Yew - Strike
Chapter 1
by Valasania
Tags:
#cw:noncon
#dom:female
#f/f
#scifi
#sub:female
#bondage
#brainwashing
#drones
#hive
#hypnotic_orgasms
#medical_play
Disclaimer: The material below is for adults only; both sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships are included within. If you are for whatever reason offended by this material or are under the legal age in your area/country, kindly stop reading here and return when you prefer, and are legally permitted to continue.
Copyright © 2022 Valasania the Pale (draconianphilosopher@gmail.com) All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form for profit without the express permission of the author. This story may be freely distributed only in its entirety and with this notice attached.
Introductory Comments: A long time in coming! Believe it or not, I had the idea for the premise of this story when I first finished ‘Yew,’ and only now powered through to put it in writing. Suffice to say, I’m pleased with what I’ve wrought thus far. Credit to all previous influences cited in ‘Yew,’ which include Tabico, Trillby Else, and Iago over on the EMCSA. Further credit to SoVeryFascinated for writing the stories that reignited my passion for the genre in ‘Kat and Mouse’ and ‘The Kat Came Back,’ and Kallie, whose influence is non-specific (in that I struggle to put it into words), but pervasive. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be back writing long-form EMC content, but here I am!
This is how you know you will never see home again.
Stir, Rhea: the muted sensation of your unresponsive toes touching the bottom of the capsule leeches through the numbness like cold rain seeping through a coat. Flex your fingers and notice the liquid you are suspended in, how it cocoons you like an embryo.
It hugs you, warm, wet, cloying. You want to relax into its embrace and sleep. Feel your fingers grow numb again. The static rolls in like a gentle fog in the morning.
Sleep. Sleep. You lean into the gentle croon in your ears like you would the comforting embrace of a parent, or partner.
Sleep. Sleep. Cloying sweet sleep. The static plays in your ears, strong like a pulse, enjoined by a voice whispering to sleep, to dream.
It’s in your blood. In your brain. It’s behind your eyes and in the tension of your jaw.
Flicker. Pick out a break in the static. Invent interruption. Will its existence.
Hear the siren’s rejoinder roaring like a tidal wave high overhead your makeshift dingy. Tense up as compliance tap-taps against the cranial edges of your mind.
Reject it. Force your eyes to flutter open, and blink through your amniotic womb.
A world compact and metal greets you. Your eyes do not adjust, and you wonder whether it is a defect of your own that has tinged the world a sprightly emerald, or something that has been forced upon you. It’s unfocused all the same. You must imagine your pupils blown and dark.
A curved pane of translucent material protects you from the outside. Beyond it – blurry – there is more metal. Pipes. Grates. Blinking lights that sear your eyes in radiant astigmatisms. Cringe and force yourself to look again – to take in your surroundings and log the information in your slow-drip memory.
A lone walkway bisects the space like a spine. Vessels – glass cylinders filled with the same liquid you find yourself within – line the walls. You cannot tell whether the liquid within is green or if it is just the tinting of your own prison rendering everything wrong.
It’s soothing, you think. Blink. Blink again, harder. Slower. Feel the hood drawn over your face, the lassitude of will informing you that you will soon be adrift in dreams.
Blink again.
Reach for your stomach and pinch something soft. Be harsh about it. Force yourself awake, damnit. Focus.
Peer closer at your surroundings – search for text, for code, for anything that might inform you of this surreal reality you’ve found yourself in, and fight the riptide attempting to drag you below the tense surface-skin of consciousness.
Realize with alacrity that you are not alone as a curled, nude figure twitches in the vessel opposite yours. Realize too that you are curled up similarly – comprehend the boundaries of your new existence. Maybe three feet from one edge of the glass to the other, if you craned your neck, you’d bump against something. You’re curled up, knees pressed against your breasts, arms wrapped snugly around them.
The figure twitches again.
Look at her, Rhea, and admire briefly the lines in her skin denoting individual muscles. Notice the compactness of her body and the sheen of her slicked hair, long and packed into an efficient braid, how her dark brow scrunches up like the sun is breaking through her sleep-haze.
Register that she is looking at you; her eyes are unfocused, soft, and confused.
Admit it – you feel relieved to know you aren’t alone. This twitching, helpless other is another mind trapped in the same circumstances as you, and you’re grateful she’s here, company in whatever terrible fate you’ve been assigned.
You loosen your body from its taut ball and maneuver yourself so that you’ve space to wave at her. There is more than you in this liquid prison; there’s a breathing apparatus fit over your nose and mouth, feeding you the requisite oxygen to keep you alive, and tubes leading out from your body, two from the sides of your torso, between the last two ribs, secured like electrodes with glue and plastic. Two for each of your hands. Two beside the bones of your hips. Two more from your wrists, and two…
Well, this is already strange enough, so you can’t say you are surprised to only just now register the fullness within you, but all the same your brow furrows as you reach down to run your fingers over the sleek rigging fitted over your crotch and hips like a semi-mechanical, medical-grade thong.
There are shapes inside you – something hard, something with a little give. They don’t quite vanish inside you; you’re fitted over them like a glove, skintight and seal immaculate. There’s static in your brain telling you to sleep, and it occurs to you that as soon as you succumb, these shapes will come alive again to reward your unconscious mind for its compliance.
Stare at the black line across your hips, your head cradled between your knees. Think, clearly, what the fuck is going on?
You need to take control again. Your body is waking up as your conscious mind kickstarts a series of panic responses. There’s adrenaline entering your veins, a chemical cocktail you’ll ride out of this place.
Look back at the woman across from you. You could use an ally. If she’s like you, she might be waking up too. Maybe you can communicate – form a plan.
It takes a second to focus through the glass again – your eyes just won’t respond like you want them to – but when you do you see her moving around like you, arms flexing and feed moving against the bottom of her container.
Knock on the glass – feel yourself the fish in every memory of every visit to the aquarium, some jackass kid asking for attention – see it penetrate whatever cloud shrouds this woman’s attention.
She looks at you. Give her a weak wave and smile underneath your mask, dimples pressing hard into the edges as the seal refuses to break. Cringe as she motions, ‘What the fuck’ back at you, unmistakable.
Shrug as best you can with your body huddled and too-large for its space.
You can’t mouth your words to her, can’t drill her for ideas, ask her name, if she’s okay, nothing.
You can watch as her stare turns flinty, her slim jaw clench. She presses her palms to the glass and rotates until her feet touch the levelled bottom of her prison. See her straighten up, the thick muscles in her thighs begin to stand out as the base of her shoulders press into the ceiling.
Sleep, the static whispers to you in its rote monotone, but how can you heed them when you are enthralled by this woman? She’ll break her prison, emerge from the roof of that cylinder and tear out those tubes. She’ll pull herself to her feet and, dripping, approach you. Put her hand against the glass and smile. Pull open your prison – and you’ll free the others together.
It is a beautiful fantasy.
You feel it wither as she suddenly freezes in the motion of another heave. See her eyes shoot to her wrists, whites showing in horror.
She looks at you. Your kindred spirit. Her eyes are green and glorious. See the fire kindled there, and the despair.
See it, and see it dim and die with a tremble and a shudder. Her eyes roll up into her skull. Her body clenches as one big muscle, and then relaxes like a limp rag. Her lips must part, you think, but the mewl is swallowed by the mask, so you only feel it in the base of your spine, Rhea, traveling up like a shot of electricity to the base of your skull.
It wakes you. It really wakes you. You hadn’t realized how close you were to falling asleep again, just watching her.
Slowly, the twitches subside, and she relaxes into slumber. Her legs pull up, knees return to her chest, arms wrap around them, and she is another sleeping prisoner among many, her fight extinguished.
Struggle in your bonds – you are an insect in amber, Rhea. Escape, or freeze in captivity for eternity. Brace your feet against the bottom of the container and heave against the ceiling. Hope against hope that there is a fault in your prison that was not in hers, that there is a chance for you, that you can beat the clock.
Know that in a few seconds – as soon as whatever program happens to be monitoring your vitals registers your break in convalescence, the spike in your activity – you will feel those same drugs that quenched the hard light in her eyes will feed into you, and you will succumb just as quickly.
There is no flaw. There is no give.
Shout. Thrash.
You don’t know where you are.
You don’t want to go back to sleep.
Sleep. Sleep.
Louder, Rhea. Louder, they have to hear you!
Sleep. The static is a steady heartbeat in your ears, constant as a mother’s love. Sleep. Sleep. Dream. Your journey will be over sooner.
There is coolness in your wrists, spreading up your arms.
Sleep. Sleep.
You are suddenly very sleepy.
Sleep. Sleep.
Blink. It’s fast. Your eyes are very heavy. You…
Let go, it murmurs.
Where are you? It’s so hard…
Sleep, the static commands.
Overcome with inexorable weariness, you obey.
Good. Good girl. Good drone. There’s a pulse in your brain, making itself at home. It nestles in like an itch, and then the static soothes it with praise and with more commands. It tells you to sleep. It tells you not to worry. It tells you that everything will be alright.
You are guileless: what resistance is left in you relaxes and you pull yourself back into a curl, a soft smile playing on your lips and a muzzy purr in your throat as gentle vibrations begin humming inside you.
It feels very nice.
Good girl. Good drone. Sleep. Sleep.
This is how you know you will never see home again: as your tired, drug-numb brain relaxes into the warm embrace of sleep, the confident voice in your ears tells you so.
X_0_X
The room smells of sex as the Controller passes the threshold. A panel of plasteel whispers shut behind it, the automatic seals engaging with a further, faint hiss. It registers these things like it registers the layout of the room, the view from the balcony, or the inhabitants: a distant hand cataloging information to be accessed later, at need, by others.
The Spire penthouse is opulent, befitting the dwelling-place of Master and Mistress. The walls are black, polished to a glistening finish with accents of brassy, yellow gold, the carpet a soft and luscious crimson. Window-panes of transparent aluminum grant a panoramic view of the Martian landscape to fantastic distances – the flickering candlelight of distant settlements sitting atop rust like a gems in a bed of slag.
To be so high above the ground – the Spire stands two-hundred fifty-seven meters above the rest of the facility, and four-hundred seventeen meters from the very base of the ravine – is an achievement in and of itself; it is a marvel of engineering, the tallest structure on the planet by far.
The Controller cannot comprehend the value poured into the abode of Master and Mistress; it does not have the faculties, and it does not try. Contrasted with the striated rust-reds, greys and browns in the rudely chiseled tunnels of the facility and Deeps below, stepping into the room is as though it has found itself on another planet still.
It is not quiet; Master’s pleased groans rumble below Mistress’ higher sighs, and the wet sound of smacking flesh and tongues slip between those as well. The Controller steps over a pair of discarded drone-skins onto a damp pair of satiny women’s undergarments, camouflaged against the carpet by its color.
It pauses. Glances around. Notes the other lingerie, the discarded shoes and trash, the crumbs and wrappers.
It frowns, but it understands that the drones tasked with the upkeep of the Spire are also tasked with fulfilling whatever other whims Master and Mistress devise. Its eyes linger on the nape of the drone currently busy bobbing its head between Master’s legs, drone-skin rolled down its waist to reveal the dimples above its buttocks.
The Controller makes a mental note to increase the allocation of drones assigned to the Spire. Such conditions were unacceptable. It and its charges would be punished if such affairs were allowed to persist.
It glances at the floor to ensure its path is clear before stepping forward again. Mistress, her cheeks sporting spots of flushed crimson, arcs slowly upwards to stretch like a cat before noticing the Controller approach. Her dark eyes glimmer with predatory curiosity before they flicker down to the drone leaving dark hickeys against her collarbone. She taps the drone’s forehead with a near-soundless murmur. and the drone pitches forward in a liquid collapse.
Mistress shoves the shivering drone off her with a slender foot to the belly and pulls herself up to face the Controller. It registers but does not react to its Mistress’ nudity, nor the tapestry of red and purple marks that accompany it; it has not been given leave to acknowledge such pleasures, much less appreciate them.
She was Mistress. Clothed throat to ankle, or bare as sin, the Controller would follow and obey. Further detail was extraneous.
“Drone,” Mistress addresses it. “Is there a reason in particular that you’re interrupting our private time? I have been clear that after-hours are not to be disturbed.”
Her tone is light, but the Controller knows it treads on dangerous ground. It has displeased Mistress by its presence. That was not permitted. The instruction was explicit.
But it must also be here. It was entrusted with the continued operation of the facility. The instruction was explicit.
Not-anxiety beads in the lines of its arms and legs. Pressure builds in the back of its mind: atrophied modes of thought it had been taught to resist had been awakened and forced to stretch. It is discomfiting. It has never had to contend with priorities in conflict before. There is no protocol in place for such circumstances.
“Mistress,” it acknowledges. “Yes. This facility received a transmission from Hive Edin approximately thirty minutes ago. It—”
“Yew?” Master straightens up immediately. His eyes gleam like a child shown a new toy. Mistress scowls. “Is she offering terms?”
“No, Master.” It is unpleasant to disappoint him, but needs must. “She sent a warning to this facility only, unrelated to—”
“I’m not sure I particularly care about what our enemy has to say to us, drone,” Mistress cuts in coldly. “And I am even less convinced that this was worth interrupting our time. Could it not have waited until morning?”
“It was decided after consulting with—”
“Why the hell would Yew send us a warning about anything?” Master asks the air, flopping on his back. “She doesn’t care about us. It’s been hard enough getting anything done with the interdiction. Could it be a feint? Can we turn this to our advantage? Did it come through a frequency we could trace back?”
It has answers to these questions – it had been assigned logistical functions. “It was deemed unlikely that such a warning might be used against this facility. There are—”
Mistress steps closer to it, and her proximity sends a frission of not-fear down its spine. Her expression is thunderous, and it feels its body respond unconsciously.
It does not cringe. By force of will – its training a bond of iron – it does not. It stands at attention, it clears its mind of unnecessary thought. It is a task. It is fulfilling its priorities.
It has stopped speaking – Mistress has not verbally commanded it, but it is skilled in reading the implicit commands its owners issued, for it was necessary in order to best please them. She would command it now. Perhaps she would resolve this quandary of priorities.
‘But what if she doesn’t?’ a part of it thinks, and it mentally notes that it must report to Conditioning at the earliest opportunity. Extraneous thinking was not permitted.
Mistress does not command it – she turns on Master instead. “What do you care if Hive Edin contacts us?
“Same as I always have – another shot at the white whale. God, I want her in a test tube,” Master sighs. “Fucking shame she’s too smart to land herself here.”
Mistress’ fists clench subtly. It catalogues the response and reminds itself not to trigger such latent feelings of jealousy – It was Master’s privilege to walk on dangerous ground. It had no such luxury.
“Those fucking eyes… I dream about strapping her down, sticking a needle in her wrist… seeing them glass over. Seeing her smile at me for once.” Master sighs theatrically. “Can you blame me? I want to break her like a colt – I bet she’d struggle magnificently. Those are the best girls. Don’t you think about it? With all the shit she’s given us over the years?”
“You’re pathetic, Ricci,” Mistress’ cold voice betrays no hint of emotion. “Don’t you have enough whores keeping your cock soft?”
He looks at her askance. “Are you jealous? Why? I’d share!”
Mistress scoffs. “Believe it or not, I don’t want that bitch warming my bed.”
“Don’t want…?” Master stares for a long moment, his gaze sharpening, and then he grins. “Ha! Liar. You’d love her between your legs, even if just to spite me. Or you’d spoil yourself personalizing her training. Like that last girl, the whatsit— the equestrian?”
Mistress crosses her arms over her chest. “The veterinarian. And that was different… if she’d had the good sense not to let Briggs die, I wouldn’t have needed to replace her. My choice of replacement was entirely a decision made to ensure consequences were carried out, not one made of personal spite.”
“What the fuck is that even supposed to mean? ‘Ooh I’m objective, I’m reasonable. You killed my precious fucking cat – totally wasn’t the milk and tuna diet – so there’s gonna be consequences.’” He smirks at her. “Sure, Bee. That’s why the new cat spends half her time with her tongue up your—”
It coughs delicately.
Master and Mistress look at it.
Master’s head tilts. “Never seen one do that before. Think she’s defective?”
Mistress doesn’t answer him. Her face is curiously set, focused in a way the Controller has never seen before. It catalogues the memory – whatever happened now would enable it to better serve in the future. It suspects such measures would be necessary soon.
“That’s the second time you’ve interrupted us this evening, drone.” She laces the word with enough venom to inform the Controller of its impending punishment. “Was there something else? Are we wasting your precious time? What do you need to get back to – tabulating the latest shipping manifest?”
It hesitates.
Color rises in Mistress’ cheeks. Mistake. “Speak up!”
“Mistress.” It feels not-fear again. Tension. “The transmission. The contents were deemed—”
“Enough!” Mistress stands, and though she is substantially shorter than the Controller, it feels not-terror spiking as its well-trained nervous system blares its warnings. It is calm. It is obedient. If it must be the sacrificial lamb, then it would perform as was needed.
Master and Mistress had to be informed.
But it must be silent.
Pressure. Pain. Mistress stands before it. She has put the Controller into a trance. She is giving it orders. It will speak no more on the topic of the transmission lest it suffer immediate punishment. She does not rescind previous orders and thus relieve it of its conflict – its directives remain intact.
It is a task. It is two tasks. It must complete its tasks. Its tasks stand in contradiction. Thus, the Controller is a contradiction.
It does not know how to respond to this. Was this punishment? Did Mistress know what she’d done? Why?
The Controller dismisses that thought. Mistress was inviolate. It is not its duty to question. Only act.
But how?
Mistress asks it a question. It answers. The opportunity to follow a simple order is a lifeline for the Controller while it considers its directives and how best to resolve them, even though Mistress’ inquiries involve information outside of its assigned sphere of knowledge.
“No, Mistress,” it says. “This one was not assigned to that function, but it can retrieve that information promptly should Mistress—”
“No, I believe you’ll be fine, sweetie,” Mistress croons, touching its cheek. “Tell me what you know from your talks with the others, I don’t think we need to quibble over silly things like details, do we Ricci?”
The change in demeanor worries you. Whatever Mistress is, it is not kind.
Master grins as he guides another drone’s head to bob up and down on his crotch. “No ma’am! That’s – ah – that’s what logistics divisions are for.”
The Controller does not shift uncomfortably, but it wishes it had the physiological facility to do so as Mistress’ keen gaze tears into it expectantly.
“…Yes Mistress.” It struggles to recall what it can of brief, clipped streams of information passed efficiently from mouth to mouth. It had not been tasked with remembering these details. “All goes according to routine. The scheduled shipment of refined Niobium departed this facility sometime around midday yesterday and has not encountered hostile resistance en route to its destination. Initial payment was deposited into your accounts according to standard procedure. The final deposit will presumably be made upon delivery.”
“How much did we make?” Master asks.
“…This one does not know. It received the impression it was a standard procedure. Likely as much as last time.”
Master rolls his eyes. “Last time? How am I supposed to remember ancient history?”
“Alazne pays well, we’ll be fine,” Mistress dismisses easily. “The better question is whether you think she’ll tamp down on the paranoia long enough to let us visit this holiday.”
“After the last month? Psh. You’d think she got grabbed and not her sister, the way she’s got her cheeks clenched these days.”
It stands at attention as Master and Mistress devolve into another tangent. Inter-Hival politics were beyond the scope of its responsibilities, so it did not interject itself. It catalogues the information that passes between the two nonetheless, now that it knows Mistress might plumb its memory of unassigned knowledge.
Its tasks beat down heavy. It must inform them of the threat. It must remain silent. Perhaps it should return to Control and assign another to its task?
…No. Mistress would likely order no more visitors that night. It could not wait for morning. It must ch—
The Controller’s brow furrows. It is a forbidden thought. ‘Choice’ had been excised from its vocabulary. It did not choose. It acted. It is a task. It carried out its tasks. It must select—
It must deci—
It—
Pain. Pressure. It must report to Conditioning posthaste. The state of its programming was degrading rapidly. That was unacceptable.
“Say, girl,” Master addresses it. It must obey no matter the state of its mind. “We should’ve received a shipment last cycle. New material for the facility? You hear anything about that through the grapevine?”
Mistress has migrated toward the dresser. She’s fishing around for a fresh pair of underwear. Her cast-offs pile up around her while she grumbles.
It focuses. “Yes Master. The shipment of drone-material was received in spite of the interdiction. The material has likely already been transferred to processing. Their programming is likely underway as we speak.” It pauses. “This one remembers the Controller assigned to overseeing that task questioning the delivery agent. There was more drone-material than anticipated.”
A sly smile crosses Master’s face. “Prisoners of war, perhaps?”
Mistress snorts. “Lovely.”
It nods hesitantly. “That is likely, Master. This one can inquire if Master would like.”
“You do that.” He nods. “What about those girls I bought on auction? That brunette make it? I’ll want her up here at some point. This one,” he tousles the hair of the drone kneeling between his legs. “Is getting pliant. I want something new to have fun with – maybe something with a little fight left in her. Controller, do make that happen, will you?”
“If Master furnishes this one with a more complete description of the drone-material, it will see it done.”
Master leans back in the bed, hands settling behind his head. “Perfect. I’ll forward Control the lurid details. Make sure to leave some for me when you’re breaking her.”
“Yes Master.”
And then Master closes his eyes and the stopgap of questions and orders closes, and it is left with languid, unthinking drones, and Mistress’ castoff lingerie, and…
Mistress stands before it, a hand on a cocked hip. She has found what she wanted – smoky, thigh-high hose attached to a hip-high pantalette set by a pair of black garters. Her chest is bare, she is attired in bruises.
She steps closer, into its space. She is shorter – it could probably pick her up with one arm if it was ordered – but it steps back for her.
She steps forward, it— “Stop.”
—Does nothing.
“Tell me, Controller.” Her voice is a silken purr. Her eyes shine with violence. “What did you disturb us for? It must be so important to go against my orders.”
It blinks. It had not contravened Mistress’ orders. It followed its directives. It was obedient! “Mistress asked this one to speak of it no longer.”
“Did I?” Mistress smile could cut glass. “But you must not think very highly of my orders. You disobeyed me, after all. What’s once more?”
It wants to step back. It wants to flee. Mistress wanted to hurt it. It wants to flee. Mistress told it to stop – to stay still. Told it to be quiet. It doesn’t want to disobey!
“Do you want to play a game with me, drone?”
Fear. Pressure. Fear. Pressure. It needed Conditioning. It needed Conditioning so bad – needed resolution!
“It will do whatever you ask, Mistress,” it answers dutifully.
She giggles. “Lovely! I just need you to do one thing for me, drone.”
“What would you have of this one, Mistress?”
Her eyes are cold. “Follow your directives.”
A spike drives into the Controller’s mind – resolving its paradox was now imperative – and it spasms.
In truth, there were many directives in its mind, guiding it through its daily life like navigator’s stars. There were only two that had been assigned highest priority:
It must obey Master and Mistress.
It must protect the facility’s welfare and productivity.
It could not report to Conditioning to smooth over the contradiction between these directives. There should not be any contradiction between these directives. Master and Mistress were inviolate – their will was all that mattered, but—
But—
It blinked, hard.
Mistress didn’t know. Her ignorance put her in danger. It must protect Master and Mistress as a necessary part of maintaining the welfare of the facility. But she asked it to remain silent. It must obey. But she didn’t know. But that suggested that Mistress was fallible, and that—
That did not—
That did not—
Mistress waited, something cruel glittering in her eyes.
Stop thinking.
“Mistress,” it said, feeling dizzy, as though it had slipped a noose. “It must inform you of the contents of a transmission received—"
Pain.
Pain.
Pain!
The pain feels like a kick in the crotch, like being flayed, like memory—
It is a drone of Group Delta again, the fourth of five shifts of Workers pressed into two-day overtime to meet a rush-quota and it has caught its hand in one of the Carvers as it sticks in the ragged stone. It follows orders, it will un-stick the Carver, it will—
PAIN.
It screams like it screamed then; something strangled, squeaky, choking, inhuman; feeling as phantom memory the shorn nerves, the quick-seep chill of lost blood, the ghost of sensation haunting its waking reality, Lessons blooming like blood-rose embolisms in its brain.
It is pain. That is its task. Remembering pain. The worst pain. This is Mistress’ lesson in disobedience.
The pain teaches it. The pain reminds it. The pain shakes it, and as its mind scrambles itself, its conditioning fractures, and she remembers.
She remembers her name was Rosanna, before that thought too becomes pain. It is not Rosanna. Rosanna does not exist. Rosanna does not exist! It is an it. It is a Controller. It is property. It is a drone. It feels those lessons branded into every neuron firing now in its brain. It is an it. It is obedience. It does not disobey Master or Mistress.
It disobeyed, and thus it feels pain.
It becomes aware of itself as the titanium cuff snaps shut over its left wrist, metal on metal where the artificial appendage meets skin and scar tissue, trapping it overhead. It was the last limb not already in the saltire cross, leaving it spread-eagle before Mistress as she steps back to observe it sharply.
It had been stripped of all but its drone-skin at some point. The wraparound headset it used to communicate, its boots, its belt, its gloves; they all lay on the floor between its legs. Another drone kneels to the side. It vaguely remembers being pinned while other hands pulled the various pieces from its thrashing body.
“You were the writer.” Mistress does not phrase it as a question. “The meddling editorialist. I remember you. Your exposé on my family brought down my father’s business and drove us out of the country. You almost lost me my inheritance.”
The Controller does not—
Does not—
Forget it. Forget it. Forget it.
It feels a ringing in its ears, distant pain, it cannot remember. Pain—
Mistress slaps it across the face with an open hand. The impact centers the Controller. It is painful, but it is not pain-of-memory. It would accept pain at the hand of Master or Mistress any day, over that.
But… It shakes its head feebly. Something has snapped, something is gone. It hurts and there’s an, an absence… What was it doing? Didn’t it have… something to…?
Mistress wipes away the blood from the Controller’s split lip and gently sucks it from her fingertip. “You had such a way with words. Such priorities. I almost forgot that’s what I hated so much about you.” She shakes her head. “It’s almost a shame we cored those abilities out along with the personality; I could’ve had you extolling the virtues of a life of submission or drawing tourists into a honeypot. Perhaps I still could. Make you something you’d utterly loathe, wouldn’t you love that?”
The Controller’s voice is strained, but it remains level. Some small, desperate spark of pride works through it for that; for being such a good drone. It was so good! “This one will do whatever Master and Mistress commands.”
“And what do you think I want, right now?”
The Controller does not squirm as Mistress reaches up to its throat and begins to draw down the zipper of its drone-skin. It is eager to please – it doesn’t want to be punished again. “T-this one will write articles to convince potential drone-material to defect, if Master or Mistress desires. It will undermine Master and Mistress’ detractors. It will create advertisements to lure drone-material to our acquisition centers.”
Mistress chuckles darkly. “Oh? Keep going.” Her head tilts. “I want you to enjoy this.”
Arousal slams into the Controller like a heat. Like a valve holding back too much pressure had been turned open. It squirms as Mistress presses her palm to its belly and pushes, applying enough force to force it flush against the cross. “T-this one will recant its story accusing your family. It will testify in your defense. It w-will—” The zipper reaches its terminus and Mistress reaches inside its suit and cups its sex, leaving the Controller to grind into her palm. “It will… It…!”
“Oh,” Mistress coos. “So worked up already. How long has it been since you last got off? Before we found you?” She crooks her finger within it, a-and… “Oh, tch. So responsive. Baby girl, you’re juicing for this. We trained you so well!”
Yes! They trained it so well! It is so close. Blood roars in its ears, an anticipation it had not known it had suppressed. It wasn’t supposed to be this fast – it had never felt an impending release this hard, this insistent. It presses itself harder against those fingers, the thumb circling its aching clitoris. It is so close.
Mistress wanted it to enjoy this!
Mistress withdraws her hand.
rosanna whines.
Mistress takes a few steps back and disappears from rosanna’s field of view. It wants, so badly.
Master chuckles from the bed, dandling another drone on his knee while he watches Mistress work over her property. His leer makes rosanna shudder – it does not know why, it can only register the emotional response as distant fact.
Mistress had not given it leave to feel aught but enjoyment, so it feels nothing beside.
“This will do, don’t you think?” Mistress hums cheerily. It looks as she re-enters its field of view, and feels an entirely different thrill of heat run through it as it eyes the jet-black flogger in her hand.
“Mistress?” rosanna pants, straining to rub its thighs together to relieve some of the aching tension Mistress’ handling had left it to work through.
Mistress does not answer. Instead, her head tilts to one side. A curious smile curves her chapped, swollen lips. “Drone, I don’t believe you ever understood my question. I don’t want your mind. I don’t want your abilities. Your pride.”
Fear mixes with anticipation. “Mistress?” it asks again.
Mistress draws back the flogger. “This is what I want.”
Its world goes white.
X_0_X
Overhead, a new star brightens.
X_0_X
You come to a state of consciousness as your knees touch the lukewarm metal of your container, then your toes. Gravity has become foreign to you, but your dead weight nonetheless slumps in a boneless downward trajectory as the emerald suspension liquid drains away. Sterilized atmosphere fills your tank, its chill sending goose-pimples racing up your forearms.
You don’t give much thought to the series of hydraulic hisses and metallic clicks around you, the glass walls lifting away from you, or the hands that suddenly roam your body, invasive and callous, sloughing off suspension gel and prodding you all over.
Suddenly you are not alone. The other tanks clinically disgorge their insensate contents – other kneeling, naked, wired-up humans – and you are surrounded by peers.
The others – the technicians, in their sterilized scrubs, hands separated from you by paper-thin nitrile gloves, smelling like hand sanitizer and alcohol – they are many, and their quiet efficiency, their deft gestures and movement, is deafening after an eternity in a world of silence and stillness
Don’t tolerate it. Don’t endure it. That is, after all, too much effort. Either would overstate your capabilities right now. You couldn’t muster it if you wanted to, if you could want. No, just breathe the slightly-stale air. Twitch when they brush somewhere you don’t expect. Blink when they tell you, shining penlights in your eyes.
Do not resist. Obey. Good girl.
You are a pincushion, Rhea. There are at least a dozen needles plugged into your body in a dozen separate places. They take these from you. Their hands all over, they pull wires and tubes from your body like yarn from a skein, miles and miles of plastic and metal pulled out by the root. You feel it in your marrow, like you feel teeth ripped from your jaw while doped up on Novocain – you can feel it and not feel it at the same time and the discomfort of it almost breaks you from their dreams.
You sting and ache in places you rather you didn’t, now.
Feel the stitching holding together your fragile world come loose. Leaves you unsure of whether a stiff breeze might blow you away. Decide you can live with this sensation of vagueness as long as you continue to receive whispered commands from the headphones they leave you with.
Just blink and stare ahead, Rhea, you’re only vulnerable in all the ways that matter.
Cold metal – the coinlike pad of a stethoscope – sears the sensitive flesh of your upper back, beside the scapula.
Moves lengthwise, then down. Trace its path and forget the last stop.
Breathe when they tell you to. Deep and full. Again. Again.
Good girl, they praise you. You feel your body respond to that, twitching like an animal given the promise of sustenance.
“Intravenous ports undisturbed by the material’s brief period of consciousness during transit,” you hear recited, tinny and unimportant. “Biometrics show immune response slightly muted, recommend lower concentration of compound eight during indoctrination process. Oxygen levels nominal. Lungs not rejecting atmospheric conditions.” A few dull taps, the sound of fingers on a screen. “The material is docile and ready for transit to processing.”
Another voice says, “Acknowledged.”
They move on. You notice it like you notice the human in front of you – like an animal looking at itself in a mirror, comprehension absent.
Stand. Obey.
“Wake up,” that voice of one of the scrubbed-up technicians, flat and disinterested, snaps you to consciousness.
Obey, you think. Have to—
Sparks light in your mind. Your eyelids flutter and it takes a very long moment for you to do more than simply stare. Your eyes do not focus without conscious effort. Like the rest of your body, they feel glossy, wet, and unnaturally relaxed.
For the duration of that long moment, their face is an indistinct blur. Furrow your brow. Frown. Reach for the part of you that breaks things and puts them back together. Close your eyes. Recall what problems are, how to solve them.
Obey. Obey. Wake.
Wake up, Rhea.
Open your eyes.
Stare into the masked-up face of your captor.
Stumble into awareness with the alacrity of a drunk driver.
Oh, shit.
You remember who you are, Rhea, because it slams into you like a truck and hurts you. The lights are bright, your mind is clouded, and the shards of your memory are scattered around you in a chaotic mural on the floor. Pick them up and cringe for the blood they draw, the sting.
Hear the alarms begin. Clarion. Clarity.
I am—
Where am—
You tremble in place, and the technician’s eyes soften. They say something. Another says something. A tiny syringe is passed over, uncapped and then its contents are in you, icy hot in your veins.
“You need not be aware,” they say kindly. “But you will walk where you are directed.”
Fuck you. Rouse yourself and stand under your own power.
You were going to, something, you think. Slowly.
Blink.
Sway where you stand, but don’t fall. You won’t get anywhere on your knees, Rhea. You, you know that much. You think. You, you think…
Stare at the technician as they step into your space. Gently reaches up and holds open your eyelid and shines the penlight there. Doesn’t hurt. See spots. Many colors. Pretty.
Stop thinking.
“Testing,” they say. “Please respond. Do you hear me?”
Say, yes.
“You will obey.”
Say, yes.
Good girl.
Sigh through your nostrils. Feel those words in your lower spine, radiating, and wait for their instructions.
You experience motion around you like vision in a heat haze.
The others like you stand, one by one. It is almost beautiful, the rhyme of it. A technician will kneel in front of them and give them instructions, and they obey. Feel yourself anticipating the slack muscles tightening each time; some of them come to awareness and need the drug to accept, but inevitably they all stand.
It makes you feel good, to know you weren’t the only one. You don’t know whether it is comforting to know you were the only one to try defiance, or that you weren’t the only one to fail at it. Feel a little vindictive when the last one to try raises her hand to strike the technician, her face tightening into a hateful snarl, then softens.
The technician takes her wrist and waits. Swiftly and inevitably, her features slacken into confusion, then blankness, and then the technician gently pries between her fingers and pulls the fist loose. Lets it lower to her side. Takes her chin and checks her eyes. Speaks to her.
She smiles at them, dopey and absent, and answers their queries.
Good, you think.
Good girl, they say to her. She shivers, and you feel it.
They direct you into two lines, one for each row of tanks, and you file out of the space at a slow shuffle. Whatever they stuck you with makes you feel heavy. Languid. Kinda thirsty.
You don’t see clearly, just the nape of the woman in front of you. You see peach-fuzz. Freckles. Skin kissed by the sun, golden and warm. Not the facility, or the drones that pass you by.
They tell you to move, so you move.
You crave a spot by the window to lay in like a cat. Warmth. Sound in your ears, a purr. Soaking it up. You’re a sponge. Parched throat. Just flop on your back and spread wide, accepting the rays. Accepting it all.
Blending together.
Sigh pleasantly, and walk where you’re told.
You dream because you were ordered to, Rhea. You remember that well enough. Dream of things far-away from here. The feel of a bicycle pumping beneath you. The scent of the sea. The salt-rim of a paloma on your lips, the bite of alcohol.
They’ve disassembled you like a jigsaw puzzle, but you have no idea whether all the pieces they gave back to you are yours.
Try to make them fit as the drug ever-so-slightly begins to wane.
Fail.
X_0_X
Wake up on your knees.
You lost time, somewhere in-between then and now. You’re elsewhere. A dark room with walls slate-grey, rows and rows of machinery, and large, reclining knee-break chairs beneath looming spider-works of sterile machinery.
Like how a little girl might shelve dolls, you are close-packed in a niche in the wall with several others. There is a warm thigh on either side of you, and bony elbows against yours, but you find that when your curiosity piques you lack the facility to turn your head and look.
The static in your ears tells you to relax and wait your turn. You’re still too absent to act to the contrary, so obeying that commandment turns out to be quite easy.
You breathe slow and gentle as you think about nothing, and it obliterates the passage of time. Abruptly you feel the whisper, then absence of human touch on your right side, and it is marginally colder there.
Feel a prickle of apprehension. Ignore it.
Then it is your turn. They take your chin in their fingers and tell you to stand on legs that buzz with static. You stumble a little into the technician, feel the sterile, dry material of their scrubs as they catch you. They correct, then direct you down the line of terminals and have you stand at attention while they adjust it for your dimensions.
Shiver and keen, low and bare, for the voice that praises you for obeying.
One of the technicians takes you by the wrist and gently tugs, leading you around the side. Sit on the edge, swing your legs up and around. Squirm a little, the motion unconscious; so instinctual, to seek maximal comfort even like this. The soft leathery material conforms to the skin of your back and buttocks, the way that tells you that you might stick a little if you move too much. Feel it warm quickly with your body heat.
They sheathe your calves in soft, vinyl-lined cuffs, then your wrists. Those tighten slightly, like a blood-pressure cuff, but not so much that it will truly restrict blood flow. Only motion. There are cool fingers probing you along your sides and hips. Hear a click of plastic, then a slight sting in the places you remember IVs and tubes sitting before.
Feel a coolness in you and sigh as the drugs gently wipe the possibility of resistance from your mind.
They replace your headphones with some sort of earbud. It sinks deep into your ear-canal and suddenly you are deaf to the world, deaf to all but the soft static singing to you.
Another tube between your lips. They tape it in place. Suckle idly on it, taste something acrid in the liquid.
Don’t react as they adjust the machinery. You’ve never been so calm, relaxed.
So cozy, you could fall asleep.
Turn your head lazily and watch the woman next to you as they plug her in to the machinery. It’s the woman who lost to the drugs during transit, who looked you in the eyes. Your almost-ally.
Her head flops to look at you, and you realize she’s gone as you lock eyes again. Hers are glassy and soft; lost in the dreams and static that fill her mind. Her technician is somewhere else in the process; they complete their inspection and step between her spread legs to gently slide two long, glistening pylons into her.
See her belly and hips arc within the limited range of motion afforded to her, the tube between her lips falling out as her eyes flutter shut and some long, guttural sound emerges from her chest.
You can’t hear it, but you must imagine it, and once again you find yourself empathizing powerfully with her utter submission.
Turn your head back when the technician asks you. Clench periodically around nothing, imagining yourself in her place. Good girl.
There is a light overhead. You’ve sated your scant curiosity, so find yourself staring at it until artifacts dance in your vision.
You feel very, very good.
Feel them probe you, cool, impersonal touch pulling you open down below for examination.
Make a sound you’ve never heard before. They probe deeper, two whole fingers. Make it again, something deep, from the throat. It’s animal, that sound, foreign to any intelligent being.
They withdraw, and you jerk after them, your body is starved and needy. It’s nothing like lust; there is no passion, no desire, only a need like an unbalanced equation.
The sounds you make as a new shape replaces the finger is unrecognizable to the person you were before, no matter that you have grown up in this body, nurtured it, tested it, found it your own. You splay and close over the silicone lengths they introduce into you. They are engineered to satiate the cravings you feel.
Feel yourself relax into the purring, the binaural tide rolling in. It’s too easy to let go and drift, be carried away, and listen to the sighing of the winds, carrying the calls of distant gulls to your fogged-out brain.
Your technician types at your terminal. “Initiate pleasure-imprint,” they say clinically. “First phase.”
You must obey.
Obedience is pleasure.
You must obey.
Hands. Hands around you, touching you.
You are a drone.
Drones do not think.
Drones do not choose.
You are a drone.
Cold, the sensation of gel. On your breasts. Your belly. Your thighs, arms, temples. Cold, like coins, then the gel warms. Weights are pressed to those points, which then stick to you, and then those begin to hum and buzz, sensations that penetrate you, deep and powerful. Good.
It feels good to obey.
It feels good to be a drone.
You are obedient.
You are a drone.
It feels good to obey.
The phrases begin to loop. There is pressure on your head now, at random points on your skull. Open your eyes – bright lights everywhere, medical grade. They throw shadows on the ceiling – dull, piston-like shapes, positioned around your head. People maneuvering around you.
Can’t find it in you to be concerned.
You must obey.
Shudder in bliss, and juice around the shaft buried inside you. That phrase is scree kicked free in the valley they carve in your brain. It echoes once, twice, three times and more again, a voice in the canyon magnified, threatening to set off a dozen further avalanches of memory.
A switch is flipped and machinery hums around you. The pistons, they hum and, and…
It feels good to obey.
Mouth, ‘Feels good,’ in awe.
You learn this later: the machine you sit in takes many approaches to fulfill its function. You never learn to name them all, but each and every one is important to rewire you according to their design.
Feel its touch in the core of you, Rhea, a hymn inside your brain. Feel the warp of memory – entire tracts of your life erased, locked away, restructured and redefined. Feel yourself open. Make yourself vulnerable for them. Spread your psyche wide and wanton for them to alter at their whim.
You are a drone.
“Drone…”
You must obey.
“M-mmm…”
It feels good to obey.
“F-feeeeeels so…”
What must you do?
Gasp, “Obey!”
Good girl.
Cry out as you cum for them.
X_0_X
Overhead, the new star vanishes.
X_0_X
2168-271 – 01:03:47
Transmission: COURTESY NOTICE
Recipient: HIVE CTESIPHON
Sender: HIVE EDIN
FILE ATTACHMENT: Observation logs 2268.271.83 – 2268.271.88
Scanning…
Scanning…
No malware detected.
ALERT – See attached coordinates, hazardous body on approach vector danger close to your facility. Recommend evacuation.
Despite our differences, I have no desire to see innocent lives destroyed. Your forces will not be molested by mine for the time being.
-L. Yew.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider letting me know so, whether via email at draconianphilosopher@gmail.com, or discord (if we happen to share one)! Feedback and kind words go incredibly far in making this feel worthwhile, and really fuel the fire to keep on writing.