Tanya Wayman tried to hit the gym so late in the night that it was almost early morning, when there was almost nobody else there. Standing barely over five feet, she had a slender build and tended to hide her musculature under loose shirts and baggy sweatpants, but in the gym there was no hiding her strength - and when you can clean and jerk five hundred pounds without breaking a sweat, it often raises comment.

She’d arrived this time mid-morning, having spent the time since she walked out of her house walking aimlessly through the streets of Bayport, staring at her phone and willing it to chime.

It simply wasn’t usual for Swift Fox to go dark for any length of time. She’d been off chasing some kind of investigation that had nothing to do with Rebelle business, but in her costumed guise as Wayward, Tanya was and Swift Fox were closer than anyone else on the team, and they often chatted about their solo work on a secure messaging app.

The last thing Swift Fox had sent her was short and simple. Unfortunately it also made for a deeply uncomfortable cliffhanger if nothing else was added.

We’ve laid anchor near the island. Once everyone’s asleep I’m going ashore.

Tanya smelled trouble, and the longer she didn’t get an update, the more trouble she pictured her friend and teammate in. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the details she needed to loop Monsoon and the other Rebelles in and fly out there, because she wasn’t clear on where ‘there’ even was. If, say, Pyre had gone missing, Tanya’s first step would have involved turning it over to Swift Fox to figure out where Pyre had been headed last, but as she was the team detective, if she vanished without leaving precise clues, the rest of them were a little screwed.

They could, Tanya quietly admitted to herself, just go to Red Fox, but she knew he’d take over the whole thing, and given how disdainful he’d always been about the idea of an all-girl ‘teen team’ she really, really didn’t want to do that. None of them were even teens anymore; they’d been doing this for nearly five years and they’d saved the world three times. Red Fox had to know about at least two of those, but he had a respect problem; he expected it from everyone and never bothered to give any of his own.

So instead, Tanya was in the gym in Bayport, working out to take her mind off her friend’s silence. It was… kind of working, although the stunned looks she was getting from the hardbodies around her meant she was mostly just angry about something else.

On the other hand, Tanya would hardly have become Wayward in the first place if she wasn’t used to anger. People seemed to notice how combative she was much more now she was an adult, as if she’d been given a ‘free pass’ for her temper as a teen heroine. Like it had been cute, or maybe just that people didn’t want to talk about anger in teenagers.

She knew how to direct her anger, how to channel it into aggression. In a team where one of the members could turn into living flame, Tanya knew she was considered the most dangerous combatant and she liked it that way.

Catching sight of the disbelieving look of one of the other attendees, she smiled, a frustrated echo of Wayward’s usual cocky smile, and redoubled her efforts. There was a sharp crack as the battle rope mooring came free from the wall, followed by the metal mooring itself coming flying toward her trailing chunks of breeze block.

Tanya hit the deck with reflexes that spoke of long training and experience. The yells from behind her as other gymgoers scrambled to avoid the mooring told her it was probably time to make her apologies and leave.

She was just about done apologising to the duty manager when her phone finally chirped up. Unfortunately it wasn’t a notification from Swift Fox, but it was still Rebelle business; she’d set Monsoon’s ring tone to Umbrella in her phone almost when the Rebelles started, had felt briefly guilty a couple of years later when ‘Fearless Leader’ found out, and had never quite got around to changing it, even when she updated the handset.

“What’s up, boss?”

“You’re on the ground,” Monsoon replied, her voice sharp with concern. “You should be telling us.”

“I’ve been busy,” Tanya said, heading for the door with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Something happening in Bayport?”

“We’re on our way,” Monsoon told her. “Most of us. I can’t raise Swift Fox.”

Tanya started to say About that, but she’d reached the door now and what she saw demanded her full attention.

Seeing helmeted, faceless troops on the ground in Bayport was horrifying. The purple shoulder blazons that marked them as Overshadow’s troops gave her a shock of actual fear. The Rebelles had never faced Overshadow - that was the kind of thing that Task Force or the Safeguard handled, usually; not that there was a pecking order, but Monsoon wouldn’t exactly seek out a conflict with Overshadow.

Except that Bayport was home to Wayward and Pyre. It was where, five years ago, Pyre had used her inheritance to turn her home into Rebelle Lodge, the townhouse on the surface completely hiding the secret headquarters beneath. She’d gone through Red Fox to find a firm willing to design, construct, and keep it secret, and she’d gone from being the Richest Girl in America to something like the four hundredth richest person below the age of maturity.

Now, as an adult and a college student at Bayport U, she was something like fifty thousandth on the list; to hear her tell it, she could do as much as she could for charity but the family business made her money faster than she could spend it, and the Board wouldn’t sign off on her cutting their salaries. Bobbi was steadily buying them out until she could change that.

The result of all this was that Bayport was known as one of the better mid-size cities to live in across America, and it was also known as the Rebelles’ home town. Which meant if Overshadow was coming here, it was connected to the fact the Rebelles were there.

And here Tanya was, right in front of her army, without her costume on, in front of a bunch of people who knew her.

“I’ll call you back,” she told Monsoon. She was running for the nearest alleyway as she hung up, thankful she’d already collected her gym bag.

*

Melissa sat at the main access to the island supercomputer. She had a cheerful smile on her lips as she continued to type out everything she knew about the other Rebelles, including addresses and civilian names in two cases. If the Doctor decided they should be his, Melissa had been told, it should be made easy for him. Melissa agreed; like everything Candace had told her she could feel it in her head, a warming, pleasing nugget of truth in the centre of her mind.

She was so warm with certainty now. How had she managed, before this? How had she coped? Only the truth of her submission made sense of the world. It was a single, sure knowledge, a stillness in the whirl of chaos around her. When she had orders to obey, she was in that blissful stillness, safe from the foolishness of others. But she was always safe from others’ uncertainty, their lack of purpose.

She had only ever imagined, as a heroine, that she had true purpose. It had been a comforting illusion, and she knew that now.

She didn’t even presume to hope that her teammates would be found worthy by the Doctor. That was above her; all she was, all she should be, was a slave. The Doctor or the Mistress or any of the others who outranked her would tell her what to hope in due time.

The Rebelles done, she was adding the much less that she knew about Fray, the man who led the Upstarts, when the door opened and Lulu breezed into the room. Melissa flashed her a quick smile before turning back to the screen; Lulu bustled into a cupboard and started fiddling in the recesses.

“Did you have any super-friends on the yacht we missed?” Lulu asked over her shoulder. Melissa blinked several times. She knew intellectually that Lulu outranked her, but until she received her first order from the woman, it didn’t feel real. Now it absolutely did; there were at least three people who Melissa was supposed to submit to who would gladly accept her submission.

“No, Mistress,” she answered.

“Don’t call me that,” Lulu snapped. Having been aware of the woman out of the corner of her eye, Melissa watched Lulu slowly, carefully lower her shoulders. “Sorry,” Lulu said, which didn’t make sense to Melissa. She’d given an order. That was nothing she should apologise for. “I’m not your Mistress.”

The protocol she had been taught told Melissa the correct answer to this was Yes, Mistress, but that was clearly indicated against. She was still trying to resolve this predicament when Lulu spoke again. “We’re both slaves,” she said. “I don’t outrank you, I just got taken first.”

Candace had been very clear that Melissa was to obey Lulu, that her commands could be trusted to be in the spirit of the Doctor’s wishes. She did acknowledge, now things were clearer, that this was not incompatible with them both being slaves. She smiled. “I’m sorry, Lulu,” she said, and found as she did that she meant it, that the compassion she felt shone in her voice. She hadn’t known whether she would mean it or whether it was a programmed response until she spoke.

Lulu acknowledged the apology with a curt nod, glancing away afterward as if embarrassed. Having already chosen to adopt the submissive role for the conversation, Melissa stayed silent and waited.

That had been something Swift Fox had been good at too, it occurred to her. An interrogation technique. It was good to know that skills she’d developed before she knew her purpose were useful for it.

“OK. So if nobody else is super special that way,” Lulu said softly, “is there anyone on there you have a… special connection to?” She seemed to be blushing. “Anyone you might be sad to hear was…?”

The pieces fell into place. “Nobody on the boat was my lover,” she said, and watched Lulu begin to relax immediately. “I suppose if I were told to take one…”

“That’s not what I meant.” Lulu didn’t seem entirely comfortable talking about this. “Mistress… sometimes doesn’t bother to make new slaves OK with her actions before she tries out their men.” No wonder she was uncomfortable. Criticising a superior?

Melissa just smiled. She’d only ever leaned on Chad for the money she needed for her investigations, but Chicago debutante rumour said he was a pretty good lay. If Mistress was getting the benefit of that, that was a clear win, right?

But Lulu had taken the time to check on this, and Melissa now saw clearly her first question had been only a pretext to bring this up. “Did Mistress do that to you?”

“I don’t know,” the Asian said simply, her voice soft and gentle. “My memory begins when my true lift begins; as the Doctor finished his treatment of me. Who I was before has been… thrown away.”

*

Wayward sprinted out of the alleyway. A sleeveless bodysuit in a vibrant green, green domino mask across her shaved undercut, bright yellow calf-length boots, and yellow wrist wraps made sure that everyone saw her coming - the civilians and Overshadow’s soldiers alike. For the firs time she heard gunfire, but it was directed at her so she paid it little attention. Bullets pattered off her body without effect, like insults.

She hit the nearest trooper at speed. Didn’t even bother with a punch or a kick, just put her head down. Caught him in the chest. Felt him fly away at the impact. Heard the body armour under his fatigues crack apart with the impact.

Along with her strength and near-invulnerability, Wayward’s power gave her incredible control over her own inertia. She was already switching direction, but she lost no speed as she turned, lost no momentum. Her muscles rippled in the lunchtime sun as she picked her moment, leaping this time toward the next soldier. He took a boot to the mask and Wayward flipped in midair, again converting her momentum to send her charging after another target.

To an onlooker, the effect was very like watching an angry, muscular, pixie-sized pinball.

The third trooper she caught with a huge haymaker of a punch, again leaping at the last moment to be able to connect with their jaw. The faceless mask of the helmet shattered and Tanya saw the stunned expression on the face of the woman within as she crumpled. She was already pivoting on her hind foot, hunting for another, but as she set eyes on them she came straight to a halt.

The next trooper she saw had snared one of the civilians nearby. They held the quaking, terrified man facing Wayward, his eyes pleading for safety as the barrel of the trooper’s sidearm rested against the side of his head.

For the first time Wayward came to a full halt. Wayward allowed her body’s needs to catch up for a moment, drawing in the first breaths she’d taken since running to the attack. At the same time she was taking stock. Making sure she had a clear picture of the other troopers present, she was calculating the best way to stop that guy from pulling the trigger.

And then, all of a sudden, the sunny day clouded over to become almost as dark as dusk. Everyone in the street except Wayward flinched, but Wayward just smiled. She reached out and pointed at the soldier with the hostage.

A bolt of lightning struck the man’s gun, sending it flying. He lost his grip on his hostage. Wayward was already running. She hit him like he was a rival quarterback, hearing his body armour shatter on impact, driving him to the ground. On one knee above him, the other leg out to the side for stability, she hung over him for a long moment, attempting to make eye contact with each of the other troopers in the area.

Not that anybody was looking at her now. Not with Monsoon descending from the sky, Monsoon’s skin was coffee-black; her hair, tied back in one long, much-looked-after braid, blew out behind her slightly even when she wasn’t actively drawing down the weather. She had always been elegant and graceful and now, firmly into adulthood, that elegance had become beauty. The baggy blue skater jeans and white crop top she’d started out with had been replaced with a sleeveless bodysuit and half-mask like Wayward’s but a deep blue, and Monsoon had come up with a way to weave LED strands into it, so white lights flickered up her sides and down her thighs as if lightning was running through her.

Tanya raised her hand to her head, flipping a mock salute. “Good to see you, boss,” she said - then dived to one side, suddenly acutely aware of an actual threat incoming.

The chunk of concrete and brick that smashed into and against the road where she’d been standing was big enough and heavy enough that it mostly didn’t shatter from the impact. Instead, the road surface had cracked and caved in enough that what had been thrown stayed upright. Looking over her shoulder, Tanya saw a hulking figure stood atop a building three or four doors down tearing another chunk out of the roof, clearly ready for another shot.

Not Overshadow. Probably not as big a threat, but still a very real threat. Wayward grinned wildly, allowing the adrenaline her body had been producing throughout the fight to fill her. “I can take him,” she called. “I just need a lift.”

“Start your run, then,” came the answer, not through Monsoon but through one of her other colleagues. Featherweight, who spoke in short sentences, said so sincerely that they came across as wise sayings, didn’t like to be seen in a fight - as she often said, she had less that was useful as a defence than anyone else in the team, including Swift Fox who didn’t even have powers. But she so often provided the calm, confident backbone to the team.

And she was always on hand for something like this. Wayward broke into a flat sprint. When she’d covered about half the distance to the hulking super, she bunched her feet and kicked off against the ground, soaring into the air. She reached the point where her arc upward should have stopped, and she kept going up.

She kept going up because, with Featherweight staring at her and exerting her own power, the rules of gravity bent a little. Not only could Featherweight affect the way gravity acted on a single object but she had an innate understanding of just how much to adjust it for any given spatial relationship. Wayward knew her arc would top out right at the rooftop, that the momentum she’d built up in the leap would still be with her. She knew that even the change in gravity was calibrated instinctively to slow her as little as possible.

Closer to the figure, she could see he was made of concrete himself; almost certainly one of those unlucky victims of experiments who’d been shifted into a state that was more and less than human all at once. If the Rebelles threw Overshadow into retreat, there were even odds he’d meld with the concrete and vanish, making his way back to his base after he re-emerged some way well out of town.

Or, she thought, she could knock him out beforehand.

She bunched her hand into a fist, cocked it, and was grinning wildly, waiting for the moment of impact, when she suddenly felt the smooth arc of her leap disrupted. About ten feet back from where it needed to, about five feet too low to make it to the roof, she found her lift drop out.

Wayward didn’t plummet down, but she hurtled forward as she dropped. Seeing the sheet glass of the office building window in front of her she flung her arms up in front of her face in an X, squeezed her eyes shut, and she smashed through the reinforced impact, crashing into the floor of the office and eventually rolling to a stop against a desk.

It didn’t knock her out, but it shook her; she took a few moments picking herself back up and orienting herself, then found the door to the stairwell and sprinted for it.

She shouldered open the door to the rooftop and saw that the hulking figure was already gone, that the storm-darkened skies were beginning to lighten, and Wayward felt her stomach churn with an anxious sinking feeling. She rushed to the edge of the rooftop and looked down; she could see Monsoon, still hanging in the air, aloft in her own winds. Elsewhere in the sky she could finally see Pyre as a flash of fire soaring through the skies.

Pyre was visibly chasing something. Without hesitating or thinking Tanya leapt from her perch, landing on another building’s roof. She sped across it and leaped again, then again. But the available rooftops she could reach were getting fewer and fewer, and in due time she had to stop. She hadn’t quite seen what Pyre was chasing, but as she watched, that flash of fire returned. It didn’t look like she’d been successful.

*

The Doctor hurried along one of the wider corridors in Overshadow Base, not-quite-flanked by the two soldiers following him, both of whom carried their weapons casually pointed away from him yet not so far away that they couldn’t be called into use if he ‘provoked’ them.

To put it bluntly, he was worried. The two soldiers had showed up on their own and demanded he come with them. There was no doubt this was approved by Overshadow, probably directly ordered by her, and Sinner was nowhere to be seen. Nor were the other soldiers he’d already conditioned for her.

He’d been teaching Sinner to use the Tiara interface. It was a necessity, but it was also a gamble. He knew there was going to be some surveillance on them, and it was always likely that at some point Overshadow might decide that Sinner would be more reliable than he was. He’d just… expected to have a little more time to set up an exit plan first.

The troopers led him in the end to the hangar. As well as the passenger jet still in storage, from this entry point he could see a smaller VTOL craft that he’d missed when he was there the first time. Not that he’d had much focus to spare for anything but the troopers and, then, Overshadow…

…And Overshadow was waiting there again, by the VTOL. Two other troopers flanked her, which seemed incredibly pointless to Bimbeau. He would lose in a fight to any of the three, but he might actually hurt one of the troopers before doing so. No such chance against Overshadow.

Musing on what therefore had to be a display of power meant that to begin with, he almost didn’t see the other person present, probably because they were horizontal. A young woman with the smooth, impassive expression of someone under chemical anaesthesia and the implausibly flat stomach, flared hips, and massive bust of a superheroine was lying on a gurney about three feet off the ground. She wore a tight red belly top with full sleeves and a logo design of yellow concentric circles, a small yellow face mask, and tight red pants and boots with yellow side stripes.

Once seen it was hard to believe he hadn’t spotted her, but his attention had been focused elsewhere.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” Overshadow said coolly, her pale eyes on his. The Doctor swallowed and broke eye contact, not willing to meet her eye for long.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “At least I hope so.”

“Indeed.” She gestured to the prone woman. “Thoughts?”

Bimbeau was silent for several moments. Was she building to something beyond the obvious? Was this a test? “Well, she’s either superhuman or she wants to be,” he said. “Because that’s not a uniform you’d issue, is it?”

Overshadow’s expression was hard to read, but he was pretty sure he saw her lips twitch. Hopefully that was amusement. She opened her hand fractionally and remained silent.

He continued. “She’s out cold. Knocked out, drugged, or some power. Probably drugged I think. So she probably wouldn’t want to be here. And that means, I assume, that you want her treated, yes?”

“If you can,” Overshadow said.

“…What would get in the way?” he asked delicately, then tutted. “Stupid question. Better: What powers does she have?”

“Gravity manipulation,” Overshadow replied. “I want to see her join my army. I do not want my base damaged. These are the criteria.”

“That sounds… potentially nasty,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. “I think the rig I have here can do at least some work while the subject is unconscious, though.”

Overshadow looked at him, eyes still cool, and waited. Waited for him to commit himself either way.

Well, he wanted to stay alive. He took a deep breath. “I think I can do this for you,” he said. “Is there anything I should know about her?”

“You don’t recognise her?”

“I’ve only been paying attention for a very short while. Metahumanity is organised rather differently in the places I’ve lived.” By which he meant that the UK had its own opportunities for superhumans, and anyone on his island was his slave.

“This is Featherweight,” Overshadow said. “A member of a team. We won’t be asking you to process the rest of the team - not yet.”

He looked back at her steadily now. He felt a lot more confident now he knew what he was being asked. “Did they escape?”

“There was never a capture order,” she said calmly. Bimbeau hoped his own poker face was as strong; he’d really been hoping her reaction there would have given him some better idea. “Her teammates are… not as easy to restrain.”

He nodded.

Overshadow turned away and started to float back up toward her first-floor exit from the hangar. “I expect results by nightfall,” she called over her shoulder. He watched her go thoughtfully, then turned to face one of the troopers. “You guys have a much better idea than I do,” he said. “Has she always been this way?”

There was no expression to judge by, but the way the mirrored masks tilted as they exchanged glances with one another said something to him. Overshadow was changing. Was pushing herself harder.

And that only made sense; would he have been kidnapped if she hadn’t decided to push harder?

He took the gurney wordlessly and started wheeling it back to his lab.

*

“Sinner,” he said as he backed into the room, “how are you at roleplaying?”

“Doctor?”

“We’ve got an odd one.” He brought the gurney up toward the bed. “I’m going to try something unusual. I want you to play along and follow my lead.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Sinner said, brightening from her confusion at this clear, if not firm, instruction.

“Good. Start hooking her up to the system. Don’t worry that she’s asleep.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Sinner moved to obey an even more direct instruction, a genuine spring in her step, a smile on her lips under glassy, vacant eyes.

*

Featherweight blinked several times. God, she’d…

She must have drifted off. Not sleeping but she might as well have been, because the memory had felt like a nightmare. She’d been seen, definitely, by someone - one of Overshadow’s goons - and she’d been grabbed, dragged into a plane. There had been a prick in her arm, a sting, and moments later, she was out, her powers failing before she did.

That must have been a while ago now. Of course she’d been rescued, by… by…

Why was she dwelling on it? Grumpily she turned her mind back to her present, where she stood in a beige room with a cheap office desk and two even cheaper office chairs, both on the other side of the desk to her, lit by a single lightbulb. It sure seemed like most of the budget for Task Force headquarters had been spent on the building’s security and externals, but the result was something that felt like every other room she’d every had an interview for work in, except there wasn’t a corkboard with a duty roster.

If she kept thinking back to that horrible moment, she’d never get to fill the open slot on Task Force. Just as bad, she’d make a complete fool of herself.

The door opened. Featherweight shook her head quickly, hoping to clear it of those strange old doubts ahead of the question.

Task Force had been a federal superteam for a few years in its first incarnation, and it had since been adopted by the UN during the team’s global expansion phase in the early 2000s. Almost nobody from that era was still an active member, though, and so it didn’t hugely surprise Paloma that neither the man nor the woman who entered appeared to be members of the team, nor even superhumans.

It wasn’t even too surprising that the man, when he introduced himself, didn’t sound American.

“Featherweight, I’m Mr Alphonse,” he said with a smile, holding out his hand to shake. She returned the smile and the gesture, nodding her head.

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he agreed. “This is Miss Longbottom. We’re going to be reviewing your application today. Well,” he corrected himself. “We’ve reviewed your application. Today,” and his tone changed somehow, and the quiet background hum of the building grew louder, and as the hum grew, something seemed to soften inside her head. Her nerves started to ebb a little, “we expect you to co-operate with a discussion of what it shows.”

With her nerves reduced, Paloma could feel a tingle of excitement up and down her spine that seemed to kick in as Mr Alphonse stressed his pitch. It was such a delicious shiver it almost felt like it wasn’t just excitement. Certainly she would be happy to co-operate, to fit in with his expectations.

She nodded. “Of course!”

“That’s great.” He took a seat, and so did Miss Longbottom, who crossed her long legs then folded her hands primly over her knee. Miss Longbottom’s role appeared to be to watch Paloma, looking, perhaps, for some kind of reaction. What reaction was the wrong one? Self-consciousness prickled against her scalp.

With no chair for herself, nervous and wanting to do the right thing, Paloma took two steps forward and stood before the desk, hands clasped behind her back. Every time the building hummed a little more, her nerves went away - she had to be feeling real bad about something. Had her brief capture by Overshadow got to her that much?

The man gave her an encouraging nod. “Very accommodating, isn’t she?” he asked, and Miss Longbottom nodded, favouring Paloma with a thin smile. “Certainly, Mr Alphonse,” she said.

Oh. That felt good. That felt better than Monsoon telling her she did good work. Featherweight really hoped she wasn’t actually smiling giddily in response. Get it together - get it under control - you want these people to like you.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Mr Alphonse said, giving Paloma the sudden queasy fear she’d been talking aloud without noticing. But no - that couldn’t be it. “So,” he said. “You’ve obviously been part of a team before.”

“Yes.”

“How good at being a team player do you feel you are?”

Images flashed through her mind. She’d failed to give Wayward the arc of attack Wayward needed during the Overshadow fight, of course, and as her most recent mission that loomed large in memory. Larger even than her escape. She couldn’t remember that part at all.

Thankfully, memories of other times came back swiftly. She often gave Wayward the boost the other woman needed to hit things, but when the Rebelles had saved that airliner it had been she and Bobbi who’d done it, Bobbi acting as an engine, Paloma stabilising it. Even Swift Fox had benefitted from her help when her identity had been under threat, making it easy to switch her with Markswoman wearing her costume in time for a reveal. Not that Paloma had perfectly clear memory of that event; she’d agreed to let Big Brother erase the specific details of Fox’s real identity.

“That’s all excellent,” Mr Alphonse said, nodding. So Paloma was saying all these things, spilling all her innermost secrets, without even noticing she was talking. And giving away all sorts of things! She blushed, a deep crimson under the youthful brown of her cheeks. And yet the two interviewers seemed happy…

“Complete honesty, please,” Mr Alphonse said. “You will be utterly open with us.”

Paloma didn’t notice how that wording came across as an instruction, but she was happier following it than she had been before. She talked for some time about the ways she’d worked as a Rebelle. And all the while, as Miss Longbottom continued to study her approvingly, she preened.

These were lovely people.

“We are lovely people,” Mr Alphonse agreed, at length. “You want nothing more than to join us, I’m sure.” Featherweight again failed to notice that this was an instruction, one she was firmly poised to follow.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“No matter what,” he added.

“No matter what,” Paloma agreed after a moment, as it seemed to be expected of her.

“You will be part of the team.”

“I will be part of the team.” Paloma had a sense, now, that something was changing; that the lovely soft squishiness in her head was now something that could be shaped and changed like playdough. She could see ahead that her mind might set into the same shape. And yet by now, she was caught up in the current, swept along by events, and that hum in the background was making everything better.

“You will take and obey orders.”

“I will take and obey orders.”

“You will work to make your superiors satisfied.”

“I will work to make my superiors satisfied.”

“You want your superiors to be happy.”

“I want my superiors to be happy.”

“You want your Mistress Overshadow to be happy.”

“I want my Mistress Overshadow to be happy,” Paloma echoed and accepted, a few moments before her head hiccupped to a nervous stop at the idea. Something about that, she knew, was wrong. But now that she wanted Overshadow to be happy… now she would take and obey orders… she didn’t think it mattered nearly so much as it once had.

“It excites you to obey your programming.”

“It excites me to obey my programming.” This was all so strange, Paloma thought. Why was Overshadow now her Mistress? She’d escaped from her, two weeks ago…

“Obedience makes you happy.”

“Obedience makes me happy.” There was something wrong, she thought. Some one issue which, if she could just work it out, she’d understand what was happening.

“Obedience makes you horny.”

“Obedience makes me horny,” she echoed excitedly. Everything felt so good and so right… but there was still that irritating itch at the back of her head. That one thing that was definitely wrong somehow…

“Your pleasure and your happiness come from obedience.”

“My pleasure and my happiness come from obedience.” She’d… How had she got here?

“You have a purpose. You love to fulfil it.”

“I have a purpose. I love to fulfil it.” She couldn’t remember arriving for her interview.

“You love to serve.”

“I love to serve.” She couldn’t remember waking up that day…

“Everything is right if your superiors are happy.”

“Everything is right if my superiors are happy.” Actually, she couldn’t remember anything since being drugged on that plane. She wasn’t even listening to the words the interviewer was speaking now. Her focus was entirely on the elusive memory, so frustratingly far out of reach.

“You want to make Mistress Overshadow happy. You want to make me, Doctor Bimbeau, happy.”

“I want to make Mistress Overshadow happy. I want to make you, Doctor Bimbeau, happy.” This was an illusion, she thought, a broad, ditzy smile on her face as she reached her conclusion. She’d never escaped capture. She’d just been made to think she had, so she could come to understand her purpose. So she could know that pleasure only came from obedience.

God, she wanted so much to have a command she could obey…

“Your old team don’t matter.”

“My old team don’t matter.” At least she knew what was going on now. It was an illusion. One to make her more susceptible to whatever was being done to her. That was great - now she knew what was happening she knew how she had to respond.

“You want to be brainwashed.”

“I want to be brainwashed.” She should start trying to break the illusion, she knew, so she could break whatever hypnotic effect was going on inside it. Except… no. She wanted to be brainwashed. At least… maybe for a little while? She could just enjoy what she had to do until she was rescued by… by that bunch of silly girls she’d hung out with before…

“You never want this to end.”

“I never want this to end.” No, she decided. She didn’t want to be rescued. And if Swift Fox figured out where she was, she’d do whatever she could to avoid it.

Probably nothing too violent, though. As irrelevant as they were, they didn’t deserve to be hurt.

*

Melissa’s updates to the Doctor’s database were complete. She found herself, for the first time, a dedicated, obedient slave without any orders to carry out. It was a strange feeling; a little empty, somehow, with a dull ache to be useful. She wanted so badly to do things that would make Mistress or the Doctor smile when they found out. If only she knew either of them better she might be able to think of something, but no.

Still in her torn, straining uniform, pushed to its limits by Candace’s meddling with her body, she rose and made her way from the computer, heading in the direction Lulu had eventually left. She wasn’t yet used to the extra weight her curves had been given, and even though they had each only been adjusted a little, the cumulative effect was enough to make a difference. Her walk had a graceful, almost drunken swaying elegance to it. Melissa felt lightheaded somehow, euphoric at what she had done, so pleased to now understand not just who she was but also what she was.

She was smiling broadly and dreamily, giggling softly to herself, as she explored the compound (she was pretty sure that Mistress would not be upset she’d gone to look for something to do. If Mistress wanted someone to stay put, she would not be shy to order it), when she first heard the cries.

Melissa was familiar enough with the sounds of unwelcome violence to know that wasn’t what was happening here. She giggled a little more at the realisation that this island of enthralled, sex-hungry pleasure slaves were currently embarked on giving pleasure, and even got her hopes up. Was the Doctor here enjoying his slaves? Might she have that honour?

She hurried to investigate.

Lulu had done her best to warn Melissa that her not-exactly-boyfriend was being used by Candace. It had been good, polite, generous - all words Melissa was sure she could apply to Lulu in general, at least now she was Lulu’s fellow slave. It had also been unnecessary as far as saving Melissa’s feelings was concerned.

Still, when she opened the door onto the outdoor pool and the poolside lounge area, she was briefly surprised to see Chad squatting over a sun lounger, legs spread wide, hands gripping the upright chair back and hips pumping in and out like a human hammer. Somewhat paler against his tanned, naked body, Candace’s legs wrapped around his waist as she lay back on the lounger, thighs spread wide, back arched, crying out in programmed, oversexed joy at her new fucktoy.

All this Melissa took in with her detective’s keen eye in the first couple of heartbeats of seeing the scene. Her vision was already dimming at the edges, narrowing in focus, as Mistress’ tits - the same ones she’d used to finish off Melissa’s brainwashing - were as bare as the rest of the two bodies, shivering and jiggling with every thrust of Chad’s hips.

Spellbound, bewitched, and beginning to drool fetchingly from her broad, dopey smile, Melissa crept forward toward those hypnotic mounds.

She still had no guidance. No orders. No commands. But that was no longer in the way of her service. She knew something she could do now.

She stopped walking just a pace from Candace’s side, glassily staring down at all that wonderful soft titflesh. God, but Mistress looked so… so…

She felt the thud of impact as her knees hit the floor before she knew she’d started moving. With a breathy, needy moan, she leaned forward from her knees, hearing the fabric of her uniform thighs tear further under the strain, and she kissed her Mistress’ tits tenderly.

Candace made the most delightful sound and the awareness of Mistress’ pleasure reverberated up and down Melissa’s spine and her brain. Every pleasure centre fired and every remaining thought short circuited, and Melissa muffled her own giggles around a mouthful of her Mistress as lips, teeth, and tongue began to worship at her tits.

A satisfaction she had never before known shuddered through her.