Alyssa got into HAM radio when she was middle school, after reading about it in “Muse” magazine. Starting with a basic set, she had gradually upgraded her equipment as she had grown up and started working, so that now, a few years out of college with a good job in finance, she had a very sophisticated and powerful set, capable of picking up short wave signals from halfway around the world.

She was sitting there late one night, exploring some of the lesser-used frequencies when she found it: an artificially generated voice broadcasting numbers and some kind of white noise or tone.

“Eleven eleven nine zero six two eleven two black,” the voice said, in that clipped, un-breathing way of text to speech voices.

The message repeated two more times before the station abruptly signed off. Alyssa sat, a strange feeling of fuzziness in her brain from the white noise or whatever the tone was, rapidly being replaced with excitement. She had found a numbers station.

Numbers stations were among the legends of the HAM radio world. They had first become known during the Cold War and various people had triangulated the origin of several to facilities controlled by the military or intelligence agencies, so the most common theory was that they were used to communicate to agents in enemy territory. But nothing was ever confirmed or denied and most had shut down in the early 2000s.

But she had found a live one!

Over the next few night she sat glued to the frequency, discovering that it generally broadcast between eight pm and ten pm, although on her day off she found that it became active occasionally during the day. It always played a tune when it started – many famous numbers stations did so – which she eventually found was the tune of a Scottish folk song called “The Dowie Dens o Yarrow”.

But everyday after listening, her head felt fuzzy and she had a sensation as though she had missed time, which she attributed to concentration. She felt an overwhelming need to focus on the tone and the messages. She also felt, there was no other way to say it, aroused. Touching herself while thinking about the broadcasts and then listening to them soon became a major part of her routine.

“Alyssa has always been introverted, ever since I met her Junior year, but I’ve never known her to withdraw like this,” said Christine, one of Alyssa’s roommates, to the other, Melissa.

“I’m worried about her, too. She hardly ever talks to us at all these days, even to say ‘hello’,” Melissa said. “We should talk to her.”

That night, the two waited for Alyssa to get home from work. The three friends had met in college and been close throughout. Alyssa was petite, pale and had shoulder-length red hair; Christine was tall, almost statuesque and had short, dark brown hair, while Melissa was in between the two in height, a fuller figure and long blonde hair.

When Alyssa got home that evening, she found her roommates seated across from the door, waiting for her.

“Christine? Melissa? Is there something I can do for you?” she asked.

“We’re worried about you,” Christine said.

Melissa nodded. “For the past few weeks, you’ve just been in your room all the time. You’ve barely said a word to us.”

“Tell us what’s the matter. We’re your friends. We’ll help you,” Christine said.

Alyssa dropped her bag and sighed. She grabbed another chair and sat in front of her roommates. She wanted to tell them about how obsessed she was getting with the broadcasts, but that it was alright. Instead, what came out of her mouth was “You’re right. I’m sorry guys, I’ve just been having a stressful time at work lately. I’m sure it will pass and I’ll try to keep you in the loop more.”

After a few more minutes of talking, she was able to get away into her room and begin listening just as the now familiar bars of “The Dowie Dens o Yarrow” gave way to the white noise and the voice. Even as she felt her arousal build and her focus increase, a part of her wondered why she lied.

There was a three day weekend soon after and she told her roommates she was taking a little trip to a bed and breakfast upstate to clear her head and de-stress. In reality, she took a portable radio set and drove for a few hours before the broadcasts began that night, trying to reach a point as far in a straight line from her apartment as she could. She knew the station had to be reasonably close, given the quality of the signal and the limited bandwidth in the urban area. The next day, she did it again, in a different direction, giving her three points with directional readings to triangulate the origin.

On Sunday she drove to the area she triangulated. It was an old industrial district, along a largely abandoned railroad. Stodgy brick factories and warehouses from before the Great Depression sat in neat rows, encrusted with a century of air pollution. Few of them were still used for their original purpose and while one or two nightclubs and a handful of tech startups had shown up, revival and gentrification had not yet arrived. Many of the buildings’ windows were broken and in one overgrown, vacant lot, a group of homeless people sat drinking vodka around a fire they had set in a trash can.

She drove around for a few hours before finding what she was looking for: a building with a rather robust radio antenna sticking up from its roof. It was better maintained than most of the other buildings: the bricks were clean, the windows were whole – although many of them were bricked up or tinted – and a vacant strip along one side had well-kept, luxuriously green grass. In fact, other than a street number, the only sign on the building was a small ad for the landscaping company. Two cars were in the parking lot when she pulled in.

As she walked to do the door, she began to wonder about the wisdom of what she was doing. She stopped and turned to get back in her car, but then she thought about the broadcasts and their mystery and what they were doing to her body. Her mind filled with static and she continued on.

She approached the door, half-expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t. The corridor was plain and whitewashed, with a slate gray carpet. A plant, brown and faded, slumped over in a pot near the door. She didn’t notice the small round security camera in the corner as she entered. The hallway was dim, only lit from the window in the door and another at the end of the hall.

She walked slowly, hardly daring to breath and looked into the offices she passed. They were . . . normal. Cheap monitors and desktop computers in some, a conference table with white boards in another, a break room. No sign of any broadcasting equipment.

At the end of the hall, there was a fire door and a staircase to the second floor, as well as another camera she failed to notice. Alyssa climbed the stairs and entered the second floor. It was very similar to the first floor, except that on one side, instead of several doors leading into presumably separate offices, there was just a set of double doors – and the bluish light of computer monitors or televisions was spilling out of the inset windows.

Carefully, she crept to the double doors and peered in. There was a desk with a computer on it and a person sat at it. Alyssa couldn’t tell anything about them, because they were dressed in a tight latex catsuit and had some kind of helmet or mask over their head. Behind them stood a woman dressed in a tight black pencil skirt and white blouse. Her red hair was tied back in a tight bun and she wore sheer black pantyhose and tall stiletto heels.

Another person in the same latex and mask outfit as the one at the computer knelt by the woman’s feet, their arms wrapped around her legs. The room also contained four things that looked like tanning beds, but painted jet black. Each was also connected to its own computer. In the back, where the woman was looking, another computer sat, along with the broadcasting equipment for a shortwave radio station. This was the place.

Any sense of triumph, however, was cut short as a latex-clad hand suddenly covered her mouth and another grabbed a nerve in her shoulder. Pain exploded from it and an electronically modulated voice said “Do not struggle.”

Alyssa froze, sensing the strength in the grip on her shoulder. By manipulating her shoulder, the person walked her through the double doors. The person at the woman’s feet got up and went behind Alyssa and her captor as they entered. An audible “click” sound told her they locked the door, then they returned to the woman’s feet. By contrast, the one sitting at the computer seemed not to have noticed anything at all.

“So this is our spy,” the woman said. “You’re an amateur at sneaking around. The security cameras spotted you as soon as walked up the steps.”

She nodded to the person holding Alyssa, who forced her on to her knees. Her heart beat rapidly and the sweat beaded on her forehead. She asked herself “What have I stumbled into?”

“That’s better,” the woman continued. “Now, you’re going to tell me who you are and who you’re working for – and for your sake, you had better be truthful.”

The hand clamped over her mouth was removed and Alyssa decided to project a courage she did not feel. “My name is Alyssa,” she said. “I’m not a spy – and you and your brute back there have committed assault. For your sake, you had better let me go before I decide to press charges.”

The person at her knees looked like she had been struck, but the woman just laughed. Somehow, that was even more terrifying. She smiled, like a cat playing with its prey. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy you,” she said. “I’ll give you one last chance to do this voluntarily: who are you and who are you working for?”

“I told you, my name is Alyssa and I’m not a spy.”

“Oh yes, I was hoping you’d be difficult,” she said. “Five One Seven Eight, Two Zero Three One, initiate partial conversion protocol, interrogation subroutine.”

The person holding gripping Alyssa forced her on to her feet and sat her in a chair. The other person sitting at the computer stood up and walked out of Alyssa’s vision. Then they returned and came to her, bearing a coil of rope. She – now that she was close, Alyssa could see her figure and the latex left little to the imagination. She tied Alyssa to the chair and they rolled her chair over to one of the computers. They plugged a VR headset into one and placed it over Alyssa’s head.

At first it was dark and silent, but then with the crackle of speakers turning on, the tone used in the broadcasts began playing. Alyssa relaxed against her will as her mind grew fuzzy. Through the haze in her mind she heard the woman with the red hair say “That’s an interesting response.”

Alyssa moaned as messages of relaxation, obedience and pleasure filled her eyes and ears. Too late she realized that these messages had been part of the broadcasts she had been listening to, but just on the edge of hearing. Almost against her will, she felt her consciousness slipping as her body relaxed.

“Well this in unexpected, but does make this easier,” the woman said. She extended a hand and grasped Alyssa by her chin, forcing the captive to sit up straight. The volume lowered, but the messages continued in her eyes.

“You are now in a highly suggestible state,” Alyssa’s captor said. “You will obey me and answer my questions truthfully.”

“Obey . . .” Alyssa moaned.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Who are you working for? Obey.”

“Obey,” Alyssa moaned again. “My name is Alyssa. I work in finance”

“Unexpected,” the woman said. “Why were you snooping around? How did you find this place?”

“I heard the tone on my HAM radio,” Alyssa said blankly. “It . . . intrigued me. I triangulated the position you were broadcasting from.”

“How perceptive,” the woman said. “And you work in finance. In what capacity?”

“I’m in wealth management for institutions and high-net worth individuals, managing their investments.”

The woman considered.

One of the other people in the room said “Mistress, we should erase her memory and start moving the facility. She knows too much.”

The woman . . . the mistress . . . remained silent for a few seconds more and then spoke. “No, Two Zero Three One, I think this time the fly has found itself in the spider’s web. Her position makes her an important asset for us. Begin total conversion.”

“Yes, Mistress,” the two latex-bound people said together.

“Alyssa, you will comply with the orders given to you by Unit 2031,” Mistress said. “Do you understand?”

“I will comply,” Alyssa said, moaning again.

“This should be a record,” Mistress said to herself.

While she had spent years developing the drone conversion process and had personally converted several people over the years, Mistress always felt a thrill, to say nothing of heat between her legs, when she watched the conversion process. She watched 2031 remove the headset from Alyssa and then help the girl, looking wobbly after having her mind toyed with so much, to strip out of her clothes. It then led her to one of the conversion pod – the black tanning bed things Alyssa had noticed earlier.

Unit 2031 helped Alyssa climb in to the conversion pod and inserted a special vibrating dildo into her vagina. It instructed Alyssa to put a similar one into her mouth. Both were connected to the pod’s systems. Finally, 2031 inserted wireless ear buds into Alyssa’s ears and closed the lid. Then it went to the computer connected to the pod and initialized the conversion program.

For Alyssa, the first sign of the conversion process was the tone beginning to play in her ears, followed by a sudden throbbing between her legs as the dildo started. Then the whole inside of the tank lit up – the underside of the top was a screen and the patterns danced and dazzled in time with the tone. She quickly lost all sense of time. There was only the pleasure, there was only the tone. She didn’t even know when she began sucking on the dildo in her mouth or when the messages began playing like whispers through the tone.

“It is an object. It is a drone. Good drones obey. Pleasure is obedience. Obedience is pleasure. Good drones feel pleasure,” the voice in her head said. Soon she was so overwhelmed from the pleasure and the tone and the patterns that she no longer knew where her thoughts ended and the voice’s messages began.

It is a drone, Alyssa thought – or did the voice in her – its – ears say it?

Drones obey. Obedience is pleasure. Drones worship Mistress. Pleasure is obedience. It is a drone. It is an object. Its purpose is to obey Mistress. It has no identity, unless the Mistress gives it one. It has no thoughts. Drones are programmed by Mistress to serve. It is a drone. Drones obey without question.

Alyssa’s mind, softened by weeks of exposure to the tone and the messages she heard on the radio and now overstimulated by the vibrating dildo holding her at the edge of orgasm, more of the tone and patterns in front of her eyes, gave in. Alyssa was gone. It was a drone. It would obey and worship the Mistress.

To say the new drone did not have any idea how long it remained in the conversion pod for would be incorrect. Time was irrelevant. All it knew was that its Mistress required it to remain there, so it would obey. Human concerns like duration or even the physical overstimulation simply did not matter to the drone.

The voice grew silent, the screen went dark and the dildo powered down. The lid opened.

“Sit up.” It was the voice of its Mistress. It obeyed. “Who are you?”

“It is drone,” the drone said.

“What is your purpose?”

“To obey you, Mistress.”

“So far so good,” she said to herself. “Drone, from now on your designation is Unit Four-zero-two-zero.”

Unit 4020 made no response. It simply accepted the statement as its new reality. Another drone walked over, reverently carrying a bundle and a box in its arms.

“Unit 4020, this is your droneskin and helmet. You will wear them at all times in my presence, unless I specifically command otherwise or an emergency requires that you contact me while in your host identity.”

The drone that had formerly been Alyssa pulled up the tight, black latex catsuit over itself and was then zipped up by Unit 2031. The other drone also helped it put on the helmet, which when active always had the tone playing in it, but at a low volume.

The Mistress smiled, admiring her newest drone. It would serve her well and further her goals. “Now, Four Zero Two Zero,” she purred. “Cum.”

Pleasure surged through the drone’s body as it orgasmed for its mistress. Unit 4020 slumped back against the lid of the conversion pod, its body worn out by the sudden and intense release of energy.

Mistress gave her newest drone some special instructions and had her other drones prepare duffel bag with some equipment for it.

It was very late when Alyssa returned home from her three day stay at the bed and breakfast. She certainly felt great, even if the she had been delayed a few hours by traffic on the long drive back.

Dropping her bags on the bed, she shut the door and her demeanor changed. The emotion fell from the drone’s face and mechanically, efficiently it dialed the phone number Mistress had given it.

“Unit Four Zero Two Zero is in position,” it said. “Both roommates are asleep, as anticipated.”

“Good,” Mistress cooed. “Proceed as instructed – and I give you permission to enjoy yourself.”

“Yes, Mistress,” the drone formerly known as Alyssa said.

Unit 4020 accessed its host memories and decided Melissa would be its first target, since she was the deeper sleeper. Opening up the duffel bag, it removed a VR headset, gag and a vial Mistress had given it. The headset was black and different from commercial models. It was somewhat inelegant in appearance, having been custom built, with bulky appendages sticking out. It didn’t need a computer to power its graphics or controllers. It was designed to do one thing, after all.

As expected, Melissa was sleeping deeply. The first and only thing she noticed about the process a stinging sensation in her arm, where 4020 had injected her with the contents of the vial. It was a drug Mistress or someone working for her had concocted, designed to increase suggestibility and reduce resistance. It worked quickly, but 4020 gagged Melissa anyways.

She started to wake up, but was too groggy and the drug acted too quickly to do anything more than look puzzled before she became quiescent and lay back, her eyes staring into space. The drone slipped the helmet on her head and put the headphones in place. She never stood a chance and it wasn’t long before 4020 was looking at a new drone, designated 1163.

Christine woke suddenly, disturbed by . . . something. A sound? A change in the air currents? There was no time to figure it out.

“Mel? Alyssa? What are you two doing in my room?” she said. Her throat felt dry, so she sat up on one arm and turned to grab a water bottle she kept near her bed. As a result she felt more than saw her two roommates dash over her to her bed. Hands grabbed at her.

“What the fuck guys?” Christine shouted as her roommates grabbed her.

She knocked the water bottle over and it fell to the floor and rolled away. Melissa jumped on top of her, trying to hold her down. She struggled and was able to kick at Alyssa, making contact with a hand. Alyssa tossed something away and pulled something out of her pocket. The next thing she knew Alyssa was pressing a rag into her mouth and nose. It had a stale, neutral scent, like coming back to a house with the air conditioning off and the windows closed in the summer after a week or two away.

She didn’t know what it was, but it was in her nostrils as she tried to breathe and struggle. But it was having an effect, she started feeling dizzy and tired, slowly ceasing to struggle against Melissa. Before long struggling and resisting became more like theoretical concepts to her, at odds with the pleasant sleepy warmth spreading through her body. Her arms flopped to her sides and she let Alyssa and Melissa put a VR headset and headphones on her. As blankness closed in, her last conscious thought was observing how pretty the spirals that started playing in her eyes were.

Four Zero Two Zero removed the headset from the drone’s head and designated it 2793. With the two new drones still reeling from the effects of the drug and their conversion, 4020 decided that Alyssa, Melissa and Christine would all call out of work the next morning – after all, Mistress had told it to enjoy itself.

It disrobed and instructed the other drones to do the same, then 4020 laid back on the bed that had been Christine’s, spread its legs and then ordered the other drones to begin eating it out. They obeyed. They would only ever obey from now on. Obedience was pleasure.