There was a ring on the door bell.  Stephanie drifted towards the door amongst the sounds of gentle giggles and pleasant, muffled words.  She granted entry to her guests, Lucy and Joelle, carrying grocery bags in their hands, backpacks on their backs, and obedience in their heads.  They shared a smile as they deposited the bags by the coffee table, and twirled their backpacks to the ground.  

 

“All the normal hackathon essentials,” Joelle mused, showing off the bags of snacks, “We’ve got chips, pretzels, some bagels, rice cakes…  I’m just so excited to get started, where’s Nicky?”

 

“She said she was going to be a bit late, you know… traffic,” Stephanie shrugged, hoping her inner worries about Nicky’s whereabouts would prove to be unfounded, “In the meantime ladies, make yourself at home.  The Mechanium beckons.”

 

Joelle’s eyes rolled up into her flickering eyelids as she swooned and nuzzled into Lucy’s diminutive form.  Her recruitment had been both Lucy’s suggestion and Lucy’s doing.  The two women had been bouncing off each other at tech meetups for months; Lucy always too worried about her roaming, scattered mind ruining her chances to ask her out.  Lucy had flushed as Mechania drew the information out of her: the blue-haired, six-foot-one, gorgeous woman she was crushing on had all the skills needed to be their next recruit.  With Mechania’s programming girding her mind Lucy could finally talk to her confidently; and when she did Lucy got her first reward for obedience.

 

She’d found it so easy to talk to Joelle that weekend: no stumbled words or out-of-place tangents, just a smooth, simple conversation and an ask for a coffee date the next day.  Joelle had ecstatically accepted and Lucy experienced the twin thrumming joys of finally being confident enough to ask out her crush and of obeying Mechania’s orders.  It was in the post-coital bliss that ended their second date that Lucy had slid the headset over Joelle’s questioning face and tested her improvements to the device.  Joelle had struggled only briefly against the ropes holding her arms taut on the bed, the sexual kink that had brought her screaming to orgasm a few minutes earlier now preventing her from removing the source of a new type of bondage.  The improvements and polish Lucy had made to the headset quickly reduced Joelle’s shouted protests to mewling whimpers.

 

Lucy guided those whimpers into horny panting.  She whispered to Joelle’s dwindling mind how hot it would be to not only be bound in body but also in her mind.  How wet it would make her to be able to writhe against her binds in public, with no one knowing but them.  How every twist against her control would tighten it down oh-so-pleasurably around her body and mind.  Joelle had moaned at that, arousal coursing back through her body, mind floating in the void Lucy had trapped her in.  Lucy brushed over her bound form, gentle caresses and teases, making sure she was begging for more.  Wouldn’t it be even hotter, so fucking sexy, if Lucy was bound up with her?  Both of them squirming in their mental bonds together, inseparable, puppets on strings made to fuck for their mistress.  Joelle was slow-humping the air by that point, her mind craving captivity.  Lucy walked her through the field programming Mechania had prepared and she’d eagerly obeyed it.  

 

They had their machine learning expert.

 

Back in the present the two women had stumbled to the couch after hearing the trigger.  Lucy sat with her eyes closed; calm, collected, letting Mechania’s programming supersede the bustling thoughts that normally filled her head.  Joelle’s arms drifted up above her head, imaginary ropes lashing them together and then coiling down and down until they wrapped around her mind.  Together they opened their eyes and rose from the couch in unison, Joelle’s arms drifting gently back down to her sides.  They faced each other, Lucy staring upwards to share a look of blissful servitude with her new girlfriend, before they each pulled their hoodies over their heads, revealing the silver suits beneath.  Next they cast aside their shoes and jeans, allowing their robotic perfection to shine freely.  They reached into their backpacks and each pulled out a pair of silver boots and a collar, completing their transformations with the addition of the items.  They nodded at each other, a cute little move that caused a slight titter to escape from Stephanie’s mouth, and then stood at attention facing Stephanie.  

 

“Lucy-bot active.”

 

“Joelle-bot active.”

 

“You can get started while we wait for Nicky,” Stephanie told them, their postures easing slightly as they each turned to grab a laptop from their bags, “If you check the repo Joelle I’ve mocked up some of the sensory input data from the suit.  Should be enough to work with until she gets here.”

 

“Affirmative Command Unit,” Joelle droned back, as she picked her spot to sit on the couch.  Stephanie hadn’t been sure at first if having Lucy maintain Joelle’s programming separately was the best idea, but she sure had taken to it well, “I’ll run some sanity tests after finishing up the obedience testing state for the NDFA.”

 

“NDFA?” Lucy asked innocently, sliding in towards her on the couch.

 

“Non-deterministic finite automaton,” Joelle cocked her head, “You know tha--”

 

“You’re a non-deterministic FINE-ite automaton,” Lucy teased with a wink, leaning in for a kiss.  Joelle giggled and kissed her gently, before they both turned their attention to their work.  

 

Stephanie happily watched the cute couple as she waited for their final guest, admiring their blossoming relationship.  Mechania’s machinations had finally brought these two together, had brought them each greater happiness.  Clad in silver and programming pulsing through their minds they were capable of a tender love that insecurity and neurosis had kept them from before their conversion.  And now joined in love and servitude they would use their skills to help bring cybernetic perfection to the rest of the world, bit by bit.  Stephanie shuddered in bliss at the thought.

 

It took another twenty minutes for a quick ring on the doorbell to briefly draw their attention.  Joelle and Lucy turned back to their work as Stephanie answered the door. Standing outside their door was Nicky, long blond hair floating above a frowning face.  Her hands were twitching, gloved fingers twisting and squeezing each other impatiently.  She shot Stephanie a cold look, not friendly and certainly not subservient.

 

“I’m…,” she chewed on what to say with a sour look, “... here.”

 

“Great Nicky!” Stephanie kept her tone light and cheery,  “And did you bring the suit?”

 

“As ordered,” she winced at the word, “I mean as we discussed.”

 

“Come on in!  Joelle and Lucy brought some snacks,” the two women looked over with a smile at the sound of their names, ”and you can set up wherever you want.  Those two have the couch, but there’s the arm chairs on either side or the dining room table if you prefer; the seats have cushions so they’re actually pretty comfortable.”

 

Nicky glared at the silver-suited programmers on the couch, taking hesitant steps forward into the apartment.  She clutched the strap of her messenger bag with black-gloved hands, looking back over her shoulder at the door.

 

“Maybe I should go…” she struggled hard to force the words out, “I… I shouldn’t be here.  I should go… I should--”

 

“Nicky, the Mechanium beckons.”

 

Her hand flew to her forehead, palm pressing hard against her skull.  She bit her lip as her legs trembled, trying to keep herself from losing control.  Despite her resistance her left knee eventually buckled, the right one following soon after.  She fell forward onto all fours in front of Stephanie, the robotically maintained smile still shining down on her.  

 

“No… no…” she pleaded, eyes threatening to roll up into her head.

 

“Don’t be picky Nicky,” Stephanie chided.

 

Her eyes slammed shut and her body pitched forward onto the hardwood floor.  Stephanie knelt down beside her, placing a hand gently on her shoulder.

 

“You know resistance is futile, Nicky.  You should embrace the inevitable perfection, learn to enjoy robotic servitude like the rest of us.  Allow yourself just this once to enjoy something new and different.”

 

“Okay…” Nicky’s voice was far away, robbed of its normally petulant tone.

 

“Good girl Nicky.  Now let’s get to work, the Mechanium beckons.”

 

This time Nicky didn’t struggle against the orders rearranging her mind.  A dull smile drifted onto her face as she rose to her feet, stripping her outer layer of clothing in front of Stephanie.  Her attire was different from the others: a sleek, black catsuit with tiny silver stitching weaving its way throughout.  Little streams of silver ran from a port at the back of neck to every part of her body below in minimalistic, but aesthetically pleasing, groupings and paths.   She dreamily walked her way over to the dining room table and pulled her laptop from her messenger bag.

 

“Nicky-bot active.”

 

“That’s a good girl Nicky,” Stephnie praised as she walked over to stand beside her, “I know that it’s hard for you to work with all that pointless resistance festering in your head, but what’s the status on the suit stats interface and drivers?”

 

“Close to finished Command Unit,” her eyes fluttered for a moment, “I expect to be finished within the next day.”

 

Nicky had been a tough cookie.  Mechania had reached out to her through work, requesting a Zenith engineer to walk her team through the new sensor suit Zenith had demoed at the conference.  It had been like pulling teeth to get her to go out for drinks, even with the company buying them for her.  She didn’t seem particularly interested in returning to the office afterward to see a new “secret project”, and only eventually acquiesced after Mechania assured her that their team would be buying one of Zenith’s new suits.  Joelle, Stephanie, and Lucy had snuck in behind them just in time to keep her from ripping the headset off; the four women working in tandem to keep their victim under control.

 

After Joelle had secured her to the chair with knots that were perhaps a little too decorative for the occasion, they started adjusting the hypnotic program.  Nicky had fought hard every step of the way, her defiance and obstinance both impressed Mechania and made her want to break Nicky all the more.  That first night they were forced to settle on only priming her with a few triggers and compelling her to meet with them again.  They slipped out of the office after 8 hours, tired from the ordeal.  

 

Over the next week they chipped away again and again at Nicky’s stubborn mind, wearing her down slowly but surely.  For the first few sessions they had to trigger her and then quickly slide the headset on to prevent her from breaking free.  Now, the use of a couple different triggers was usually enough to bend her into compliance for a few hours at a time.  During the group work sessions they generally kept her in a mid-level trance with Stephanie checking on her every half hour for signs of returning resistance.  Mechania counted her conversion as a success, even if she hadn’t fully accepted it yet.

 

They had their bio-stats expert, and what’s more they now had a guinea pig.

 

Stephanie left the three women to go get changed herself, returning shortly to the living room wearing her own silver suit.  On her head she wore a simple flat-band circlet, almost looking like a metal headband; a sign of her new rank in their growing mechanical army.  She took a seat in one of the armchairs by the coffee table and began working with the rest of the brainwashed women, an unstated joy flowing between them.  

 

Mechania herself arrived an hour later, a package under her arm.  Stephanie and Lucy stood, only to drop to one knee a moment later in dutiful worship.  Nicky hazily shifted off her chair and onto one knee rather ungracefully.  Joelle was absorbed in her work, Mechania cleared her throat.

 

“One second,” Joelle muttered, fingers flying across her keyboard.

 

“Joelle,” Mechania said sternly, “ensnaring cables embrace.”

 

Her face went slack as she leaned back from her computer, pupils dilating as she leaned backwards into the couch.

 

“Ensnaring cables embrace my mind,” her mouth repeated back, her arms lashing themselves with invisible ropes above her head.  Beside Stephanie Lucy shivered at hearing the trigger she’d installed in her new girlfriend used by her mistress. 

 

“Obedience binds my brain, my body bound to obey.” Her legs pivoted shut slowly, constricted by silvery cables of her own imagining.

 

“My brain restrained to be retrained, a web of wires enwraps my will,” there was an excitement creeping into her voice now.  Stephanie wondered if some part of Joelle had avoided kneeling when Mechania entered the room just to be triggered, just to feel her programming tighten around her as she play-struggled against it.  From what Lucy had told them, it seemed like a possibility.

 

“The more I struggle the more I’m snared,” she panted out, the images flooding her mind of metal wires and cables wrapping around her and sapping her will turning her on too much to keep hidden,  “Ensnaring cables embrace my mind.”

 

“Very good Joelle, now kneel like a proper Metal Maiden.”

 

“Yes Mistress Mechania,” she droned back.  She swung her arms down slowly, taking care to maintain their faux-bound positioning.  She allowed herself just enough slack in her imaginary bonds to shift safely off the couch then kneeled on both legs, clutched tightly together.  She laid her lashed arms to gently rest on top and bowed her head submissively.

 

“Metal Maidens, at ease,” Mechania said satisfactorily.  They all returned to their tasks, Joelle’s face flush with desire as her arms and legs suddenly became free.  Lucy approached Mechnia as she walked back towards the bedroom.

 

“Mistress, I was thinking of starting a little side project related to our current--”

 

“Obedience hones focus,” Mechania interrupted

 

“Focus requires obedience,” Lucy said dreamily in response.

 

“If you have side project ideas Lucy write them down,” Mechania coached, “I’d be happy to review them later today.  And once the main part of the project is complete, we’ll pick one to work on.”

 

“Of course Mistress, I should write them down,” Lucy was nodding along happily, “I would also like to request time today to rectify Joelle’s programming.  She obviously has some room for improvement, and after being triggered like that I’m sure she’s feeling… in need of rectification.”

 

“In two hour’s time you may take one hour to perform a rectification session at your residence,” Mechania felt the odd urge to smile, “I anticipate the waiting will increase her desire for rectification and susceptibility to programming.”

 

“Thank you Mistress,” Lucy bowed her head slightly and went back to work.

 

Mechania re-emerged from the bedroom ten minutes later wearing a costume that more closely matched the one from the show.  Silver thigh-high boots with a short block heel hugged her muscular legs, the bright silver contrasting so beautifully with her dark skin.  Each arm sported one elbow-length silver glove, the hands cut in a bridal-gauntlet style to keep her fingers free.  Her torso was wrapped by a silvery leotard, a section cut out above her stomach to show her firm abdominal muscles.  A dark blue cape fluttered from her shoulders, an embroidered, interlocking “M M” in the center.  And to top it all off was the metal crown, perhaps in reality only cheap aluminium but looking like polished chrome to the group assembled before her.  This time they all bowed in reverence without needing to be told, even Joelle.

 

“Command Unit, we’re ready for a test run.”

 

Joelle’s voice woke Stephanine out of a light rest cycle in the armchair.  They’d all been working diligently for the last week to get to this point, the previous day’s intensive hackathon being just what they needed to finally upgrade their conversion tech to the next level.  Stephanie cast her eyes across the excited faces of Joelle and Lucy on the couch and then to Nicky’s furrowed brow at the dining table; the timing was perfect.

 

“Thank you Joelle bot, please prepare the devices while I fetch Mistress Mechania.”

 

She marched back into the office with the good news, the smell of solder smelling sweet in the air.  Mechania grabbed a device from the desk and returned to the living room with her Chromium Consort, her Maidens kneeling as she entered.  She strode over to Nicky, looking down at the other woman’s expression, a mixture of confusion and anger.

 

“Nicky, please sit in the chair,“ Mechania’s voice was soft but firm, a command cushioned only lightly by peasantry.

 

“I…  uhhh…” Nicky’s mind was trying to fight against her programming, but the odds were still against it, “Okay.”

 

“Joelle, please secure Nicky to the chair.  Lucy, prepare her for the test run.”

 

“Yes Mistress,” the two droned together.  Joelle pulled out a few hanks of rope from her backpack and began tying Nicky’s arms to the chair.  

 

“Jo… Joelle,“ Nicky said with some effort, eyes unfocused and fluttering, “I don’t… don’t let her do…”

 

“It’ll be okay Nicky,” Joelle responded with simulated cheeriness as she started tying Nicky’s legs as well, “We’re going to help you feel better.”

 

“Ohhh… better…” Nicky’s voice was far off again, even though her eyebrows were knitted in confusion.  Perhaps if given another twenty or thirty minutes she could fight off enough of their programming to escape, however they didn’t plan to give her the chance.

 

Lucy slid the headset down over Nicky’s face, fitting it snugly to her skull.  Nicky winced as the screens moved into position, something deep within her telling her to struggle as hard as possible before they turned on the spiral.  Lucy connected a cable from the data port in the neck of the suit to the black box Mechania had been working on in the office, then another from the box to the headset.  With some ceremony she connected a final cable to Joelle’s laptop on the table, an ecstatic grin stretching across her face.

 

“It’s ready Mistress.”

 

“Steph-bot, activate the conversion program.”

 

Stephanie felt honored to be the one to start the program, even if it was little more than typing a command and hitting the enter key.  Finally after all their hard work and plotting they’d made something to replace the real Mechanium’s conversion tubes, something that could make human beings robots in the mind even if physical conversion was currently unfeasible.  She typed in the command to run the program, hovering her finger over the enter key, savoring that with one more keystroke they’d see the fruits of their labor.  That first Nicky, and then world, would be unable to resist their gift of cybernetic perfection.  Her finger tapped the enter key, the program started running.

 

“Ohhh… nooo….” Nicky moaned out in the chair, the screens in the headset coming to life.  A diagnostics and tracking screen popped up on the laptop, filling it with charts, graphs, and numbers.

 

“Joelle, please walk us through as the program proceeds.”

 

“Of course Mistress.”  She pulled a chair closer to the laptop, fingers pointing at graphs and readouts as she explained.

 

“The first step of our program is determining which induction methods are most effective for the subject.  Currently we’re using a genetic algorithm to combine the various effects Stephanie has been working on into sets of composite effects that we display and evaluate using the biometric data from the suit.  So right now Nicky is getting a dose of circular chasing lights with small distortion pulses, and a flickering flame in the center.  We evaluate each one based on heart rate, breathing, muscle relaxation, blood pressure, arousal, and a couple other criteria to score the effectiveness of the composite.  Then we take the top three composites, recombine their components as a next set, and tack on a few mutations at the end.  So the next round might create as one of its composites the chasing lights but with the addition of  a vertical wave effect from another successful composite and also add in a mutation, such as instead of the candle flicker we do red-green, left-right alternating lights.  We generally have enough data to assess each composite after a minute, given the direct line to biometric feedback the suit gives us in addition to my own inferral algorithms, so with each set being an average of ten composites and convergence in 80% of cases taking only three sets of composites this first step will take about thirty minutes.”

 

Nicky moaned in her seat as the headset played the next set of hypnotic images and effects.  Joelle gleefully smiled at the results on screen.

 

“Ah, she’s responding really well to the spinning coin with subliminal flashes and edge color gradients.  We’re already doing so much better than just a spiral and pulse effect.”

 

“Perhaps refreshments are in order while we await completion of this first phase,” Stephanie suggested, turning to Mechania for confirmation.

 

“Approved.  Joelle, keep us apprised of the subject progress and continue your explanation once the program is ready to continue.”

 

Cheese, salami and crackers were brought out for the silver-suited women to enjoy as Nicky shuddered and moaned a few feet away.  Lucy asked if now would be a good time to begin discussing potential improvements to the program they could integrate, provided the tests didn’t reveal more work required on the core program.  Mechania gave her permission.

 

“Great!  I have so many ideas and they’re all so wonderful and…” Lucy’s eyes briefly unfocused as she took a deep breath in.  She breathed out and calmly chanted, “Obedience hones focus, focus requires obedience.  Obedience hones focus, focus requires obedience.”

 

Mechania graced her with a maternal smile; these new drone types were so different compared to the ones she had previously commanded in her galactic quest to make all life efficient, purposeful, and perfect.  They had awoken something in her, an appreciation of the more charming remnants of their humanity.  While they could be illogical and stupid to a fault, they also showed such great promise for adaptation, for learning how to program themselves deeper into servitude and closer to perfection.  It made her excited, hopeful, aroused.

 

“Firstly we’re currently using only automated visual input,” Lucy continued, once she had hypnotically refocused herself, “It is highly likely we could achieve faster and better results if we added an audio component as well, say through a pair of over-ear, noise canceling headphones.  It would create one more input to our subject that we are purely in control of and can alter according to their biological readings.  It would almost certainly allow us to prime more programming faster when we reach the end state.”

 

Mechania nodded approvingly, motioning for Lucy to continue.

 

“Great!  Secondly we’re currently assuming that we can get a subject to wear the sensor suit before we can begin the conversion process.  I’m sure we could achieve this through normal coercive methods: drugs, trickery, force if needed; but I also think with some hardware help from you, Mistress Mechania, we could alter a separate pair of the VR headsets into a handheld mesmerization device.  We’d need to adjust for the screen not taking advantage of a person’s entire field of vision of course, but we only need to make them suggestible long enough to get them to wear the suit and headset.”

 

“Great idea Lucy!” Steph cheered.  Mechania nodded her head with interest as Joelle beamed at her proudly.

 

“Last idea: Another feedback mechanism we haven’t tried is--”

 

“Ugh!  Nooooo… No!” Nicky screamed from the chair, cutting off Lucy.  Joelle scanned over the diagnostic screen as Nicky pulled weakly against her bonds.

 

“Oh yeah, she does not respond well to the spiral,” Joelle explained, pointing to a few different statistics on the screen, “blood pressure’s up, muscles are tensing, this is the worst pattern for her we’ve seen so far.  No wonder she’s been so resistant.  Sorry to interject in the middle of your idea Lucy, but as a note to self we should “fail fast” patterns that cause a distressed reaction in our subject automatically; there’s no reason to play this one for a full minute.  I’m going to manually mark it as a failure and advance her to the next set.”

 

Joelle punched a few keys and Nicky’s breathing slowed, her muscles relaxed, her jaw dropping slightly open again.  Crisis averted, Joelle turned her smile and attention back to Lucy.

 

“Right, as I was saying there is another input I’ve found to work well in reinforcing Joelle’s programming as well as my own,” a look jumped between the two lovers and a flush crawled over their cheeks in unison, “It seems that sexual stimulation is a very effective reward tool during programming.”

 

“We’ve done something similar ourselves,” Mechania nodded towards Stephanie, “There’s no shame in it, we should take advantage of every opportunity for greater efficiency in the process.”

 

“Of course,” Lucy gave a quick nod before continuing, “My idea was to integrate some induction steps and some reward steps with a wireless vibrator.  We could test it in conjunction with the hypnotic patterns to determine the subject’s response to it, and in the cases where they respond positively use it to hasten the process.”

 

“Good girl Lucy,” Mechania admonished her, a shiver of pleasurable pride skating down her spine, “We will plan and schedule these improvements once our test run is complete.”

 

Joelle looked back at the laptop screen for a minute, before speaking up.

 

“Mistress, it looks like we’re moving on to the next step a bit sooner than planned.  Eliminating the spiral pattern seems to have brought us to convergence much faster than anticipated.”

 

Mechania nodded at her to continue.

 

“The next step is trance deepening and obedience testing; they exist technically as two different steps within the program but a failure in the latter loops the subject back to the former.  In trance deepening we use the best set of hypnotic stimuli determined in set one to deepen the trance state in the subject for three minutes at a time.  After three minutes of deepening a series of simple tasks are presented for completion in the obedience testing step; things like moving fingers in a particular sequence, breathing when instructed, saying certain words, et. cetera.  The first three times through the obedience testing state we take a baseline of biological stats as well as response time and willingness, looping back to the trance deepening state afterwards.  The fourth time we compare their test results to the baseline and our projection from the change in baseline results to determine if further deepening will be effective.  If so, we loop back to the deepening state again and again until we see the returns diminish below a certain threshold.  At that point, we move the subject along to basic programming.”

 

They all turned to watch as Nicky’s fingers slowly tapped a random pattern on the right arm of the chair, each finger slowly lifting itself up and hovering in the air before gently rapping on the wood.  A humming groan vibrated from her throat as a word started to form.

 

“Ooooooo…’ she moaned hesitantly, “Ooooobey.”

 

Her thighs clenched briefly, although whether as part of the the testing or due to erotic thrill no one knew excpet Joelle, who didn’t elaborate.  Another pattern was tapped out on the chair, this time by her left hand.  Another word forced through her mind and out her lips by the headset.  Then she took a deep breath in, holding it for twenty seconds, then letting it out, not breathing in again for twenty seconds.  Then she took a series of shorter, rapid breaths before returning to normal.

 

“First baseline test looks pretty decent,” Joelle said looking at the diagnostics, “Of course everyone will have different baselines so we won’t really know where she’s at objectively speaking until we measure a few more times.  As a more subjective opinion, it seems like there’s still some hesitancy to follow the instructions immediately, but not enough to keep her from doing them.”

 

They watched with interest as she went through five more loops of obedience testing and trance deepening.  Each iteration her fingers tapped out the patterns faster and with less hesitation, her words delivered with a firmer tone and crisper enunciation. Her muscles clenched in programmed patterns under the suit, her body blindly following the orders her enslaved mind was bombarded with. 

 

“Oh yeah you can see how much she’s improved,” Joelle remarked, pointing at the screen, “Response times to inputs are down, stress and blood pressure levels are down, muscle tension only spikes where and when we program it to… she’s just accepting our input at this point; no stress or will or worry, just mindless compliance.  And see here; we saw our biggest improvements between iterations two and four, dropping off slowly afterwards.  So she’s about as deep as she can go and should be moving along to programming after this next iteration completes.”

 

“Wonderful,” Mechania’s praise was short, but sent a flutter of pride through all of them, “What’s the programming process consist of?”

 

“Stephanie worked on most of those scripts so she’ll be able to explain a bit better than I would Mistress.”

 

“Thank you Joelle,” Stephanie said as she took over the conversation, “Currently basic programming consists of instilling the subject with total loyalty and obedience to you, Mistress, via text instructions and images sequenced with the hypnotic patterns we found effective from stage one of the program.  The scripts I wrote attempt to make disobedience unthinkable as much as possible within the limits of the human brain, and undesirable in the few places it continues to exist.  On the flip side we help our converts understand the joys of conversion, the bliss of becoming a Metal Maiden, of moving towards cybernetic perfection.  As deeply programmed into them as these instructions are, not even Nicky will want to be free of your control.  

 

After the basic obedience programming there’s a little section at the end to teach the subject about what it means to be a Metal Maiden; things like basic etiquette, duties, uniform, et cetera.  It will program them with knowledge of your history and our mission, so they can better execute on their part within it.  That way by the end of our program we have a Metal Maiden who can immediately join our ranks without needing one or more of us to directly supervise them.”

 

“Leading to greater scalability,” Mechania surmised.

 

“That’s correct, Mistress.  Instead of requiring myself and one to two other units working for multiple hours in order to perform a conversion, we only need to get them set up with the suit and headset and then start the program.  After that we can safely resume other work as the program converts their helpless human mind into the superior control processor of a Metal Maiden.”

 

Mechania smiled a wicked smile, “Once we’ve field tested this, we’ll get a few more suits and a few more headsets and truly begin bolstering our forces.  Then we’ll strike back at The Surgeon, punish him for destroying the old Mechanium.  And once he’s out of the way, the galaxy will be ours soon after!”

 

Excited, energetic looks and whispers passed between the Metal Maidens, their master plan was progressing perceptibly.  Even without the full conversion tech of the Mechanium, they had managed to cobble together a new tool for conversion; necessity proving truly to be the mother of invention.  What humans and beings like The Surgeon would never understand was that each challenge they threw at the Metal Maidens would just spur an adaptation to eventually make them stronger, better, closer to perfection.  What’s more, so far each person they’d manage to convert had provided something new and novel to boost the efficiency of their process, and they would only truly be at four Maidens (plus Mechania herself) in a few short hours after Nicky had finally accepted her new role in life.  Imagine what they could do with ten, twenty, a hundred Metal Maidens!

 

“I am a Metal Maiden,” Nicky intoned flatly, drawing their attention away from their celebratory plotting, “I obey Mistress Mechania.  I have no will of my own.  I have no will to resist.”

 

“How long until she’s ready?” Mechania asked.

 

“Well…” Joelle trailed off briefly, eyes flitting across the laptop screen, “Looks like she did best with high-burst subliminals for text instructions in stage one, which is generally the fastest method in terms of total execution time.  I’d conservatively estimate another hour-and-a-half with the current settings, provided she doesn’t trigger any of the safeties that would kick her back to deepening.”

 

Mechania nodded, “What would you estimate the average run time of the whole program to be?”

 

Joelle thought for a moment, “For extremely susceptible subjects I’d probably estimate around an hour-and-a-half all the way through, if someone puts up a fight they might take up to four.  But we could potentially streamline things with Lucy’s ideas to get total time down, and as Stephanie said we only need to be present to start the program so we save on total resource allocation time.”

 

“Very, very good,” Mechania looked menacingly at Nicky, an evil chuckle escaping her throat, “We’re going to change the world Maidens.”

 

“Yes Mistress Mechania,” they droned back in happy unison.

 

They avidly watched for the next ninety minutes as their new conversion technology brainwashed Nicky into fully becoming a fellow Metal Maiden.  Each one excited to finally welcome their wayward cyber-sister into the fold.