weren’t able to have the kind of mind that makes you work so late, and feel so… exhausted…?”

“Ohhhh yesss…” Xinyi whimpered, her hips beginning to roll as she tried to press herself against something at the idea of being sexier. Her body was still clinging to lingering arousal from her thoughts of the robotically enslaved Yeji. The continued stimulation was making it that much stronger and lacing in the desires that Yeji wanted her to have. “S-sexy… d-dumber… Yesss… W-want…”

Yeji hooded her eyes, teasing her nails down over her roommate’s heavy, supple breasts. They sat like twin offerings on her chest, defenseless as her mind. Every touch Yeji delivered found a moan or a whimper returned.

It was hard to remember the last time Xinyi had an actual girlfriend and not a lab rat to experiment with. Yeji couldn’t help but imagine this would be so much better for her.

“We can’t do it all at once, but…” Yeji’s nails slowly stroked spirals around Xinyi’s nipples, edging closer and closer with each twist. Xinyi gasped, arching her chest further as her eyes hooded lower and her mouth twitched. “We can make you a little dumber every day, a little slower every day… to make it so when we’re done you’ll be my simple, sexy little slut…”

Yeji blew harder as she grasped both of Xinyi’s nipples, twisting them even as she moaned louder and louder. Xinyi struggled, her lips so clearly trying to give voice to words like “dumber” and “slut” but Yeji’s fingers made that so impossible.

Xinyi had tried to seize her technological advantage by taking the initiative, but now all that she could do was obey, and submit to the first stages of Yeji’s control.