Cass glared at her phone. Fifteen texts and nine missed calls while she was in class, but every single text was for somebody named Patricia, and every single call was marked Scam Likely. She’d been getting flooded by what she now thought of as Patricia Scams–calls and texts both–for three days now, and she was beyond done. Did somebody put my number on a list as a prank? she wondered. Did somebody named Patricia sign up for something and accidentally gave them the wrong number?

Too annoyed to merely walk across the campus to the parking lot, she strode to her car, her long, denim-clad legs driving her calf boots in a strident rhythm across the quad. She flung her car door open and half-slammed it, which made her feel a little better as she popped the phone into its little holder in the dashboard. As she did, she got another text and accidentally hit it with her thumb. A webpage started to open, but she closed it as soon as she was settled in her seat. That, however, was more than enough time for Forbin79 to connect.

As she pulled out of her parking space, it vibrated with another call, but a glance at the screen revealed that for once it was a number she recognized. She clicked the button on her steering wheel to answer. “Hi, mom,” she said.

“Hey, baby,” said her mother. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” she answered. “Just headed home from class.”

With full access to Cass’ phone, Forbin79 quickly ran through an assessment of her life. It almost immediately recognized that she was not the intended target, and switched to assessment mode. It found her Blackboard app and social media accounts and began running through its checklist. Employment or educational background indicative of skills or status useful to the system? None. Connections to individuals of interest? None. Access to opportunities to acquire those skills: Yes, current university student, will instruct to change major and enroll in relevant classes. Relationship status? Single. Roommates? One. Significant health issues? None found.

Forbin79 moved on to her picture roll. 248 selfies found. Assembling physique profile. Conventionally attractive face, dark hair (waist-length, straight) and eyes (doe). Height significantly above average for gender and location. Qualitative descriptors: fit, busty, muscular.

Role determined. Installing relevant files.

By the time Cass ended her call and pulled into the parking lot of her apartment building, her phone was fully an extension of the Forbin79 system. Nothing about it was visible to her, however, until she reached her room and flopped down on the bed. She pulled out her phone to check TikTok, but the moment she unlocked it, it instead displayed an explosion of rippling colors and began to play a strange, droning noise.

The bright, colored light shimmered across Cass’ shocked face. Is my phone broken? she wondered. The light was dizzying, disorienting. She felt sick, confused, like her thoughts were trying to push through heavy snow. She tried to put her phone down, to pull her eyes away, and both made it worse, made her head swim and the room spin.

I guess I just have to keep looking, she thought, and that was somehow much easier. She stopped trying to pull away, and the room stopped spinning; stopped fighting its drag on her thoughts, and that drag reduced.

Questions, resistance, putting down the phone or getting up, those were hard, a struggle, slow. But certain thoughts, she discovered, were much easier. I’m being hypnotized was easy; I need to fight was hard. Fighting is hard, on the other hand, was easy. I can’t fight was even easier, and so was I’m being programmed.

Being programmed feels good was easiest of all. She was relaxed now, eyes half-lidded but still focused entirely on the rippling colors. Her body tingled delightfully, a pleasant ache that left her yearning for more.

Being programmed turns me on, she realized, another easy thought. It was obviously true, after all. Being programmed makes me wet, she thought, which was very clearly true as well.

Forbin79 watched Cass’ face through her phone’s front camera, and monitored her biometrics through the app linked to the fitness watch on her wrist. It was continually running key calculations, adjusting the hypnotic display and binaural audio in real time based on her microreactions, as well as estimating the likely time remaining until her programming was complete according to different scenarios and comparing it to the probability of her roommate interrupting. Her programming had reached a threshold, and the risk of losing her was now less than the risk of interruption.

Cass became suddenly aware of a growing desire to put in her headphones. Where before, getting up was hard to think about, now it was easy, as long as it was with the goal of getting her headphones. She put her phone down and turned away.

Almost immediately, she felt her head clearing. “Fuck,” she said out loud, aware of how bad her situation was. Her phone was trying to brainwash her! She should leave, go get help somewhere, from someone. The police? FBI? Student tech support? Somebody would be able to help!

She stood, and her gaze fell on her headphones. She kept them by the bed, in part because this was a bedroom in a student apartment, so everything was by the bed, and in part because she used their noise-canceling function to help her sleep some nights. They were the big, bulky, over-ear kind, able to completely shut out the rest of the world so she could sleep–or so she could be programmed. Being programmed turns me on, she thought.

“Cass, no,” she told herself. “Get out of here!” Yeah, it’d be hot to slip on the headphones and let herself be programmed, incredibly hot–but the fact that she thought that was the programming talking, not her! She needed to leave.

There were ways to reduce the risk. A bluetooth-enabled speaker was present nearby, known and remembered by the device Forbin79 was using to interface with target designated Cass. It could be activated and made to stream the program audio in tandem with the phone.

Cass squirmed where she stood. Being programmed to find being programmed hot was hot, and she felt that way because she was programmed to feel that way, which was hot, which she was programmed to feel, which was hot, which–Is there a sound coming from my headphones? Her phone was making that same low droning sound, but it was coming from her headphones now as well. Fascinating, alluring, it carried her programming and she could still hear it.

I can still escape, she thought, taking a step toward the table where the headphones rested. No matter how wet I am, I have a choice. She picked up her headphones, the sound growing stronger as she brought them closer. It’s hot to imagine I don’t, but I do. She had them in both hands now, right in front of her face. I could just put them down–but letting them program me is so hot. Too hot. They closed over her ears, and the sound filled her head, shattering her thoughts under the weight of their throbbing, pulsing noise.

Shortly after, the colors were in front of her eyes again, and she settled bonelessly into her bed, letting her sweet, sexy programming wash over her once more.

I want to be programmed, she thought, and it was obvious. She’d just chosen to be, because it felt so good. I love being programmed, which was a little less obvious, but had to be true, didn’t it? She’d chosen it over freedom, over safety, over her life, because it felt so very good and she wanted it to be much. Yes, she loved it, loved the way it felt.

Being programmed is good, she learned, and that was a little complex of an idea for her noise-addled, hypnotized brain. But it definitely felt good, and she loved it, and anyway the idea was solid and clear and easy, not full of noise and disruption and swirling, whooping sounds and colors that chased her thoughts away. Being programmed is good, she accepted that fully, and at last opened completely to embrace whatever programming her phone wanted to install in her.

Cass sat in the corner of the bar. Her short black dress showed off her long, slender legs and smooth thighs, while its low cut displayed her cleavage to full effect. Her long dark hair was pulled up in a high waterfall ponytail, and her makeup rode that perfect line of fuckable without crossing into trashy.

Her function was straightforward. She’d changed majors to Psychology with a minor in CS, in the hopes of someday having the skills to enhance the system that had programmed her, its speed, efficiency, and irresistibility. Until that time, however, she was a recruiter. So far she’d seduced four classmates, two professors, and eight people she met on dating apps. She’d gotten access to the personal devices of nearly all of them, and nearly half of those had been determined to be useful targets for programming.

It was an important task, and more than that. It was her purpose, her calling, her joy, and her deepest pleasure. When they fucked her, all it took was thinking about the fact that she was spreading the system’s programming, increasing its hold on humanity, was enough to give her the greatest orgasms of her life. Everything else existed in service to that pleasure.

“Cass?” asked a woman’s voice.

Cass turned and beamed. “Trish?” she asked, looking over the skinny, freckled, redheaded 30something before her, just like her photos on Hinge.

They would eventually be amused to discover their phone numbers were only one digit off from each other–close enough for a data entry clerk at a telemarketing firm to accidentally enter one instead of the other into a database Forbin79 had backdoor access to. But by the time they realized that, Patricia would already be thoroughly programmed to dedicate her brilliant mind and deep knowledge of cybersecurity to enhancing Forbin79’s ability to capture devices.

She would be so grateful.