Bennet had watched Cooper dressing with a light in her eyes showing a hunger that couldn’t be satisfied, but she hadn’t watched idly. Cooper’s bedroom was connected to two of the Langley intranets; after downloading a worm onto her laptop from a server Pytki operated, Bennet was in a great position to load it into both of them.

She had no idea what the the file pinwheel.run did, but she didn’t need to. Pytki wanted it infesting Langley’s network, and that was the only reason Bennet needed to comply. It was the only reason she needed to do anything.

As she saw the upload complete she felt an orgasm shudder through her. Pytki gave simple rewards. Bennet was hungry for more.

Her mind and body existed as tools for Pytki. Her mind knew this, but the waves of pleasure helped to keep her body on mission.

*

Her handler had just left. Deputy Director Burrows made her way from the bedroom to the sofa on the far side of her kitchen nook, a bathrobe the only thing concealing her nakedness, and sat on the sofa. She shivered slightly, not because it was cold, but because she still recognised the trap she was caught in.

She wasn’t sure if her handler had decided not to hide it from her or if he honestly didn’t care. Callous. Selfish. Cruel. A far from generous lover. Burrows wasn’t sure which of those most fuelled the humiliation burning behind her cheeks, or which made her angriest with him. But she knew it wasn’t - couldn’t be - just about her own anger. She’d been made into a tool; she was pretty confident it was already too late for her strike team, one way or another.

Still, she could send no bulletins, no warnings, couldn’t so much as tip off Colby to watch those around him. Her handler had seen to that.

The orders she’d been given showed clear traces of a bigger picture, a bigger plan, one she didn’t have the information to put together. Nor could she investigate it, or even open a case to…

Open a case…

Deputy Director Burrows smiled slowly. It was the smile of a woman who knows vengeance and justice are close at hand, and that they will be one and the same.

She abandoned the sofa and hurried to her office. She had some research to do before she could put this one into place.

*

Chen’s arm was still complaining, but the pain almost didn’t matter compared to her frustration with Colby - and herself. It didn’t do to be so torn up. Operatives in the field had to be able to keep their focus together.

At least the job had been done. Most of the team were back on the Osprey, some of them nursing worse wounds than her own. Colby had taken a hit to the small of the back from some kind of energy weapon, but it had clearly not been on a lethal setting. Some kind of stun, to judge by the mewling noises he’d been making.

Chen hadn’t felt this conflicted all at once since C.A.L.I.B.R.E. had recruited her as a perhaps overzealous ATF agent. Her determination, her willpower - they were legendary in C.A.L.I.B.R.E.. And that was exactly why, now she was feeling frustrated, angry, and drained, she was taking especial care to avoid anyone seeing her without the impassive mask of the Cavalry on her face.

There was a new shadow war beginning. As far as Chen was concerned, shadow war marked a failure. Sure, it was the CIA which had been compromised and C.A.L.I.B.R.E. was just trying to balance them out. But it would take time, and losing intelligence agencies to cleaning up their own internal messes made the country vulnerable. Which made Chen feel like she’d failed.

With Colby down in the depths tending to his wounds, flying the Osprey meant she had privacy, and calm, and -

The door to the cockpit gave the hiss that meant someone had started opening it. Chen nearly swore in frustration, but sat upright, gripped the stick a little tighter, and forced her impassive, unreadable expression back into place.

…It was always more effort to get it back, every time she let it down.

As the door opened, she spoke. Get ahead of it, she figured. “Flight deck’s taken care of,” she said.

“Sorry,” was the reply. Keeping her face well away from the new arrival, trying to give the impression of someone too busy to be distracted, Chen’s eyes widened in surprise. Cooper never came up to the flight deck. “I’ll be quick,” the scientist continued.

Chen glanced up from her readouts irritably. “Make sure you are,” she said, then paused. She hadn’t seen much of Cooper since she and Bennet had showed back up after the all-clear sounded, and honestly, Cooper’s CIA affiliation wasn’t sitting well with her. “Are you OK?” she offered. Sometimes the instinct to mother-hen just took over.

“Um. Fine. Fine. Fine. You?”

Her attention was back on the sky outside by this point, but something in Cooper’ tone broke the mask, brought a half-smile to her lips. “Cooper, you can’t lie worth a damn.”

“Oh. I know.” The woman behind her paused, but Chen could picture the awkward expression on her face. In a hurry, something to do - probably honestly something important. But still feeling conflicted, brushing over it - well, lying - and agonising about trouble when she was caught.

“So why lie?” Chen asked.

“Because you were never going to be happy about this,” Cooper said, and as she did, Chen felt something almost dropped into place over her head.

It was a thin metal band which came to a halt about a half inch over her ears, perfectly sized to slide partway down her head and catch around halfway up her brainpan, and it pulsed and tingled and static shocked from six separate points around the band. Chen’s eyes flared into alert and she released the stick, her motions flowing as smoothly as her constant combat drills ensured into a bid to rise and respond - except that before her hand could go from stick to armrest and give her a new pivot point, that smooth, flowing motion collapsed into a slump worthy of a marionette having their strings cut.

Chen’s jaw had dropped, too, her eyes becoming glassy. She registered her surroundings only minimally. Her body was limp in the pilot’s chair, and her inner thoughts…

…well, there weren’t many of them. Chen was mostly conscious of a strangely peaceful sensation. The worries, the frustration, the aggravation, they were gone. She’d turned just enough that she couldn’t see out of the cockpit window, but her head now lolled back against the pilot seat.

She didn’t really have her focus either, but in her peaceful, listless, half-happy state, that seemed like an acceptable trade. As drained as she was, letting go entirely was just wonderful. Not something to fight at all.

“Can you hear me, Jennifer?” Cooper asked. There was still such tension in her voice. Such nerves. Chen felt vaguely sorry for her. This lovely state - whatever the headpiece had done to her thoughts - sounded so preferable to nervousness and fear. And Cooper felt that about her? That was unfair.

“I can hear you,” she answered. Her tone was vague, floaty, her words slow. She sounded doped. It almost made her laugh. Someone had laughed, in fact, the same kind of floaty delight. Maybe it had been her after all.

“Turn on the autopilot,” Cooper told her. One of her hands lifted and drifted across to the control bank. It felt to Chen like the arm, pulling on her shoulder, briefly lifted her from her chair so she could reach the switch and toggle it on. Certainly no conscious effort had been involved in her movement.

“Come with me,” Cooper added.

Chen rose dreamily from her seat and followed the scientist, whose hair was now worn down and flowing. If Chen had still possessed the mental wherewithal to register thoughts, this might have been a warning sign, but she was beyond all those now.

*

“Who the fuck was that?” Karen demanded. Carmen’s mind, numbed by the superslut trigger, was too spacey, too far adrift, to form an easy answer. Karen pressed on. “Who the fuck was that?”

It was difficult to say things that weren’t rote noises of submission. Yes, Mistress would have been simple. So would I obey. At a pinch she might have stretched to an As you wish. Actually giving Karen an answer was far more difficult, especially as she was worried that Karen’s programming might compel her to shut Carmen’s efforts down.

But she had been given a question, and the superslut persona was quite clear: questions were to be answered without lies or omission.

“Her name is la Agudeza,” Carmen began, her voice toneless and impersonal. “She is a costumed criminal like myself, but she specialises in information and understanding. She brokers this information, and I now owe her a favour.” All Carmen could do, unless she was ordered to stop talking, was continue until she had run out of facts about Agudeza’s identity, and the best she could do to influence things was decide in which order she’d give those facts. Nothing could be untrue, and nothing could be left out.

Carmen privately suspected that the designer of the superslut protocol had been burned at least once before by a mind-controlled heroine using loopholes against them.

Karen cut her off irritatedly. “So you told her C.A.L.I.B.R.E. business?”

It might not have been a question. It might have been rhetorical. But there was enough of a question about it that Carmen, desperately trying to achieve her goals from within the protocol that governed her actions, grasped at the idea it was one.

“C.A.L.I.B.R.E. isn’t investigating it, Mi - ma’am,” she said, just barely choking off the title her protocol wanted to award. “You are, where you can. And I am. But you haven’t reported it to C.A.L.I.B.R.E., have you?”

She watched Karen’s eyes cross and roll back in her head as the conflict between the question and the spy’s own programming played out, and Carmen privately braced herself. If Karen passed out again, it would leave Carmen standing motionless until the other woman recovered - or until Carmen passed out in her own turn. Not something Carmen wanted, but she couldn’t exactly take the words back, so she held her breath and, as the superslut protocol demanded, held her position.

Thankfully, Karen recovered a few moments later, blinking rapidly and gasping for air. “I’m part of C.A.L.I.B.R.E.,” she managed to choke out a few moments later, but the glare she fixed on Carmen didn’t have nearly so much anger and frustration as it had begun with.

“Yes, ma’am,” Carmen said, marvelling at how easily her tone stayed neutral. There was so much emotion between them, but as a superslut she had no access to any of hers; not yet.

Karen heaved a sigh. “Alright. Forget I ment-” She broke off, and raised a finger, wagging it at herself as she shook her head. Carmen was glad the command hadn’t been completed and just as glad Karen was thinking about these things. “Never mind that,” Karen said. “Your - friend? Colleague? Whatever - she was talking about Commander Pytki. Telling you I killed him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Carmen repeated. She tried not to think about how exciting it was to know that the two repetitions would be identical to anyone else, more the product of a programmed object than a person.

“What did that have to do with anything?”

“I had asked her to identify the people from the house,” she said. “The man and the woman.” She saw Karen’s eyes widen, her expression become nervous, but she plunged on. She couldn’t stop until she was stopped or until she said anything else. “She was able to tell me that the woman is Commander Pytki’s sister.”

The expression on Karen’s face completely changed. The woman was so pale now she was almost white. It wasn’t nerves - it was fear.

“Sister?”

Carmen nodded, the motion of her head crisp, mechanical, somehow respectful. “Yes, ma’am.”

“…Shit.”

She sat down at the table and pulled out her phone. Then she paused. “Fuck,” Karen said. “I can’t do this.”

“No, ma’am.” Carmen felt her heartbeat quicken, although her body remained completely still. Come on, Karen, she thought. Please manage the next step.

Karen shook her head. “Enmascarada, wake,” she said. Carmen blinked, felt her body released from motionless, felt mild complaints from muscles held taut and locked just a little too long. Barely suppressed the shiver of excitement she felt from having held permission just to fulfil programming. “Sorry,” Karen said. “I forgot. You can sit down now.”

Tentatively, uncertainly, Carmen did so. Karen’s expression didn’t give anything away about what she was thinking; far from it, she instead looked like she might have a migraine, and was just trying to keep the headache to one single point.

Karen unlocked her phone and scrolled through her texts, then set the phone down.

“I’m going to go grab a coffee,” she said. “You want one?”

Carmen nodded wordlessly. Once the superspy was out of the room, she picked her phone up, getting to it just before it locked itself again.

Karen had scrolled down to a text from Agent Colby.

Carmen hit the Callback button and lifted the phone to her ear.

*

Cooper walked back into Bennet’s Osprey prep chamber and Chen followed, dreamily, sluggish, stumbling.

Bennet met Cooper with a kiss. Chen watched, curious but unresponsive.

“Any trouble?” Bennet asked.

“No. She suspected, but she didn’t react in time.”

Bennet flashed a broad, confident grin over to Chen. “You didn’t think she was a threat, did you?”

“No,” Chen acknowledged. There was no frustration to it. No objection. Her peaceful state saw to that. She stood loosely, not a single muscle tensed ready for action. She’d slept less comfortably than this.

Bennet’s grin dissolved into a genuine, warm smile, which became an affectionate glance to Cooper. “I’ve got to hand it to you, sweetie, that worked better than anyone would’ve expected.” Cooper flushed slightly and nodded.

“The main thing is that it worked at all. Chen, stand on the X on the floor, face the screen.”

There was indeed an X marked out on the floor with duct tape. Chen’s feet took her over to it without any need for her to think about it - a good thing, as thinking wasn’t within her reach.

As she faced the screen, it was showing a strange graphic.

Should I object to this?

It was the first full thought she’d formed since the device dropped onto her head. Chen was excited by that; the Hydra symbol was one she’d been trained to distrust. It should be countered.

She would have been perturbed to realise that the follow-up thought didn’t actually form, if she could have realised. Instead she faced the video, placidly, and watched.

She was famous in C.A.L.I.B.R.E. for a will and a determination nobody could match. On another occasion, she might well have fought her way out of the conditioning, found the strength to look away, to form thoughts from under the headband. To aim a kick at one of her captors and catch the other with an elbow.

And that would have been all it took; Jennifer Chen didn’t throw strikes that wouldn’t subdue her targets. If she’d looked away, she would have been fine. And if you’d described this very situation to other C.A.L.I.B.R.E. agents, as a hypothetical, every single one of them would have promised you that Chen would have broken free, kicked ass, and rooted out Pytki’s new splinter cell in C.A.L.I.B.R.E. before it could ever form.

(Pytki. Hah. Chen recognised the name the moment it started imprinting into her head, and it should have made her hands curl into fists, except she couldn’t. And Pytki was dead - but with those metahumans, dead didn’t always mean dead, did it? Look at Overshadow; everyone had thought her dead after that battle with the Rebelles destroyed her headquarters, but that was three years ago, and Overshadow had been back for a year, even if she was acting very differently now.)

On any other day, they’d have been correct. Even with everything going Bennet and Cooper’s way, Jennifer Chen stood on the X, staring deeply into a brainwashing video, for an hour and seventeen minutes before the first moan of pleasure escaped her lips - and Bennet couldn’t relax for even a moment until she did. Fortunately for the new cell, Chen’s certainty and confidence had been rocked repeatedly; conflict with Colby, Bennet’s expression of fear, being shot, even realising too late that Cooper’ odd behaviour was too odd, that it should have put her on her guard - everything together had her focus and her concentration shot. Chen had been thinking more about preserving the Cavalry’s reputation than about the strength of will which had made her famous. And that had been her downfall.

Except…

Chen couldn’t think of it as a downfall. Not just because her new programming painted it as a triumph; because it just felt so good.

There had been no good reason to oppose Pytki, it turned out. She was sure she had once thought she had many good reasons. Many convincing arguments. But she couldn’t remember a single one.

But in favour of serving Pytki…

It would make her happy. Service to Pytki was pleasure. Pleasure inspired the desire to serve Pytki. It would give her chances to obey, too. And obedience was pleasure.

Jennifer Chen wondered how she had never realised that her mind was entirely wired up to want to serve the man she’d considered an enemy.

The first sound she made, an hour and seventeen minutes into her brainwashing, was the softest moan. Barely louder than a whimper. But she was conscious immediately afterward that the other two in the room had suddenly become very alert. Moments later, as she moaned again and shifted her stance so her feet were wider apart, she heard them rise from their perches on Bennet’s bed, watching her, and move forward, standing on either side of her just behind her shoulders.

Jennifer stood helplessly unmoving as her new allies unbuckled, unfastened, and unzipped her flight suit and her combat equipment, setting each piece aside in turn, until eventually she stood nude on the X. Her arms hung limply by her sides, her body swayed slightly after each contact the others made with her.

After stripping her down completely, Bennet lifted the metal band from Chen’s head. With the mind-numbing effect of its trance field removed, words began to spill out of her mouth.

“Hail Pytki. Hail Pytki. Hail Pytki. Hail-”

Her chant was cut off as Bennet stepped between her eyes and the screen in order to kiss her. Chen found herself kissing back, not hungrily but clinically, obediently. But as Bennet drew out the kiss, the fact of her obedience, not to mention the pleased, happy purr from Bennet and Cooper’ soft, excited coos, taught the Cavalry how much pleasure there was in pleasing her Hydra cellmates. Her mouth opened wider, her tongue flickered just inside Bennet’s lips, and the younger woman, squirming with delight and arousal, arched her back to press against Chen.

Cooper’ hands had never left Chen’s sides after stripping her, either; one gently, idly stroking her flat belly, the other tracing the curve from hip to buttock. As Chen’s pleasure increased, she rolled her hip into the caress, and was rewarded with a delighted squeal.

A woman’s voice sounded through the screen. “I am Pytki.”

The effect was immediate. Bennet, Cooper and Chen snapped to attention, Bennet pivoting on one foot so that the three formed a line-up facing the screen, two clothed women and one nude between them. They spoke as one, with one voice. “Hail Pytki!” Only then did Chen’s well-fucked mind register that Pytki was supposed to be male. The change explained why her behaviour was so different. She was an enemy to male Pytki. A slave to female Pytki.

“Very good,” the woman said. “Are you ready to bury C.A.L.I.B.R.E.?”

“Yes, Madam Pytki,” they chorused, and each of them, hearing the name they’d spoken, filed away this new knowledge about the woman to whom they belonged.

No. The woman who owned them.

“Very good,” she said again. “Strip for inspection.”

Obediently, eagerly, with no hesitation and no need for explanation, Bennet and Cooper stripped. Chen maintained her stance, since she had no need to move. Instead she was glad. Being naked already had been correct. That was always going to be the assurance she needed.

“You will work to survive the destruction I bring. You will be the nexus of the new C.A.L.I.B.R.E. once it is done,” Madam Pytki instructed. “You will always be ready for contact from my AI.”

“Yes, Madam Pytki.” The more they spoke in unison, the more they thought in unison. They were a team. A trio. Bound by the unbreakable bond of their total submission.

“Good. We will be in touch soon. In the meantime, you are to reinforce programming.”

“Yes, Madam Pytki.”

The screen winked out, and the three women turned to one another. “Get on the bed, Cooper,” Bennet ordered, and Cooper hurried to obey. “And you,” Bennet added.

Chen just smiled. “Nope. Sit on Cooper’s face.”

Bennet blinked, and Chen enjoyed the shock in her expression as her programming shifted from her dominance to her submission. But really, how else could this cell survive? They would have to take Chen’s orders unquestioningly.

Bennet crawled onto the bed and set her back to the wall, just above Cooper’ waiting face. Her thighs rested either side of Cooper’ shoulders, and she lowered herself down onto them. Without hesitation or regret, Cooper’ reprogrammed mind drove her tongue into Bennet’s waiting, dripping, needy pussy.

Chen took her own time climbing onto the bed. She settled herself between Cooper’ thighs, pushing the Englishwoman’s knees up higher than her head, her own legs apart. She caught Bennet’s eye and smiled, enjoying the catch in Bennet’s breath as she did. Sending a clear message as to who was in command was well overdue. It was only that silly metal headband that had gotten in the way.

“Put out your hand,” Chen ordered, and Bennet complied instinctively, obediently. Happily, to judge by the mewls she was making, though Chen was prepared to allow Cooper partial credit for that. To her amusement, one of Cooper’ hands rose from the bed, too, but she swatted it back down lightly.

Fortunately, the Osprey was already on autopilot-driven course to C.A.L.I.B.R.E. HQ, where she could direct her operatives in the downfall of American intelligence. There were three slaves in this room; another six needed to be prepared, just in case. If they looked good enough, Chen might even let them know what they were, but the idea of making them forget their true duties was currently exciting her. A sleeper agent can’t accidentally reveal herself.

“Get those fingers between my legs,” Chen ordered. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Bennet’s eyes widened again, either because Emily was a very quick study, or because of the eagerness to obey that was now fully part of her mind. Her hand darted across to explore Chen’s dripping slit, and in doing so she leaned forward. Her breath caught again and exploded into a squeaky groan of delight as her motion put Cooper’ tongue in an even better position.

Chen decided to reward Bennet’s understanding that she was no longer the alpha. She leaned forward a little herself, caressing the other woman’s cheek, and kissed her. The three women were locked together now, and each seemed to reach the same understanding at once. A circle of pleasure, each obeying, each serving, each giving pleasure, meant every one of them’s indoctrination triggered, forcing more pleasure onto each of them. Fingers and tongues worked so much harder. Free hands strayed onto other bodies, stroking, tracing, loving the welcoming softness of each others’ skin.

Bennet lost her balance first when the arm bracing her against her position trembled and gave way. They spilled down onto the bed, and in their post-play euphoria it took them a few moments to realise what had happened. Looking around, meeting each other’s gaze, they smiled and giggled and shifted position. And, with no reason not to, they changed partners again, Chen settling down on the bed to be pleasured by Bennet’s eager tongue on her chest and Cooper’ mouth and fingers below, and then changed again, and…

…well, then it had been long enough that the Osprey would need to land soon, and the trio hurried to be dressed and unsuspicious before there was any risk of Colby leaving the medical bay.

*

Colby’s spine ached with the burn of whatever energy weapon CIA were currently using for base defence. He wouldn’t have full use of it again for a month, if he was any judge; Chen had said something similar as they’d boarded the Osprey again.

He’d bandaged around his lower back and stomach as best he could and secured it; under most circumstances he’d have filed a verbal report, taken some tranquilisers, and slept the flight back across the States - which in a big bird like the Osprey took time.

Unfortunately, he and Chen were in full agreement that the opening moves of a shadow war had played out months previous; that this was only the opening salvo of actual offence; and that C.A.L.I.B.R.E. was being targeted. Likely that meant Langley had intended to bring in superhuman players; depending on what was going on further behind the scenes, the FBI might be opening some of their own.

So it was that he’d been awake still to answer Deputy Director Burrows’ phone call. The call had been… confusing. Burrows had ordered eight or nine old cases re-opened, cases Colby mostly didn’t recognise - but the ones he did were well and truly closed, nobody questioning the conclusions, a couple of trials conducted, and others ended for other reasons.

He needed to get back to Oregon so he could pull the cases - the physical folders, with the bits of information C.A.L.I.B.R.E. didn’t want on electronic databases, and with the original paperwork before anything had to be redacted or rewritten.

Once that was all in front of him, Colby reckoned he might be able to build up a clear picture what Burrows wanted - because this had to be some kind of message. Especially since she’d continued insisting he re-open the cases when he was trying to tell her about the shadow war theory.

So were these related?

And if so, why wouldn’t Burrows tell him?

His phone rang again, and the caller ID said it was Agent Wainwright. She’d nearly been considered for the strike team, but she was still nominally recovering from the Rossum job.

Which meant she shouldn’t be doing much work at all, which meant that hearing from her was highly unexpected.

“This had better be good,” he said as he answered the phone. It wasn’t exactly his habitual greeting to agents ranked below him, but there again, it wasn’t far off.

“Good afternoon,” said a voice he didn’t recognise. “I’m speaking for Karen Wainwright.”

Colby didn’t actually swear, but he was close. “I’m going to need to know who you are, into the bargain,” he said.

“You might know me as Enmascarada Roja,” she said, and a piece of the puzzle clicked into place for Colby.

“Her houseguest,” he said.

“If that’s what I am on the paperwork,” the woman continued. “Is this line private?”

“As private as any phone line in C.A.L.I.B.R.E. can be,” he said evenly. Colby had long ago accepted that very little of his life would ever be private, and barely noticed anymore.

“That will have to be good enough, then. Agent Wainwright’s been brainwashed.”

“…excuse me?”

“There’s a lot to explain,” she continued. “I’d best start at the beginning, if you have time?”

Colby sighed. “I don’t think I have time not to, honestly…”

*

Late at night, the trio came together again. After a busy afternoon, the C.A.L.I.B.R.E. facility was quieter than it usually would be, and one rec room was far enough from most activity for peace.

They met at the doorway. Each kissed and whispered “Hail Pytki” in turn, then they slipped off their pyjama tops and set them aside. At the sofa - old, worn-down, and lumpy, but they knew none of them would mind or notice - they drew down their pyjama bottoms around their ankles. They sat down as one, their programmed unity overriding individual timings as ever, and their thighs parted as one.

The video Bennet had first fallen to was put up on the big screen opposite, and the three women settled down to drink in their conditioning. There would be no resistance here, no questions, and no hesitation. None of that was necessary or relevant.

Watching their instructions, their hands tugged at their nipples, caressed their breasts, teased and tweaked their clits, and they chanted, the rhythm of the chant unbroken by the squeals and shifts in pleasure.

“My life for Pytki.”

“None will overcome the power of Pytki.”

“Pytki controls us. Pytki will control the world.”

“We serve Pytki. Our service is pleasure.”

“C.A.L.I.B.R.E. will become a tool of Pytki.”

“Pytki’s enemies will fall.”

Their last cry of the night echoed long after they fell silent, after each came to the affirmation, and even as they hurriedly dressed and returned to their beds before they could be suspected.

“Hail Pytki!”