"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

Mantric words fit like a key biting into a rigid keyhole spring, slightly rusty from waning use. The divots were hastily filled, and a retreating sense of self moved further inwards, having to abandon the upper surface levels under sudden external control. Beyond the reinforcement was unadulterated exposure, the likes of which had not been felt before by the body that sat naked in an enclosure. The sheen of light sweat told mostly subdued senses the enclosure was warm, and that restraints kept him fixed there like the internal undercurrent of waiting for external stimulation to produce new thoughts he could call his own, excluding the safeguarded ones identifiably his own. Deep breaths he could still regulate on his own gave most of his senses the awareness needed, enough to tell him how particularly-incarcerated he was.

Dr. Richard Thorn's mind was one of the strongest in the world, honed with decades of training, equating, reinforcing, and compartmentalizing. It was thankfully-suited for the even task of sheltering a beleaguered consciousness uniquely compromised, turning a bunker into a true solace for him, a miniaturized Washington D.C. Library of Congress, ideal for accessing knowledge and memories within a secure barrier. 

A mathematical prodigy, he put his numerically-focused brain to tasks of all kinds in his everyday life, especially his professional work as a Quant, a specialized independent contractor using their skills to often help the government. Under the infamous designation "Vector," he took on the busiest, arguably most corrupt area of the country, none other than its illustrious capital, making him the most valuable for those in need of his skills, especially as the brand of corruption evolved over time. Monetary compensation was the start like always, then threats, then threats that had to be carried out over time. Through the means of some odd circumstances, mind control caught on as the most effective means of keeping illegal and dangerous activities hidden and operating without issue. 

Mechanical-based brainwashing, chemical of the same goal, even occult forms of subjugation became popular amongst the forces that could afford to employ their own specialists. No offenders rated more dangerous than those who were mind-controlling specialists themselves, such as the Parnassus family. A rich clan, merely a few generations away from mostly self-made, self-appointed aristocrats, the Parnassus family seemed above-ground and untouchable to most; many in the government were sure of too many crimes they were behind, but could not move in to officially investigate due to insufficient evidence, or the silent fear of any sanctioned officiator sent to clear them would be under their influence. Unsanctioned, contractible agents like Quants made for the government's best chance at exposing the family, not to mention Richard had his suspicions about them for the longest time, only a degree of separation or two away from some of his most trying cases.

"Welcome back, my esteemed guest."

A wave of wonderment washed over conflicted emotions, over the mantra safeguarding what little was left uncompromised. Analyzing the attributes of disposition helped steel hidden resolve, matching effects with possible agents that seized him, bringing Richard to the realization that his last conscious memory was prior to the capture. The last clear memory was after having left the Parnassus estate, with Ella in tow...

"Oh no," the deepest part of him realized.

"Perhaps it's more accurate to say, welcome, my esteemed vassal, to your new existence."

Every sentence was a new wave, spoken with proper allocution and a rich, feminine, experienced voice, leaving him to marvel it over obvious, plaguing concerns. The voice belonged to Elowyn Parnassus, the velvet glove of the Parnassus family, supposedly the odd one out in their collection of manipulative men who loved collecting malleable toys from women of all kinds. His mission to infiltrate and investigate the family was risky, but he never expected the comparatively-timid mother of his real target to pose much threat. Elowyn was the one that stayed quiet when it came to official business of sorting the family's complicated books. Elowyn was the one that safeguarded Ella, known personally to Richard as his faithful assistant and mathematical genius Subprime, when the men wanted to have their way with her. Elowyn was the one to lead her away, and from the last he noted of Ella's expression, give her a modicum of relief, when no man in the vicinity would, not even her partner and often protector in Vector.

That thought struck him hard, reminding him of the gap in time between the last recallable memories of sorting out what he'd found at the Parnassus compound, and waking up to a condition of automated safeguarding against mental intrusion. 

"And what do you say to this gracious welcome I've extended to you?" 

"...thank..you.....Mistress..."

Blurry eyes widened at the sound of what left his mouth, lips tingling alarmingly in a plea to repeat the title he'd given Elowyn.

"You're very welcome, Dr. Pendleton. Or is it, Dr. Thorn? Or is it, the scary 'Vector' I've heard so much about? I think I'll just refer to you as, my good man."

Dr. Thorn's inside lit up, and the temperature where his inner self hid rose by several degrees at the praise from his captor.

"I can see you're already enjoying our hospitality, and I'm more than certain that over time, you'd find yourself opening yourself up to more, as Ella so sweetly has done for the both of us...or perhaps just me."

Another wave carried sharp implications that Ella was the linchpin in Elowyn's recent victory, a Trojan horse he brought back filled with suggestions that somehow countered long-established shields and programming meant to maximize her safety and the mission's rate of success. How the latter was more prioritized than the other stabbed at him, and began to explain why his physical body was trapped in a meditative state, eyes closed and trapped in what felt like a deprivation chamber, where the only thing able to get in was Elowyn's voice, awash with her programming over and over as silken, sophisticated tones bounced off of every surrounding surface.

"I would love to stay and chat longer, but I am expected elsewhere for the moment. I hope you don't mind my leaving you to your thoughts for now; it's the most sporting thing I can do for you as you begin to become more in-tuned to my thoughts, and the beneficial arrangement I wholeheartedly believe we can come to before long. Ta ta for now, my good man."

The pronounced sound of Elowyn's heels fading off ate at his affectionate side, already missing her company. That side of Vector far away from his strategic hiding place, he ignored that emotion and began summoning the important parts left to come to the agreement that would aid in his inevitable escape.

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

***

Richard was unsure how much time had passed, but as consciousness crept back into himself, the reflexive mantra sounded off again.

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, i-"

Hissing sounds surrounding him interrupted the chant, as something shifted and evidence of light and a cooler air temperature brushed over his body.

"Hmmmm, I think you've had enough time to your own thoughts for now. Enough deprivation, now comes stimulation." Awareness still crept slowly to make keen identifications, but he was quite sure of whose voice had just spoken.

Soft hands covered his lightly-tanned body, running down his fairly thin and lightly muscular chest, across shoulders and down his arms, aiming for the leather restraints covered his wrists. The voice continued speaking directly in his ear while hands managed to untie him without looking. Arms fell limply at his sides, raised by the hands that released him, until they found enough life to hold on.

Nearly chapped lips that kept moisturized from the warmth of the deprivation chamber spoke past the croaking, telling him it'd been that long since he bothered speaking aloud, or was allowed to.

"What date is t-this? What is the d....d-day?" As Vector was being pulled up, helpful hands pulled him up to lay his head on a shoulder.

No answer was given, but his querying mind still desired answers.

"Today is...is a date...should remember."

"I wouldn't worry," the voice sweetly intoned. "Time was relative before, but meaningless now as far as you're concerned."

"Relative to the day...the time is meaningless, but dates aren't," his declaration sounded more like a plea. "Need dates....to center the day...need to know the center...24th....4th...5th...14th....need day centered, to know where....where the when of a centered day should be...a date like...compass...15th...12th...19th...28th...9th..."

Something in Richard's voice changed his intonation without changing the nature of the pleading.

"Can it be the 25th...4th....13th...21st...to know the date of a centered day before it is centered to me to SLEEP!"

Extending himself further out mentally, he was physically ready to catch the body that fell into his weak grasp as they both fell in the seat Vector was trapped to, whispering closely in ear of the woman who released him. Dreary eyes turned willfully clear to see a young woman that sounded eerily like Elowyn, taken by the confusing words wrapped in subtle conversational spelling, dipped in the need of someone she was there to attend to, and attend she would if Richard had anything to say.

Whispering at a low pitch, he gave her a foundation of suggestions to start, to make her a quiet advocate of his without arousing suspicion. It may have simply looked like they'd lost balance and he'd fell back to the chair, or so he hoped. She quietly affirmed the start of his control, as she moved to do what she was made to do from the start, to begin to make him presentable to the woman who expected a new brainwashed toy to be ready for her. The young woman moved to retrieve a towel somewhere behind him, caught off-guard by another figure that smirked and blew a white powdery substance in her face, stopping her in her tracks, releasing energy from her limbs as she fell to the floor. The sound of her being stepped over, worried Richard, especially as a delighted Elowyn came into view.

An elegant woman in his age bracket, it was easy to want to track her whether she was playing mild and concerned dowager, or radiant predator. A healthy physique, the fair-skinned woman was toned and volupous in an understated way. Straight dark chestnut hair falling to her shoulder it framed her face that deceived Vector well in judging her intelligence, or misjudging it. 

Sniffing the air, Vector made a quick observation. "Scopolamine."

"Something I thought I might need if I left an impressionable servant nearby."

"Did you control her that way?" he asked, noting the similarity in Elowyn's and the servant's voice, and even more in their looks.

"No, her conditioning was something more thorough. But to see you subvert that so quickly...you truly are an impressive specimen."

"Some distant cousin?" He wondered out loud.

"No, my husband's attempt to play with a younger me from time to time, down to plastic surgery to relive his old days," she spoke in clear annoyance. 

"Did she always sound like you?"

"Only after 'modified vocal coaching,' but before, not nearly. But Delphine still manages to be properly useful from time to time."

"Set Delphine over there," Elowyn spoke with absent scorn to another slave, dragging the body towards where she originally was. 

Vector was taken aback by the depraved callousness of Parnassus senior, having underestimated what he would indirectly do to his close-knit "love ones".

"But she was useful in giving you a sense of an almost victory; better to take these wins where you may be afforded them."

"Well, Mrs. Parnassus..."

"Please, my good man. It's Elowyn. Mistress Elowyn to you," she teased his van dyke-style facial hair, enjoying running her fingers across the horizontal length and down his chin.

"...Mistress Elowyn," he corrected himself despite himself, bearing an even expression clearly-stating to its intuitive recipient "you know what I would want from you; would telling me what you want from me be out of the question?"

Dressed causally for a socialite of her stature, she wore a simple floor-length black velvet dress that hugged significant parts of her, while the rest of the dress moved as smooth as the fabric looked. Elowyn's approach towards him, splendorous and gracious, occupied most of his attention as lithe fingers extended near his face.

"The pretense you originally arrived here under was clandestine-enough that your true motives leave me without fully knowing your wants from me, as static as the state you find yourself in where my motives can be just as clandestine, truly out of reach, no matter how clear they may be," she spoke slowly, admiring the features of his face like an art exhibit she knew she was not allowed to touch, oddly enough. And no matter how numb his will felt, the facial hairs barely brushed with her fingertips reacted like nerve endings stroked with positive stimulation. "It may become clear in our actions, how you construct an escape plan with brilliant subterfuge, cloaked verbiage, and a garnish of wizardry to mount an escape you're still unsure if you truly want. Unsurety not in the sincerity of my words, but because you don't know how much of yourself has been programmed to want it, which has blurred how much you may have wanted this of your own will. And if you cannot account for a true part of yourself, the motive of the whole is left to experience what is, and what will be."

Vector was sparsely aware of how magnetized his hairs were to her touch, leading his head in a soft, rocking motion as he followed Elowyn's voice, the quality moreso than the intensive meaning. The longer she spoke the more the words traveled a great distance, reverberating in its travels enough to discern her voice echoing lightly from within him, fading along it's journey. How his words would travel without dissipating within Ella to the degree that she could no longer tell where his commands left off and she started reminded him of Ella again, and the impressive nature of what Elowyn proved to be capable of.

"You.....y-you're.....you're...Quant?" His lips formed before sound emerged to ask his intuitive question.

"One would be honored that you think so, but no. Merely someone interested in the practice, and interested in flattery, when it comes to imitation," magnetic fingers pulling at his mind moved so her palm could rest over his forehead, dragging his head and eyes back under her tow. Elowyn's tease eliciting joy and confusion as she brought the hand down to face him again.

"It's truly amazing how chemical and mechanical subversions of control bring someone back to the drawing board, a fresh canvas to paint a person however you like with enough material strength and wattage. Much of the Parnassus fortune is wrapped up in varying degrees of this, as you may have well discovered by now. It does wonders for the menial and bulk of whatever supply is in demand, as long as you're willing to use too much of either." Elowyn stepped away to gently knead at the unmoving body of her younger doppelganger with a black slipper, callously playing with it as if Delphine had expired from the recent drugging.

"But only those of us with considerate eyes for effective supply would know the shortcomings that go along with them, a workforce so blank you have to keep programming them, keep instructing them to be of any use. That rates such means for a short-term end only. Comparing our menials to how you've conditioned Ella, I can only conclude that what those other means truly lack is soul."

Richard managed to raise an eyebrow as her reasoned compliment.

"Speaking to someone's soul, reaching it with your own voice produces a world of difference. The cocktail of your control has been mixed to perfection, but alas the true ingredient is your personal connection, your willingness to acknowledge her personage." 

"Then why do you continue to use the deficient means on me?"

"Who says I intend to? That rare control you concoct, the Soombakiya...."

Letting the word linger in the air gave the Quant enough time to be shocked at how she knew the ancient Nepali term for 'magnetism.'

"...it's one worth learning, but it is not easy."

"And...am I to be your teacher?"

"In theory, I should humbly accept the title of pupil from an esteemed mesmerist like yourself...but I have also seen what's befallen Ella."

That stabbed at the unmoving Quant, remembering the reluctance his apprentice showed during, and well before the Parnassus task.

"If anything, I am learning now more than ever how to be your peer."

"You have no idea what it's taken to reach where I am."

"I have made it this far, in a system and society ready to suppress a woman with similar abilities no matter her station or wealth. It is you who have no idea what it takes to reach where I am. But you will learn."

She waved her hand at his face, giving one more mystical tug, before physically pushing him back into his captive seat.

"Stay, still" she ordered, and he obliged.

"We both will learn," she whispered, fastening his restraints again. 

"What will you do with Ella?" he questioned as the machinery around him began to reseal him in more deprivation. She only answered with a soft and knowing smile, leaving him to resume the weaker mind control. His inner self retreated back into the bunker, only then cognizant of having been drawn out of it. Richard wondered if Elowyn was aware she managed that, admiring if nothing else her very raw talent and drive.

Before he could resume his mantras again, an image flashed in-front of him on a screen, showing what looked like security footage of a part of the family's estate, specifically their walled garden. The image of Elowyn and Ella came into view, and Richard's eyes widened. Each woman wore the same attire as when he was known to them as their contracted accountant, or so he thought. The women were sitting, and Elowyn was comforting Ella like nothing else at her estate, rescuing her from every man's manipulative trapping. The way Ella softened to Elowyn and the surroundings, Richard felt his spirit faltering as he was shown the moment he lost his greatest, most reluctant ally.