It was never quiet in the precinct house. Even gone midnight, the late shift operated in a building full of incidental sounds; the strange burbling and bubbling of water through unseen pipes, the hiss of percolating coffee, the dull squeak of cheap rubber-soled business shoes against unwashed vinyl flooring, the clatter of keyboards, all over the dim and distant chatter of the staff sergeant in Custody and the louder but equally muffled complaints from the cells themselves. There was often a strange rhythm to the sounds, as if the precinct were making music.

Alexandra was used to it now. Most of the incidental sounds she’d hear, she tuned out.

Coming on shift at 10pm, she’d started out by handling a bit of paperwork - there was always something waiting in her email at the start of a shift, no matter what she did to cut it down. By eleven she was getting ready to head out. An unusual case, from the call, and one she’d be dealing with, she knew, only until the morning.

There were two types of kidnap case as far as the police were concerned; the easy ones, where it hadn’t really been a kidnap and an APB was as much as you needed, or cases which went from uniform to detectives as quickly as uniform could file a report. The call definitely didn’t sound like an easy one.

Alexandra paused on the way to the cruiser to check her uniform in the reflection. She never bothered with makeup when she was on shift, and her longish brown curls were scraped back into a bun; but then, people never looked at the person when there was a police uniform under it. Instead, the uniform had to be perfect; the authority her work needed had to be there from the beginning. In her line of work, bad first impressions could kill.

Her partner grumbled slightly as Alexandra straightened her tie. Selena grumbled at everything - in an ideal world, she’d have resigned from the department, but it hadn’t happened yet. Years of frustration and bitterness had built up until there wasn’t much professionalism left; she did her job, went home, got drunk, went to sleep, and the cycle continued.

Alexandra knew without looking that Selena’s tie would be crooked, that her shirt would be scruffy and un-ironed. She glanced down on the way to the car and confirmed the bet she’d had with herself; Selena’s boots were still scuffed.

They made an odd duo; the young blonde idealist and the seasoned redhead veteran whose scowl was so near permanent it had carved worry lines into her forehead.

Even so, Alexandra preferred being out on patrol. The squad car had its own music in the smooth purr of the engine, the lazy, muted mutterings of the radio, the sounds of the city changing as they took each corner.

It was something more positive, something more pro-active. Out in the city was where she felt like sometimes, at least, they managed to make the city a better place.

Alexandra didn’t share Selena’s distrust of the judicial process, but she was beginning to learn what a crapshoot it could feel like. When someone had been arrested, they were off the street. If they were bad - and she firmly believed that she hadn’t arrested anyone who wasn’t - that was a win; they couldn’t do anything while they were in the precinct house, at the very least.

*

The kidnap case originated from an old apartment block in the poorest corner of the precinct. Alexandra hadn’t been there often for the past year; the inhabitants might be poor, but they were by and large honest. There wasn’t much in the way of reported crime in the neighbourhood, either. Not much to steal. If there was a drug problem, nobody was telling the police about it, so no violence and no competition.

On the rare occasions she’d visited, Alexandra always wondered how much longer the building would stay standing. She couldn’t believe construction had been up to code. The elevators didn’t ever seem to be working in any of the blocks in the area, either - and that was true again that night. Alexandra and Selena said little as they made their way up eight flights of stairs, but the mood of the two partners started to sour from the third floor on.

Annie Petersen, the vic’s mother, was somewhere in her forties at a first glance, and despite the fear for her daughter clear on her face, despite the stress lines and marks of a hard life, it was clear she’d been startlingly beautiful at one time - and still gracefully attractive now. The photo of Jean Petersen that Annie offered them just underscored that; her daughter, early twenties, had a face that was just as stunning and a slim, athletic body just starting to properly fill out; around the time that her metabolism would give its first betrayal. Even so, the extra pounds were so far going to all the right places.

Alexandra angled the photo so Selena could see it; as the older officer gave a tight-lipped “Mmm-hm,” Alexandra sighed inwardly. Much more of that and, even worried, Annie would fall silent. Cops couldn’t come across so unsympathetic and get anywhere.

Before that could go any wronger, she cut across Selena’s reaction. “So, when did you realise she was missing?”

“Yesterday evening,” Mrs Petersen said. “She was supposed to finish work yesterday lunch. Sometimes she takes the afternoon to window-shop and I thought for a while she was just killing time in town.”

“But?” Alexandra prompted.

“But she always comes home for dinner. Eating out isn’t really in our budget.” The woman said it like she was apologising to Alexandra. Like it was a great, secret family failure. “So she’s always home. Always always always.”

If she couldn’t afford to eat out, that certainly explained why she was still living with her family, Alexandra thought. “So what did you do then?”

“I called the police,” Annie Petersen answered.

Ah. “And we told you…”

“Call again if she didn’t show up for another day.”

Which had happened now. “Okay - well, we’re here now, as you can see,” she said, “Did she call after she left work?”

The woman shook her head, and Alexandra made a note. “Can you tell us where she works, ma’am?”

*

Jean Petersen had scored a job almost the whole way across the precinct. Maid service at the Splendide, which wasn’t just opposite the place where she lived geographically; it was also a hotel for the kind of people who didn’t even notice people from that apartment block.

Perhaps cynically, Alexandra figured that was why Jean had been hired. Invisibility worked both ways; you needed someone who’d fade willingly into the background to do all those background jobs. Jean was never going to rock the boat. Never going to complain about a small tip or chase someone who failed to deliver at all.

The drive back across the precinct was probably best described as sullen, or maybe that was just Selena. Whatever the case, her frustration was obvious, and it was hard for Alexandra to completely dismiss it; she’d been hoping any follow-up visits would be nice and close by too.

“If it’s not the Splendide,” she said, just as a way of breaking up the silent sulking from her partner, “it’s got to be however she got back and forth. The bus is the cheapest option. Want to check in at the bus station if we don’t turn anything up here?”

Selena snorted. “If we don’t turn anything up at the second location, we can hand it over to the detectives,” she said. “Why should we bust our asses when they’re the ones who get the glory?”

Alexandra let the sulks stand after that. Way better than picking the argument that would definitely be coming.

The Splendide was a place she’d seen way more of than the Petersen home and its surroundings. If crimes happened to people in and around the Splendide, the residents felt fully justified in complaining about it. Follow-ups were demanded. That meant uniform was out there much more often. She was surprised to recognise the night manager, but perhaps she shouldn’t have been. Joseph gave her a warm smile as she approached, but his expression switched as she explained why she was there; a forlorn, hangdog expression mixed with a certain strange frustration.

“She showed up yesterday, yes,” he told her. “She starts on my shift and finishes on Robbie’s.”

Alexandra nodded. “When would be good to call Robbie and find out when she left?” she asked.

“You’re not listening, officer,” Joseph said. “She showed up yesterday. We saw her come in. She went into the staff rooms and changed into uniform. But she never collected her trolley and she just… disappeared. Nobody saw her all through that time.”

Alexandra and Selena exchanged looks. Even Selena looked intrigued, not frustrated. A puzzle like this got everyone’s attention.

“Is that like her?” Selena asked.

“Not usually,” Joseph said. “But the last three, four days, she’s finished up her shifts acting really weird.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t like to try guessing what’s got into her.”

“Uh… anything else unusual about those shifts?”

Joseph shrugged.

“Hey,” said one of the other staff members, passing by in the background. “Is this about Jean’s disappearing act?”

“Yes, sir,” Alexandra said, raising her voice to reassert authority. “Do you know something?”

“Well,” he replied, drawing it out and grinning. “I think I saw her on the way in giving a guy in a Beemer a price list for her ass.”

*

A third stop on the same case but Selena wasn’t sullen. Mad was actually nearer the mark.

“We get sent out to work a kidnap when we should’ve been working a hooker sting,” was how she started out. The rant encompassed Jean deciding to make money the old fashioned way and their bosses for not realising, among many other things. It was a cry of frustrated entitlement. Alexandra bore it in stone silence, tuning it out to listen to the song of the drive instead.

At least this time they didn’t have to go far.

Jean stood on a corner a few streets away, directly under the streetlight. She was wearing denim cutoffs, a short white tee tied off just below her tits, fishnet tights, and thigh-length black boots that gleamed under the light. Alexandra doubted Jean had ever owned boots like that; given their price, she wondered whether they were new with the new ‘job’.

Jean’s hips rocked back and forth lazily. As they drew closer, she could see that the woman’s eyes were closed. There were no headphones, but she was obviously dancing.

“Do we arrest her, or do we get her home to Mom and skip the paperwork?” Selena asked. Alexandra found herself suddenly furious; if the suggestion had been just to get the woman home, she’d probably have leaned that way. But putting it like that? As she got out of the car she started loudly reading Jean her rights, half-expecting the woman to run. Instead, Jean turned to face her, eyes opening innocent blue, and smiled warmly.

Alexandra faltered for a moment. It felt so much like Jean had been waiting to be arrested that she was suddenly nervous, but she finished the job, cuffed the other woman, and got her in the back of the car.

“You’re telling the mom, then,” was Selena’s only comment.

*

The drive back was… strange. The usual rhythm of the drive was off, somehow; the sounds Alexandra listened for, or at least the ones her ears picked out, didn’t really show up. Instead there was something tinny, just on the edge of hearing, that nagged at her senses but was never quite clear enough to follow.

She dismissed it initially, figuring she’d have a chance to figure it out when things slowed down. In the meantime, she got Jean processed and put into a holding cell, then made her way back over to her desk to start on the paperwork.

Her foot was tapping as she typed away at her report, but it didn’t match the tempo she was used to in the precinct house. It was actually a little closer to the rhythm of whatever imaginary song Jean had been dancing to.

She didn’t think anything of it until Selena suddenly broke the quiet to ask “What’re you humming? It sounds familiar.”

Alexandra only noticed the melody she’d been humming once she was startled enough that she stopped. But her foot, tapping away, kept the beat, and Alexandra didn’t even notice. “I… don’t know,” she said slowly.

*

The melody kept playing in her head. Definitely the same one from the car, but less hard to make out. It felt like it was closer now; she could almost make it out. It even wasn’t so tinny.

She had to have heard the song somewhere, and it had gotten stuck in her head. That was all, she told herself, standing by the printer and waiting for her reports to print. It was the only thing, she promised herself as she released the bun which kept her long, long curls under control. They bounced and swung as she continued to dance.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Selena at the coffee machine, and Selena was dancing too. Alexandra turned her head slowly and stared, disbelieving; her partner stood with feet apart, knees bent out, slightly stooped, and if she wasn’t wearing uniform slacks she’d be able to tell whether twerking was happening or not. But strangest of all, Selena was in uniform, at work, and she was smiling, a happy broad grin of a type the woman hadn’t worn since before Alexandra graduated from the academy.

Unconsciously, Alexandra widened her own stance, stooping forward a little, and spread her knees. In time with her partner, the music growing louder in her head, she bucked with her hips, unsteadily at first but as she felt the jiggle of a twerk really start to develop, she let herself enjoy it ever more.

She started snapping her fingers in time with the beat and, just a few moments later, Selena did the same thing. The two partners looked across at one another. Their eyes met. They smiled together, a heady warmth filling Alexandra’s head.

All was right in the world. Everything was just as it should be. She could hear the song even louder now, though there was still that strange tinny distortion, like it was being played on the other side of a wall - or perhaps just on a terrible old system.

The two of them danced down the corridor to the holding cells, where they signed Jean out for a preliminary interview. Alexandra was not surprised, somehow, to see Jean dancing the same way they were; once the cell door was open the woman danced over to Alexandra, stepping close to her. Jean’s fingers slid gently through Alexandra’s long curls, teasing her, then she turned to Selena, whose cheek she caressed.

Her cheeks aflame, Alexandra saw a deep flush spread over Selena’s expression, too. Both were embarrassed.

Neither stopped dancing.

Jean slipped a hand behind her back. Alexandra had no idea where she produced the red lipstick from - she’d been searched when signed into custody - but when Jean offered it to her she took it like a dreamer. As if she had no say in the question at all.

As if it were just another step in the dance.

Despite her training, Alexandra took her attention fully from the suspect. She focused entirely on the beautiful scarlet of the lipstick, applying it slowly and lovely, her hips still lazily rolling to the music. As she completed her lips, the tinniness of the music was suddenly gone. Instead she could hear it clearly, and knew that she’d never heard it before.

She wanted to ask questions, but the music was lyricless. She didn’t - couldn’t - speak.

The music was definitely coming from Jean. Alexandra handed her lipstick over to Selena.

*

The music was definitely coming from Jean and Alexandra. Selena wanted badly to ask questions, but the music was lyricless. She didn’t - couldn’t - speak.

She felt like an observer, watching herself dance, seeing herself be happy. Not dancing herself. Not happy herself.

She took the lipstick from Alexandra, wondering why. Wondering how this could be happening.

From the secure clip at the back of her belt, Alexandra produced a battered old pair of mirrored sunglasses and slipped them into place, her face immediately disappearing into concealment behind her thick, luscious brown curls and the shadow cast by the sunglasses. Instead of looking at her partner, Selena saw only herself in the reflections, for all that she was facing her.

Her hips rolled lazily and she pouted as she raised the lipstick to her lips.

She felt it go on, an even coat, smoothly painted across her upper lip and then the lower, and as she did, the worries and concerns and anger that powered her through her day were painted over.

Her body had already been given over to the beat. As she painted a new look onto her lips, Selena started to smile. The happiness which had started to seep into her as she’d begun to dance was now firmly in place. There was nothing of Selena left fighting it.

How strange, she thought, that it took so little.

She took hold of her shirt, tugging it out of her waistband, unbuttoning it. In short order she had brought the ends together, tied them in a knot, her police uniform now creating and displaying cleavage, showing off her flat belly.

She could see Alexandra with a pair of scissors. Leaving the collar of her shirt intact, Alexandra cut out a circle below it, revealing her own cleavage. She took the tie she was so proud of and snipped it off halfway down the circle, leaving her with just enough to make the tier a fetish object.

Selena was already busy with her hair, letting down her ponytail, turning it instead into two bunches. If she’d had mirrored sunglasses of her own, those would have been worn too. Hiding the emptiness in her stare would be nice.

She was so much more aware of the music now. It had come in with Jean, but it didn’t come from Jean. Jean had been infected with it, and now the cops who picked her up were carriers, too.

She had been sure the music was lyricless, but she was aware, now she was immersed in it, that there was something in there, a voice buried beneath it all. Giving instructions.

And as she danced, she followed those instructions without hesitation, acting on each beat of the song. The voice’s owner was steering her.

She had no idea who that might be, but she knew what it wanted.

Judging by the thick scarlet smile on her partner’s lips, so did she.

*

Alexandra had cut her uniform trousers down to hot pants. She’d done it without ever stopping dancing, and she’d done it without cutting herself. This had probably been challenging to achieve, but she’d barely noticed. It wasn’t really her achievement anyway; the singer who made this music was the one who had the skills and the talent.

The trio moved out of the holding cells, still in time with the music. You couldn’t say they walked. They strutted with purpose.

Around them, the precinct acted as normal - for a little while. The three of them all buzzed with the song in their heads, so that anyone close enough could hear it; and being close together, they each amplified one another, filling the precinct.

They split up as they entered the bullpen. Alexandra made a slow loop around the computers where many uniforms were handling their paperwork, lingering beside each desk where a female officer sat. She completely ignored the odd looks she was getting, standing for a few moments dancing in place.

She didn’t respond to anyone who spoke to her, either, and the worried looks grew in density. She was just recognisable enough, but her attire and her attitude were clearly worrying the rest of the precinct.

“Shit,” one of the women she’d stood near to said suddenly. “Can you guys hear music?”

“Kinda,” said one of the men Alexandra had drifted past.

“Oh, fuck,” the first woman said again. “Oh, fuck. This is Soundstream.”

“Shit!”

“…What?”

But the two officers who’d recognised the name were already up and moving, leaving the unsure to search the name online, where they found an absurd and implausible rumour. A supervillain whose control over acoustics was such that those who heard enough became their helpless, dancing puppets. Who had found a way to make their puppets into resonators for their own music, so that the presence of any one puppet swiftly meant a collection of slaves in the same area. While they believed they were using purest acoustic science, the working hypothesis was either magic or some subconscious psionic activity.

They grabbed Alexandra by both upper arms, looking to march her out of the precinct quickly. In response she lifted her feet from the ground, wrapping them around her former colleague, her thighs clinging tight to him. The music still played through her and her body still danced, now grinding against him, hips bucking and twisting.

He stopped dead in his tracks, grunting to himself, and the woman who’d first identified Soundstream’s work tugged at Alexandra, looking to break the connection. There was something like fear in her eyes, but she could feel her captive’s arm twitching and bobbing in time with the music, even held down as it was, and the music was growing stronger around her.

Alexandra turned to stare at her, the dark mirrors of her shades showing the woman her own expression as her will began to crumble. She could see her head starting to bob first, her lips going from worried frown to dizzy smile. The beat was building up in her, a strange, happy pressure spreading out from the very centre of her head, and everywhere touched by it was changed by it.

She glanced past her reflection and saw her colleague, the one Alexandra was practically humping against, was starting to dance too, rolling his shoulders, grinding back against her. He’d gone from holding her arm to bracing her against him with a hand in the small of her back. It was no good - he wasn’t going to help her; he was already gone. She had to do this for herself.

…what did she have to do?

Alexandra passed her a tube of lipstick and she released the other woman’s arm to apply it. She could figure it out when she knew what she was doing.

*

When the trio split up, Selena had gone straight for the evidence rooms. There was someone on duty there; of course there was. And he certainly didn’t seem to approve of Selena’s new look - he laughed at first but almost immediately he just looked worried.

If Selena had been thinking about things, she wouldn’t have been able to blame him. How she looked and was acting now wasn’t even in the same zip code as how she usually would. She was so far from usual that anyone would be suspicious.

But Selena wasn’t thinking. She didn’t think anymore; she danced to the tune of another, and that ensured she would do whatever he wished.

Or at least try.

She swayed forward, each foot crossing over the other leg, each step requiring a wide roll of her hips, a sensual wave up and down her body every time she moved forward. Her colleague on evidence room duty started backing up hurriedly, and Selena followed him, knowing the song was getting louder around him, that the beat was sinking into his bones.

Soon enough he ran out of places to back up to, and she had him cornered against a wall, trapped between two high metal shelving racks. She was so close to him she could smell his cologne, and with another step her thigh was between his legs.

The music filled her the way she wanted him to fill her - wanted the musician to fill her, really, but any stud would do. She ground herself against him, moaning softly, her every sound in time with the beat.

She knew her target had no chance, and he had not enough information to realise how at risk he was. Before too long, though, his eyes were glazed, a thin sliver of drool forming at the side of his mouth, and he was humping back against her - but Selena didn’t stop.

For one simple reason.

His humping wasn’t in time.

Selena renewed her efforts. The dance came to one of its periodic crescendoes and the need to dance with it became a frenzy in her head. And with every loop of the dance’s main riff, she felt her dance partner correct a little more until he danced perfectly in time with her.

Selena abandoned him. She knew he wasn’t going to be trouble for much longer. It was already too late for him to draw a weapon and try to get in her way.

Instead she started scanning the evidence room manifests, her hips twitching, her butt twerking enthusiastically to the beat as she did so. She soon found what she was looking for. With a dreamy, happy smile, she opened the box that contained her quarry. Lovingly she extracted four tall, shiny boots,

The pair she selected for herself went up over her knee, halfway up her thigh. Made of polished black leather, its laces were bright pink and the zip that did most of the work helping a wearer in and out was carefully concealed. Selena shimmied out of her uniform pants and set her gunbelt back in place over black satin panties, then helped herself into the boots.

She picked up the other pair - dark blue PVC with blue-steel buckles all the way up the outer sides - and headed back out to find Alexandra. The two of them were so close to being the partners they were always meant to be. Not cops. Not agents. Not even women with free will.

They were always meant to be a pair of backing dancers for Soundstream.

*

It wasn’t quiet in the precinct house. Everyone there positively hummed with musical potential and joy. The police had changed completely, the civilian staff were dancing in the canteen kitchen, and nobody in holding cells was complaining about anything. The music of the precinct house was too upbeat and jaunty for anybody to be sad. The men were stripped above the waist, the women had all altered their uniforms. No two looked exactly alike but, unified by their scarlet red lipstick, every one of them had tailored or amended their uniforms to show off the best parts of their body.

The only other rule of their outfits seemed to be that they couldn’t constrict the body from dancing.

Jean had arrived in the precinct four hours earlier, and the building had completely changed. Now, though, the mood was changing once again, and Alexandra and Selena made their way out to the front lobby.

The heavy double doors swung open and the source of the music - which made him the source of all joy that could be found in the world - swept into the precinct.

His golden shirt was buttonless and open to the waist. His cloak/cape sat around his shoulder, supported by thick silver chains resting just below his neck. There was a blue sash-like belt around his waist, and tight dancers’ pants below that.

Soundstream knew what people expected from his name and dressed to suit. He smirked and swaggered like he owned the place - which, as of that moment, he did.

Alexandra and Selena were waiting for him, standing side by side in the lobby, their bodies twitching along to the beat even as they tried to stand still.

Soundstream approached them, and in unison they sank down to their right knee, then tucked their left knee under them as well.

Their mouths opened wide in unison, and as they gazed up on him, Alexandra’s mirrored shades sparkled with all the colours of a disco, as did Selena’s eyes.

Soundstream looked between the two of them, chuckling to himself, and made his choice. He stepped across to Alexandra, lifting his sash and pulling down his pants. His cock sprang free, its tip brushing against her upper lip almost immediately.

The song seemed to change, and suddenly Alexandra was moving, her body part of the rhythm, her tongue singing along his shaft as her head danced up and down the length of his cock.

She was an instrument to be played, a dancer in his hands, her life and her thoughts choreographed and compelled by him. His cock was her world, and would be until the next song.

Everything that was happening was perfect. She was conscious that her scarlet lipstick was starting to smudge like she was an album cover photo and she loved that; it just made her more perfectly his.

She had no idea what Soundstream wanted with an enslaved, enthralled precinct, but whatever it turned out to be, she would go along with the playlist happily.

Beside her, Selena knelt and watched her partner’s head bob up and down on their owner’s cock. Her mouth was watering. She couldn’t wait for his cock to be in her mouth in turn. Everything that was happening was perfect.

She would never be able to understand how her earlier self had hated life.

Everything was perfect when you went to work with a song in your heart.