“I fucking hate traffic,” yelled Patrick flipping around in the back middle seat of the Escalade. He wanted to take the helicopter from Teterboro direct to Manhattan then have the shorter ride back home. Christine overruled him.

“I can feel my brain rotting in my skull,” he said again after the girls ignored him.

Alyssa raised her eyebrow and gave him a look without comment. She was in his arm, resting her head against him. Almost awkward given the height differentials, but Alyssa is never awkward. It’s a superpower some people have.

“You’re not getting out of a helicopter with Alyssa Shaw in middle Manhattan,” said Christine looking out the window, not paying him any particular attention.

“Gee Op Sec, maybe I should also not get out of a jet with her as well?”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe I’ll make you walk across America next time,” said Christine.

“We thought about making you fly commercial,” Alyssa whispered softly into his shoulder. The word ‘commercial’ coming out of the most commercial face on the planet ironically sounded dirty.

“We really did discuss it, you know,” said Alyssa again at normal volume. “But then we thought you’d run off if we did that.”

“Wow,” said Patrick. “Just wow.”

“Patrick, if I hear you complain one more time about spending an extra twenty minutes in an enclosed space with your celebrity crush, I am going to make you walk the rest of the way home,” said Christine allegedly unamused, still looking out the window.

Alyssa cooed at him and stretched.

It wasn’t clear if that turned him on or annoyed him, but it shut him up.

The building on Fifth Ave and E 60^th St was a compromise made in concrete. Patrick wanted to be on Billionaire Row’s bird eye view of Central Park. Christine wanted an intimate townhouse hidden away on the 70^th odd Street. Not exactly Haussmann’s arrondisement architecture or the Sologne estate of her childhood, but still an architecture closer to ground with limestone finish.

Patrick wanted a hundred floors filled only with his slaves and the functionary of his empire like some medieval grand palace built in the sky. He wanted a middle finger in front of Central Park. Its true purpose hidden in plain sight. He wanted a rooftop infinity pool and a three-floor penthouse beneath it. A helipad on top, which was physically contradictory to his other request and legally improbable, but he’d imagine that his feet would never have to touch grass. Christine approved his request at 30 floors, a two-floor functional penthouse. The pool overlooking Central Park was moved a floor down and open to residential use, which was actually an improvement in discretion to the original given the mandatory sexy bikini rule. Even if the pool view itself was now partially obscure by other taller buildings. The helipad requirement was absolutely rejected.

Nevertheless, 30 odd floors above ground is still a hundred apartment worth of slaves for him accessible with just an elevator ride away. Most of them also double as ruthless functionary of what is increasing Christine’s global shadow empire, which Patrick happened to own. The arrangement was synergistic in the end, even if emotionally it became a marital compromise.

The three car convoy turned from FDR Drive onto 63th Street heading West towards Central Park. Not five minute later it drove into a private limestone porte-cochère entrance and out of sight with a portcullis shut behind them. A full staff of identically groomed women awaited on both sides of the passenger section as the middle car slid perfectly into place, straight as if made to slot. Christine had texted ahead of time that the car will arrive on the first floor so Alyssa can be given the building tour, instead of at the usual penthouse elevator in the basement level.

“Welcome home, master,” said a woman in a severe blonde bun the moment she opened the door. She had white gloves, a suit, and impeccably perfect make up. She met his eyes for a heartbeat then demurely lowered them. This one is probably Ingrid, head butler.

“Master,” said another blonde woman in the same tenue with a light almost-curtsy as Pat’s eyes briefly stopped over her.

“Ms Évreux,” said probably Ingrid as Christine got out.

“Madam,” said another as she went pass.

Pat got out and was hailed by a meek chorus of “Master” and almost-curtsies as he went pass someone or looked at someone long enough.

“Ms Shaw,” said Ingrid in the same tenor as Christine’s acknowledgement.

That’s one woman who needed no introduction, Pat thought dryly. It was her first time here and the butlers are already pretending it wasn’t.

“Ingrid, we apologize for the substantial luggage. Alyssa will be staying upstairs with us. Could you also introduce her to the building?”

“Certainly, Ms Évreux.”

Ingrid gave her a micro-bow and looked at another butler who promptly nodded. She recruited two others and they went efficiently to retrieve the substantial luggage from the last car in the convoy.

“Be glad you’re getting the full 21 guns salute,” said Pat. “we normally just park in the basement and go up to our room.”

Alyssa just shrugged at him.

Ingrid would never call Christine the madam like some of her butlers, but Pat suspected the nickname originated from her as some sort of sycophantic wink. One of the younger butlers said it once a few months ago whether by deliberate accident or some Freudian slip. Christine never corrected them and the lack of an answer became in itself an answer. Pat himself didn’t feel strongly about correcting it.

“This way, Ms Shaw,” said Ingrid leading the party through the side entrance through a very tall door that was almost two floors in height into a lobby that essentially occupied far more.

The palatial lobby was not something one would have glimpsed from the outside. It had vaulted ceiling rising at least two floor up and the impression of being built from a single travertine slab. The lack of windows on ground level was compensated by slanted glass on the ceiling that let in the morning light giving the entire space a warm, stately glow. Almost the entire floor was a large open lobby and one could tell that all the hidden angles were meticulously planned out or eliminated during decoration.

The lobby space was tied together in the middle by a single panoptic front desk of matte black temper glass manned by a brown-haired woman of forgettable feature, from which vantage the entire floor was very visible. Behind the front desk was a statement piece, an actual Cezanne depicting idyllic nude women in a field of grass.

“Subtle,” said Alyssa looking at Pat from the corner of her eyes.

Pat made one of his stupid childish faces and an exaggerated shrug.

“Our address was constructed as a thirty-two floors mixed-use building in the 80s,” said Ingrid pulling away Alyssa’s attention. “One of our ladies, Ms Guo Fei, acquired it in 2010 through her family office, renovating it for sales as a condo. When Master expressed an interest, through Ms Évreux, in creating a global headquarter for our operations inside a resident building, the development shifted directions.”

“We are now structured as a co-op. Excluding Master’s penthouse unit, we are eighty-eight units spanning the fifth floor through twenty sixth, with about ninety percent occupancy rate. About just shy of half of the residents own share in the co-op including Ms Guo who lives in Unit eighty-eighth on the twenty sixth floor. I’m sure you’ll meet her later by the gym upstairs or at any building socials you choose to attend.”

“She wanted Unit eighty-eight to be on the twenty-eighth floor for numerological purposes,” Pat said rolling his eyes. “Christine shot her down real quick. Otherwise, we’d have to move most of the common facilities down here where random people might wander instead of upstairs and I think you know how Christine feels about privacy,” said Pat.

“You said half of the residents own shares but the building is mostly occupied?” said Alyssa wondering out loud.

“Yes, Ms Shaw,” said Ingrid. “All the service personnel and lifestyle support staff live here in the building. Barbers, shoppers, florists, trainers, dermatologists. My team has some of the very best professionals for the aesthetic-conscious women of our building. Master considers us women of the building and also prefers absolutely everything to be done in-house and air-gapped.”

“Right,” said Alyssa. “Paranoid much, Patrick?”

“We also have our security, our chefs and nutritionists, our doctors and nurses,” said Ingrid in a perfectly professional cadence, but was she piling on?

“Doctors and nurses?” said Alyssa with a raised eyebrow.

“According to the building plan, there are four basement floors, Ms Shaw,” said Ingrid. “Unofficially, however, we have a hospital sitting below that and more floors of security infrastructure underneath that.”

“We have a skeletal personnel of ER specialists, radiologists, nurses, lab techs,” said Pat unprompted. “But we bring in our in-network attendings from Mt Sinai or NYU Langone. The operation theaters and the imaging machines are all here. If I have a heart attack, the ER is two elevator ride away. I’m stabilized here, all the tests are run here, the OR is prepped. Only the surgeon is imported. Everything health related about me is done in-house immediately and paperlessly.”

“What?” said Alyssa, her reaction for the first time uncomplicated. She’d never glimpsed this kind of paranoia. “The cost must be astronomical,” she said. Alyssa knew cost wasn’t about the expense itself, rather about hiding the ludicrous receipts of a residential building buying up this much medical equipment.

“It’s not on our books,” said Pat. “A few of our ladies own private hospitals. They technically pay us to store their excess inventory. The depreciations are tax deductible. Go figure,” said Pat.

“Show-off” said Alyssa, regaining her footing with an eyeroll and walked off casually towards Ingrid.

Pat’s mouth was left open. Christine snorted from behind him.  The first sound she made since entering the building.

Good luck buddy, your bragging routine might have worked on a young, impressionable arm candy. She seemed to say. In her esteem, Alyssa is knocking it out of the park on her first day as Patrick’s keeper.

“Floor one through 3A and 3B are lobby and general use amenities including our flagship restaurant, Tei, as well as a guest-permitted lounge area,” said Ingrid continuing with a straight face, pausing to open the heavy Japanese oak door that led into the restaurant.

Warm scent of Hinoki cypress demarcated the restaurant from the general lobby. The host stand is traditional Japanese house reception with low ceiling and large exposed wooden beam that is entirely decorative in this building. Architecturally it is a clean break from the grand vaulted ceiling and stone-based architecture, transitioning the diner to something soft, wooden, intimate, almost conspiratorial.

A hostess stood primly at her station in kimono. She had no name tag, but a simple olive green pin. Cuisine team. “Master,” she said softly. “Ms Évreux. Ms Shaw. Ingrid,” said the hostess, probably Satori, greeting them in turn.

“Satomi,” said Ingrid handing off the tour to her.

“This way please,” said probably Satomi leading everyone including Ingrid into the restaurant.

True to its name, Tei is a quiet palatial pavilion, where concubines might spend the afternoon at tea. The interior is decorated in Japandi style, wood element cut with white colors tied together with a finish of plant green. The floor is Hinoki cypress parquet in herringbone pattern. The walls were painted white and a hint of egg yolk, with the consistency that required tens of run through. The two were brought together by the occasional abstract painting and occasional bushes of olive tree.

“We have fish flown in from Japan almost every day, at Master’s seafood turnover preference,” said Satomi and the word preference sounded like ‘insistence’ and ‘nuisance’.

“Every now and then we will bring in famous Itamae chefs to serve him here. Other than those events, the outlet serves meals round the clock for all residents free of charge on weekdays starting with lunch at eleven AM until last service at ten in the evening, though the venue remains open for residential access around the clock. The Kaiseki sets are especially favored by our residents, but we currently have four chef de cuisines on rotation covering Chinese, Japanese, French-Mediterranean, and Nordic,” said Satomi.

At this point Pat has completely lost interest in the tour and is off chatting with a pair of diners with Persian features elegantly having their Japanese lunch with chopsticks. Nobody except the diners acknowledged his departure or even looked in his general direction.

“Given the theme of the restaurant, we keep the Japanese station running every day. We have three other stations that operate on different days in parallel with separate passes so really, we are closer to four restaurants sharing a front staff than a single kitchen. The same staff also operate La Roche, our resident-only French restaurant on the twenty-fifth floor. In most instance, you will find that when La Roche is open, Tei is closed. For example during breakfast service, which runs six to ten on weekdays and seven to eleven on weekends,” said Satomi ending with a faint smile.

Everyone is ignoring Pat getting a double blowjob by the diners in broad daylight. Nobody save the people at the table knew how it escalated, but nobody bat an eye. Not the servers, not Satomi, not Ingrid, not Christine, and to her credit, not Alyssa.

“I guess now would be a good time to advise you that to avoid bringing outside guests inside the building,” said Ingrid dryly “If you do, please absolutely make sure to sign them in with the Front Desk and keep them on these floors. For security measures, there are hidden cameras from all vantage on floor one through 3B. Our ex-intelligence teams watch them around the clock.”

Pat snorted. “It doesn’t get very uh… catty in here relative to the ah… male-female ratio. But I’m… ah told the girls do talk when you bring someone in off the streets.” He paused, finishing on one of the girl’s face and then squirting the rest of it on the expensive-looking sushi nigiri, probably flown in this morning. “You basically get outsider shamed if you bring them in more often than necessary. Anyways, eat up babes. I’m told the shujin-ko is amazing this time of the year,” said Pat referring to the dish as ‘master’s sperm’ instead of shirako or ‘cod sperm.’

Alyssa ignored him. She looked at Ingrid, then Christine. They looked at the diners. The diners looked at them, but shrugged elegant, almost contemptuously, though they ate up the sushi as ordered. Some things don’t require mind control to create alignment.

“An alert will go up to everyone’s phone that an outsider is in the building and light-based art will go up in the lobby like so,” said Ingrid continuing without missing a beat.

She gave a signal and pointing where several high definition projectors suddenly shine some version of Van Gogh’s flower fields on the wall of the restaurant. “That was for demonstration purposes. Please be sure to keep an eye out for when these arts go up. The same art will go up in the lobby’s revetment behind the front desk and the lobby ceilings.”

Pat made a motorboat sound trivializing the point. “What she means is: Corporate would be unamused if you bring the un-brain-washed mass in here and especially up there where they can’t spy on them. By corporate, I means Christine and the ex-HUMINT taskforce inside our dry wall who reports directly to her,” said Pat.

“Master would be essentially accurate,” said Ingrid dryly, directing the comment at Alyssa. “The front desk area here and the lower floors are monitored by my butlers and our security team at all times in case someone needs assistance. Most, but not all, of our security personnel will have had field experience.”

“I see,” said Alyssa absorbing.

Ingrid led the party back towards the lobby with Satomi following behind back to the host stand. Christine and Pat followed along.

“Bye,” said Pat waving to the diners.

“Bye, Master,” they said waving back.

They cleared Tei’s host stand with Satomi bowing deeply behind them, silently sending them off.

“At least I pay them a living wage, okay?” said Pat out of nowhere, sounding almost defensive. “CIA pay is famously shit. People tend to stay for the ideology and we optimize their mental adjustment for a win-win situation.”

“Yeah, the only problem is we can’t spend it if we don’t get to leave the building, Master,” said the woman from behind the front desk as they walked pass it going towards the elevator. She was a brunette with sharp eyes, an attractive but forgettable face. Her blazer was of a different make, far more comfortable and easier to move in, and beneath it she wore a t-shirt. A blue pin was on her suit as opposed to a white one favored by Ingrid’s team. Security.

“And we can’t leave the building if we’re so thoroughly mindfucked into not even wanting to leave the building,” said the woman, probably Madison.

“Hey, it’s better than your shithole accommodation in Tripoli or Kabul, Maddy. Plus, you’re doing something useful for once in your life,” said Pat. “We’re still on for Saturday. Keep up the good work and I’ll come down the barrack and cum down all your throats.”

‘Maddy’, if that was indeed her name, rolled her eyes at him, but she had a subtle blush on now and a clenched jaw… or perhaps it was just a trick of the light.

Ingrid cleared her throat and continued unfazed as she pressed for the elevator. “Right, as Satomi mentioned, there is another restaurant on the twenty-fifth, La Roche. Breakfast is served every day, Mediterranean and Japanese. But I imagine you’d take your breakfast with Master and Ms Évreux in the penthouse. There are chef’s table dinner events from all of our four CDCs, residential dining-ins, and ladies’ nights among other events which are hosted there every other week. You have a standing invitation as a resident of the penthouse. Ms Évreux made sure that La Roche and Tei opens alternately so residents always have a chance to meet over food.”

“We also have a more private lounge area, event venue for the residents, and meeting rooms. Those are strictly accessible to residents only, if you ever use them. Please do not bring outsiders to the upper floors under any circumstances as we don’t really have a good system for monitoring them.”

“Floor twenty-sixth would be spa and therapy lounge, which can double as programming reinforcement if one is needed,” said Ingrid. “You are unlikely to need them as the penthouse has a private spa unit. Twenty seventh is sports and recreation. Padel courts, golf simulator, anything short of horseback riding we most likely have.”

Alyssa laughed.

“You would not believe the requests to build an in-building ranch. Requests. Plural,” said Pat following the party into the elevator. “I think it’s mostly entitled women testing limits, but with these society women you never know.”

“You do have a type,” said Alyssa.

“Oh yeah, and what type is that?” said Pat.

“Thoroughly mindfucked high maintenance women,” said Alyssa.

“If that’s true it’d make you the gold standard of ‘my types’,”

Alyssa shrugged, examined her nails, and walked ahead of him into the elevator Ingrid held open.

“What an asshole,” he said to Christine as the elevator went up. Christine ignored the comment entirely.

“Hey, speaking of maintenance,” said Pat. “How’s your programming coming along. Do you feel like you need reinforcement?”

“I don’t know how to answer to answer that question, Master,” said Alyssa with a hint of something dry.

“Rhetorical question,” said Pat. “You’ve arrangements for this, Christine?”

“Sure,” said Christine.

“And?”

“I’ll have Alicia look at her upstairs once we’ve settled in,” she said.

Pat had a plan long ago. After ingeniously inventing mind control technology and childishly abusing it for a year, he knew he didn’t have the expertise to fully create or run a global mind control conspiracy. But he knew that’s what it took to keep him safe from friends, strangers, neighbors, the government. He had the single most potent technology ever invented by the human race. But he was a technical guy, not a manager, and not particularly charismatic.

Pat also knew that statistically speaking, someone who could fix his problem was no more than seven degrees of separations away from him. Therefore, if he would brainwash someone and use that access to brainwash the most influential and competent person they know, he will end up with Christine around the seventh consecutive brainwashing. Whoever Christine will be. Alicia was one of the most famous therapists in New York. She was quietly Christine’s therapist. Alicia became the fifth person in the chain that he had brainwashed for this purpose. Christine was the sixth.

After Christine, everything scaled. Alicia now runs research and development for global acquisition. She wrote the brainwashing scripts read to the subjects in trance. She designed the right scripts for the right personalities, filling the right insecurities and gaps, while leaving enough room for field agents and analysts to tailor their own touch to individual requirements.

Deployed on a global scale with uncontrollable variables like values, cultures, languages lost in translation, and personality differences, script making is a grueling, tedious, thankless job that has more moving part than Swiss watchmaking. Too rigid and the scripts break in places. Too fluid and there is no quality control, no method, no measurable science. Either failure mode means exposure. Whether the subject slips their programming or goes crazy as a result, the distinction is entirely academic.

Incidentally, this is why the network’s security task force around the world was designed by a former CIA station chief, structured like an intelligence service, and comprised almost entirely of ex-intelligence officers. Every time there was a brainwashing failure, the exposure is ruthlessly cauterized by hook or by crook. While cauterization is its own challenge, and one should never diminish the value of the women who served, the painful part is what happens after. In debrief and after action review. Whether it was a classic case of the bureaucratic left hand blaming the right or not, with the benefit of hindsight the failure mode is always the brainwashing script.

Someone always used the wrong brainwashing script for the wrong person. Poor Alicia always blames herself for failing Master even if deeper analysis might suggest situational nuances that could not have come to light a priori. In such case, Christine always nudged Pat to take the elevator down to her apartment and therapist the therapist with a good dicking. Pat, bless his heart, almost always does it before the third nudge.

Alyssa, however, was different animal. A month ago, Pat accidentally bumped into his celebrity crush while drunk at the Cannes Film Festival, an event he had no business going to. He had his ex-intelligence bodyguards created an opening, against their protests, and followed her to her hotel. He programmed her frivolously while still drunk, slept with her, and left before she woke up with memory fragments. She initially resisted the brainwashing. She threw a public tantrum mentioning Christine and her front organization in a paper positively, but exposure was still exposure and that was her opening salvo.

Nevertheless, having met him and having been told what he put in her head, she decided she wanted to be brainwashed into a compliant, devoted, sex kitten because it felt good and it took away all her problems. Whether that was entirely her own idea or was she a hedonist who took hints from the ‘it feels so good to be brainwashed by me’ line, which Pat probably said while she was under influence, was anybody’s guess. But the distinction was again purely academic. Sometimes, everything just works out in the end.

“Right because I’m concerned…”

“Patrick, she’s right there,” said Christine.

“Right where?” said Pat grabbing Alyssa’s ass. “She doesn’t mind, does she?” he asked her.

Alyssa gave him a sarcastic wry smile. “No, Master. I really do not.”