The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The scene inside the craft was almost surreal... two of the aliens were slumped in furry piles near the transporter pad; unconscious, the Sheriff hoped. Another two were also lying on the deck but much worse for wear. The tabby had a tomahawk sticking out of her skull while orange blood was trickling out of Ssstha’rel’s ear.

Rachel turned to the sole remaining cat-woman. “Can you land this thing?” She demanded, the words really did sound absurd even as she uttered them.

“Yessss! " The terrified alien hissed, then added. “But pleass... No! " She indicated the Tabby with they tomahawk in her head and the unconscious Ssstha’rel. “They die without Medical... Without thing Doc-tor do...”

“Treatment?” Rachel suggested.

“Yess, treat-ment, pleass need treat-ment, landing take too long, they die. " The orange-striped alien whimpered, her tail twitching in distress. Her voice cracked in a way that made Rachel’s gut twist: something between a plea and a purr. She indicated the other aliens, the ones who Kaywaykla had beamed in with. “My sisters also not good.”

The tabby lay motionless, orange blood pooling beneath her skull where Kaywaykla’s tomahawk protruded. Rachel hesitated, glancing at Nolan and Jenny still entangled in their intimate embrace. “How do we get home if you don’t land this damn ship?” She snapped.

The cat-woman brightened suddenly, ears perking up. ”I... shine you down! " She gestured to the circular platform near the console, her claws retracting with a soft click. “I do no hurt! I do no trickss!” Her whiskers quivered as she eyed Kaywaykla whose knife was still pressed against her throat.

Rachel exchanged a look with the Apache. Her nod was subtle, but the blade vanished from the cat’s throat. “Do it,” Rachel growled. “Now.”

The alien scrambled toward the platform, movements fluid despite Kaywaykla shadowing her every step. Her paws danced across holographic controls, summoning a column of swirling purple light above the platform. The scent of ozone intensified, prickling Rachel’s skin.

Nolan moaned behind them, her fingers tangled in Jenny’s hair. Rachel’s jaw clenched. “Them too,” she ordered, jerking her chin toward the entangled women. “And the kid.”

The cat-woman hesitated, ears flattening... Hesitant. ”Not... procedure. “

Kaywaykla’s blade flashed like lightening. A thin line of blood appeared along the alien’s throat: a trivial wound that raised the specter of something more.

The alien chirped in alarm. ”Yess! Yess! I shine all! “

The knife moved away again and the the cat-woman relaxed. ”Where you want go? “

“Outside the farm where I was taken from..” Rachel said brusquely.

“No!” The Apache said firmly in a voice that brooked no argument. “Shine us into the cornfield.

“Pleass? " The alien sounded confused.

“The tall plants where you shone me up from. Can you put us down there?”

Rachel dragged Nolan and Jenny apart: their skin clung like static-charged silk. She shoved them toward the platform. Ariel followed blankly, her daisy-print dress fluttering as the light engulfed them. She moved dreamily and seemed not to notice that her mother was naked.

The last thing Rachel saw before the transport seized her was the red striped cat-woman relaxing... And the last thing she heard were the words. “Thank you. ”

They materialized surrounded by corn stalks. Rachel’s boots sank into a mess of trampled stems and leaves as the mauve light flecks spun and danced around them.

“Do you mind tellin’ me why you had us put down here?” Rachel said with forced patience, watching Nolan and Jenny stagger drunkenly against each other, their pupils blown wide. Ariel blinked at the cornstalks as if waking from a dream.

“The Thompsons’ are likely to blast anyone beaming in.” Kaywaykla murmured, his knife streaked with orange alien blood. He wiped it clean and sheathed it as he scanned the swaying stalks.

The distant click of a pump-action shotgun being racked made Rachel’s shoulders tense as it confirmed the deputy’s suspicions. Someone had seen the beam-in.

Rachel nodded. “Yeh! Good thinkin’ Waya.” She holstered her revolver with deliberate slowness, though every nerve screamed for her to keep it drawn. The air tasted both dusty and metallic; almost as if a storm was about to break even though the sky was clear.

“Okay, Sheriff, I’ll scout ahead and make sure that idiot doesn’t blast you with that damned scatter gun when you walk out of the corn!” Kaywaykla melted sideways into the stems looking and moving like a shadow from history.

Jenny Thompson giggled, tracing Nolan’s collarbone with her fingertips. The deputy moaned. Rachel grabbed both women by their hair, forcing eye . “Snap. The hell out of it.” She said in a commanding voice.

Nolan’s pupils flickered, human panic surfacing beneath the alien haze. Jenny whimpered.

Ariel tugged Rachel’s sleeve. “Miss Sheriff? The kitties were nice.” Her voice was small and frayed at the edges like a worn blanket.

Rachel exhaled through her nose. “Yeh, I guess they were!” She said dryly.

“All clear, Sheriff!” Kaywaykla shouted.

She shoved Nolan forward. “Move. And if either of you starts humpin’ again, I’ll pepper-spray your crotches.”

The corn parted to reveal Jesse Thompson’s shotgun trembling at chest-height. Kaywaykla stood beside him, one hand on the barrel, his face unreadable.

“You...” Jesse’s voice cracked. “You brought my family back.” His eyes locked on Jenny’s nakedness, her dreamy smile. The shotgun wavered.

“Daddy!” Little Ariel squealed as she rushed forward towards her father.

Kayaykla moved and one-handed handed, he twisted the shotgun out of the burly farmer’s grip with a strength that was at odds with his wiry frame.

“Yeh, I brought her back, but she needs medical attention. Behind her, Nolan made a sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

The next couple of days were quiet in the whole of Wide-Awake County... unnaturally so. The kind of quiet that settled over the desert after a flash flood, when the land itself seemed to hold its breath. No missing chickens. No phantom lights. No melted asphalt. Just the oppressive weight of waiting. Even the cicadas had gone silent.

Siobhan Nolan had been discharged from hospital but now had difficulty keeping her hands off other women so Rachel had suspended her on full pay for the time being.

Now, enjoying a relaxing evening at home, Rachel lay sprawled across her couch, her boots kicked off, her khaki shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal her black lacy bra. The AC was on full but the house still seemed hot.

Melanie traced circles on Rachel’s thigh, her fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake. “So tell me,” she murmured, her breath warm against Rachel’s neck. “What were they really like?”

Rachel stared at the ceiling fan’s lazy rotation, ing amber eyes and needle teeth. “Well, little Ariel thought the kitties were cute.” A muscle in her jaw twitched.

Melanie pinched her thigh. “Don’t deflect. Your tell is worse than when you’re lying about eating my last Oreo.”

Rachel caught her wrist, pulling Melanie atop her. “I think they’re the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen,” she itted, Melanie’s weight grounding her. “Oh, and they’re also as sexy as hell.”

Melanie arched an eyebrow. “Sexier than me?”

Rachel flipped their positions, pinning Melanie beneath her. “Not a chance,” she growled before claiming Melanie’s mouth with a bruising kiss.

Outside, the desert wind howled like something wounded. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote yipped, or maybe it wasn’t a coyote at all. The thought made Rachel pull Melanie closer.

Melanie broke the kiss after nearly a minute, her fingers tangled in Rachel’s long red hair. “They got to you, didn’t they?” she whispered.

Rachel didn’t answer. Instead, she buried her face in Melanie’s neck, inhaling the scent of her: vanilla with a hint of chalk dust, as if it could erase the memory of wet fur, ozone and cat-pee.

The ceiling light flickered. Both women froze. Then the power died completely, plunging them into darkness.

Melanie’s fingers tightened in Rachel’s hair. “Not again,” she breathed.

Rachel reached for her revolver on the coffee table just as something scraped against the kitchen window. Slow. Deliberate. Like claws on glass.

The phone chose that very moment to ring. Melanie gasped, her nails digging into Rachel’s forearm. Rachel grabbed the receiver with her free hand, thumbing off the safety on the .44 with the other. “Detwhiler,” she growled.

Deputy Steve Vernon’s gravelly voice crackled through the line. “Rachel, I’ve got a Lieutenant-Colonel Kimberly M. Atkinson of the US Air Force here in the office. She’s mighty keen to speak to you.” There was an unnatural pause before he added, “Says she’s with... what was it again, ma’am?” A muffled reply, then: “Right. The Aerospace Threat Identification Program.”

Rachel’s eyes locked on the dark kitchen window. The scraping had stopped, but the drapes swayed without a breeze. “Tell the Lieutenant-Colonel she can damn well wait until morning,” she snapped. “We may have visitors of the furry kind.”

A muffled curse came through the receiver before Vernon lowered his voice. “Rachel, she’s got armed MPs flanking her and enough metal on her uniform to start a scrap yard. And...” Static crackled. “...she claims she knows about the ‘visitors.’ Says they’ve been tracking them since Roswell.”

Melanie’s fingers dug into Rachel’s thigh. Outside, the coyote yips became rhythmic: too rhythmic, like some mockery of Morse code.

Rachel exhaled through her nose. “Fine. Tell her I’ll meet her at the station in thirty.” She slammed the phone down just as an explosion shattered the window.

Glass rained across the linoleum and carpet. Something with silver-gold fur crouched on the counter, its pupils swallowing amber irises. Melanie screamed. Rachel’s .44 barked twice, the muzzle flash illuminating the creature’s grin, sharp teeth and all. The bullets punched into its chest but did nothing but produce amber flares of light.

“Hallo. Ssheriff Rach-ell! " The creature hissed.

“Ssstha’rel! You son of a bitch!” Rachel shoved Melanie behind her, keeping the revolver trained center-mass. “What in tarnation d’ you want?”

“Liss-ten... Pleasss liss-ten. " The Cat-Woman’s ears flattened to her skull, her agitated tone punctuated by twitching whiskers. “I have come to warn you. “

“Warn me? Warn me of what?” Rachel snapped. “That y’r gonna abduct me an’ my family?”

“No! " Ssstha’rel slipped off the counter in a liquid motion, tail lashing. “I owe you my life! You could have let me die: you didn’t .” Her claws retracted with a soft click. “Now I musst protect you and your mate. “

“How?” Rachel snarled. “By blowin’ up my home?”

“Take another look, Rach-ell. " Ssstha’rel purred.

Rachel risked a glance. Suddenly the lights came back on and she could see that the window stood intact: no shattered glass, no drapes fluttering. Only the scent of burnt cinnamon lingered.

“Okay,” Rachel growled, easing the hammer forward and placing the pistol back on the table. “Why d’ya make me think you had? You tryin’ t’ scare me, or somethin’?”

Ssstha’rel’s chuckled, or at least that’s what it sounded like.. ”To disstract you while I beamed in, so you not shoot me as I... appear. “

“Okay, so why’re y’ here?” The big red-head demanded. “Odds are y’ din’t just drop in for a chat.”

Ssstha’rel hissed, fur bristled along her spine. ”I warn you... They come... The Destroyerss are coming! “

Melanie’s fingers dug into Rachel’s shoulder. “Who?”

The ceiling light flickered but stayed on. Ssstha’rel’s pupils narrowed to slits. ”Ssome of you call them the Nordicss! " She spat the word like venom. “Blonde beautiful oness. They peel worldss. " Her tail lashed once. “They peel mindss. They turn ssentient femaless into ssex-toyss. “

Rachel’s grip on the revolver didn’t waver. “Why y’ warnin’ me? I’m only a small-town Sheriff... Shouldn’t you be tellin’ the President, or someone?”

A sound like tearing fabric split the air outside. Ssstha’rel’s ears swiveled toward the noise. ”Because it is you I musst protect! " She hissed. “They’ll be-sspoil everything whereass we would take but a few. “

Rachel picked up her revolver with deliberate slowness. She listened to the alien even though every instinct told her that the creature couldn’t be trusted. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she drawled, “but didn’t you abduct Deputy Nolan, Jenny Thompson and her child?”

Ssstha’rel licked her muzzle with a tongue too long to be natural. “Different sspeciess. Different... agenda.” Her tail flicked toward Melanie, the hallway and the room where Mari-belle slept. ”The Nordicss won’t jusst take a few, they conssume. “

A sound like cracking ice came from the backyard. Rachel didn’t hesitate. She grabbed Melanie’s wrist. “Wake Mari-belle. Pack nothing. We’re leaving in thirty seconds.”

Melanie didn’t argue, another reason Rachel loved her, just sprinted down the hall barefoot. Rachel turned to the cat-woman, suddenly concerned. “How ’bout you? Can you beam out?” Her fingers hovered near her revolver’s grip.

Ssstha’rel’s ears twitched violently. ”If I try, they sscramble my ssignal.” Her claws extended with a series of wet clicks, digging agitated grooves into the hardwood. “Nordicss have... blockerss.” The words came out strangled, as if speaking them physically pained her. “Their technology iss ssuperior to ourss.”

Rachel didn’t have time for cosmic politics. She yanked her duty belt from the hook by the door, the leather creaking as she buckled it low on her hips and jammed her revolver into its holster. Melanie burst into the living room clutching a drowsy Mari-belle against her chest, the girl’s dark hair mashed against her mother’s shoulder. Rachel caught the faint glint of kitchen scissors in Melanie’s other hand, always practical, even when panicked.

“Everybody into the car, now!” Rachel barked, snatching her Stetson off the hall tree with one hand while drawing her revolver with the other. Ssstha’rel’s claws clicked against the hardwood as she followed, her tail lashing like a metronome ticking the countdown to catastrophe.

Melanie hit the porch first, bare feet slapping wood, Mari-belle’s sleepy whine muffled against her neck. The desert night smelled of creosote and something sharper: ozone and burnt hair. Rachel’s cruiser sat twenty feet away, its black-and-white paint job glowing under a moon too large for the sky.

“Run!” Rachel barked, scooping Mari-belle mid-stride, the girl’s weight barely ing against her muscled frame, as Melanie fumbled with the enger door. The motor roared to life on the first turn of the key. Gravel sprayed like shotgun pellets as Rachel floored it, the rear view mirror framing their abandoned house shrinking behind them.

Then the darkness behind the house shimmered, warping like heat haze over asphalt. Ssstha’rel, twisted in the backseat with hackles raised, hissed, ”Nordic bitchess.”

Three figures materialized beside the porch swing, tall, too tall, their platinum hair catching moonlight like spun mercury. Their proportions were slightly wrong: limbs stretched just beyond human, fingers tapering to points that glinted in the dark. One turned its head toward the fleeing car with insectile precision.

Melanie stared at the mirror. “Are those...?”

“Don’t look,” Rachel growled, downshifting into a curve that sent the cruiser fishtailing onto County Road 12. The tires screamed.

Agitated, Ssstha’rel’s claws shredded the upholstery. ”Fassster! Fassster!”

Rachel risked another glance. The Nordics weren’t pursuing. Instead, they stood motionless around the house like pale sentinels. Then, as one, they raised their long arms. The porch light exploded in a shower of sparks.

The radio crackled to life without being touched. A sexy voice, smoother than oil seeped from the speakers: “Sheriff Detwhiler. We only wish to converse.”

Rachel punched the dashboard until static drowned it out. Siren and emergency lights on, the car hit ninety. Mari-belle started crying in earnest now, great heaving sobs that shook her small frame.

Melanie twisted to check the road behind them. “They’re not following,” she said, disbelief flattening her tone.

Ssstha’rel’s pupils were vertical slits. ”They won’t... Not enough here yet.“ Her ears flicked toward as she listened for... anything.

Rachel popped the glove compartment open with her thumb. Inside, her backup revolver gleamed, and beside it, a single strand of blonde hair, impossibly long, coiled like a noose: either a message, a warning or a threat.

Melanie’s breath caught in her throat. “Is that—?”

The radio crackled again, that same silken voice purring: “We do so despise collateral damage.”

“Mari-belle, baby,” she said, her voice too calm, “cover your ears for Auntie Rachel.”

The child obeyed, pressing tiny palms over her ears just as Rachel emptied three rounds into the radio. Sparks flew, the smell of burnt plastic ing the ozone stench.

Melanie didn’t flinch. “Plan?”

Rachel’s jaw worked. “We’re going to the station. Full lock-down.” Her eyes flicked to the rear view. Empty road. Too empty. “And we’re gonna be ready this time!.”

Suddenly Rachel’s official cell phone warbled. She flicked it to Melanie who answered it... “H..hello?” She said, sounding shaken.

“Rachel?” It was Steve Vernon’s voice, but wrong: too smooth, like whiskey poured over ice. “The Colonel says to be wary of the Cat People... They are evil!”

Rachel’s grip tightened on the wheel. Vernon never used her first name on recorded lines. Never. She snatched the phone. “Andy,” she barked, deliberately

using a wrong name, “what was that colonel’s name again?”

Static fizzed. Then, eerily calm: “Rachel, she says to be wary of the Cat People... They are evil!”

Rachel killed the call with a jab of her thumb. “That sure as hell wasn’t Steve Vernon.”

“Let me out here... Ssafe now!” Ssstha’rel’s claws flexed against the window handle. Rachel barely slowed to twenty before the feline alien ran the window down. “We sspeak again, sstay ssafe!” She hissed, her amber eyes glinting in the moonlight before she slipped through the window like liquid silver and melted into the shadows at the edge of the town.

Rachel watched through the rear view mirror as violet lights danced around Ssstha’rel who vanished. She relaxed the Nordics’ transporter looked different. The town of Wide-Awake sprawled beyond her cruiser’s windshield, eerily still despite the clock on the dash reading barely nine PM. Ma Barker’s place stood dark, its neon cowboy sign unlit for the first time in Rachel’s memory. Every storefront lining the town square was boarded up or blacked out. Only the Wide-Awake County Sheriff’s Office blazed with light, its fluorescents casting harsh rectangles across the half empty parking lot and the deserted town square.

Rachel killed the engine but didn’t open the door immediately. Instead, she scanned every shadow, every alley mouth, her fingers drumming the .44’s grip. Melanie hugged Mari-belle tighter in the enger seat, the girl’s face buried against her mother’s collarbone. “Too damned quiet,” Rachel muttered, nostrils flaring at the faint scent of ozone clinging to the night air.

Keys jingled as Rachel pulled them from the ignition. “Stay close,” she ordered, popping the door with her shoulder while keeping her dominant hand free. The desert heat had bled away, leaving an unnatural chill that raised goose flesh on her arms.

Melanie scooped Mari-belle up, the child’s legs wrapping automatically around her waist like a koala as they hurried toward the station’s double doors.

Deputy Wendy Gomez nearly dropped her coffee when they burst in. “Jesus, Rachel are you okay?” Her eyes flicked to Mari-belle’s tear-streaked face, then widened at whatever she saw in Rachel’s expression. Behind the reception desk, both holding cells stood empty.

Rachel didn’t bother with greetings. “Where’s Steve Vernon?”

Gomez hesitated. “Back room with the Colonel and her goons. They’ve been...” There was a strange radio on the reception desk which crackled before she could finish, emitting a burst of static that resolved into perfect silence.

Rachel straightened up after she had examined: it wasn’t standard police equipment.

“Where in hell did that come from as if I couldn’t guess.”

“The Colonel told me to monitor it, Sheriff.” Wendy said.

“Ignore it! It’s time I met this here Lieutenant-Colonel Atkinson.” Rachel said quietly as she turned towards the age leading to the briefing room.

Melanie clutched Mari-belle tighter. “Rachel?”

The sheriff drew her revolver with deliberate slowness. “You come as well but stay behind me.”

Down the hallway, Lieutenant-Colonel Kimberly M. Atkinson’s voice floated through the briefing room door, sweet as honey and just as cloying. Rachel pushed the door open and looked around. There were half a dozen people in there, Vernon was bent over the map of Wide-Awake county that was spread over the large table. He seemed to be pointing things out to a short, thick-set blonde woman who was wearing a blue Air Force uniform with silver oak leaves on the shoulders. She also had about three rows of ribbons and several other silver badges and awards on her jacket. There was a female Air Force Lieutenant next to her and three other-ranks behind her, two of whom were MP’s.

The colonel looked up, her expression dismissive. “Ah! The Sheriff arrives.”

Something in that tone made Rachel’s trigger finger twitch. No military officer she’d ever met before sounded that... smug.

“Steve,” Rachel snapped, ignoring the blonde woman in crisp dress blues who stood too close to her oldest deputy. “What’s bin hapenin’ here abouts?.”

Vernon’s hands trembled around his coffee mug. His pupils were pinpricks. “Lieutenant-Colonel’s briefin’ us on the...” he hesitated. “...extraterrestrial threat... seems we don’t know what’s goin’ on.”

Rachel slowly replaced her .44 in it’s holster but her hand hovered near it. “Cut the horseshit, Steve. Since when do you take orders from the Air Force?” She cocked a thumb toward the windows. “Half the county’s boarded up and reeks of burnt wiring. What’s happening? Where’s Kaywaykla? Where’s Montanez and Binning? Where’s the rest of the crew?”

Lieutenant-Colonel Atkinson’s smile didn’t reach her glacier-blue eyes. “Sheriff, if you’d allow me...”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Rachel snarled without looking at her, “but I’m speaking to my Deputy.” She leaned into Vernon’s space until she caught the scent of peppermint and sweat. “You were saying, Steve?”

Vernon blinked twice, hard, then cleared his throat. “Right. So.” His voice strengthened with each syllable, hands steadying around the coffee mug. “We got fourteen missing persons reports in the last two hours: all women, all blonde.” His eyes flicked to Mari-belle’s dark hair before continuing. “Transformer blew out near the elementary school: quarter of the town’s gone dark. Waya’s out there now with Colón Montanez checking for...” He hesitated. “What’d you call ’em, Colonel? ‘Energy signatures’?”

Atkinson’s manicured fingers tightened around her clipboard. Rachel noted the absence of wedding rings, the too-perfect cuticles. Nobody kept hands like that in the desert. “Yes, but if you’d...”

“Anything else?” Rachel interrupted, watching Vernon’s shoulders square.

“Binning radioed in from the north of the town.” Vernon continued, grinning now. “Says his patrol car got lifted clean off the ground near Dry Wash Creek, then set down gentle as you please.” He snorted. “Claims he saw ‘glowy stick figures’ dancing in the arroyo.”

Rachel nodded once. “And the Colonel here?”

Vernon’s grin turned wolfish. “Showed up forty minutes ago demanding full cooperation. Had some real interesting things to say about...” He mimed whiskers with his free hand.

Atkinson’s clipboard hit the table with a crack. “Enough. Sheriff Detwhiler, I must insist...”

Rachel looked around with theatrical slowness. “You’ll insist on nothing, Lieutenant-Colonel.” She jerked her chin toward the window where three shadowy figures could be seen moving around, illuminated by the parking lot lights. “Especially not while your... troopers are casing my station.”

Atkinson’s smile didn’t waver. Her glacial eyes tracked Rachel’s every movement like a predator sizing up prey. “They’re just guarding the vehicles,” she purred, fingertips brushing her sidearm’s grip. “Surely you don’t object to added security, Sheriff?”

Rachel’s grin would have frightened Ssstha’rel’s people had any been watching. “Security against what?”

Atkinson’s nostrils flared at the challenge. “Oh, deluded people do the damnedest things.”

“If there are any deluded folks in Wide-Awake,” Rachel drawled, “then you sure as hell must’ve brought ’em with you.” She flicked her gaze to Vernon. “Steve: status check on our deputies out on the job.”

Vernon didn’t hesitate. “Ed Binning’s en route back, says his radio’s acting up.” His eyes darted to the figures outside. “And Waya’s last transmission got cut off mid-word.”

The fluorescent lights flickered violently. When they stabilized, Atkinson stood inches from Rachel, her breath smelling faintly of toothpaste. “You’re making this difficult.” She murmured, too softly for the others to hear. “We are only here to assist you, Sheriff.”

Rachel didn’t flinch. “Funny. The cats said a similar thing.”

“Really, Sheriff!” Atkinson exclaimed.

“And while we are at it, who the hell said you could give orders to my people?” Rachel said taking a step closer.

“You weren’t here,. Clearly there was nobody in charge!” The Colonel answered, suddenly sounding defensive.

“Senior Deputy Vernon was in charge an’ he was a cop when you were still pissing in your diapers. Before that even!” Rachel said slowly in a frighteningly quiet and precise voice that had miraculously lost all traces of an Arizonan accent. “So if you wanted Deputy Gomez to monitor your radio, you should’ve asked Deputy Vernon... It’s called a rank structure; I thought you had something similar in the USAF.”

“I... I apologize, Sheriff.” The colonel spoke rapidly as she tried to salvage a bad situation caused by her ill-fated attempt to assert her authority. “I was a little out of order there. I hope we can still work together?”

Rachel gave a single brusque nod and then opened the door and yelled. “Wendy, please monitor the Air Force radio and tell me ’n the colonel if’n anythin’ comes over it.”

A police cruiser pulled up outside just then and Deputy Montanez came in. “Report, Colón!” Rachel said without looking to see who had entered.

“It’s a strange one, Sheriff. Transformer didn’t blow from grid overload.” Deputy Montanez tapped his tablet, bringing up a schematic glowing in the dim briefing room. “See these feed breakers? They tripped last, which means the surge originated inside the transformer itself.” He zoomed in on the anomaly. “Like something cooked it from the inside out.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Atkinson’s polished boot scraped the linoleum as she stepped forward. “An assessment like that requires expert...”

“My deputy holds a physics degree from Stanford,” Rachel cut in, not bothering to mask her smirk when Atkinson’s perfect posture faltered again. “Seems pretty expert to me.”

The Colonel sat down hard enough to make the folding chair protest.

Rachel turned back to Montanez. “Where’s Kaywaykla?”

“Oh, he’s... around, Sheriff.” Colón’s eyes flicked toward the ceiling in a gesture Rachel knew meant surveillance concerns. His fingers twitched against his thigh, tapping Morse code: Watching.... The... Station.

The fluorescent lights buzzed like angry hornets. Outside, one of the Airmen tilted his head towards the parking lot lamps that were suddenly brighter. Rachel’s gut tightened.

Melanie pressed against Rachel’s back, Mari-belle’s quiet sniffles muffled against her mother’s shoulder. “We need to—”

Suddenly a shrill alarm erupted from the police radio behind the front desk and the klaxon high on the reception wall sounded. Wendy Gomez swore, slamming her palm against the klaxon cut-off to silence it. “All units,” she said into the mic, “we’ve got multiple 10-78’s at the elementary school. Officers needs assistance.”

Atkinson stood abruptly, her chair screeching. “My team will handle this.”

Rachel’s hand shot out, grabbing the Colonel’s wrist. “Like hell.” She leaned in until their noses nearly touched. “You’re not deploying anythin’ in my county without my say-so.”

Atkinson glared at her but shut up because she knew that she didn’t have the authority to over-rule the sheriff.

Deputy Vernon cleared his throat. “Sheriff? We ain’t got nobody up at the Elementary school... There’s only the civilian repair team thereabouts.”

The briefing room door burst open before Rachel could respond. Siobhan Nolan stumbled in, her uniform in disarray, her hair wild. “Reporting for duty,” she gasped.

“Why’re you here? You’re supposed to be on sick leave!” Rachel said.

“You phoned me, Sheriff, said there was a situation and that you need everyone who could walk.” The deputy said in a bemused voice. Then she saw the colonel, smiled seductively and began to smooth her hair.

“Shit!” Rachel snapped. “We’re being played!” She turned and walked out into the reception area. “Wendy cancel that damned alert, We ain’t got nobody up at the school.”

Atkinson seized the moment, stepping between Rachel and the door. “My MPs are SpecOps trained... I’ll deploy them if you wish.”

“We need to find out what exactly is going on.” Rachel snapped, shoving past her. She jabbed a finger at Vernon. “I want you’n Wendy to stay here, you are in charge while I’m out. And get the holding cells ready.”

Turning to Atkinson, she flashed teeth. “You want to help? Your MP’s, I take it that they are still cops? If they are then I can use their help but only if they are under my command and full operational control!”

The Colonel’s manicured fingers twitched toward her sidearm, then relaxed. She gave a curt nod. “Sergeant!” The MP by the window snapped to attention. “You and your NCO’s answer only to Sheriff Detwhiler from now on.” The words seemed to physically pain her.

Rachel didn’t waste time gloating. “Colón, status at the school?”

Montanez grimaced. “Three electricians on the county payroll trying to sort out the goddamn mess, Sheriff. Ain’t no one else there!”

Outside, the parking lot lamps flickered violently. One exploded in a shower of sparks, briefly illuminating two figures out by the vehicles. They were the colonel’s troopers, she already knew about them.

Rachel’s jaw clenched. She turned to her newly acquired MPs. “Sergeant, I want...”

She was interrupted by a sudden disturbance. A USAF sergeant suddenly seemed to fly in through the front door and crash into the reception desk. A dark shape darted in behind him and hauled the man to his feet and dragged him over to where the sheriff and the Colonel were standing.

The Colonel went for her pistol, but Rachel knocked her hand away none to gently. She stared at the figure ing the sergeant, who was clearly the worse for wear. “I take it you have a good explanation as to why you beat the crap out of this man, Waya?”

“He was resisting arrest, Sheriff.” Deputy Kaywaykla said calmly as he handed her a small electronic device. “This clown was fixing these things to Department vehicles.. They look like trackers to me.”

“An’ to me! Okay, I’m sure that you and Steve can think of some interesting charges, so book him an’ lock him, up.” She turned to the Lieutenant-Colonel, who had gone even paler than before. “Well?”