Maeve, soaked to the skin, her stolen military uniform practically glued to her thin, gangly form, burst through the door of the hideout. "God, fuck, was I followed?"

Pyre grabbed her fellow redhead's shoulder and pressed a towel into her hands. "We don't see anything on the cameras. I think you're in the clear." She reflexively looked past the taller woman to keep an eye on the door as she took Maeve's backpack from her.

Maeve wiped herself off. The rain was near-torrential, which they'd thought would interfere with the drones, but... "I got it. I fucking got it."

There was no triumph in the statement.

Pyre nodded led her compatriot to the control room. Urgency trumped comfort. Liana, pale and thin like the field agent, was sitting in her usual spot at the computer desk, frantically searching through a variety of scenes on her monitors to make sure that the way was clear. Tamrah was lying on the couch in her underwear, obviously just waking from a nap, rubbing her blue eyes with dark hands. The five of them in their little three-room cell worked, ate, and slept in shifts; they had an entryway that doubled as a kitchen, they had a bedroom that had become the workroom; there was a bathroom with a decent-sized shower, a luxury Maeve hoped to take advantage of once the debriefing was over.

Maeve wrapped the towel over her shoulders to try and contain the drip from her hair. She considered stripping off further, but she felt oddly exposed even among such very close friends.

"You got it?" Pyre said.

Maeve nodded and pointed to the bag in Pyre's hands. The stolen soldier's uniform had done wonders, even if it was a size too small; it's not like the mindless paid that close attention to style and fit. But still...

Pyre nodded. "And Katie?"

Katie.

There was a silence in the room. Liana stopped typing. Tamrah met Maeve's eyes, then shook her head. She could tell. Maeve could read the flash of anger on Tamrah's face. Pyre had known when she asked the question. She wanted confirmation, she wanted details.

Maeve sighed. "We got cocky. We got hit."

They had broken into the base. Two stolen military uniforms and a good deal of information got them there. Guile and stealth got them out, with the Order's new technology in Maeve's backpack. It wasn't even the military that stopped them. A random Order patrol had recognized their laughter as unlikely to come from such low-grade grunts, and had given chase. Running had only encouraged them... and Katie had tripped.

There had been no way to stop them. Not and get away herself.

"Shit," Pyre said.

Liana turned back to the monitors. "We all know it's a possibility." The present necessity of security overrode her feelings for her lost friend.

Tamrah slammed a fist into the couch.

"Shaola last week, and now..." Pyre sighed. "I hope this thing's worth it."

Maeve shrugged. "Dunno. They certainly guarded it well. Just didn't count on disguises. Grunts aren't that tough to get past if you don't have to go through 'em."

"You're welcome," Tamrah said coldly.

"Maybe we can get her back," Liana offered.

Pyre shook her head. "You know how quick they move people away. They have to. Can't have them reminded of their old life, right? She'll be a grunt in some rural camp before we can find her." Pyre took Maeve's backpack. "That's why we need these things."

The Resistance worked to reverse-engineer and counteract The Order's mind-controlling weapons wherever and however they could. That's what made stealing the new tech so important. Liana had done a lot of work in The Resistance's tech-defense, and with Tamrah had developed the program that kept the rest of them safe when they lost a member. When fully exposed to The Order's control, any memories of the hideout would vanish.

"At least they'll be sure she's happy," Maeve said.

"Don't give a fuck if she's happy," Tamrah growled. "What about us?"

Pyre opened the pack and pulled out the only thing that they'd brought back with them: The Order's newest device. It looked like a metal flower with eight overlapping petals and a red glass bulb on top. Complex circuitry could be seen under the glass. "We'll have to be happy with this."

Liana took the device from Pyre carefully and started examining it. "No idea what it is or what it does."

"I have confidence you'll figure it out."

Maeve sat heavily on the couch next to Tamrah. She put her hand on her friend's knee. "I'm—"

"Don't say it. Don't fucking say it."

Maeve nodded. The six of them that had formed their cell a few short months ago lived, worked, and loved in a very small space. Privacy and secrecy weren't options. Despite that, Tamrah and Katie had formed a very close, very intimate relationship. They even called it love. Maeve knew that Tamrah was wishing that it was the other field agent that had been caught, that Katie was sitting there mourning with her.

"This thing's weird," Liana said. "Can't find any external connections or any switches or anything."

"Don't know what to tell you," Maeve offered with a shrug. "That's what we found."

Pyre sighed, sitting down at the table. "We need to plan our next move. They'll be looking for us." She looked at Tamrah. "Her conditioning?"

"Perfect," Tamrah replied. "I updated them both yesterday."

"You're confident?"

"They didn't catch us after Shaola."

Maeve nodded. She and Katie had sat on that couch just the day before, gazing into the hypnotic contraption that Liana had built from stolen tech, listening to Tamrah's soft and soothing words. She couldn't remember any of them, just the gentle, comforting feeling. Just being there in that spot, with her friends, safe and at least somewhat warm, brought that memory back.

She sighed. "I can't stay in this stupid uniform anymore."

"Take it off," Pyre ordered. "Get warmed up. Have a hot shower if you want."

"Got it, chief." Maeve worked her way out of the tight, wet top. "I'll do that."

Tamrah got up and left, probably to use the bathroom. Maeve took off her bra before standing up.

Liana lifted her head from her tinkering. "How did you get away?" she asked.

"Huh?"

Pyre looked over. "Maeve?"

The field agent shimmied out of the camouflage pants that had completed her disguise. "I... uh..."

"Maeve, what is it?"

"I... I didn't."

"What?"

Without knowing why, Maeve said three words: "Select mode: freeze."

The red glass bulb in Liana's hands pulsed with a soft light, light in a specific wavelength that flooded the room. Liana and Pyre both looked directly at it, expressions of surprise fixed on their faces. Maeve watched as their gazes locked onto the red glow.

Katie had tripped. Maeve had violated protocol in turning back.

There was a controller there. Not just the grunts with their flashlights, but an expert. She had talked to Katie first, as Maeve stood there, immobile, listening, taking it in as Katie's programming worked perfectly, as every piece of vital information melted from the blonde's mind under that delicious control. Tamrah's words, and Katie's love, kept the cell safe.

Tamrah's programming would do the same for her, she knew. Even as the grunts bundled Katie up into the back of a blue van. That would be her fate, too, to become a soldier for The Order.

The controller turned to her. Smiled gently, a soft look on her pale face. She cupped the side of Maeve's face, brushing wet hair off her cheek.

"She made you forget me," Shaola said. "Just like she made me forget you."

"There was no other choice," Maeve replied, not understanding why.

"You wanted to rescue me."

"Yes."

"You would have had to have been sedated. Liana, I imagine."

Maeve remembered the soft light of Liana's reverse-engineered Order tech, and the soft sound of Tamrah's voice. Sitting naked on the couch as Pyre and Katie both used their hands to reinforce the intimacy of the control, to distract her from what she and Shaola used to have.

"The Order has come a long way," Shaola continued. "They don't break people like they used to. Well..." She looked at the grunt holding the light to Maeve's eyes and grinned. "Not everyone, anyway. Not anymore. They recognized what someone like me can do for them. Still, Tamrah's conditioning is equally good, which is why Katie can't help us."

Shaola's hand pressed between Maeve's legs in a way that was familiar, yet forgotten.

"Tamrah isn't the only hypnotist you know, is she."

A memory, buried. Liana, Pyre, Tamrah, Katie, sitting on the couch, seemingly asleep, leaning on one another, none of them aware as Shaola and Maeve danced slowly together in the nude, taking a rare moment of privacy in the middle of their friends' programming.

"They left enough of me here to miss that, Maeve. To miss you. To miss getting inside Resistance heads. This little bauble you've stolen..."

The hand pressed more firmly.

"Let me tell you how it works, before I let you escape."

The memory faded there as Tamrah opened the door to the workroom, seeing the red light. "Liana, did you figure it—"

All it took was one word from Maeve. "Look."

Tamrah, almost as if she was the hypnotized and not the hypnotist, looked directly and the pulsing red light and stopped in place.

"Select mode: obedience."

The pulse changed, subtly. The three enraptured agents continued to stare, their expressions slowly going slack.

"Sit on the couch," Maeve said, and the three of them did as she asked, Liana carrying the device with her as they went.

"I can't recall where the hideout is," Shaola said in her memory. "Tamrah is an amazing programmer. I'll need you to help me find them. Which means that you can't remember this. Not yet."

Maeve turned to the computer, logged in to her profile, sent a message. An address. Her address.

Their address.

She could be with Shaola again. Her lover had promised her. There was only one thing left to do.

She turned back towards the couch.

"Select mode: sleep."

The three helpless women on the couch slouched together as the light once more shifted.

It had only taken five minutes for Shaola to remind her of what she had been so deeply missing. And only a minute more to key the device to respond to her voice. Instructions had been another three. A ten-minute delay in a mission with an uncertain timeframe was hardly noticed.

As Maeve heard the sound of the door being opened, using Katie's key no doubt, she looked at the soft red light emanating from the device. She felt her body relax and sink to the floor.