Langley was in repair mode; while the confrontation had been minimised as much as possible, there had been damage, and the people who’d come in were in intelligence. A full-scale cybersecurity test was in place, handled by Langley’s own teams of analysts.

Each one of them was reviewing screeds of data, checking device after device, confirming firewalls had not been breached.

One by one, each of them reached a point where they had to wait for their testing tools to process. Each of them idly watched the spinning wheels as the processes ran. And each of them, as the spinning wheels shifted into pink and purple segments, found that their attention focused on the images, locked there to the point where they couldn’t look away. Where they heard nothing. Where their fingers slowed to a crawl on keyboard and mouse.

The Pinwheel virus was alive and active, spinning through their heads and twisting all that it found there. The analysts identified it as an intrusion. Some even recognised what it was, what it did, how it functioned. All of them tried to figure out a way to beat it, without moving, without acting; and in the time that they didn’t act, Pinwheel did, using their own deductive skills to lead them down a mental path into conditioning.

Langley’s teams of Pinwheel slaves mechanically passed machine after machine as fit for work, then began modifying the Pinwheel codebase so that the rest of Langley, when the virus affected each of them in turn, would receive different programming.

Langley was in repair mode; there had been damage, and the people who worked there had free will.

That had to be changed.

*

Carmen’s throat was dry. She’d talked herself raw, going through everything she knew, everything she could prove, and everything she guessed. She’d had to admit to so much wrongdoing, but she’d give Colby this much; he was an incredibly sympathetic interrogator. She was adding more than he needed to know, or at least probably more than he needed to know, simply because the way he responded to each comment made it feel easy and natural to give him the next step.

She wondered whether Karen had put herself out of earshot, to avoid the compulsion to interfere, or if being out of sight had been enough and she’d simply been sitting there, listening to the whole thing.

Karen had parts of this puzzle that Carmen didn’t, the villainess knew. She hadn’t told Carmen about her own conversion, or anything she’d done that Carmen hadn’t witnessed for herself. She couldn’t. And while Carmen had explained that to Colby it meant a great deal of information, of context, was just hidden, she was confident she had the shape of it. She had hopes that the solution would present itself now somebody else knew about it.

After all, hadn’t that been what Pytki was trying to prevent when they stopped Karen from talking?

“Right,” Colby said at last. “Tell Karen I’m on it.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“Sit at home and wait,” Colby said. “Karen’s compromised and she’s your handler, so you’re compromised too. I’ve got my own team to handle this.”

Carmen opened her mouth to protest, but didn’t say anything; she was suddenly worried that if she did, she might not be permitted free rein in working on the problem.

Right about then, she figured that free rein was something to prize until and unless it was stripped from her.

*

Colby woke the trio without realising it when he went down to hammer on Chen’s door. The wiry veteran was sprawled out on her bed, sandwiched between her two fellow acolytes of Pytki in a room that stank of stale passion, covered in sweat that now thankfully had dried to the point they were no longer stuck together. She woke fast, as did Bennet; Cooper took a lot longer to stir.

“Give me a minute,” she called, loud enough for Colby to hear her - and loud enough for Cooper to stir, too, making a strange noise of startlement and sudden wakefulness as she did.

“Shhh,” Chen instructed firmly but quietly. Her eyes flicked between her two bedmates to stress how important this was, and each of them looked deferentially away as her gaze met theirs.

It was almost enough to make her preen, but Chen didn’t; she was still aware of her own role and even if she’d assumed control of the little operational cell, recognising Bennet as too inflexibly dependent on her programming, she recognised that Madame Pytki had true control. Chen wasn’t a leader; she was no longer even an agent. She was a tool. A blunt instrument wielding itself as best it judged its owner to want or need.

She disentangled herself from the others and quietly said again “Not a single sound until I give the all clear. Understood?” Both women glanced back to her just long enough to nod their submission and acceptance.

Still nude, she padded across from her bed to the door, grabbing the robe that hung on it to half-cover herself once she was close enough. She opened the door a crack, peering out at Colby with visible suspicion.

Colby’s expression wasn’t suspicious; it was irritated. “Dammit, Chen,” he said rather than starting off with a hello, “Willis is on disciplinary. He shouldn’t even be on C.A.L.I.B.R.E. property, let alone getting frisky with you.”

It was a jolt to Chen to remember that, yes, she’d been regularly taking Willis to bed before the strike team’s most recent action. Willis wasn’t a Pytki follower. He belonged to the current C.A.L.I.B.R.E., the enemies of her Mistress. He was a threat, now. And with the additional programming coursing around her head, she couldn’t remember a single thing that had made him an appealing choice for lover. Bennet and Cooper were much more appropriate. For one thing, they were ideologically suited.

Colby wasn’t a slave to Madame Pytki either. Chen distrusted him; he was the enemy, even if he thought of her as a colleague and friend who had saved one another’s lives many times.

Chen wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“Sorry,” she said automatically, her tone dull. Revealing nothing. Letting him think what he already thought. It was a simple enough misdirect; she’d worked hundreds of them over more than two decades as an agent.

This one just had more at stake. Madame Pytki’s team couldn’t afford to be identified until they’d put plans in place for replacements.

“Well, look,” he said. “Lord knows you’ve earned a little R&R even if he hasn’t. I’ve got some more jobs coming up for you so I need to interrupt you anyway, but since that’s the case, I’m in the mood to look the other way. For - let’s say three quarters of an hour?” He raised one eyebrow, making his meaning clear. Her rooms were being searched in three quarters of an hour; if anything that shouldn’t be there disappeared in the meantime, Colby wouldn’t worry too much that he hadn’t followed it up.

Chen nodded briskly. “It’ll be done. Am I getting a new briefing?”

“Forty-five minutes,” he said. “I’ll see you in Ops Theta.”

Which told Chen that despite the early hour, C.A.L.I.B.R.E. was running a pretty full slate of briefings. A lot of activity, and all of it pointed at the phantom foes Madame Pytki had them convinced were preparing for them. Perfect - they were going to chase their tails right up until the first traps were sprung, and Chen and her team would be in perfect position in case Colby managed to pull something smart out of his bag of tricks.

They’d never see it coming, and if Chen followed Colby’s wishes, odds were good that all she’d do is weaken another group of her Mistress’ foes. “I’ll be there,” she agreed.

Colby headed down the corridor and Chen closed the door on his presence. She exhaled slowly before turning back to the others. “Both of you, get dressed,” she ordered sharply, shrugging off the robe again as she crossed to her wardrobe. Even with her attention determinedly elsewhere, she was very satisfied to see how quickly the two pseudo-civilians moved to obey. Now that they belonged to Madame Pytki their discipline was perfect.

Chen knew she had to present the outward front of a devoted C.A.L.I.B.R.E. agent but her usual attention to duty was, not missing, but elsewhere. On went her oldest, most comfortable sports bra, but on also went a pair of silk black panties she usually reserved for - well, for nights she knew Willis would be visiting. Over the top of that went the sleek black catsuit, then her boots, low-heeled with remarkable grip.

And that was enough; she was ready for her briefing. She paused at the doorway. “Make sure you leave nothing behind that might let searchers suspect,” she ordered her two minions, and then she headed for the commissary. The old Chen had made a point to eat before any mission, just in case you didn’t get to return for a while; if she missed her shot, questions might be asked.

All those old habits, the pleasures of the flesh she’d focused on as a woman with free will, were now just things that got in the way of her tasks. She could have slapped her old self for making everything harder.

She was halfway down the corridor before she realised that in her dreamy submission she was smiling more than Chen ever would at a time like this. With an effort, she resumed the emotionless mask that C.A.L.I.B.R.E. agents expected from her.

*

“It’s bullshit,” Carmen said again, but Karen rolled her eyes and mutely shook her head. After a few moments - just long enough she could halfway-fool her head that she wasn’t commenting on any of this - she said “Colby’s right.”

Her headache got worse, a spike of pain just above her left eye. She winced and swallowed repeatedly until it eased, just a fraction. “I’m a liability right now. Worse, I’d make you one.”

She raised her hand to her temple, pressed her palm against her head. Concentrating on the cool flesh seemed to help a little, but there wasn’t much more than a little help to be had. Her head ached, and the more Carmen kept complaining, the more Karen had to try to explain. But even talking about it was against her conditioning, and it hurt her every time she pushed against it.

If Carmen would just shut up and help…

It felt like an idea manifested fully-formed, so much so that Karen started out by examining if it was planted. Especially as it was something that, if you’d asked her, she would have said was against her code of ethics.

Apparently she’d never stopped to check what her code of ethics might allow if she was really, really desperate to stave off a headache.

“Enmascarada maidslut,” she said. Carmen had been just starting to speak and as she froze into place, her mouth locked into an odd position. Despite the pain, Karen let out a startled laugh.

“Get me some Tylenol,” she ordered, and had the satisfaction of seeing this immensely powerful woman, eyes glassy, rise from her seat at her command. It was… good?

Better than it should be, anyway. Better than it should feel.

Karen was used to blunt solutions, but mind control was one it was hard to feel good about. That had been one of the reasons she’d killed Pytki - it had been her job to stop his operation, but he so often had mental manipulators on the payroll that hitting him before he could try anything was clearly called for. Arrest would have been better, but it was too risky without any metas on her own side.

Watching Carmen methodically search the kitchen for the pill drawer, Karen found she wasn’t nearly as guilt about controlling the woman’s mind as she should feel. Was that just because she’d done it so often, for more basic reasons or at her handler’s behest? Or was there something else.

The supervillain located the box of tablets and returned to the table, where she set it down in front of Karen and stood there as if dithering. Karen looked up at her, frustrated that there was no glass of water to help. She was about to tell the woman off for overlooking something so vital when it occurred to her that the maidslut program had very limited capacity for independent thought and decisions of its own.

“Water,” she said simply, knowing it would be enough. Carmen pivoted and made her way to the glasses cupboard, then the faucet. Karen watched her progress idly at first, then with growing attention. Something about the way the woman walked…

It was hard to be sure, of course. But the way she walked had become the way she strutted. Her hips swayed lazily, deliciously, from side to side. That hadn’t been how she was walking to begin with. It was something new, something she hadn’t been ordered to do.

And something that wasn’t in the specifics of the maidslut program.

Which meant it had to be Enmascarada Roja’s reaction. Right?

…Well, maybe right. Maybe not. Karen didn’t know, didn’t even have any good ideas on ways to find out. All the same, she was sure. The woman was enjoying this. Or was that just wishful thinking?

The villainess returned with a glass of water, placing it beside the pill box. Then she took a half-step back, brought her feet together, clasped her hands in the small of her back, straightened her spine and dipped her head.

Karen took two max strength and chased them down with a swallow of water, then looked at the enthralled woman again. She hadn’t moved at all; that posture of attentive submission was still perfectly clear and poised. Karen was certain that Carmen would wait just as long as she had to, or until the headset brainwashing finally wore off - not for months.

That was the other problem with mind control, wasn’t it? As wrong as it clearly was, with some forms you could look at someone suffering the effects and be jealous of their peace and certainty. Definitely not an idea that applied to her own control - her headache was proof positive of that - but these high-tech gadgets got there.

Karen realised her mind had started wandering into dubious, dangerous places when she found herself thinking that she probably wouldn’t be upset to be under her handler’s control, if he’d used the same gadget that Carmen was slaved by. That wasn’t so, she told herself firmly. And Carmen’s apparent contentment was an illusion. Just something she was reading into it.

Even so… she wasn’t unhappy, a traitorous little voice pointed out in the back of Karen’s mind. She hadn’t even been unhappy on the multiple occasions Karen had used a trigger out of anger or frustration, without any benefits from it.

She’d probably not be unhappy to receive an order or two that didn’t seem too bad…

“Massage my temples,” Karen directed curtly. The long-legged powerhouse started to move, and Karen took in the slow deliberation of her movements in this state with new eyes, her lips suddenly dry. Something about the woman’s behaviour had Karen suddenly aware of her own reactions and responses.

Carmen stepped behind her and, for a moment, Karen relaxed - at least she wouldn’t be betrayed just by looking at the woman. But then the villainess shifted position. Standing close behind Karen, she placed two fingers from each hand over a temple, the touch of super-strong hands nonetheless feeling feather-light.

Carmen gently adjusted the tilt of Karen’s head, and suddenly the secret agent found her head resting against Carmen’s chest, soft and pillowy despite her body being bulletproof. The contact between her head and the other woman’s breasts felt somehow electric; a charge seemed to pass between the two of them and in spite of her aching head, Karen’s breath caught and time seemed to stop for just a moment.

Karen hadn’t registered any attraction to Carmen. She didn’t consider herself attracted to women in general. What made this different? Was it that Carmen’s mind was numb?

She was tense all of a sudden, a tension through her body rather than aching in her mind. Against the pillows of the supervillain’s tits, Karen felt the woman’s fingers work their magic and wondered if Carmen had rested her head there to send a message, or if that was just wish fulfilment.

She’d known that nothing good would come of controlling another mind.

*

The first indication Bennet had that anything had gone wrong was when the door to her workspace flew open and Chen burst through it, looking panicked.

That was pretty out of the ordinary, Bennet thought. It took her a moment or two more to realise quite how wrong things must have gone for this.

“Aren’t you meant to be on mission?” she asked. Chen didn’t look in any state to take charge, but they both knew she should be out there doing what Colby thought he needed. Keeping the infiltration hidden.

If they couldn’t do that, how were they going to deliver what would remain of C.A.L.I.B.R.E. to Madame Pytki once it had fallen?

But Chen looked at her with wild eyes and visible concern. “We have to go,” she said. “Colby knows about the Madame somehow.”

From the dizzying heights of delight as an adoring slave, Bennet plummeted nearly down into the same panic as Chen. “What do you mean?”

“He was tasking me with taking her out,” Chen said urgently. “Me, him, and Estevez. That was the mission.”

“But Madame had taken so many steps to-”

“I know,” Chen said. “Colby didn’t tell me how he knew, but he was moving against her anyway.”

“What did you do?”

“The only thing I thought I could. I got the drop on them both.”

“You killed them?” Bennet shot to her feet.

“No. I just put them down - that was all I could risk. But they’re going to know about me, and that means they’ll guess you.”

“And Cooper.”

Chen nodded. “Go fetch her. Meet me in the motor pool.”

“Where are we going?”

Chen smiled. Her panic seemed recovered, as if just giving Bennet orders was enough to bring her back to reality. “That’s the one good thing about all this.

“Colby knows where she is. We can present ourselves to her. Offer ourselves for use.”

“Hail Pytki,” Bennet murmured, marvelling at it all.

“Hail Pytki!” Chen answered, and then turned and ran for the motor pool.

Bennet grabbed her laptop and went to collect Cooper.

*

Estevez was shaking Colby when he regained consciousness. His head didn’t even ache; Chen had blindsided them both, he guessed, had hit him to rattle him and make him black out, but he wasn’t in pain.

“You OK?” Estevez said - well, grunted; Estevez was a man who only really communicated in grunts - and Colby pushed him away, sitting up slowly.

“Did you catch what happened?”

“Not really,” Estevez told him. “Figure that means Chen.”

“…Why would Chen… ohhhh, shit.” For almost a minute silence reigned as the two men wordlessly contemplated a brainwashed Chen on the other side.

Colby picked himself up off the floor. “We’ve been played.”

Estevez nodded.

“We’re not the only ones,” Colby added. The FBI and the CIA were both going to be playing whatever planned openings they both had for a shadow war - and C.A.L.I.B.R.E. would be their target.

Estevez nodded again.

“We can’t change plans on a dime,” Colby said. “We’ve got to cover ourselves.”

The two agents started heading for the corridor. “The Old Man should be here,” Estevez grunted, but the Director was almost never available. He’d never quite lost his taste for fieldwork; little by little, Burrows had been given more and more of the bureaucratic load. She carried it better than the Old Man would have, but to long-term agents like Colby and Estevez, she was a worry.

They knew what she’d been through. Colby had seen enough of the aftermath to know something of the scars she wore on her psyche; Estevez worried that it was even worse, because all he had of the aftermath was the old-school C.A.L.I.B.R.E. rumour mill.

“He should be,” Colby said. “Might get here in the end.”

“You think he knows about this?”

“I think we behave and plan like he doesn’t. If he can pull something out the hat I’ll eat mine. But if he can’t, I’d rather we have something in place.”

Estevez nodded. The two were heading steadily down the corridor. “We still going after Pytki?” he asked.

“And go up against Chen?”

The bigger man rolled his head. “I can take her, if I know the fight’s coming,” he said. Colby looked at him for a long time, but didn’t tell his friend how little he believed him.

“So what are we doing?”

“We tip the balance first,” Colby said. “Get the CIA on the back foot. That gives us time to hit Pytki properly, and that-”

They’d rounded the corner into the main hall at that time, walking quickly toward the motor pool. Estevez was just following along, assuming that Colby had a plan in place - and he did - but as they neared the big steel security doors there was a huge booming noise, a blaze of light, and a wall of force. The doors ruptured and blew inward, freed from their moorings by the bomb, and Colby and Estevez were swept backward, colliding with the wall behind them.

They started to pick themselves up, and as they did they saw armoured men pouring through the broken doors, guns in hands.

Their current mission forgotten for the moment, they fled to fight another day.

*

Her headache was nearly gone. Even in a hypnotic state, Carmen’s fingers were magical, and Karen felt not just skill but affection through their touch. She could just picture the other woman having honed her technique on a boyfriend, a lover, that villain she’d talked about who owed her the favour…

More and more, Karen had started to respond to the powerful sexuality she sensed in Carmen. But she still knew it couldn’t be real; this was her programming. It was the programming Karen was responding to. The sense of control.

“If I told you to forget something, would you?” she asked, eyes closed, enjoying the other woman’s skill in massage. She wasn’t quite lost in sensation, but it was a close-run thing; without Carmen’s complaints to keep her focused, Karen had let go of the Pytki question. She was too compromised. It was a risk even thinking about it.

“Yes, m…” Carmen trailed off, the first time she’d spoken since Karen had triggered her. Her voice was a little higher than usual, the assertiveness that was typically so clear in her words was gone. She sounded like a different woman, just as she moved like a different woman.

A woman completely - uncomfortably so - under Karen’s control.

She wasn’t going to press this further, she told herself firmly. She just wasn’t.

But the ‘m’ wouldn’t leave her thoughts alone. What had Carmen nearly said? Miss? Ma’am?

Mistress?

She had to be projecting. It wasn’t fair to take her own impulses and impose them on another person, no matter how much she wanted to. Not fair at all. It was what the people at Rossum had set out to do with her.

They’d lost track of Carmen as a person. Lost track of her own wants and desires. When they didn’t have tasks for her, she effectively found herself trapped back in stasis.

She shifted position, her head brushing against Carmen’s chest, and heard, whisper-quiet, a moan. Karen stopped moving, held her breath, tried to convince herself she’d heard that.

“Did you just make a sound?” she asked, feeling stupid and embarrassed in advance as she awaited a no-

“Yes,” Carmen replied. No trace of the second word this time. Karen pictured Carmen, inside the rules of her control, exerting a little extra restraint of her own. Wanting to hide something.

Was she embarrassed?

And if she could feel embarrassment - if she could feel at all - and her true feelings affected the way she behaved under the maidslut persona - did that mean the excitement was real too?

Karen told herself firmly that the answer to both was no. For the first time, though, it sounded hollow. For the first time, Karen believed that, just maybe, the supervillain could enjoy this.

That, or the woman was giving whatever answers she was programmed to expect her handler to want…

Ugh.

Karen stood up. Carmen’s hands rose at first, continuing the massage, until it sank in that the agent had decided on something, and she stopped, her hands falling away.

By the time Karen turned around, Carmen’s head was bowed, her hands clasped in the small of her back, her presentation once again sensually submissive.

And by that time, Karen was too worn down to keep pushing herself away from temptation. If her conscience wasn’t enough, why shouldn’t she have fun?

“Are you…” she began, then stopped. “Is the maidslut persona…”

Damn, this was hard. How could you be ethical and fair when the power differential wasn’t just total, but hypnotically enforced?

“Do you get excited?” she tried again. She could feel the embarrassed heat in her cheeks. Carmen’s lips twitched slightly at the question, settling into a smile - a surprisingly gentle smile.

“Yes, muh…” Carmen trailed off again. Karen was suddenly very still indeed, her eyes darting over the expression of the woman under her control. The fact Carmen wasn’t meeting her eye was surprisingly hot, but it also made it easier to find her courage.

She lifted her hand tentatively, stroking the hypnotised villainess’ cheek with the back of one hand, not quite willing to say anything and risk disobedience. Never mind Carmen’s own desires - she was willing now to acknowledge that until this moment she hadn’t fully recognised her own.

Her hand drifted down and rested on Carmen’s shoulder, half over the T-shirt, half on the bare skin at the base of her neck. Like many supers Carmen was slightly out of the ordinary, temperature-wise; her skin was cool, soft, somehow welcoming. Karen bit down on her lip to stop a murmur of appreciation escaping. She smiled, slipping her hand under the V-neck of the shirt, moving it down to cup the other woman’s breast.

Carmen moaned, but did not move - could not move. Karen’s questing fingers found her nipple, teased at the bar piercing, enjoyed the choked-off sigh that resulted. “Get topless,” she ordered, and realised she had only after it was done. The heat of the blush in her cheeks doubled as the other woman languidly, almost lazily, swept her arms back in front, caught the hem of her T-shirt up, and pulled it over her head in a fluid, flowing motion.

Karen wanted to step back to enjoy the view more, but the edge of the table stopped her butt from any rear motion. She stood still instead and watched as the mesmerised beauty unhooked her bra and shrugged it aside.

Superhumans almost all seemed to have bodies that everyone else would envy, but Karen resolved that, for now, she would treat this one as hers.

“You know where the bedroom is,” she said, and grinned. “Carry me there.”

Carmen slipped one arm under Karen’s, stooping to catch her legs up over the other, and lifted her. Karen found her body cradled against bulletproof, impossibly soft, impossibly luscious curves, all under her complete control, as her maidslut headed for the bedroom at her direct instruction.

“When we get there, we’ll see if your tongue is as good as your fingers,” she teased. And this time, when a tiny whimper of pleasure emerged from her maidslut, she was willing to believe it, whether it was real or not. Controllers had to ignore their ethics. It seemed that her spy training might be useful for her home life that way, too.

“Yes, miss,” Carmen answered, and Karen squirmed in her arms. She was going to let herself enjoy this, she decided; then she was going to wake Carmen up, and the two of them would figure it out. She might be a worse person than she wanted to believe, but she’d never be as bad as Rossum had been.

*

The antenna attached to the rear of the house was obviously something the Madame had added - no good civilian use for it - but otherwise, what the trio saw when, having abandoned the car, they made their way through the local woods to see Madame Pytki’s current residence didn’t measure up to expectations. The Madame was such a wonderful woman, and so important, that to see her in something suburban rather than palatial just felt… wrong.

They emerged from the woods and started crossing the house’s lawn. Chen spotted a set of electric eyes sunk into the ground not far ahead; wanting to explain herself to the Madame as quickly as possible, she made sure to break the security ‘tripwire’ immediately.

It would also be good, she reflected, if she could confirm the security on Madame. Stealth was no longer going to help…

The three of them recognised the Madame immediately. Though they’d seen no images of her and she did not speak immediately, the burly, squat old woman in an old, faded red blouse and worn-almost-white blue jeans who appeared in the doorway, shotgun under one arm, grey hair scraped aggressively back into a bun, could be nobody else.

Something about the determination in her frame spoke to their brainwashed hindbrains; this was the will that drove them, the mind for whom they were tools.

But Chen worried; the Madame had responded herself. Where was her bodyguard? What security detail did they have to hand?

She snapped to perfect parade-ground attention, then reeled off a crisp salute. Beside her, looking for their own ways to show their fealty, Cooper dropped to her knees, fast enough that even cushioned by the grass their was an audible thump, and Bennet faltered, unsure what to do, before splitting the difference; she settled to one knee, back straight, and raised the hand not managing her laptop satchel in a salute.

It was the wrong hand for saluting, and Chen made a mental note to criticise her for it later. But at least the spirit was there; Bennet had not embarrassed Chen too badly, and Cooper… well, Cooper’s approach was as close to perfect as you could get outside the military. Madame Pytki would recognise her submissives, she was sure. She would not fire.

But if the Madame had chosen to gun them down, Chen would have done nothing to object. That choice was Pytki’s by right of ownership.

The Madame stood framed in the doorway, looking at them, for a long moment. When she finally lowered her shotgun, she barked a laugh. Chen suddenly realised that to this woman, the three of them appeared ridiculous. The knowledge stung, but did not dissuade her, and she didn’t budge from her stance.

Another man appeared behind her, a panicked expression on his face. To two of the trio, he was a mystery, but Chen recognised Fantasio. The two had tangled once, ten years earlier, when she’d got past his usual brainwashed bodyguard, and she still regarded the fight as a missed opportunity.

Doubtless he, too, was the Madame’s property, though. She certainly had no right to interfere in that.

The Madame shoved her shotgun into the arms of Fantasio and stepped out from the house. As the trio waited, each in their own posture of submission, Madame Pytki made her way toward them across the lawn.

“You are my little spy puppets,” she said by way of greeting, but the trio each heard it not only as greeting but also as command. They were her little spy puppets. That was what they existed to be.

Chen released her salute and fell back to attention.

“Why are you here?” Madame Pytki demanded. By now, Fantasio had almost caught up. He was dividing his time between staring at the treeline - as if the trio would permit themselves to be bait in an ambush for the Madame - and watching Chen herself edgily and uncomfortably. As if he couldn’t be quite sure of any control not laid down by himself. Sheer arrogance, of course - the Madame’s ways were better.

“We discovered you were blown, Madame,” Chen said, cutting over the first syllable of Bennet’s attempt to explain. “They knew you had to be operating from here. A team was being put together against you.” If she were reporting to a normal superior, she’d pause there; give the news a chance to sink in, then tell them how to think about it. She couldn’t do that for the Madame. The Madame was the one who thought.

“I stopped the team, at the cost of our cover. So I gathered your slaves and we came to serve here, as best we can.”

If Fantasio had looked worried before, he looked positively queasy now, but Madame Pytki received the news calmly. “So we must move up the schedule for the next part of our plan,” she said. She looked at Cooper. “You were to be brought here eventually,” she said. “It is good you’re here. You take your next step on the Spiral Path.”

“Yes, Madame,” Cooper replied, eyes shining with pride and honour, breathless.

Pytki was already moving on. Her eyes now locked with Chen’s. “You, I can use,” she said. “You will be security, if needed. You will not die for me - you will kill for me, if needed.” The sliver of restraint that had seen Chen simply knock Colby out dissolved. “Understand?”

“Yes, Madame,” Chen replied. She found herself clicking her heels together and re-assuming attention, for want of a better way to confirm her total submission.

“You…” Pytki was looking at Bennet. “Tch. I do not need another programmer. Can you fight?”

Chen didn’t want Bennet to embarrass her either by admitting the truth or by claiming a lie to please the Madame. “She can try, Madame,” she said. By her side, Bennet winced, but did not rise from her knee, did not lift her head.

“Then you are only a spare,” she said. “I do not need you for now. If all goes well, I will not.” She paused, then smirked. “Still, you were C.A.L.I.B.R.E. once. You have wronged my family. Until I take you back, girl, you belong to this.” She smacked Fantasio’s chest with the back of her hand, not even looking back at him. “You obey him as me. You give him pleasure. And you keep him busy when I do not need him.”

Chen’s heart could break at the rejection of her fellow slave, but Bennet’s voice was steady and firm. “Yes, Madame.”

Fantasio was already grinning ear to ear. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of her.”

“Make good use of her,” Pytki said, correcting him firmly. “These are my puppets. They are here to be used. We do not worry about their feelings. Understand?”

Fantasio simply nodded, but the trio spoke with one voice. “Yes, Madame!”

“You’d best come with me, then,” Fantasio told Bennet. “And I want you naked before you enter the house.”

Pytki rolled her eyes at Fantasio’s words, but Bennet simply rose, slipping off her laptop satchel first. A bag in which so much of her identity was usually bound up was discarded easily as she followed Fantasio into his bedroom, shedding further clothes as she went.

“You two,” Pytki said, “you come with me, and I will set you to your tasks. And if there is anything in your uniform that tracks you, it must be destroyed.”

“Yes, Madame,” Chen replied. She had already removed the tracker chip from her C.A.L.I.B.R.E. belt buckle. Colby would already know where she was going, but he did not deserve confirmation.

They headed for the verandah, where the Madame pointed at a folded ladder. “You, bodyguard, take that. You, technician, you will climb it soon.”

“Yes, Madame,” they chorused. Pytki smiled.

“You three were taken by our little broadcast.” She nodded at the aerial above. “It has only so much power, yes? You, technician, you will be increasing that power. When we are ready to broadcast clear control signal, you will have put the systems in place.”

“Yes, Madame,” Cooper said eagerly. “Thank you for the honour.”

“What does a tool know of honour?” Pytki retorted. Cooper, chastened, gazed up at the aerial to hide her consternation.

Her head being tilted back, she caught sight of Bennet in one of the upper windows. Her face and her bare breasts were pressed against the glass, on display for anyone who happened to look. Her shoulders were back, and her body twitched rhythmically. Cooper could picture Fantasio fucking her from behind, hooking his arms around her elbows and pulling them back for leverage, controlling her whole body as he fucked her for her fellow slaves and her true owner to see, if they but cared to look.

Cooper had no knowledge of Fantasio, but the lusts Bennet had used to enslave her were now jealousy. Between the Madame’s disdain and her own jealousy, her stomach churned. And yet, as Chen extended the ladder and braced it against the chimney, she climbed.

Obedience was still the most vital thought in her mind. She was a slave to the Spiral Path. She belonged to Madame Pytki. She was her technician, her tool. And she would be the key to the Madame’s ultimate victory.