Kara had never been to Aspen before, but could immediately see why the small town was popular with a certain subset of snowsport enthusiast.

The four of them were dressed like ski bunnies, tight but insulated leggings and fur-lined ankle boots under baggy fleeces. It drew the eye, but it was still the most effective camouflage they could have, at least for the first day or so, which they’d budgeted for recon.

The information Belinda had was that there was some sort of facility nearby owned and operated by C.A.L.I.B.R.E. It had been a large chalet in the 1950s and into the 1960s. In the 60s it had briefly been the base of operations of Stavros Earl, better known as the Chessmaster, in the middle of a tangled plan in which he had brainwashed beautiful young women, intending to send them out to seduce and assassinate the Senators of twenty states.

This had been foiled in the end by a C.A.L.I.B.R.E. agent. They had retained the chalet, which was used when high-value agents, usually at the higher ranks, were believed to have been mentally compromised. It was a private place, sufficiently easy to monitor and guard, with enough comforts to make deprogramming operations less dreadful things.

Belinda even knew where it was, Deputy Director Burrows having obligingly told her some time previously, but they had collectively decided that recon was needed in any case; this was a question of personnel and of exits. The quickest way out was often the best, in that you could outrun the initial cordon and become near impossible to find. If not, it was a route that would be underchecked, for whatever reason.

The quartet knew they needed to find their exit and, ideally, a way in. The best way in would be a willing conspirator on the inside, and to get one of those, they felt confident they just needed time to find a C.A.L.I.B.R.E. employee from the facility in town on leave.

“Okay,” Kara said, “Me and Belinda are in charge of finding our way in. I’ll do the hunting, then Belinda puts them under her influence and we go.”

“Meanwhile,” Kara told Christina, “you and yuir sister are going to source some options for a getaway. Enough that the first pass at the scene doesn’t tell them the trail we definitely took. Not with all the others disappeared.”

Christina pulled a face. “You know I hate theft.”

“It isnae theft. It’s service. Our hands are clean, because only people can be guilty.” Kara sounded less patient explaining this before the mission was done than she did after work was complete, but then she always did. It was one reason she’d set that job aside for the sisters; Christina was going to have to accept that reservations weren’t necessary if she was to be a better slave for the Master. Any guilt was his, and as they understood it, he was beyond guilt. “We’ve got a plan. We’ll carry it out. Aye?”

The others nodded and the quartet broke up. In its place two pairs slipped away.

*

“If Ah’m bein’ honest with ye,” Kara told Belinda, “Ah dinnae think you need me tae find these folks fuir ye either. If you caught Burrows, you’ve got to have some experience spottin’ these folks.”

Belinda gave her a long, evaluating look. “So you don’t think you’re needed here?”

“Ah didnae say that. For one thing, Ah dinnae know if you’re good at handlin’ yerself. After all, ye got caught cold by us.”

That provoked a sour face. “Don’t remind me.”

“D’ye not wonder what ye’d be doin’ if ye still had control o’ yuirself?” Kara asked. She watched the other woman’s face closely. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, but she was still confident she’d know it if she saw it.

Belinda snorted. “I don’t need to wonder,” she said. “I had a plan in place. I would have been pulling the trigger about a week ago.”

“D’ye know what Master has planned once he gets ahold o’ Burrows?”

“In basic terms.” There was disdain all through her voice.

Kara started walking. Especially with her friend’s curves, which couldn’t be completely concealed even in a baggy fleece, and her own mane of red hair, they made an eyecatching pair. Much less so when on the move.

After a few moments, Belinda joined her, a quick scurry to bring her level before the two started walking side by side. “Ah think,” Kara said quietly, “that ye’re of a mind yuir plan is better than the Master’s.”

Silence for several paces. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Wouldnae or cannae?”

The silence stretched out longer, and it was Kara who broke it. “Ye dinnae need to say,” she told her. “Not after that.” She flashed the other woman a grin. “Some part o’ you is fightin’ his control, then.”

Christina had told Kara about her sister’s recruitment, about an offer she had made that became a regret she struggled against once she was tasked with putting it into practice. She’d fought against the Thoughtsmith for that. It didn’t seem unreasonable that Belinda might fight, not for her sister, but for her own ego. The idea, at any rate, merited testing, and that test needed to happen without anyone who might interrupt it.

Kara was quite carefully keeping herself from thinking about what she might do if it turned out Belinda could break free. If it took much longer, she knew, it would start to give her a headache.

Chasing after Bimbeau had seemed like a simple goal when she first took it on, but her path had taken her through so many mind controllers. She had succumbed to each in turn. She had overcome each in turn. It had never been easy. Sometimes she had been lost for months at a time.

A part of her had always expected the same to be true against the Thoughtsmith. That part of her had come alert in the past few days, sensing an opportunity. The rest of her was doing what she always did while under someone’s influence; aiming to excel and please them, knowing that pleasure would come from it.

“Mm,” was all that Belinda answered. She wouldn’t meet Kara’s eye. But then, for all she knew, Kara had been ordered to test her, or might be waiting to report any sign of disloyalty at the first opportunity.

The same concern - over reporting, at least - went in the other direction. Kara was avoiding even thinking too clearly about her disobedience, knowing how much effort it could cost her to oppose the effects of mental control, but giving away that she was trying and not breaking away before the Master was told… that would be far riskier. Especially if his research continued.

Belinda eventually said “I’m sure that Master cannot be disobeyed.” Which was a politician’s non-answer if Kara had ever heard one, and that was a positive sign.

“You used to go by another name, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Not now, though.”

“Ah wondered. When you were told to introduce yourself, you nearly used it, I think.” Kara let that hang there for a moment. “It must’ve been more natural to you than your own name.”

“Perhaps.” Belinda lapsed back into silence for a while. “You can’t have a Master and a Matriarch both in the same organisation.”

The Matriarch? Well, that was certainly a mission statement - and one which sat strongly at odds with the Thoughtsmith’s attitude. He wasn’t, Kara had decided, sexist exactly, but the effect of his power coupled with his preferences tended to erase dominant females somewhat from his life.

“When we got introduced, and you nearly said yuir real name like that,” Kara said conversationally, “the Master had just been playin’ quarters wi’ your rear end.” Again, she left the statement to hang in the air for a little while. Pushing someone beyond a boundary - and Thoughtsmith’s control certainly imposed boundaries on those affected - wasn’t nearly as effective as letting them wander right up to itself and giving them a reason.

“Yes,” Belinda said flatly. “He did.”

Kara clucked her tongue. “Ye must’ve been pretty far gone fra’ the matriarchy to allow that,” she said. She kept herself from making it a taunt; it could almost have been approval. “Yuir plan,” she went on, shifting gear from letting the other woman stew on it to try to stoke her annoyance faster, “it didnae involve this Director Burrows, did it?”

“Yes. It did.”

“Ah, now,” she said sympathetically. “And ye think th’ Master’s plan is worse than yuir own? Must be a shame.”

“Mm.”

Kara could feel the other woman’s anger. She was confident this was the right avenue to pursue, the right way to push. She wasn’t sure what Belinda’s reaction would actually be, but if she could break the other woman, she was sure there’d be a chance to break herself loose in the aftermath. Or, perhaps it would be better to think of it, the fallout.

“Did he know aboot her?” she asked. “Before ye were his, Ah mean?”

“No. He did not.”

Kara exhaled slowly. “That’s got tae be rough,” she said. She meant it, too, but she tried to make her voice as dismissive as possible. She needed Belinda angry; she was confident that it was anger that fuelled the Matriarch. “Handin’ him everything like that, an’ at a great cost to yuir own plans.”

The other woman’s gaze was becoming a stare, she decided. With a little more prodding it might be a hostile glare. “We have our orders,” she said. “We should follow them.”

This was true, of course, and Kara felt that truth with every fibre of her being, even the parts of her that were fighting against all this. “Aye,” she said. “Ah suppose you’re right.”

She had been keeping aware of anyone who might even come near earshot throughout, of course. One or two candidates had presented themselves, going into one bar or another. The problem, as far as Kara was concerned, was confirmation; when not dressed in their uniform, someone working security for C.A.L.I.B.R.E. wouldn’t stand out too far from an off-duty soldier or anyone working security who’d managed to stay at peak fitness.

“We’ll try that bar,” she said decisively, on the basis that three of the candidates she’d spotted had gone in there. It was probably for the best to ease off the pressure now anyway, she told herself. Let the frustration percolate in Belinda.

The bar itself was busy, but two of the three men Kara had spotted were all seated at the same table. This immediately made her feel more confident; they were probably part of the same group. C.A.L.I.B.R.E. had to be the biggest employer of people with that level of watchfulness and physical prowess.

“Let’s take the table next to them,” Belinda was saying, “and we can listen in on their conversation and confirm.”

Kara turned to face the bar as she shook her head. Lowering her voice, she said “Let’s not. The guys we want are trained to pay attention to their surroundings. It’ll take a few more beers before that changes.”

“Well, then, what do you suggest?” the erstwhile Matriarch shot back, a little snippily.

In answer, Kara seated herself at the bar, beckoning a server over. “What’s good?” she asked. After nodding assent to… well, to whatever he’d suggested, she knew she didn’t even need to pay attention… she turned to face Belinda and patted the stool next to her. “Ah guarantee ye, at least one o’ them will want tae come talk with one of us,” she said. “We’ll play it from there.”

Belinda was silent for a long moment, but then Kara saw her gaze flicker down her own body, as if she was reminding herself that her body was now a near-perfect magnet for attracting any straight man it was pointed at. She had a small smile when she pulled out her own barstool and perched herself on it. “What a waste,” she murmured quietly.

Kara half-smiled. “Thinkin’ of all th’ trouble ye’d cause with your new looks if ye had the chance?” she asked.

“Something like that,” Belinda said. “Although I suppose whatever happens I can keep myself Master’s priority.”

“Until he puts us all through it,” Kara pointed out. The idea made her oddly ill-at-ease, considering how determined she’d been at one point to take the place Belinda was now treating as hers by right.

Not that Kara didn’t already know better than that. If Belinda really was the Master’s first choice, she wouldn’t be out here on a mission where just about anything could happen. She’d be at home being used for pleasure, and Kara’s team would be ferrying Burrows back the way they brought Belinda in the first time.

All the same, Kara was surprised at her own reaction to the idea of being given a body like Belinda’s. Even when her mind was her own, she viewed her sexuality as an asset and a pleasure at the same time; it was something she was proud of, something she enjoyed, and she took pains to keep her body in a balance she’d honed over time.

So was it the fact the change had been imposed on Belinda that made Kara view it with such suspicion? She didn’t see how that could be the case; after all, she was perfectly accepting of the idea that her mind could be changed and reshaped. She might oppose the people who did it, but the process itself secretly delighted her, and she’d been through it enough now that it seemed perfectly natural.

Was it the newness of the idea? Again, Kara didn’t think so; if anything, when she first saw Belinda she’d been more excited about the possibility. This antipathy had come along after she’d had time to think about; more accurately, after her hindbrain had. And it had decided it didn’t much like the idea.

Perhaps it was just that she didn’t like the idea of unearned capability, she thought. Which, now she came to think about it, also explained why she wasn’t impressed by mind controllers. They all seemed to love cheats and shortcuts.

“I think you’re right, you know,” she said abruptly.

“About what?”

“About being his favourite slave,” Kara said. “He took a Matriarch and turned her into an obedient, submissive slut with the body o’ his dreams, not hers. And now she loves it. He’s got tae be happy with that.”

It wasn’t so much a calculated move as a sudden conviction that it was now or never. At that moment, at the peak of her annoyance with mind controllers in general, the goading words came more easily, as if her frustration had helped to strain the leash.

The expression that moved across Belinda’s face suggested some similar contest in a completely different direction was going on. Furious, the woman grabbed Kara’s head with both hands and pulled her in for a kiss. There was an accompaniment of whoops from several of the nearest bar patrons.

The motion had been almost identical to their first kiss, but the body language surrounding it was wildly different, not just the context.

As their lips touched, something more than usual seemed to flow into and through Kara. Scalp and skin tingled, pleasure flooding through her, a giddying pleasure. She could feel more than that, a sense of something, almost of belonging. The sensation was much more intense than their previous encounter, a real power behind it. Kara was sure that she’d driven the other woman, as far as she could go; the pride in herself was back, and with it came her power.

Washing into Kara like a wave. Crashing into the bulwarks of the Thoughtsmith’s control.

Just as she’d planned.

At the tipping point, when Belinda’s control was cracking the Thoughtsmith’s, Kara brought both hands up together and shoved the other woman, breaking the kiss. Belinda blinked, staring at her in something like disbelief, and a spark of something like resignation appeared in her eyes. Most likely, Kara thought, the fear that she could no longer control others while she had a Master was bubbling back to the surface, and must have seemed to her to be proven.

Kara’s own head snapped forward in a sudden headbutt. The noise was startlingly loud; the pain in Kara’s head was a jolt. She couldn’t understand why her father had always sworn by a headbutt in a fight.

It had still been worse for Belinda, who was sliding off her chair, either dazed or all the way unconscious. Kara popped up to her feet, reaching out hastily and catching the other woman. A quick adjustment and she had the erstwhile Matriarch over her should. She turned toward the table she believed harboured C.A.L.I.B.R.E. security and started walking; they were watching her already, and stood up as she approached.

“Ah’m sorry,” she said, flashing them a tight smile. “I know yuir off duty, but Ah thought ye should know aboot a mind controller who sent this lass as a recruiter against ye.” She shifted position and dumped the Matriarch sprawling over their table. In the motion she saw that bar security was headed toward her; the right thing for them to do, of course, but dreadfully inconvenient at that moment.

“I’ll have tae go in a minute, boys, but this is a woman known as the Matriarch. Dinnae let her kiss ye, aye? An’ she’s workin’ for a man called the Thoughtsmith. He’s up in Boston, uh-”

She rattled off the zip code from memory. “Have ye got that?” she asked, and one of the three had the presence of mind to nod. “Guid enough,” she said. “Bye now.” And with that she was running; behind her, the bouncers burst into a run themselves, but they were concerned about collisions with the patrons and Kara wasn;t,

She went over the first table by vaulting it, one hand planted in the centre for stability and momentum, and threw herself feet-first into a slide through the next. Even counting the time needed to scramble to her feet this had given her enough of a lead to make it to the door, where she hit the bouncer blocking her way with a nerve jab to the shoulder followed by an elbow to the ribs as he fell; this was enough to sweep him out of her way. Out in the streets of Aspen she broke into a run, knowing she’d probably only be pursued for a block at most.

*

She’d walked out of town for about an hour before she judged the time had come to stick out her thumb. It wasn’t just avoiding law enforcement and not having to deal with their awkward questions, she also wanted to be sure that the women she’d stood side by side with during her enslavement didn’t find her, not until she was ready.

The car that stopped for her dropped her off in Granite Village. Kara found a mechanic with an unhappy home life who couldn’t believe his luck, and once she left him satisfied she got on the road in the cheapest car on his lot that worked. He even threw in a full tank of gas.

In Denver she trailed through the worst bit of town until she won a pimp’s attention. That gave her a sizeable cash deposit and the use of an old but lovingly-maintained muscle car. It was in bright purple, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d be alerting the police so how easy it was to track didn’t matter too much. This done, she paid for a night in a motel outside town, bought dinner at the diner, set her alarm for midnight and went to sleep.

At midnight she broke into a pharmacy and got back on the interstate. An hour before dawn she started hunting through out-of-town motels, looking for large vehicles with tinted windows and Colorado plates. She found one at the sixth motel she checked.

It was nearly dawn, and it didn’t surprise her that the motel reception was empty the way it would have with a hotel. She crept behind the counter, listening to the mingled sounds of snoring and implausibly perky morning TV hosts, and checked the guestbook.

Five minutes later, the master keyring in hand, she was easing open the door to room four. Twin beds. Two occupants, checking in about an hour after Kara left Denver.

She was very pleased with her estimations. Her basic theory had been sound; when they started to worry, they’d investigate; when they investigated, they’d find out that Belinda was (hopefully) in custody and Kara was in the wind. At that point their orders would be impossible and they’d look to head back inconspicuously.

So they’d take whatever vehicle they’d stolen, which would have been selected as one they could transport five in unobtrusively, and they’d have driven until they knew they were too tired to drive safely and looked for a motel. After that Kara just needed to work out roughly when they’d have realised and how far they could have got before they hit that point.

And now here she was, injecting Jillian with a dose of tranquiliser meant for a much bigger animal. She moved across to the other bed, switching syringe, and applied that one too.

Then she picked up the phone and dialled a New York area number.

“Mike?” she said, after the salvo of swearing that greeted her. “It’s me. Ah need a favour…”

*

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED

TRIAL, TRIAL AGAIN

He was originally expected to stand trial in 2009 before a prison escape en route to the courthouse. Yesterday, almost four hours later, the trial of the supervillain known as Thoughtsmith finally concluded, with multiple additional charges of criminal conspiracy, assault, robbery, receiving stolen goods, conspiracy to pervert the course of an election, and resisting arrest all on the docket.

The Thoughtsmith, real name Thaddeus Smith, was found guilty on all counts. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

A number of his followers are currently undergoing deprogramming, including several active in key roles in Boston governance as detailed in previous reporting at the time of his arrest. However three are known to be at large, although they should by now be at or near the six-month point from last mental treatment at which they become ineffective.

Authorities took advantage of this opportunity to renew their calls for Kara Kraft and Christina and Jillian Stoppel to make an appointment to discuss the situation.

The trial of the woman known as the Matriarch is scheduled for next week.

Candace Kraft sat back in her monitor chair and mulled over the story she had just read. Search alerts were useful tools, she thought, but sometimes you found yourself trying to read between the lines. What had her daughter had to do with all this?

“You’re going to be trouble, young lady,” she said thoughtfully. “What kind I don’t know, but you’re going to be trouble.”