His fingers traced the wall of implements, selecting a sleek black cattle prod from its mount. The electrical device hummed in his hands, matching the rage coursing through his veins. Without hesitation, he pressed the prod against Deirdre's thigh, triggering a violent jolt that made her body spasm against the restraints. After a handful of well-applied shocks, he removed her gag and asked, growling.
“How do I break her programming?” He pressed the prod harder, watching Deirdre almost pee herself. “Tell me how to wake Laura up, or I’ll make what you just did to me look like a pleasant afternoon.”
Deirdre’s eyes, once filled with sadistic triumph, now darted with genuine panic. This couldn’t be happening! Not when her dreams of control were so close to becoming a reality. “Tell me now!” Jeremy insisted.
Her lips trembled, caught between defiance and the very real threat of another shock. Jeremy knew she understood he was no longer playing by her rules. This was a moment of reckoning, and he was prepared to go as far as necessary to save Laura from her psychological prison.
“Okay, bitch. If this is how you want to play it…”
The cattle prod crackled again. Jeremy positioned it against Deirdre’s breasts and as close as possible to her heart. A hit there would be ten times more painful, enough to make her whimper.
“The programming,” he demanded. “How do I reverse it?”
Deirdre laughed, refusing to be broken by his threats. “You don’t. That’s impossible. Laura's neural pathways have permanently reconfigured. You can't undo what Omicron has done to her mind.”
Jeremy zapped her again, harder. Electricity arced across her skin, leaving angry red marks in its way. “There's always a way,” he snarled. “You need a system in place in case the brainwashing doesn’t work as intended. I don't accept 'impossible' as an answer.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t understand the complexity of the mechanisms in play. One doesn’t simply ‘turn off’ deep neural conditioning. Laura has been fundamentally altered. She’ll never be the same again.”
“You’re lying because that’s all you know how to do.” Jeremy zapped her again, taking great delight in watching her squirm. However, time was running against him. What would happen if someone came to check up on them? He was but one man in a subterranean fortress brimming with thralls, and he couldn’t take them all on. His only choice was to awaken Laura and then have her use her hacker skills against Deirdre and so he kept pushing.
After several more precise strikes with the cattle prod, something in Deirdre's steely demeanor fractured. Her proud composure dissolved into ragged breaths and involuntary whimpers. She was so used to being in control by now that the thought of losing it all was taking its toll on her.
“There… might be a reset sequence,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “But you’ll never figure it out alone. You need to release me.”
“Not a chance in hell!” Jeremy leaned closer, this time aiming the vicious implement at her pussy. “Start talking. Now.”
Deirdre's lips trembled. She understood Jeremy was no longer playing by her carefully constructed rules of psychological manipulation. This was pure survival now and she needed to stay conscious long enough to fight another day.
“The neural override requires a specific quantum frequency,” she muttered, sweat beading on her forehead. “It's embedded in the original Omicron programming. A harmonic resonance that can disrupt the implanted triggers.”
“And how do I access that frequency?”
“Try the monitor next to the one you broke. You’ll find a folder there with an inverted Omicron symbol. To access it, input the code six-seven-three-delta-omega-nine.”
“This better not be a ruse or I swear you won’t make it out of this room alive,” Jeremy growled.
“I swear I’m not lying. If you want her back, it’s the only way.”
Jeremy rushed to the adjacent monitor, fingers flying across the keyboard as he input the cryptic code. A folder materialized on the screen, its inverted Omicron symbol pulsing with an eerie digital heartbeat. Multiple audio files populated the directory - some labeled with standard extensions, others with incomprehensible alphanumeric strings.
He clicked on the first file. Static erupted from the speakers, then a high-pitched tone that made his ears ring. Beneath the audible frequencies, something else vibrated - a subsonic pulse just beyond human perception. Jeremy's skin crawled. These weren't ordinary sound files.
“What the hell are these?” he demanded, spinning back to Deirdre. “Explain exactly what I'm looking at.”
“Neural recalibration frequencies. Some are designed to reset, others to reinforce. Not all are meant for human hearing.”
Jeremy selected another file. This one produced a low, almost imperceptible humming that resonated deep within his skull. It was only a couple of seconds, but he could feel something shifting, like invisible fingers trying to rearrange his thoughts. He turned it and cursed out loud.
“There are too many of these. Which is the correct one?”
“I don’t remember…” Deirdre grinned.
“Stop lying!”
“I’m not, Jeremy. I need to see the file names. It’s the only way to know for sure.”
The tension in the room built to an almost unbearable degree as his option list grew smaller and smaller. This was taking too long already. Every second wasted made their predicament even more dangerous.
His eyes roved between Deirdre and the monitor, calculating risks. She was still restrained, still vulnerable, but he couldn’t underestimate her. He ran to her and unbuckled her restraints.
“Don't even think about trying anything,” he warned, pressing the cattle prod against her neck. “One wrong move and I’m frying your brain next.”
Deirdre massaged her wrists, a calculated smirk playing across her lips. Her body language suggested compliance, but her eyes betrayed a deeper intention. She approached the monitor, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
A faint rustling caught Jeremy’s attention. Laura was stirring. Her fingers twitched, her breathing changing rhythm. He couldn’t risk her falling back into her programmed state.
“Hurry,” he growled at Deirdre, the prod still menacingly close. “Activate the right frequency. Now.”
Her fingers danced across the keyboard, selecting a file with a cryptic alphanumeric sequence, but also a hidden file in the lower-right corner of the screen. The moment she pressed enter, a piercing alarm shrieked through the facility. Red emergency lights began strobing, casting sharp shadows across the room. Dozens of metallic footsteps echoed from surrounding corridors - the thralls were converging, their synchronized movements like a mechanical hive mind.
Jeremy's reflexes took over. He swung the cattle prod in a vicious arc, striking Deirdre directly across her temple. She crumpled instantly, her body folding like a broken marionette. Before she hit the ground, he spun toward Laura.
Her body was writhing, muscles contracting in violent, uncontrolled spasms. Her spine arched at an impossible angle, hands clutching and releasing rhythmically. Foam bubbled at the corner of her mouth, her eyes rolling back into her skull.
“Fuck!” he screamed. “Laura, hold on! Please hold on.”
The violent tremors gradually subsided, Laura's muscles finally relaxing into a limp stillness. Jeremy watched, heart pounding, as her eyelids fluttered. A soft groan escaped her lips, her hand weakly reaching toward the back of her head.
“Jeremy?” Her voice was a rasping whisper, barely audible over the blaring emergency alarms. She winced, pressing fingertips against her temple where a savage pain throbbed in sharp, irregular pulses. “What... what's happening?”
Jeremy checked her pupils and her pulse. “Stay calm. Deirdre mindfucked you but I got you back. The problem is we’re under attack now. I need you to do something for me. Can you transmit a signal across the complex?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Then you need to figure out soon. I’m sorry to put so much pressure on you so suddenly, but there’s no other choice.”
The angry footsteps grew louder outside the room, dozens of brainwashed men and women coming at them like ravenous zombies desperate for a meal. For now, the massive doors held them at bay, but it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.
“Can you move?” he asked. “We need to do this quickly while we still can.”
Laura blinked, trying to focus, her body still weak from the neural reset. “I think so,” she mumbled. “But something feels... different.”
“You’ve been through a lot, and so have I. I hate to dismiss your feelings, but please! You need to hurry.”
“Okay, okay.”
Jeremy's strong hands gripped Laura's shoulders, guiding her unsteady frame toward the computer terminal. Her vision swam with fragmented images and disorienting light patterns, each movement sending sharp electrical pulses through her neural pathways. The monitor's blue-white screen initially appeared as an incomprehensible blur of shifting pixels and cryptic code.
But something fundamental was happening inside her mind. Like a dormant network slowly powering back up, her hacking instincts began reasserting themselves. Muscle memory from years of system infiltration started reconnecting - fingers hovering over the keyboard with an unconscious precision that transcended her current physical weakness.
Her pupils dilated. The scrambled screen suddenly resolved into clear data streams, network architecture diagrams, and encrypted communication protocols. She saw not just images, but entire system vulnerabilities - hidden backdoors, authentication bypass points, recursive logic holes that most humans would never perceive.
“I'm in,” she whispered, her fingers already dancing across the keyboard with inhuman speed. Lines of code materialized faster than Jeremy could track, complex algorithmic structures unfolding like digital origami. “What do you need?”
“Transmit that frequency throughout every speaker in the complex,” he replied. “We need to slow them down.”
“That’s it?”
“Can you do more?”
“How about I dismantle the entire security infrastructure, one line of code at a time?” Laura smirked, starting to feel like herself again.
“That would be great, but the frequency first, please!
“On to it.”
The speakers throughout the complex erupted with a piercing, subliminal tone. Outside the room, the synchronized marching of thralls immediately stopped. 
Bodies jerked and twitched, neural pathways violently recalibrating. Their mechanical precision dissolved into chaotic individual movements. Some collapsed, hands clutching their heads. Others stumbled sideways, eyes blinking rapidly as their programmed conditioning shattered like brittle glass.
Jeremy watched the security monitors, witnessing the cascade of disruption spreading across every area of the complex. Dozens of bodies writhed on the floor.
“It's working,” Laura muttered, her fingers still flying across the keyboard. Blood trickled from her right nostril, a side effect from the prolonged exposure to the disrupting frequency. When she felt it was enough, she stopped the sound and sighed.
“Good work,” Jeremy said, feeling a hint of relief for the first time since they had entered that underground hellish lair.
“Now what? Do we just leave? All those people out there… We need to make sure they’re okay.”
“You’re right…” he mumbled, sitting on the floor. “I just need a breather first.”
“I’m with you,” Laura said, sitting next to him, her head leaning against his shoulder. “Fuck! Did this really happen?”
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? I mean, never in my wildest dreams did I think this was where we would end up after Alfred gave me the assignment.”
“Yeah… Look at it this way, though. You have quite an article to write now. You’re going to get famous for this.”
“Do you think so?” he whistled, trying to laugh at the whole ordeal. “Maybe I’ll even get a raise.”
“Now now…” she chuckled. “It’s okay to dream, but don’t overdo it. We both know how stingy Alfred is when it comes to money. Still, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding a better job after this.”
“No one is going to believe us, Laura,” he gently kissed her forehead.
“The evidence is right here, Jeremy. They’ll have no choice but to believe, especially after Deirdre spills the beans. “Laura glanced at the knocked-out businesswoman. “You’ll probably have some explaining to do after what you did to her, though.”
“Me?” Jeremy scoffed. “Self-defense, baby! I wasn’t going to let that bitch hurt anyone else. How are you feeling?”
“Things are still a bit hazy, to be honest. Did we really do it in front of her?”
“Yes, we did,” Jeremy took a deep breath, recalling just how hard he had to fake it until the moment was right.
“Well, that’s a story we’re never going to tell anyone. I’m just curious about something…”
“Let me guess: why didn’t Omicron work on me, right?”
“I mean… Yeah! What do you have that I don’t?” 
“The Black Queen helped me…” he said, suddenly realizing how absurd that sounded out loud.
“You saw her again?”
“I did. Inside my head. It was weird, Laura. It was really weird.”
“Not as weird as what she did to me. This tech is too dangerous, Jeremy. Can you imagine what our government will do if it gets its hands on it?”
“I’d rather not think about that. What I want is to go home right now. I wonder if it’s safe to go out there right now.”
“Let’s find out.”
Jeremy's hand hesitated on the doorknob, with Laura standing just behind him. When he finally pushed it open, bodies were strewn everywhere - across floors, slumped against walls, draped over chairs and desks. The hallway looked like the aftermath of some massive tranquilizer attack.
The first movement came from a woman near a computer terminal. Her hand twitched, fingers curling involuntarily. Then another body stirred - a man in a white lab coat groaned and rolled onto his side. Within moments, the room transformed from a silent tableau of unconsciousness to a symphony of confused murmurs and disoriented movements.
“What… What is this place?” a middle-aged man mumbled, struggling to sit upright.
Laura scanned the scene, her hacking-enhanced perception picking up subtle details in everyone’s movements. “The frequency disruption must have caused a total neural reset,” she whispered to Jeremy. “They're experiencing a mass cognitive reboot.”
More people were awakening now, their movements disoriented and uncertain. Some looked terrified, others merely bewildered. A young woman near a potted plant started crying softly, overwhelmed by the inexplicable situation, while a senior researcher muttered: “Oh my god! What was I doing? What were we all doing?”
Jeremy gripped Laura’s hand, sensing potential danger even in their apparent victory. Some of these people might still be mindfucked. But the confusion seemed genuine - these weren't trained soldiers, but bewildered scientists suddenly awakening from a collective nightmare.
“I think we’re good,” Laura said, caressing his fingers. “You can relax now.”
“Not until we’re all out of here. We still need to decide what we do in the meantime, though.”
“Do you have an idea?”
“I do, but I’d like to run it by you first.”
“Tell me.”
He whispered in her ear under the bewildered gaze of a dozen men and women. Laura gasped when he heard his plan.
“Oh, that’s evil!” she said.
“Is it? Because it feels right to me.”
“Normally, I would have to disagree, but…”
“So you’re okay with it?”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t see a thing,” she winked at him.
“Then I'd better get to it before anyone asks questions. Will you be okay on your own?”
“I’m always okay, Jeremy. Go.”
He smiled from cheek to cheek and walked to the vault. If Deirdre loved Omicron so much, it was time to see if she felt the same way after being trapped inside its virtual world.

((to be continued))