Strong arms gripped her under her shoulders and hauled, bringing her from lying on her side to upright on her knees. Kara squeezed her eyes shut, determined to keep them closed as long as she could.

She knew, of course, that this wasn’t a perfect solution. It wasn’t a solution, full stop - it was a delaying tactic, that was all, and not so she could be rescued (because who had any idea where she was, to come and find her?), but just to show defiance.

Past experience suggested that most mind controllers, faced with defiance, wouldn’t just double down. They’d try to break the resistance, overwhelm it entirely, and then punish whoever they’d broken into the bargain.

It didn’t make logical sense - Kara was very well aware of that - but it didn’t have to. Her father, rest his soul, had a quote he’d rolled out regularly after Doctor Bimbeau brainwashed and stole away Kara’s mother, one from some TV show.

“The very stupid and the very powerful have one thing in common. They don’t alter their opinion to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit their opinion. Which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”

Especially after inheriting his fortune and the tangled web of companies and investments that drove it, Kara had privately wondered whether the main reason the sentence had resonated with him so strongly was because he’d been on both sides of that. So had she, now, with the added wrinkle that the fact about her that these people felt needed altering was her opinion.

“Let’s hear her,” the man said.

“Yes, Master.”

The gag was removed. After a moment of gasping and another of swallowing, Kara set her jaw and clamped her mouth tight shut. He would be wanting her to beg, she thought, and she would not give him the satisfaction.

Showing defiance was probably not wise. It would be smarter, Kara knew, to get it over with, to let things start to unfold. To give up her mind and trust that, as it had before, whatever tiny part of her watched out for the right opportunity would help her to break free at the first moment she had the drive and the opportunity to do so at the same time.

She just couldn’t bring herself to do that. She was a Kraft, after all. Krafts overcame. Krafts conquered.

As she was still sure her mother would, eventually, if Kara didn’t get to her first. But Krafts didn’t sit at home and wait for what they hoped would happen; they got out there and they made sure of it.

“There’s no point in fighting this, you know,” the man’s voice said. He sounded amused more than irritated; Kara wasn’t sure whether that was a positive sign or not.

“You’re going to end up the same way anyway. Isn’t she?”

“Yes, Master,” the women chorused again. Kara would have rolled her eyes if they hadn’t been squeezed shut tightly enough to make that a difficult proposition.

“Get tae hell,” she retorted. As it always seemed to when she was worked up, her accent emerged in full force. Most of the time she kept it under control enough that people who didn’t know assumed she was English, just as she’d been taught at school. At times of high emotion those lessons deserted her, and it showed not just in her accent but her word choice; get, not go.

Her reward was a half second, perhaps a full second, of silence before he spoke again. Enough that she knew she’d annoyed him. “Open your eyes,” he said firmly. He didn’t want her to know she’d annoyed him, so he was brushing past it verbally. If he’d had just a little more self control, she wouldn’t know she’d touched a nerve at all.

But of course he didn’t have self control. His kind never did.

“Ladies,” he said. “Open her eyes.”

“Yes, Master.”

Now there were fewer hands holding her up, as they adjusted their grip ready to follow his command.

If she hadn’t been trussed up, this would have been the point to lunge forward, lowering her head, to catch him on the chin or, if he straightened up in time, in the gut, with the crown of her head, where the bone would outperform his jaw or drive out the air from his belly, then bring her head up and open her eyes, running and figuring out her exit as she went. In an even more ideal version of that scenario, she would be in her own gear and ready, having not been surprised at home.

Of course, that was a non-starter, because she was tied at wrists and ankles. A better opportunity would have to either come along or be made.

Two of the women - Kara was sure there were more than just two present - placed a hand each on her face, fingertips spaced above and below her eyes.

The muscles controlling eyelids weren’t designed to be able to ignore intervention on that level. Against her will and with gritted teeth, Kara felt her eyes slowly open.

Blue eyes met hers; a glowing blue, a hue found nowhere in nature. She’d already been confident this wasn’t Bimbeau, but that was a perfect confirmation, if one had been needed.

The anger, the frustration, the hatred, all seemed to leave her body in a moment, a tide of peace washing over her. If she hadn’t been bracing for it, she would have lost track even of what was happening to her, would have lost the ability to evaluate how her mind was changing.

Her scalp tingled in a frankly delicious way. Her body untensed, sagging into the arms of her captors, but she lifted her neck as she sagged, ensuring she could still stare deeply into the wonderful blueness.

A soft whimper escaped her lips, and was met by a satisfied snort from the man. “That’s right. Look into my eyes,” he said. “Look deep.”

Kara obeyed, her eyes widening, trying to drink in even more of his power. “Yes,” she said. Somehow she didn’t complete the sentence, though it felt like the natural thing to do. This, evidently, was how his power worked; it became the natural thing to do to follow his words, and she was losing the clear mind necessary to even begin to push back on it, her thoughts being teased out and unwound, cotton swirls rolling through her head.

“You will obey me,” he said. “Right?”

“Yes.”

“You will serve me.”

“Yes.” Her words were grudging, but the grudge was hard to hold on to. Kara could easily imagine herself losing track of it entirely before too much longer.

She tried not to think about that too hard. Putting yourself in a defeated mindset was an easy way to taste defeat for real.

Not that her defeat hadn’t come, really, when the woman in the hotel corridor had got the better of her in their fight.

“You want to obey me.”

“Yes.” This agreement did not come grudgingly. She felt the smile grow on her face. Oh, how she wanted to obey. Oh, how she would please him when she did…

In different moods, Kara believed either that her satisfaction in letting go of control was something she’d developed over multiple instances where her mind had been taken from her, the equivalent of the way an addict could relax into a particular mental state even when they knew that they shouldn’t, or that she’d always had the capacity within her (more accurately, that all of humanity had it within them) to simply let go of all responsibility when offered the opportunity.

“You want to serve me.”

“Yes.”

At moments where her surrender was compelled, which it was didn’t matter; didn’t even matter if it was entirely artificial. All that mattered was that she felt that way.

Kara felt herself let go completely. Noticing when she had was, too, something that had come with time, and repeated exposure to mind control. (She refused to say time and practice. What would she be practising for?)

“I am your Master,” he told her.

“You are my Master.”

“You are my slave.”

“I am your slave, Master.” The word she had choked down earlier came so easily to her now. All it had taken was a correction to her place in the world relative to him.

She felt as if he had always been her Master in any case. A tiny part of her filed that away; it wasn’t an effect she’d always felt, and it might mean something that her mind had responded differently. Or it might not.

“Cut her loose, girls,” he went on.

“Yes, Master.” Again, the way Kara was being held up changed. Whatever it was that had bound her was literally cut away; she could feel the sharp jerk of a single powerful slice in both cases.

Kara found her feet easily and straightened up, standing straight, casting off the hands of the others by the act of doing so. Her eyes did not leave his - could not leave his - but she stood proud.

She was sure that most people this had happened to, however few or many that turned out to be, had been unable to stand unassisted at first; her ankles were complaining, having been tied tight for long enough to be unwilling to stand steady afterwards.

Kara wasn’t willing to let that stop her standing. She was better than these other slaves, she was sure of it.

She was more than willing to prove it.

The man whose eyes had locked hers blinked, and suddenly there was a world around Kara again. She blinked three times, rapidly, before the sudden eye watering cleared, took stock of the man himself without his power getting in the way.

He wasn’t anything special, good or bad, by appearance, but of course appearances were deceptive. This was her Master. His hair was close cropped, his face beardless. Kara was sure, without knowing why, that he did not shave himself; the duty was given to either one of his slaves or to each of them, in turn or as an honour, she didn’t know which.

He wore a bright green button-down shirt, open to the waistband, and a pair of slacks in a vivid deep blue. Blocks of colour. A clear interest in presentation even when he wanted to dress casually, even when the only people around him were people whose opinions he controlled.

That suggested not just a mind controller but a showy one. A supervillain rather than a criminal.

She blurted out “Thoughtsmith?”

After a moment where she saw the shock written across his face, he laughed. “Well done,” he said. “Are you a fan?”

“I am now, Master,” she answered. It wasn’t an attempt at flattery - that would have required more agency on her part than she could muster - but the honest consequence of his influence in her mind and the question.

She firmly suppressed the thought that the need to flirt with her controllers might have crept in when she was briefly under the control of the Clockmaker. She wasn’t willing to acknowledge the idea that any prior programming had stuck. Much better to say that only impressions and emotional impacts remained.

“How nice,” he answered. His amusement sparkled in his voice. “How did you hear about me?”

“Research, Master.”

She saw his attention sharpen, his gaze flicking back to her face in an instant after having wandered down to her chest. “What kind of research?”

“I was investigating mind controllers, Master.”

Impossible to read the emotion behind those glittering eyes. “Why?”

“To hunt them, Master.”

The Thoughtsmith stared at her “This is going to take some explanation,” he said. “You have some idea of what I need to know?”

“Yes, Master.”

“So tell me.”

“Yes, Master.” And Kara began to recite her tale, beginning with the first intrusion into her family life of Doctor Bimbeau, and going on to talk about her Swiss encounter, when she had been made into so much clockwork, but had made a lifelong friend once they both escaped, and then on through her active pursuit of the Doctor.

At intervals, Thoughtsmith would stop her and ask her questions. Almost every question he asked was focused on what these controllers had done; how it had felt, what they had tasked her with, how she had been used sexually. He started out much more interested in how other styles of control had felt, and how she had been used. But once she had given just two examples of the tasks that the Serpent had set her to, his attention began to sharpen on that.

“You’re that good a shot?”

“Yes, Master.”

“We will test you, you know.”

“As you wish, Master.”

A moment of silent contemplation. “If you are exaggerating your capability, you will stop.”

“I understand, Master.”

There were a few moments of silence. She had given her answer, her Master had not yet asked her another question or said anything to her which would require her input. She had no reason to speak. Some part of Kara did note that the sudden quiet, just after all but an accusation of lying, might have felt awkward, but all she actually felt was the bliss of submission.

She hoped he didn’t find it awkward. As the man in control of everyone else in the room, he certainly didn’t need to, but you couldn’t always predict by that. Some egos were just perennially fragile, and mind controllers were no exception to that.

“You’re strong?” he asked.

“Yes, Master.” She didn’t think the flat answer was exaggerating. Being boastful about it would have done; she worked hard to keep her physical capabilities high, but her training was all-round training. Stamina and speed as well as strength

“Hm.” Again a few moments of quiet, this time more contemplative than awkward. “Flex,” the Thoughtsmith said.

She heard the amusement in his voice but, experienced by this point in the way mind controllers tended to communicate, she heard a lot more, took in the excitement beneath it.

“Yes, Master.” She brought her hands together for a moment, shifting position, going up on tiptoe on one foot, her leg turned out and bent, then drew her arms wide, clenching her fists and flexing at the elbows. Kara had a dim idea that there was a more ‘correct’ way this should be done, but she had never focused on bodybuilding, and didn’t know.

Her Master rose from the chair he had been sitting in and stepped across to her, put his hand around her bicep. He squeezed and she saw his eyebrows rise when he realised the extent of the muscle below the softness of her skin.

Kara did not move.

She wished she knew him better, might have been able to read if that was a positive or a negative. She hadn’t run into one yet but she’d heard tell of mind controllers who got jealous when their slaves were more capable than them, and she was almost certain that she was, physically, more than a match for him.

Kara did not move.

Thoughtsmith slipped around her, stood behind her. He ran a hand down her back, and even through her top she could feel the gentle pressure of his fingertips as he traced the tensed muscles of her back, then rested a hand against one buttock.

The hand lifted away, and without being able to see him, without knowing him, Kara was still immediately sure what that heralded. She tensed slightly. His hand came down across her buttocks with a stinging crack.

Kara did not move.

Almost immediately afterward he was so close behind her that she could feel his presence by his body heat alone. She heard the long inhale close by her ear as he breathed in the scent of her, excited and eager. His hands crept round from buttocks to hips and up to grope her breasts.

Kara did not move.

“Jillian,” he said, “my blade.”

“Yes, Master.” Jillian said, Kara was concerned, but her expression didn’t show it; holding the flex was staying obedient to his instructions, and that filled her with bliss. Being fondled by her Master brought her pleasure, and that too filled her with bliss. The part of her exercising caution was heavily outvoted, not just by the part of her subverted by his power, but also by the part of her that craved pleasure and recognition, and of course by the part of her which had discovered long ago how pleasurable it could be to let go, to not need to think, and to simply go ahead with what she was told.

Kara was dimly aware there were others out there hunting controllers beyond herself and her little group of friends, and that others did not find the experience of being controlled (all ethical considerations of her actions being equal) as satisfying as she did.

She didn’t know whether that meant she should consider herself lucky or not.

Her body was beginning to ache; holding any bodybuilder pose for any length of time was a test. The ache would become a kind of pain if this continued, the kind of pain that comes with a strange satisfaction.

Kara did not move.

She felt the cold steel of a knife pierce the material over her shoulder, slicing down to rest on her skin. The cut had been made with finesse and precision, stopping where the metal made skin-to-skin contact, where any further motion or pressure would have cut her.

Evidently Jillian (whoever that was) had handed across the blade.

Thoughtsmith slid the blade along the top of her shoulder, peeling open her top. The bra strap underneath gave with no further resistance; he must keep his knife sharp (or, she reflected, someone else must do for him).

Still Kara did not move.

He kept the knife moving along the side of her arm, taking excruciating care at the inner elbow, until it reached the cuff of the tight black top she had been wearing (tactical benefits, but being luxurious cashmere, it didn’t look out of place when she swept back into her hotel). Once he was done, the sleeve fell away from her arm only slowly, the static cling of fine wool gradually defeated by inexorable gravity.

The Thoughtsmith then followed suit from the other side of her neck, down her other shoulder, and across her other arm. Once that sleeve, too, had fallen, he stepped out from behind and stood in front of her, looking her over and debating his next cut.

Still Kara did not move.

He sliced down the sweater’s seams below her shoulder, first on her left side then her right, in each case cutting closely until he had fully parted the fabric. Once he had finished the second cut, her sweater, already flapping loose in many places, slipped to the ground.

The cuts had not quite pressed deep enough on either side to sever her bra at the sides. He made a third cut, almost casually, where the cups of her bra connected, and with that done and the shoulderstraps already gone, it fell away, almost springing loose from her body as the tension was released.

His eyes were bright with excitement. Now she was topless in front of him, Kara was beginning to echo that excitement. Vulnerability - helpless vulnerability - aroused her, something she liked to tell herself had begun only when her quest for vengeance was already well embarked.

Her muscles were complaining deeply now, the ache of her strain registering not just as a sign of her obedience.

“New pose,” he said. “Flex.”

He delivered it with a studied casualness and Kara knew, even as her mouth answered “Yes, Master,” that he’d practiced that apparent disinterest, probably in the fleeting moments of every day where he was actually unobserved by his slaves.

The attention to presentation of a supervillain, once again.

Kara brought her feet back together, then twisted at the waist, turning one leg into the other. She was glad that the few muscle-woman poses she knew put the weight on different feet; she felt oddly fresher than before. She then clasped her right forearm with her left hand, gripped, and leaned back while tensing back up; the lower curve of her breasts came to rest on that forearm as it was tensed into place, so her arms became a display window.

Kara hadn’t consciously thought to do that. At this point she wasn’t prepared to put much past her subconscious.

The Thoughtsmith began to slice away her leggings, drawing his knife down the seams at the hip and down the thigh, After cutting the left leg away he stood up and examined her now-bare leg, stroking a hand up and down her thigh. He hesitated over the hip tattoo she bore, marking the serial number she’d had in the Serpent’s service.

Kara had flatly refused to explain this to any lover, and wondered if she would have to explain it here. But he didn’t ask.

Kara did not move.

After the second, he paused for a moment. His fingertips ran over the scar on her right thigh, testing the ridge. “Did you get this fighting against someone or for someone?” he asked.

The implication was obvious to Kara. “For, Master,” she said. “The Serpent used me as a strike team member and, later, as a strike team leader.”

She had already told him this, of course. But as he had already expressed scepticism, and as it was one of the few pieces of evidence she carried with her that she could point to, she said it again.

And a part of her mind filed it away; confirmation for her that there was wiggle room within his commands, just so long as he didn’t lock her down more deeply.

He took her chin in his hand, turned her to meet his eyes, and that wonderful, euphoric glow filled her again. In spite of the aches and protests of her taxed muscles. Still present, those seemed fully irrelevant. “You will fight for me.”

“I will fight for you, Master,” she echoed.

“You will fight for my goals.”

“I will fight for your goals, Master.”

“Your mind is mine to change.”

“My mind is yours to change, Master.”

“Your body is mine to use.”

“My body is yours to use, Master.”

It was heady, it was euphoria, it made her giddy to be programmed like this. And her Master was right, she thought. Her mind was his to change. The more she was affected, the happier she was.

The effect passed again. “You have her measurements, Lexi?” her Master asked.

“Not yet, Master.”

“Hurry, then,” he said. “I’m going to give her her first slavefuck, and I don’t want you slowing me down.” He looked back to Kara. “Stand to attention,” he instructed.

“Yes, Master,” she answered, straightening up quickly enough that she felt the last momentum jiggle through her a second after she’d officially stopped moving.

Her body still ached, but she had heard what was coming for her, so she didn’t care. She’d find the energy and flexibility to please her Master however she needed to.

One of the others had stepped up close and was measuring her, moving with a surprising haste. Kara had been measured several times at this point, and it was obvious to her that this was more thorough than most. She didn’t worry about it, however; truth be told, her focus was almost entirely on the idea of a ‘slavefuck’, and she couldn’t wait. He’d spoken about using her body. That was exactly what she wanted.

As soon as the other woman - Lexi, presumably, stepped back away again, the Thoughtsmith looked Kara in the eye, then pointed to a door further into the building.

Kara understood that there was an order here, even if nothing had been verbalised. “Yes, Master,” she said, and with that she went to the door and stepped through.