Extract from Jane’s Guide to Costumed Heroes, 2002 Revision

BOLERO, AKA EMERALD, REAL NAME UNKNOWN

Gender: Female

Age: Uncertain

Height: 5’ 11”

Hair: Dark Brown

Race: Latina

Confirmed Abilities: Energy manipulation, energy generation

Unconfirmed Abilities: Extranormal perception via energy fields

Group Affiliation: The Symphony

Year of First Activity: 1992

Locations: Miami (as Emerald), East Coast (with the Symphony)

Known Nemeses: The Everblades, Hypercortex, General Walters

It is almost certain that the heroine initially known as Emerald had been active in Miami for weeks if not months before her first recorded appearance. There are no strong theories regarding her identity and it cannot even be said for sure whether she is a first-generation immigrant from Cuba or had grown up in Miami.

At the time of her first recorded appearance, she was estimated to be in her early thirties.

Footage exists of an Everblades ‘gang council’ being disrupted by a woman whose energy discharge has the characteristic green glow of Emerald in early 1992. This is commonly considered to be her first recorded activity, though her name was not known for another four months, when she deposited the Everblades’ then leader Razor in front of the Miami 10 Local News offices, saying she was “making it public so crooked cops couldn’t let him skate.” Her initial costume - the green leather biker jacket, green leather pants, and white boots, with the bulky metallic green visor - was documented a week or two later.

This is consistent with the standard pattern of development for an unaligned, unsponsored new superhero developing their costumed identity as they find their feet.

Emerald’s relationship with the local police wasn’t much better than that for the next two years, changing only after Emerald successfully identified and subdued Adamant, having linked him to the death of Police Chief Johns in winter 1994. The sudden change in her relationship with many officers led to her being nicknamed “Blue Emerald” right up to her abandonment of the Emerald identity.

There is a two-month period in early 1995 in which Emerald was reportedly not responsible for her actions but was instead under the control of the individual known as Hypercortex, who she had earlier repeatedly defeated. Quite how Hypercortex boosted his mental effects to affect her is not clearly known, but it ended when her occasional ally La Bandera was in town; rather than attack La Bandera, Emerald broke free and began operating under her own direction.

During the initial Macrovac boot in 1996, Emerald and La Bandera were joined by an unknown speedster and the trio were able to shut the AI down, Emerald fighting off his ‘peripherals’ while Bandera and the speedster assembled a device to unleash a targeted EMP affecting only systems occupied by Macrovac.

In the following weeks, the Symphony announced itself to the world, naming the speedster as Quickstep, rebranding Emerald and La Bandera, and adding Foxtrot to their ranks. Emerald switched from her leathers to the green bodystocking and the thinner green visor as part of this rebrand.

In 1998, the Symphony uncovered a major plot to subvert the United States Army and launch a coup led by General Walters. This was eventually prevented by the Symphony, aided by the Task Force in the final showdown. Following details are unclear but it’s known that the team was betrayed by new member Slide.

It later transpired that Slide had been sent into action by General Walters to infiltrate and bring down the team.

Like the rest of the team, Bolero was last seen helping other heroes in the defence of Fort Bragg against the Millennium Bug during his return in late 2001. Her status since is unknown.

For more detail on the Symphony’s activities, consult their group entry in this book.

*

2006

To Lulu’s surprise, it was easy to be away from the Doctor. At the General’s instruction, she’d pulled the bust of her maid costume down over her bare tits, letting the fabric crumple around her waist, and she’d settled to her knees between his military boots.

She had unbuckled the General’s belt and reverently unzipped his dress uniform, and she had taken his cock out from its hiding place in his boxers. Staring at it reverently, she had leaned forward and taken him in her mouth, using practice gained as the slave of another to take him from half-interested to fully attentive in two deep strokes, down swiftly and up slow, her tongue playing another vital role.

And with that done, she had shuffled a little further forward on her knees, enveloped his cock in those big, bare breasts the Doctor had enhanced, and begun to fuck him as he wanted, her tongue playing over his shaft.

The General had instructed her to do this while he debriefed her, but with her big, soft, welcoming tits and her near-year’s slavish devotion to training as a fucktoy, Lulu’s performance occupied him too fully for him to speak. As the purple fog of Gamma’s enchantment continued to fill and twist her mind, hazy purple trails of mystic power drifted from her eyes.

The mage’s determination had turned Lulu’s enchantment from one of mindless, unwilling submission to that of a happy, devoted slave, and those purpled eyes gazed up on the General, seeing him as one who had liberated her from a truly dismal fate simply by claiming her for his own.

As she continued to pump herself up and down his shaft, the enchantment continued to unspool. Her skin there was so sensitive it felt almost like being fucked normally, as if her sternum were her clit. She adjusted her grip on her boobs to tease and tug her nipples as she worked, her mind full of blissful purple fire, coming closer and closer to orgasm. Her mind was so fixated on the General’s pleasure and the way it fed her own that she had entirely forgotten that the enslaved enchantress Gamma still stood in the room, observing, helpless to leave or react without direction.

Gamma had saved Lulu from the same level of helplessness by making her instead an active participant in her own control and submission.

She felt him tense within her embrace, felt that sudden tremble which meant he was close, and looked up, seeing in the General’s expression a man so successfully caught up in the pleasure his slave offered he would not yet be ready to give a decision, and she had no guidance of her own.

She moved quickly, putting her open mouth over his tip, swirling her tongue around him, encouraging him that least step of the way, and let him fill her. Her eyes rolled back into an enchanted purple haze as her cheeks bulged, containing as much as possible.

Lulu knelt back onto her hindquarters, arching her back so she could catch the last drops on them as they escaped him, tilted her head reverently up toward him, and let her mouth open, a happy, vacant smile brim full of his seed, awaiting his decision.

The General was an older man now, and willing to enjoy the contented afterglow without hurrying onto the next thing. So Lulu’s training in holding her breath was important in not swallowing or coughing before he looked down to see her display, smirked, and said “Drink it in, slut.”

Lulu swallowed contentedly, running her tongue around her lips.

“So you’re not the slut I was looking for,” the General said. “But let’s get something clear. As of now, you’re drafted…” His hand came up, forming a fist, and the thumb jutted out, pointing back to the row of medals on his chest and to him in general, “in this man’s army.”

“Yes, General,” Lulu agreed.

“You are not a fighting woman,” he continued. “You’re a technician. But that does not grant you any undeserved rank in my TO, slut. Your rank is Slave, and Slaves rank below a buck private.”

“Yes, General,” Lulu agreed.

“Still, it’s better than being a damn civilian,” he continued, and Lulu heard in his tone a long-held gripe. She didn’t know where it came from, but she didn’t have to. She wasn’t a civilian, she was a Slave, a technician, and she was a part of the General’s war.

Against whatever that was against.

“This current campaign will not be complete until I have Bimbeau’s techniques,” the General said. Lulu remembered Doctor Bimbeau. He had been her Master, once, though he no longer mattered. And she had been a technician for him. But - her heart sank! - she had bad news for the General.

“I don’t understand his technology, General,” Lulu said. “I could operate it if it was in front of me, but I don’t have the knowledge to hand to you.”

The General smirks. “Does that big-brain friend of yours?”

Lulu wasn’t sure how to answer the question, because she couldn’t think of any friends. Maybe Gamma? Gamma had made her submission easier. Obviously the General wasn’t a friend. He was her superior officer. There could be no fraternising in ranks, just use for pleasure and doing her duty as a Slave.

She idly wondered if sufficient success as a Slave might see her promoted to Private. She wasn’t at all convinced that she’d like that.

/He’s talking about Doctor Kraft,/ said Gamma’s voice in her head. Lulu’s mouth and eyes opened wide in surprise and comprehension. Surely Doctor Kraft wasn’t her friend - she was part of the enemy?

Was the General ordering her to consider an enemy as a friend?

Before following that thought to its conclusion, Lulu realised that she had a question to answer, and Gamma had given her the necessary information to answer.

“Yes,” she said. “She helped to design it. She might not remember all of it, but it’s in her subconscious. And she has a small portable, it doesn’t have all of the equipment but it would let us extract information from her.”

The General smiled. Lulu’s instincts told her it was a deeply uncomfortable smile, a crooked grin that should warn anyone to avoid the person with it. Lulu’s enchantment told her she had done well.

“So tell me what you know about her,” he instructed.

*

It was hard to be away from the Doctor. Candace was confident that he would know what to do at a time like this. She had taken the other two of the Doctor’s women still in her care with her, and she had got them away from where the enemy would expect them to be. Using Gigi as her tool, she’d subdued the owners of the house where they found themselves and had secured a new covert base of operations.

She still had to recover Lulu, complete their business with Senator Raines, and - she had privately decided - collect Gigi’s former team to bring back to the Doctor’s island, where she would instruct them all to kneel before him and offer them to him as a gift.

But that would be a lot to get done while working off the back foot, which she currently found herself firmly embedded on. How to get back to forward motion and success?

“Gigi,” she said firmly. The former heroine stepped forward, the military bearing brainwashed into her by her last owner fading now into something unconsciously sultry. It occurred to Candace for the first time that she should check some of the basic Tiara instruction to find out if that subconscious self-sexualisation were intentionally programmed in or merely a result of the process; certainly she’d seen that uncommanded roll of the hips from Lulu, and was pretty certain she’d caught glimpses of herself doing it while passing mirrors in the Doctor’s lair.

“Your team, your friends,” Candace continued. “Does your old leader call the shots, or does whoever’s pulling their strings, this Walters, decide who does what?”

“It’s the General,” Gigi replied. Her lips twitched; Candace could see the old reflex honourific was there on her lips, waiting to be said. But Candace wasn’t her Mistress, and she didn’t necessarily outrank her. She liked to think she’d always be closest to the Doctor, but she couldn’t guarantee that at all.

“Is he a smart tactician?”

Gigi’s lips twitched with something like amusement. “Very occasionally.”

Something about the way she said it made Candace want to pry. “And what occasions are these?”

“When he tells Samba to give him advice.”

Candace giggled. Gigi’s lip-twitch gave way to a full blown smile, now she felt she had permission.

“So what are his problems as a commander?”

“He tends to behave like he has a battalion to throw at a problem,” Gigi said. “He has me doing recon when he’s not sure he can get away with it, but his preference is shock and awe. It’s not always smart.”

Candace nodded. “So when we knew where we were, and knew you’d failed, he just said “Let’s go loud?”

Gigi sighed. “Basically. If he’d briefed Quickstep properly she wouldn’t have grabbed your friend and you’d be there now.”

“Probably being fitted for a helmet.”

“Maybe not. The last time I heard anything about ‘recruiting’ it was on hold; the helmets are left over from someone he took out. He had a limited set.”

Suddenly it became clear why she’d been such a target. A growl escaped Candace’s throat; a frustration and an anger which she couldn’t remember feeling before. This was stealing from the Doctor, and it seemed that was where she drew the line.

“So he might just be holding Lulu?”

“He might. But I know he’s been looking for other options. He had us steal about four gallons of that Chinese drone soldier serum last year. It didn’t fit his end goal, but he might have something he can get information out of her with.”

Candace sat back and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She was too angry for clear thinking right now, and that was no good.

She continued her deep breathing, picturing herself on her knees before the Doctor, nude but for her lab coat, looking up to him adoringly. Just thinking about that helped still the tension in her body and let out the anger, if only because she could never be angry with the Doctor.

(She could remember a time she had been deeply frustrated with him. But she could not imagine why, or how it had felt. It was like a dream, a glimpse into another life.)

“How’s he going to come at us, then?” she asked.

“He needs to find us first. That’ll be Quickstep or Bolero, I think - Delta or Beta. House-to-house searches or trying to trace your system.”

Candace blinked in surprise. Was that possible?

“How would she do that?”

“She’s very sensitive to energy fields. She can feel their aftermath. Trace them. And some fancy technology, she can actually see the difference. So she’s the other option.”

Candace frowned.

“We need to put some plans in action.”

*

Beta had been activated. She was currently seated in the back of a van, disguised as a florist’s delivery vehicle, and was mostly empty of thoughts as she awaited the word to go.

The new woman - she hadn’t even been assigned a codename yet; she was just a rank - was seated at the wheel. Her eyes had that strange violet sheen that meant she was under one of Gamma’s enchantments. It didn’t register properly under her helmet cameras.

Beta didn’t have a clear picture of the situation, but she didn’t need one. She had her orders.

The tingle of her powers interacting with the helmet’s brainwashing effect washed over her again.

Unlike the rest of her squad, inside Beta there was still a small amount of her original awareness. Danielle Vitale, the woman behind the mask of Bolero, could at any time have started to use her powers to shut down the helmet’s neural control effect. She could at any time have ended General Walters’ bid to control her team.

But - to her shame - Vitale kind of liked it. She got a buzz out of this that the rest of her team had no idea about. Walters was an asshole, and he wasn’t nearly as interested in good sex as Hypercortex had been while she was his enforcer and henchwoman, but it was still reminiscent of that time - and she’d enjoyed that more than she’d wanted.

She hadn’t been willing to kill Bandera for Hypercortex. But when Walters had two of her team in the helmets already, she’d discovered she was willing to let them all be consigned to a life of submission. And that tiny part of her that was still Danielle… well, she held some guilt over that, but not nearly enough guilt to reject her decision.

As she did every day, when her powers connected with the helmet’s field, she let her powers suppress and continued to allow herself to be programmed.

Up front, Lulu watched the woman in the control helmet and the green bodysuit suddenly shiver and wondered if it was cold or pleasure.

*

Delta hunted.

Her ass was still sore from the General’s decision to discipline her for grabbing the wrong woman, something Delta had mindlessly accepted. It hadn’t occurred to her to object that she’d just followed orders; it couldn’t. Delta was given less freedom than the rest of her team, and part of that was that her mind was only ever allowed one guiding thought.

(This also made discipline completely pointless, but the General had his scapegoat, so even if no lesson was learned, someone came out satisfied.)

At present, the one thought she had was to find the woman she’d failed to capture before. She knew her appearance and knew she was only to search Annandale. So she hunted at a speed that could not be directly seen, though the citizens she passed by would feel the wind her running created suddenly brush against them, knocking them off balance and even, if they were close enough, sending them flying.

But that would cause no problems, because it couldn’t be identified as her, couldn’t be traced to the General.

She criss-crossed the streets, ducking through alleys, checking every window she could reach, looking for the face she had been ordered to catch. Her helmet limited how quickly she could take in images, the neural field limited how quickly she could process information.

Her movement was methodical, not by strategy but by the few instinctive impulses still left from her prior existence. Each home in turn was circled and inspected, then on to the next, as she moved along Annandale’s streets, and then looped back whenever she hit city boundaries.

Delta hunted. Delta was an efficient hunter.

And before too long, Delta found her prey.

*

Gigi was upstairs, making preparations. She’d had a few weapons with her when originally sent to investigate rumours that Bimbeau was putting out feelers to do business with a Senator, but they were purely for silent, close-in killing. That didn’t seem right at all - her team deserved better than that and, besides, she was confident that being able to deliver her team to her new Master would please him more than simply coming to kneel before him herself - so she was working steadily on blunt instruments, looking for something that would give her a good chance of knockout strikes.

She didn’t have a good plan for Samba, but she wasn’t sure there was one. Privately, she hoped that Dr Kraft’s plans would give them an actually powered ally ahead of time, something that might give them an upper hand.

Or which at least might give them an upper hand combined with how much of Samba’s intellect was lost to her internal struggle against the helmet…

Gigi was worried. If they were up against the Symphony at full strength, she would already have resigned herself to defeat, though she’d be going down swinging. Her reputation as a weaponmistress basically demanded that.

*

And there was another. She was currently sat in an old, run-down, ramshackle Jeep, a ball cap down low over her eyes, a baggy plaid shirt covering her figure, disguising her from anyone who might recognise her. From where she was parked, she could see what was apparently a florist’s van, which she was watching intently.

On the front passenger’s seat, beside her, lay a laser microphone, a battered, worn combat knife, and a police scanner.

She knew exactly who the florist’s van belonged to, and could guess at the identity of the person in the rear. What she was having trouble with was the identity of the woman in front. As far as she knew, outside of the supersluts, General Walters only trusted male staff members. She’d heard him rant before about how duplicitous women were.

How important it was that if a woman had power, she was under the control of a good man.

So seeing this busty Asian who didn’t even carry herself like a soldier was a riddle she didn’t have the clues to solve right away. Same as what they were doing around and active again; they’d laid low for so long.

The scanner crackled into life. “Sir, I’ve located them, sir.”

The words almost ran together, like someone speaking too fast and tripping over their own voice. If there had been others listening for this frequency on a stolen scanner, they might have made that assumption. But she was very familiar with that voice, and she knew this was a speedster, forcing herself down to a slower pace to be understood.

She reached out for the pen clipped to the notepad glued to the jeep’s dashboard, and jotted down the address. As she finished, she was already reaching out for the knife with her other hand. Dropping the pen, she eased out of the Jeep, confident in what she had to do.

*

Delta had reported the target as found. Moments later, a new order came back, and the thought that had filled her head was replaced with a new one.

Enter the house, subdue, and capture. She made another quick circuit of the house, reminding herself where the doors were, and selected the door less visible from the road, following the General’s standing orders.

She hit the door fast enough that only a blur was visible. It shattered into three large chunks, two swinging uselessly in on the door hinges, one spinning out of control into the room.

And Delta came abruptly to a dead halt.

Perched on top of the kitchen table, directly within line of sight of the door, was one of the house’s TV screens, the casing removed, and a new chipset wired in. The screen was flickering, but she could just about make out words below. There were two of them, marked out in bold, impactful capitals:

PAY ATTENTION

The one thought in Delta’s head was gone now, replaced with the new instruction. She felt a strange, tense fuzziness at her temples.

Standing on either side of the door, the husband and wife who had owned the house before Candace took ownership of them recognised their cues to move. The wife, holding a slim electric screwdriver, began removing the screws which kept Delta’s helmet in place. The husband pressed the OK button on their TV remote.

There was a loud thunk. The screen flared. Beneath her helmet, Delta blinked rapidly, feeling suddenly overwhelmed… and oddly aroused. When the flare died down, the screen was still flickering, but the words underneath had changed.

LET THIS HAPPEN

A new thought took pride of place in her head. But this time, it was added to the one already there. Pay attention. Let this happen. She had no idea what ‘this’ was, but she knew what to do.

Thunk.

Again the flare, again the odd, brief, change to the tension in her head. It was getting easier to hold thoughts in her head. It wasn’t supposed to be easy to think. Those were the General’s orders.

DON’T MOVE

The helmet came off; her blonde hair, painfully in need of a wash and a brush, spilled free. Bright, intense blue eyes blinked in the suddenly increased light. Delta was finally seeing the screen with her own senses, not the camera’s limited framerate. Her eyes began to adjust back up to her regular speed.

She could see the subliminal instructions buried below the instructive slogans now. If it was up to her, she could read them as easily as anything else, absorb their messages without them being so hidden as to seep into her subconscious.

Unfortunately for her, she still had her orders. Pay attention. Let this happen. Don’t move.

She heard a steady cracking sound as, off to her side and out of her awareness, the woman who’d removed her helmet systematically attacked its internal mechanisms with a meat tenderiser.

Her eyes kept drinking in that flickering screen. She felt someone’s hands on her; the man who’d been operating the screen’s strange strobe, following his own instructions, was patting down her white bodysuit. He checked for weapons, traps, trackers, and other gadgets; then he unbuckled the golden belt around her hips and let it fall to the floor. (The sound of that impact, Delta would know anywhere; it was a commonplace for her handlers when she had been assigned to pleasure duty.)

The battering at her helmet had subsided. She barely noticed; almost all her attention was on the screen, and some small portion was taken by the hands on her body. One rested right where her belt buckle had been; the other pressed firmly between her shoulder blades, bending her forward at the hips. Her head tilted up on her neck to ensure her view of the screen was never broken; when some of her hair fell in her eyes, the man moving her, knowing his task, reached down to sweep it back behind her ear.

His hand slid across her from waist up to her neck, where the large circular loop of her zipper was a tempting target. He drew it along her bent-double body, past petite breasts, the knuckle of his fingers brushing against her taut abs, until it was fully open.

She heard two gentle footsteps from behind her, aware now - her mind seeming to hold more and more thoughts again, all of them fed to her through the screen - that the man had repositioned himself. His hands reached up to grasp the collar of her catsuit at the back of her neck, and he pulled it back; there was a wrenching yank first on one shoulder than the other, as her body, ordered not to move for itself, did nothing to accommodate his swift, efficient actions.

He eased off slightly on his pull to adjust this, then drew it further back, until she was bare from neck to mid-thigh, her arms - still locked in place a little out from her sides; after all, she hadn’t been told she could move yet - mostly bare, but covered from the wrists down as he hadn’t bothered pulling them free. He hadn’t needed to.

His foot slid in between her legs; his hands anchoring her in place at the hips, he slid one foot then the other out, spreading her legs.

*

Having heard the crash from the front room where she’d been sat to act as bait, Candace shut off the other TV she’d had set up facing the front door. She briefly considered standing Missy down from her position to act as the equivalent ambush by doorside, but decided not to bother. So far, Missy was still mostly programming and rules, not conditioned personality. Once she started to act on her initiative more often, Candace knew from experience, she’d think of her less as fuckable furniture and more as a fellow person.

Instead, she went through to check on things. She could be fairly certain it had worked; the powers Gigi was talking about more or less guaranteed that if her preparations had failed she was unlikely to know about it before it was too late.

She hadn’t been able to make her mind up whether she thought that was better or worse than seeing defeat coming.

As she stopped in the kitchen doorway, she was relieved to see that this was no longer something she needed to worry about. She watched the Pearsons - the owners of the house she had selected for her base of operations, and therefore her improvised extra hands - go about their business, removing the helmet and shutting it down, triggering the pulses and preparing the heroine.

Then she watched Mr Pearson bend her double, half-strip her, stand behind her, and fumble with the fastening of his own jeans. He would already be hard - Candace had told him to get hard earlier, a test of how deeply affected he was, and hadn’t seen any reason to let him relax - so he was about to complete the task she’d given him.

Obviously him fucking the speedster couldn’t match up to the Doctor fucking her, but Candace wanted one of these powered problems on her side as quickly as possible. She’d chosen to duplicate her own first brainwashing experience as closely as possible, and she knew how important it had been to her to be fucked as she drank in her programming, her conditioning.

Candace strolled into the room proper and perched herself on one of the tall bar stools by the kitchen table, out of view of the screen - but close enough to watch the heroine’s eyes and expression.

“You can hear me, right?”

The enthralled heroine grunted, but no more than that. Then she gasped, her mouth opening in surprise despite her instruction, as Mr Pearson thrust into her.

Candace smiled. “You know,” she told her, “we’ve been working, back home, on a fucking machine design to use in initial condition. You’re about to find out why.”

There was a soft whimper from the speedster, Pearson finding his rhythm against her. “The man behind you,” Candace continued. “He’s literally a fucking machine right now. I haven’t given him permission to think again yet.”

She waited a moment, but the heroine didn’t respond. There was a vagueness to her stare that confirmed for Candace just how overloaded her head was feeling - perfect for brainwashing purposes.

“Your name was never Delta,” she began. “Do you remember that time? Before you were tricked into becoming Delta?”

The direct question prompted the first proper answer from the heroine. “Yes,” she acknowledged.

“You aren’t Delta. But you aren’t just Quickstep, either. What’s your real name?”

There was a long pause. Pearson continued to thrust away behind her, locked into a pattern, compelled to fuck until he was commanded to stop, unable to cum until Candace told him to. It was clearly distracting. But what was fascinating to Candace was that she could see intelligence starting to return to the heroine’s glassy eyes. It hadn’t been something she’d noticed with Gigi, where she’d used the Tiara to shortcut through a lot of what she’d been doing here - but she didn’t want to use the Tiara. Not when its energy signature might give them away.

“Samantha,” Delta said at last.

“Good to meet you, Samantha,” Candace said briskly. “So tell me - how do you feel about Delta?”

“I… hate… her,” she managed, each word punctuated by another pump from Pearson. Her eyes kept starting to roll upward, only to be snared by their need to still stare at the screen.

“Do you want her gone, Sammi?” Candace continued.

“Yes…”

“Do you want revenge on the General, Sammi?”

“Yesss…

“Do you like how my fuckmachine feels inside you, Sammi?”

“Nnnf… uhhh…”

“What was that, dear?” Candace cooed teasingly.

“I… fuck… yessss…”

Candace leaned closer forward. “I will give you revenge, Sammi, and I will take Delta away. Do you want that?”

“Yessss…”

Gigi, Candace reflected, had at least been cautious, suspicious; but it didn’t seem like her brain had been so thoroughly or so totally locked down. Sammi - Candace was delighted how quickly she’d accepted the name - was only starting to think again, which meant a lot of easy tricks could very quickly become the basis for her programming, maybe even soon become the basis for her new personality.

Candace loved that idea. The Doctor had taught her that everyone’s best personality would be one that served him in some way. The Senator Raines deal - shit! She hadn’t got long to figure things out for that - was just a more indirect means of service.

She raised one hand and swirled her fingers around in a pre-arranged signal. Pearson’s pace picked up, and his hands moved from Sammi’s hips to her breasts, stroking, fondling, teasing. Sammi made a series of mewling moans. Now, Candace thought. Before she had a chance to get used to the new level of stimulation.

“If you want it, Sammi, there’s a price. Are you ready to pay it?”

Breath coming in short pants between thrusts, she didn’t even ask the price. “Yes. Please?”

“Sammi, when my fuckmachine cums inside you, Delta is gone. But so is Quickstep. All that remains is Sammi, my Master’s slave.” She said it confidently, as if it was already true.

“Delta is gone. Quickstep is… gone… all that remains… your Master’s slave…” There was something new in her tone. Something fragile. The voice of a woman about to be broken into the Doctor’s slave.

Candace had to fight through a wave of arousal to stay focused. “You will obey me as you would my Master until I present you to him.”

“I will… obey… you… as I would… my… Master…” With the fuckmachine pumping away inside her, Sammi’s concentration was scrambled, but her dedication had never been so high. She finally had a reason to submit, not just a mechanical compulsion.

“Your skills are dedicated to him,” Candace continued. “Your powers are dedicated to him. You want to be a slave he can be proud of. You want to be the best slave you can.”

“My skills… dedicated… hhf… to him… my powers… dedi-… dedi-… dedicated… fuck… to… Master… a slave… he can be… hnnng… proud of…” She was trying, but she was so lost in the pleasure and programming now that she couldn’t keep up.

Candace snapped her fingers. Mr Pearson gave one final thrust, spurting uncontrollably within Sammi. And Sammi’s eyes finally rolled back into her head.

Candace grinned. “You should be proud of your husband,” she told Mrs Pearson, who answered “Yes, Doctor.”

Candace twitched, and still wanted to correct her, but it would only confuse things.

“Climb off him, Sammi,” she instructed. “Pearsons, figure out some way to replace that door.”

Her mind was already on to the next set of tasks - no chance to take pleasure in the new conquest as she had with Gigi. There was too much trouble going on here.

*

Beta reached out and tapped the new slave on the shoulder. She recited the address that Delta had given her. The new slave nodded and put the van into gear, but it moved forward only a little before skewing back off the road, unresponsive to the steering wheel.

Beta didn’t have the impetus to understand - her mind was still firmly in idle - but the new slave opened the door and stepped out. She peered back in just a few moments later. “We have a problem,” she said.

The tyres on the left side of the van were not just flat, they both bore the broad, jagged scars that signalled someone with a knife had been at work.

For now, the van was going nowhere.

Beta didn’t register more than a minor frustration in being able to follow her orders. Danielle Vitale, curled guiltily at the centre of her submissive whirl, wondered afresh whether, perhaps, this was time to let the Symphony escape…

She was caught up in her own thoughts, so only Lulu noticed the Jeep driving away.