The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“ ‘Not with a bang, but with a whimper.’ ”

Sarah sighed. “Okay, I recognize the quote, but I don’t know where it’s from. I’m sure you’re about to tell me, though.”

Julie looked disappointed—not that Sarah could have seen her expression. “You’re not even going to guess? I mean, it’s not like we have anything else to do with our time, other than just lie here and bliss out.”

“And is that so bad? But, at least you could give me a clue.” Sarah tried to shift to a more comfortable position, though with little success.

“Eliot.”

Sarah’s sudden effort in thinking was obvious on her face. “George Eliot? Middlemarch? I only managed a couple of chapters, but it doesn’t sound like him.“

Julie rolled her eyes. ”Her, Sarah. George was a girl.“

“Like in the ‘Famous Five’?” Sarah tried to peer around her feet. “Still a long way to go.”

“Yes, something like that... But no, it was T S Eliot, not George.“

“I’ll take your word for it, as the Eng Lit graduate,” Sarah conceded. “You’re on point, though. How did we get this far, and not even notice?”

A scream echoed from behind them, breaking the tranquil humming of the environment, and the pair reflexively tried to turn to see the source, but quickly gave up.

“Someone panicked,” Sarah observed. “Bless them.”

“Maybe the drug didn’t work well enough on them?” Julie shrugged. “Oh, well. She won’t have to worry for much longer.”

“It’s a good drug, isn’t it?” Sarah itted. “Nice to lie here, and chill. Like a holiday.”

“And we don’t have to worry about a hangover or anything tomorrow!” Julie gave a giggle. “Sign me up!”

“It would ruin the whole ambience if we were all hysterical, n’est-ce pas?” Sarah wiggled her fingers, trying to point around them, then gave up. “It’s very soothing, isn’t it?“

“10/10, would totally Conform again,” Julie agreed. The light purple and orange clouds apparently billowing around them in a clear blue sky projected on the facility walls reminded her of Oklahoma summer evenings.

The distant screams faded away.

“More drugs?” guessed Sarah.

“Remind me to ask her when we see her. ‘Hey, were you the one yelling?’” Julie wrinkled her nose. “Crap, I need to scratch my schnozz. Are we close yet?”

Sarah craned her neck again. “Maybe ten minutes?”

“That’s not going to work for... oooh, did you feel that?” Julie went starry-eyed. “Long as they keep that up, my nose can go hang.”

“Girl, did I?” Sarah was practically purring. Another wave of bliss had just covered them as a white-clothed blank-eyed technician had pressed a device onto their exposed necks. “I could stay here all day...”

“Welcome to Conformance.” A hologram phased into visibility just above the two women, revealing an impossibly attractive blonde woman with a melodious voice. “We wish you all a happy birthday, and welcome you to Day 62 of Conformance.”

“Two months? Yes, that sounds about right, doesn’t it?” Julie tried to think back, but the biochemical bliss filling her was making it very difficult.

“Your new implant will regulate your thoughts and emotions,” the hologram continued. “We will maintain you in a pleasant, happy existence, free of Earthly worries and concerns.”

“Very nice of them, isn’t it?” Sarah smiled. “The Conformed women I’ve met do seem very happy.”

“What do you think of the New Humans? ‘Gorgeous’ Geraldine, who used to be our mayor?”

“How could I forget?” sighed Sarah. “The first time I met her—this was like three years ago, before The Reveal—it was as if I’d suddenly gone back ten years to being on the school lacrosse team, when I was crushing on the captain. She was so smart, so beautiful, just flawless...”

“She had two children, didn’t she?” Julie furrowed her brow, trying to . “Lovely girls.”

“Just like her,” Sarah confirmed. “Don’t they say that New Human babies only inherit from their mom, they don’t need a male?”

“I never understood that part, though, from what I hear, I think you’re right.”

“It is weird not having men around any more, isn’t it?” Sarah tried again to shift position, but she had been firmly strapped in place.

“Not a bad kind of weird, though,” Julie suggested. “The world is much more peaceful, isn’t it? And the ‘aliens’ say that the remaining men are being treated very humanely while they live out the rest of their lives.”

“And if you can’t trust little green aliens, who can you trust?” Sarah giggled.

“Did you ever see the interview with the Norwegian women who were some of the first to be taken and implanted?”

“Mmmm... Don’t think so. I hearing about it, that’s all. What did they say?”

“Apparently it wasn’t all smooth sailing, but they managed to get themselves returned to Earth on condition that they helped the aliens study Earth women for a few months. Then, the aliens seemed to leave—it was only a few decades later, after The Reveal, that they found out what had been happening.”

“It was very clever of the New Humans to take over vaccination programs, international fertility charities and treatment centers, even before they subverted international politics,” Sarah itted. “Quite amazing how long it took us to realize that human fertility was going through the floor, and that all new babies were female...”

“Well, if you control the news, and are in charge of producing the statistics, who is going to question you?” Julie agreed. “Besides, everyone likes the New Humans. You don’t want to make them upset. It would be like dissing your best friend.“

“They’re all so nice,” Sarah sighed. “The one who welcomed us at this Conforming Center... I don’t mind telling you, I was a bit scared coming in the doors, but her voice was so soothing, reassuring, made me feel so good... They had given me the drug and put me on this conveyor before I knew what was happening.”

“Me too. Her eyes were so blue... I just stared into them while she talked, slowly lost myself, and then when I come back, I find I’m naked and being secured for Conformance.”

“And her touch. Don’t forget her touch.” Sarah wiggled her fingers again. “Oh, I get wet just thinking about it.”

“They say that the implant can induce orgasm on demand.” There was a pregnant pause.

“If that’s my demand, I’m not getting anything done, ever again.” Both women burst out into laughter.

“Hello.” A single word, soft, but with the power of a sledgehammer wrapped in a blanket. Julie and Sarah stopped laughing, and gazed at the angelic face above them.

“H.. hello,” Julie stuttered, finally. “I’m... I’m Julie, this”—in response to frantic hand signals—“is...”

“Sarah. Yes, I know—of course!” The angel gave a light laugh, further melting the girls’ hearts. “It’s so nice to see friends here together. What luck that you have the same birthday!”

“We met in our middle school class,” Sarah explained. “When we found out that we shared the same birthday, it was like we were fated to be friends.”

“How lovely!” The angel sounded sincere. “And here you are, taking the next stage of your lives together. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Does it... does it hurt?” Julie mumbled, almost apologetically.

The angel looked surprised. “Why, no, darling. There’s nothing to be afraid of. We numb your head while we perform the insertion, and there are no nerves in the human brain, so you won’t feel anything inside.”

“What is it like afterwards? The Conformed women I’ve met all seem happy.” Sarah loved hearing the angel’s musical voice, and didn’t want to let her go.

“Quite wonderful,” the angel assured her. “No worries or stresses. You will find it very peaceful.”

She gestured to a technician. “Here, have a little more relaxant...”

The two women groaned with pleasure as the drug hit them again.

“Isn’t that pleasant?” She lightly rested her hand on Sarah’s bare stomach. “We want to take such good care of our treasures, like you.” Sarah gazed up at her adoringly, her eyes wide open and guileless.

“What will we do afterwards?” Julie asked, dreamily. The angel placed her other hand on the girl’s forehead, gently stroking her hair.

“What will you do? Why, my darling, anything you want to.” She smiled more widely, pinning the hypnotized girls with her impossible beauty. “Do you want to have babies? We will help you!“

“Babies...” murmured Julie.

“I want my babies to look like you,” Sarah said, provoking another angelic laugh.

“Well, thank you. What a compliment!” She lifted her hands from the girls. “I need to visit the others, but I will see you later, my little ones.” The angel planted a soft kiss on each of their foreheads.

“She’s so nice,” Julie sighed.

They lay in companionable drugged silence for a while, listening to the soft noises of the machinery and people around them.

“I didn’t expect there to be so many of us here today,” Julie remarked.

“They’re doing everyone between 22 and 35 for now, they said.” Sarah gazed up at the cloud-patterned ceiling. “They should be able to Conform everybody older than that next year.”

“That’ll be nice.” Julie stretched her toes. “Everybody together.”

“I wonder what else the New Humans will do for us?” Sarah wondered. “They are so well organized and smart, aren’t they?“

“And so caring,” agreed Julie. “You can just feel them looking out for you.“

Then the conveyor started to move again.

“Looks like this is it,” Sarah murmured as they started to slide into separate cavities. “See you later, darling...”

She came to rest in a brightly lit tube, which hummed with suppressed energy.

“Scanning brain structure.” The voice was unemotional. The humming increased in volume and pitch, and Sarah saw sharp red beams of light strobe across her face. She idly wondered what they were seeing inside her head...

Lati was travelling between Conformance facilities in various Terran cities, spending a day in each to inspect their operations. As the primary representative of Conformance Director Mifa, she was welcomed with near-reverence by the New Humans operating each such facility.

Today she was watching the brain analysis. The progressively-scanned holographic images of the two current subjects’ brains slowly rendered in front of her, key nodes being precisely identified and labeled.

“This is the pay-off,” she murmured to herself.

“I’m sorry?” Rela, who was responsible for this and several other local facilities, turned in her chair, her attention drawn away from her console.

“You’re quite new to Terra, aren’t you, Rela?” Lati indicated the display ahead of her. “It took much longer than you might think to reach this point. I’ve been working with Director Mifa on this project for more than thirty five Terran solar cycles. And it wasn’t all as slick as a fertile wolverine, I can tell you.”

“Well, I must congratulate you on the success,” Rela said, apparently sincerely. “Everything has worked very smoothly from my point of view. The New Humans are very easy to work with —”

“By design,” Lati pointed out wryly. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble we had with the native humans.“

“They’re very erratic,” Rela agreed.

“Oh, you should have seen them before the bioengineering work to pacify them.” Lati shook her head. “Director Mifa nearly lost her nose in one incident, and her sanity in another. Though, she doesn’t like to be reminded about that, of course. We had some explorers disappear, and we eventually suspected that wild humans had actually eaten them. After that, it was clear that, in parallel with ending the male lines, we had to do serious work in aggression reduction.“

“True: they are now very amenable to direction by the New Humans in general.” Rela pointed to a display where newcomers were being welcomed by two smiling New Humans, standing ive as they were prepared for the conveyor.

“Careful bio- and psycho- engineering,” Lati smiled. “Of course, there are always those who have resistance to the re-engineering viruses—it was too dangerous to make them universally effective—but there are few enough of them to be manageable.

“We have a couple of them due today who haven’t arrived,” Rela nodded. “Our New Human is out visiting them now.”

Andrea glared at the distorted shape through the frosted glass of her front door . “I’m not interested. Go away!”

“My name is Elizabeth, Andrea.” The musical tone of the voice was apparent even through the door. “I would just like to talk with you. I am by myself.”

“You can talk through the door.” Andrea was no mood to cooperate.

“I could,” Elizabeth agreed, “but wouldn’t it be easier for us to sit down in your living room and talk face to face?” Her voice oozed sincerity. “I only want the best for you, Andrea. Shouldn’t you have all the facts before you make such a decision?”

“I’ve seen enough facts, thank you.“

“I’ve read those channels,” Elizabeth said. “Just enough truth to make the exaggerations and lies plausible. Surely, you don’t actually believe that everyone is controlled by psychic tapeworms?”

Andrea had read that story on the ‘alternative’ news groups only yesterday, and had to it silently that she shared Elizabeth’s professed scepticism on that point.

“Just ten minutes of your time,” Elizabeth promised. “Then, I will leave, and you can choose to come with me, or to stay.” She paused. “You know that we do not lie, don’t you?”

“You don’t always tell the full truth, either,” Andrea muttered. Her hand, however, was already on the door handle. Slowly and reluctantly, she opened it.

Elizabeth was as gorgeous as Andrea had expected. Dark hair framed an ivory face, and lips the color of a peach. She stood patiently on the door mat.

“Happy birthday! May I please come in?” she asked sweetly, making no effort to push forward.

“Okay...” Andrea led the woman into her sitting room, and took a seat on the far armchair. Elizabeth chose a seat directly facing her, but still a distance away.

“You won’t need that,” she observed, gesturing at Andrea’s left hand that partly concealed a small but sharp kitchen knife.

“Say your piece, and leave. You promised.” Andrea’s tone left her sense of purpose in no doubt.

“Very well. Let me convince you that Conformance is nothing to fear...” Elizabeth launched into a spiel that Andrea had heard many times, in many variations. She watched the New Human carefully, but tried to keep herself from fixing on the woman’s fascinating dark green eyes. There were rumors that New Humans could change that color at will.

Eventually, Elizabeth stopped talking, and sat back. “Will you come with me, Andrea? I would love you to come with me. You’ll be so much happier, I promise you.“

“You promised I could stay,” Andrea reminded her. “And, so I will. The front door is over there.“

Elizabeth sighed. “As you wish.” She squeezed her right hand, something went ‘click’, and Andrea gasped as a neurojack dart pierced her neck. The paralysis was near-instant.

Elizabeth rose to her feet. “The drone collectors will be here shortly. I’ll leave the front door open for them.” She bent to kiss the paralyzed woman. “Goodbye, Andrea. I do wish you had come with me.“

“Conforming.” A single, musical word. Sarah felt the straps around her tighten, and swallowed nervously.

A probe descended from above her middle, unerringly seeking and finding her nub. Before she could object, pulses of pleasure started to emanate from it.

“That’s good,” she moaned. “Very very good...” She barely noticed the slick flexible tendril that slid inside her, splitting into two as it went in search of Sarah’s ovaries to start its generic re-engineering work.

Numbness started to spread from the back of her neck.

“Here we go,” she murmured to herself.

In the back of her neck, a hole a little less than an inch wide had appeared. Thin, flexing tendrils started to slide into the folds of her brain, further dividing as they reached deeper inside.

“Sterilizing thought processes” announced the voice blandly, as the tendrils isolated tiny but crucial parts of Sarah’s mind, carefully severing the connections. All Sarah could feel was a slight dizziness that barely surfaced above her sexual stimulation, as her conscious will was systematically neutered.

“Implanting.” Now, with the tendrils withdrawn, the small, fractally-surfaced control device was pushed into place. It seemed to grow a fuzzy coat as the ultra-fine connecting fibers pushed out to interface to the brain matter.

Sarah’s vision whited-out briefly, and she lost all sense of time.

“We are 668 diurnal cycles from complete success, Director.”

“Forgive me, Lati, but I am always very wary of such precise numbers.” The hologram of Director Mifa was slightly out of focus, but Lati could still make out the gray lines on her boss’s skin that hinted at her considerable age. Her voice was still as musical as ever, though.

“Every sexually mature original female will have been implanted by then. Every baby birthed from that point will be a parthenogenetically-conceived New Human. For the following twenty solar cycles, we only need implant the residual original humans as they come of age.

“The best laid plans still sometimes go astray.” Mifa consulted her notepad. “How is the Terran resistance behaving?”

“Nearly all just talk,” Lati reassured her. “In several places, in fact, we have established covert New Humans as the local resistance leads. Their engineered temperament makes them natural leaders and consensus drivers.”

“Very nice,” itted Mifa. “Still, we shouldn’t rest on our laurels. Never underestimate how clever and cunning humans can be.”

“Quite so. How are the wolverines doing, do you know?”

Mifa peered at a screen off-camera. “They’re closer to completion than your team, but of course you’ve got longer lifespans to work with.” She actually giggled; a habit she had picked up from decades of human observation. “It’s a good thing we had so many male humans to hand! There was an unexpected side-effect of the pacification virus we engineered for the female wolverines—despite becoming much more docile, their metabolisms went into overdrive, and so they are always hungry. We’d go bankrupt if we had to source that much meat from the non-sentient animal population, and the environmentalists wouldn’t let us do that anyway.”

“Very practical.” Lati paused. “Did you hear that we caught ex-Keeper Faso working with a human resistance group? They’re keeping her on ice until we figure out what to do with her.”

“That Keeper!” The frustration in Mifa’s voice came through clearly. “What’s the point of being a member of an advanced species if you’re just going to go and a bunch of angry primitives? I’d be tempted to send her for drone conversion if I thought I could get away with it.”

Lati perked up. “Director, won’t the wolverine project need someone with human and wolverine zoological expertise to oversee the feeding of their lazy, hungry creatures? Wouldn’t Faso be ideal?”

A smile lit up Mifa’s face. “Lati, that might be the finest idea you’ve ever had. Let me make a call.”

Despite Mifa’s concerns about her species, Andrea wasn’t feeling particular clever, or dangerous. She had been left immobile in her chair for about twenty minutes, reflecting on how easily she had been outmaneuvered, before four blank-eyed women in anonymous gray coveralls entered her house, carried her out in a sling, and loaded her into the back of a van parked just outside her door. She could feel that she wasn’t alone there, given the warmth of bodies either side of her, and soft breathing noises, but was unable to see who her companions were. Presumably, other unsuccessful refuseniks.

The van hummed along the road for a while, its efficient suspension and quiet electric motor making the journey almost peaceful. Finally, after maybe an hour, it stopped, and the rear doors opened again.

“Welcome,” a musical voice chimed. “Welcome to your new lives.”

Andrea was slid out of the vehicle onto some kind of rigid platform. She had been expecting to see the inside of a Conformance facility—they had shown the ‘welcome’ process there on several TV programs—but this looked... different. Much smaller, for one thing. Instead of the high ceiling with projected images of clouds, this looked like a regular industrial facility, with no real budget for decor.

“You can move now, if you’d like.”

She might have been Elizabeth’s older sister. Her hair was a little more brown, there were the tiniest creases at the corners of her eyes, but her voice was nearly identical. She was sitting on a stool next to Andrea.

“I can’t...” Andrea’s voice tailed off as she found herself in full control of her body. Reluctantly, she eased herself to a sitting position, but her eyes were on a swivel. She and Elizabeth II were in a small cubicle, a curtain the only boundary of one wall.

Elizabeth II was clearly waiting, patiently, for Andrea to say something. Andrea was tempted to make her wait for a while, but silently itted to herself that Elizabeth II held all the cards—for now.

“I’ve met your sister,” she said, defiantly.

Elizabeth II looked almost startled for a moment, then broke into soft laughter.

“I expect you are talking about Elizabeth, whom you met this morning. I’m afraid that we’re not related,” she shrugged, “at least, no closer than any other New Humans. You can call me Mary. I am one of the people looking after this facility.”

“What facility is this? Elizabeth made some comment about ‘drones’.” Andrea looked around her suspiciously. “Not what I was expecting, really.”

Mary nodded, smiling. “You’re quite right. This is where we manage people like yourself who don’t feel that they are suited to Conformance.”

“I don’t like the sound of ‘manage’.” Andrea tried to peer around the curtain, but without success. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need ‘Conforming’. Nor do I need ‘managing’. I just want to be left alone.”

“Do you, though?” Mary appeared thoughtful. “I’ve read through your contributions on the news forums. For someone who wants to be ‘left alone’, you certainly have plenty to say. Oh, and you have the meaning of ‘it begs the question’ backwards.”

Andrea glared at the smiling woman. “That smug alien superiority is really starting to grate.”

“Alien? My dear Andrea, I am as human as you. Possibly more so.” Mary indicated her body. “Evolutionary half-steps corrected, fully independent in bearing children, faulty genes automatically rewritten.” She paused. “I was sorry to hear about your bleeding issues. It can’t be nice to endure them.”

“You know, it’s rude to go digging into people’s medical records. Not to mention, illegal—for what that’s worth.” Andrea’s inherited Von Willebrand’s disease was one of the few things her absent father had given her, and had not endeared him any further.

“Don’t tell me that you wouldn’t fix it, if you could?” Mary leaned forward, locking eyes. “You don’t have to hide anything from me, Andrea.”

It took considerable effort for Andrea to pull her gaze away. “I’m... not... hiding anything!” She blinked, trying to clear her head. “How are you doing this?”

“We’re just talking, Andrea.” Mary sat back on the stool. “You can take as much time as you need.”

“What do you want from me, Mary?” The frustration in Andrea’s voice could have burned ice. “You kidnap me, make me think you’re going to turn me into some sort of robot, and then suddenly we’re discussing my heavy periods!“

She stood up. “That’s it. I’m outta here. Stop me if you can.”

Mary looked disappointed. “You can walk out of this cubicle if you wish, of course. But, have you thought through this choice? It seems to me that you’re uncomfortable talking about your situation, and of course I understand that, but surely you want your life to be better? Why not listen to what we have to say?”

“You really are Elizabeth Mark 2,” Andrea snapped. She pushed the curtain aside.

The complex, roughly human-shaped, metal and ceramic framework hanging in front of the cubicle from a rail on the ceiling inevitably fixed Andrea’s attention. As her mind tried to process the image, her wrists were seized with a terrifying mechanical precision.

Andrea could hear her heartbeat.

Mary’s voice, still as sweet as honey and tuneful as a flute, came from behind her. “Can we talk, Andrea? Really talk?“

Andrea had a sudden, desperate, urge to pee, but by a superhuman effort pushed it back inside her. She swallowed tentatively, testing her body. It was trembling, but felt like she was just retaining control.

“Okay, Mary. Say what you must.”

Mary took her time walking to Andrea’s front, behind the frame. Her hand, warm and smooth, rested on Andrea’s shoulder for a moment as she ed by.

“I hope you don’t think I’m patronizing,” she said, almost hesitantly, “but you’re a brave woman. Many others yielded to us at a slight push. Now you, Andrea—you were willing to confront us even when all rational hope was gone.”

“What’s going to happen?” Andrea tasted the brittleness of her own words. “What will—where will I go? I’ve seen the Conformed; they are almost the same as before, but there’s clearly something missing—something you have taken from them.“

“Free will,” replied Mary, blandly. “The ability to ignore or reject external instruction. They, like you, are already psychologically conditioned at some level to be disposed to follow suggestions from New Humans. We simply remove the remaining ability of the mind to disrupt that cognitive flow.”

“That’s what the implant does? I can’t say that you’re really selling it to me.” Andrea fought to keep her eyes focused on Mary, rather than the framework in front of her that was clearly designed to ‘interface’ to something shaped like a human head.

“Oh, no. The implant is used to mediate and inject sensation and emotion. We can easily induce peacefulness, happiness—yes, even sexual thrill!—and screen out doubt, worry, sadness, anger...”

“Everything that makes us humans. Real humans.” Andrea didn’t try to disguise her bitter tone.

“Quite.” Mary reached through the framework to stroke Andrea’s cheek. “Everything that led you down the track to societal self-destruction. Isn’t it good that Conformed women can give birth to healthy babies with minimal discomfort, and never feel post-partum distress? That people are satisfied with their lot, rather than jealous of their neighbors?”

Andrea saw the trap, and remained silent. Mary sighed, and tapped her lightly on the nose.

“Where will you go, Andrea? You can choose. We can leave your entire set of cognitive abilities intact, but drive your actions directly. You will be able to see and understand everything you are doing, but unable to intervene. I would assume, you would not enjoy that.“

“ ‘I have no mouth, and must scream’ " muttered Andrea.

“Quite. You already expressed your disdain for the Conformance option. What do you think is behind door number three?”

“This is my future as a human being we’re talking about!” snapped Andrea, pulling on her wrist restraints with no effect. “Not a fucking game show!”

Mary sighed. “I suppose not. Option three is that you retain your current cognition, but we up-rate the primary sensory pathways in your nervous system to be able to manage much stronger levels of stimuli, which we supply as rewards for completing tasks. In other words, you are free to make other decisions, but generally we find that the prospect of a sensory reward is quite adequate to guide adequately the subject’s—I’m sorry, I should say ‘person’s’—actions.”

Andrea processed this in silence for a while. “Like a rat in a lab experiment, pushing a lever to get a pleasure pellet.”

“If you like.”

“And if I don’t like... I assume there is no ‘Option Zero’ to stay as I am?”

“As you say, there is no ‘Option Zero’. Which is it to be?” Mary pressed a control, and Andrea’s ankles were seized with an identical precision.

“You don’t have to rush me,” Andrea whined.

“My dear Andrea, I can do whatever I want, quickly or slowly. You should have realized that by now. I’ve given you an unusual gift in allowing you to choose your direction; please don’t make me regret it.” There was now a hint of steel in the otherwise melodious voice.

“Whatever happens, you fix up my biological issues?”

“Correct. We want you to work for us; we would be foolish to fail to ensure that you are in the best possible health.”

“All right.” Andrea closed her eyes briefly to draw strength. “Option Rat with Pellet, it is.”

“Thank you. That wasn’t too hard, was it? Now, try to relax.” There was a sudden hum, and Andrea felt her clothes—and shoes—briefly heat up before falling off her in pieces.

“We can leave your jewelry on,” Mary remarked, touching the small St Christopher necklace Andrea was still wearing. “It won’t get in the way.”

The humming changed tone, and now Andrea felt vibration on her ankles and wrists as the framework seemed to pull itself onto her. Prickly metal fastened around her legs, arms, neck and head. Then came a whine, and she rose from the floor as the framework was pulled up to the suspending rail.

“I’ll come with you,” Mary said cheerfully, falling into a walking pace to keep station with Andrea’s framework as it headed down an anonymous corridor.

“I’ve never seen one of these facilities before,” Andrea said, trying to keep her voice steady.”

“Very few original humans have, apart from those processed here,” Mary agreed. “We felt that this information was not necessary to share, unlike the public presentation of Conformance.”

“So, no psychic tapeworms?”

Mary laughed. “No tapeworms, psychic or otherwise. We eliminated all significant parasites over the past decade—down to the fleas! Don’t tell me that we haven’t done the humans and wolverines any good!”

The corridor opened into a room with a number of bulky, human-sized plastic and glass boxes along the walls. Andrea’s frame went through some complex switching apparatus on the ceiling, then backed along a new rail to carry Andrea into one of the open boxes, backwards. Mary followed her, watching Andrea’s increasingly concerned face.

“This is where they do the upgrades,” she explained. “You’re the first one today.”

The front of the box snapped shut, leaving Andrea with just a small glass window in front of her face through which she could see Mary. The woman’s voice nevertheless came clearly over some internal speaker.

“It’s going to modify your endocrine system, and stimulate axon growth in your nervous system,” Mary explained. “You’ll feel a little strange, but that’s quite normal.”

“What do you mean by... ouch!” Andrea twitched as she felt sharp probes slide under the skin of her arms and legs. To her surprise, the pain faded away almost immediately.

“That was the worst part,” Mary assured her. “Though people say, the next part is... strange.“

Sure enough, Andrea started to get a most peculiar sensation through her whole body. It was a cross between tingling and vibrating, with occasional hot flashes between them, but it could not reasonably have been described as ‘painful’.

“It is weird,” she itted.

“Perfectly normal,” Mary assured her. “Your new axons are firing off, more or less randomly, as they are stimulated.”

“What about my bleeding? Is this going to fix that?”

“Not the nervous system work, no. The modifications to your endocrine system, which you cannot feel, will take care of the genetic deficiency. Once we’ve done the re-engineering, it will need a few days to take full effect, but you would notice reduced bleeding and bruising within a few hours.”

“Great. I suppose I should say ‘thank you’?” Andrea’s voice was still somewhat strained.

“Tell me, Mary, how did you get into this... this ‘line of work’? Did you grow up thinking “I want to work in a factory to convert humans to drones, it will be so much fun?”

“You are funny!” Mary’s tinkling laugh showed perfect teeth, of course. “No, our guides—the ones whom you call ‘the aliens’—select us based on the particular skills our embryos were engineered for. We are then trained for the role. I only ever wanted to be what I would be good at...”

“Hello, my darlings.”

Sarah opened her eyes, finding herself lying on a couch. A dreamy-eyed Julie was on the next couch over, and standing between them—an angel.

“It’s all complete; you are Conformed. Isn’t that wonderful?”

The words struck deep into Sarah’s subconscious, carried there by their tone, with any hint of resistance to their suggestion cut off before it started.

“Wonderful...” Sarah remained staring at the vision before her. It never occured to her to turn away, or do anything else.

“Come with me.” The angel held out her hands. Julie took the one offered to her, Sarah likewise, and they allowed themselves to be guided off the couches.

The angel led them to a corner, then let go of their hands. She shucked her gown with no visible effort, then lay back on the cushioned space, her breasts and mound apparently casually exposed.

“You don’t know what to do, do you, my darlings?” Her amusement was obvious, as Julie and Sarah just stared.

She gently stroked her nipples. “Our breasts are particularly sensitive: one of the gifts that our guides gave us when we were engineered. Pleasure me there, Sarah.”

Sarah knelt obediently next to the angel, leaned down and started to tongue the dark, firm nipple. It tasted like strawberries and cream, and the angel gave out little sighs of pleasure as Sarah worked her way around.

“And you, Julie; come between my legs. That’s right...” She—apparently effortlessly—raised her butt and flicked a cushion underneath them. “Taste me, Julie. You know where.”

Julie did know where, and eagerly bent to her task.

“Oh, my darlings,” the angel murmured in between her delicate squeaks of ecstacy, “the wonders which await you!”

She delicately thumbed a control hidden in her palm, and felt both women’s active mouths suddenly freeze for a moment. Both of them groaned with pleasure.

“You see what we can do for you?” the angel purred. “Serve us, and live a life of ecstacy...”

Andrea had been subject to an hour of having her nervous system fundamentally re-engineered—and yet, the time had flown by as she talked to a cheerful Mary. Grudgingly, she had to it that the woman’s personality was magnetic, pulling in Andrea despite her resistance. Mary’s knowledge and intelligence were wrapped in what felt like sincere interest in, and concern for, Andrea, and despite herself, Andrea couldn’t help but be drawn into the conversation.

All of a sudden, the strange feelings inside her died down. Andrea looked down at her exposed body, and saw that the probes had silently withdrawn from her skin.

“Is that it?”

“It should be,” agreed Mary. “We’re going to run a few tests to be sure.”

“What kind of... oh MY! Mmmmmm...!” Andrea felt as if she had been seized in a giant fist, and pure ecstacy forced into her body. “Holy CATS! It’s... it’s too much...”

The sensation quickly faded, and Andrea found herself gasping. “What... what was that? It was like someone filled me with red hot lava!”

“In a good way, I hope,” Mary laughed. “That, my dear, is what your new nervous system can do. And, if I’m not mistaken, is going to do again just now.”

“Wait, I’m not... Aaaaaah! AAAAAAH! Gnnnhhh... FSBBH!” The sensation returned, at least as strong as before, with Andrea breaking out in sweat as her body reacted to the avalanche of sensation. She strained against the framework holding her, lines of muscle standing out on her neck. “Fuck me! Oh, SKREEEE! NURFFF! Damn it...” The sensations faded again, and she felt tears trickling down her nose.

Mary was smiling at her through the window. “I think we can call that a success, don’t you?”

Andrea took a few moments to catch her breath. “So this is my ‘pleasure pellet’? Mary, honey, I’m sure that if I do any more of this, my heart will explode, and if it doesn’t then my puss certainly will.“

“Have no fear, my dear, we would have identified and fixed any cardiac vulnerabilities.” Mary indicated herself. “What you are experiencing, by the way, is how we New Humans experience those sensations. Our nervous systems are perfectly tuned to make the maximum from sexual pleasure.”

“I’m surprised you get anything done,” Andrea muttered. The spots in front of her eyes were slowly clearing. “That’s it, then? I’m ready to be your little lab rat?”

“Not quite.” Mary had stepped up to the window so her face was filling the view. “Any moment now...”

Andrea’s head suddenly started to swim, as if she had downed several shots of vodka. “What...?”

“You’re feeling the effect of the preparatory drugs for your psychological conditioning,” Mary explained. “Look at me, Andrea.”

Head spinning, Andrea reflexively stared into Mary’s eyes, barely noticing their sudden change to a vivid green iris.

“Psy... psy...” It was becoming very hard to think.

“A very effective way to open up your mind for reprogramming,” Mary explained. “If we are going to leave you free to make choices, we have to make sure that you won’t choose wrongly. You resisted our background reprogramming so far, but this will completely rewrite all your loyalties.”

“You... you...” Andrea hunted for the word. Did it start with ‘b’?

Now her ears started to ring, and she saw satisfaction in those deep green eyes. “Perfectly prepared. I’ll see you later, darling Andrea.”

The window blanked out, and now the inside of the box was lit by a brilliant blue-white, stuttering blue light. Andrea gasped, her drugged mind completely incapable of any rational response to the assault on her senses.

A voice started to come into her head—a soothing, calm, somehow familiar voice. She didn’t know what it was saying, but as her senses were progressively peeled back, the words reached deeper and deeper inside her.

Then that impossible, unendurable wave of sexual stimulation washed over her, and she screamed as she disappeared under the foam...

The framework hummed quietly as it lowered a blankly-staring Andrea to the floor. Mary was standing nearby, a cryptic smile on her face.

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” she said sympathetically. “Don’t worry, my darling, I’ll take good care of you.” She took hold of Andrea’s unresisting hand. “Come with me; we’ll get you dressed, then I’ve got something for you to do.”

Docile as a cow, Andrea followed her new goddess down the corridor.

Until this morning, Betty Lee had been one of the most successful leaders of the human resistance. Now, however, she was flat on her back and neuro-jacked, staring at the ceiling of this industrial facility. She had heard rumors about these places, but—perhaps more worryingly—no-one one had ever reported back from inside one.

Despite the implicit terror in her capture, there was nothing to see, hear, or do where she lay, and she was starting to get bored. It was almost a relief when a New Human appeared next to her.

“Hello, Betty. I am Mary. It is so nice to meet you, finally!”

The sincerity in the woman’s voice was unsettling, maybe more so than the banality of the greeting. Betty reflexively tried to sit up, and found that she could now do so.

She looked the woman up and down, noting the two green-clad blank-eyed women behind her, but decided to ignore them for now.

“Have we met?” She swung her legs over the edge of the table she was sitting on, ostensibly to reach a more comfortable position, but also on the watch for an opportunity to make a break for it.

“I’m sure I would have ed,” Mary purred. “No, but we have been following your work with great interest! You’re so resourceful; it’s wonderful to see what even original humans can accomplish in adversity.”

“Apparently, not enough.” Betty looked around; the room was small and plain, with only a curtain for a door, but the two silent women were standing in front of it, and she doubted that their positions were accidental.

“What now? You start pulling out my toenails until I tell you about our organization?”

Mary looked genuinely appalled. “My goodness! Why would you say such a thing?”

Betty shrugged. “It has been a long time since I’ve had any illusions about your people, Mary—the ‘New Humans’ and the little green aliens behind them. We’re in the way, and you’re going to replace us. Am I wrong?”

“My dear Betty, we are fixing you, not replacing you,” Mary sighed. “Your babies are your own DNA, are they not?“

“With some genetic re-engineering,” Betty corrected.

Mary shrugged. “As little as we could. Still, I’m not going to try to convince you that we have your best interests at heart. If you don’t want to believe that, then you are free to think so.”

“How generous,” said Betty sarcastically.

Mary either missed the tone or ignored it. “Quite so. First, I must apologize for keeping you waiting for so long—someone else had a claim on my time, and I didn’t want to hand you off to anyone else—but we’re ready for you now. Andrea and Catherine here will help you change.

Betty watched warily as the two women in green approached. They were nearly a head taller than her—Betty barely broke five feet. One was carrying what looked like a hospital gown.

With no real ability to resist, she reluctantly let them undress her. All her clothes went into a basket, then they loosely tied on the gown, and put slippers on her feet. She didn’t like the way that they seemed to treat it like undressing a dummy rather than a fellow human.

“Talkative, aren’t you?” she grumbled.

“They’re just focused on their work. Thank you, Andrea and Catherine! Let’s take Betty to her appointment.”

“Appointment with what?” Betty’s arms were held firmly, and she was walked out of the room and down an anonymous corridor, Mary trailing behind.

“It’s very exciting,” Mary said encouragingly. “We were so fortunate to find you today, right when we became ready to conduct this work.“

“Hmmph.” Betty could tell when someone was trying to draw her into conversation, and had no intent of playing whatever game Mary had in mind.

“Just a little further—yes, this door here please, Andrea.” Her escort opened the heavy, anonymous door without easing her grip on Betty, and she was guided inside.

Betty stopped dead just inside the door. The empty surgical table, surrounded by several masked women in scrubs and caps, was intimidating enough, but the way that everyone there looked at her made it very clear that she had been expected. It didn’t take much of a leap of imagination to guess who was going to be on the table.

“Uh-uh, I’m not doing this.” She tried to wriggle out of the womens’ grasp. “Let go!” Strong arms wrapped around her, holding her tight. “Help!”

“Let me give you this...” Betty yelped from a sudden sharp pain in her neck. One of the masked women had come up from behind her.

Her escorts held her tight, but it only took a few seconds for her muscles to start weakening. Whatever was in the syringe was fast-acting, and within a minute she was completely unable to resist when she was lifted onto the table and the women started to strap her down.

Mary leaned over her, concern on her face. “Are you all right, Betty? You didn’t hurt yourself?”

It took quite an effort for Betty to overcome the relaxant to respond, but she finally managed to gasp: “What... are you... doing... with me?”

“We need you to calm down,” one of the masked women said. “It’s unsafe to anesthetize you when you are in a stressed state.” She started to fit a pressure cuff to Betty’s pinned arm.

“Then don’t ... do it!” She tried to lift her head off the table, but her body would simply not cooperate.

“Look at Wilma over there,” Mary said, pointing to the side of the room. With difficulty, Betty managed to turn her head to the side, seeing a second table bearing a shape mostly covered with drapes, but tubes and wires leading from a small head -apparently covered in dark hair.

Betty was confused. “Wilma?”

“One of the most intelligent wolverines that our guide has worked with.” Mary walked over to stroke the fur of the insensible animal. “They were guiding breeding for several decades to maximize brain size for the females, while selecting for the less intelligent males. Eventually, the females established a matriarchical society.” She smiled. “Like yours.”

“Of course,” Mary continued, as her colleagues placed more sensors on Betty, " ‘Wilma’ isn’t her real name—our guides discovered and decoded the highly complex communication scheme between female wolverines, but apparently it simply doesn’t translate into human language.”

“Why... are we talking... about wolverines?” Betty felt her hair gathered into a surgical cap.

“I’m just going to give you some medicine: here...” There was something cold on her arm, then a sting as a needle was slid into her vein. The masked woman attending to her taped some tubing in place on her arm, and connected it to several bags hanging from an I/v stand.

“Sedative and anticoagulants started,” she reported.

“Wonderful! Well, Betty, we need to let those run through your system for a while—" Mary, now wearing her own scrubs and cap, sat down next to Betty’s head—“so why don’t we talk about what’s happening?”

“I don’t know what’s happening, and I’m not sure I want to.” Betty tried to flex her arms, but the relaxant was still in effect. “I’m not sick, or damaged, so there’s no need to operate on me.”

Mary shook her head.

“You need to understand what’s going to happen, Betty. Our guides are finally at the point where they have completely mapped the cognitive connections of original humans, and the selectively bred wolverines. Today, we are going to give you—and Wilma—new bodies.”

She saw confusion in Betty’s eyes, and added “Each other’s.”

She stroked Betty’s head. “It’s so funny; you might think that small people, like you, have small brains. But no! Reality is much more interesting. You have very similar brain size to a woman who is a foot taller than you—but you as an individual person really pack in capability to that brain.“

“We now know the physical boundary of the ‘self’ within the human and wolverine brains—and it turns out to be remarkably compatible in both volume and connectivity. A ‘drop in replacement’, if you like.”

The other woman hadn’t been lying about the sedative. Betty was starting to feel sleepy, but there was something about what Mary was saying that demanded her attention.

“You’re going to put my brain... into a wolverine? Are you insane? There’s no way that is going to work...” She was fighting to keep her eyes open, terrified of what might happen if they were to shut.

“You see the device in the corner?” Mary pointed to a quietly humming piece of equipment, about the size of a large watermelon, with a distinctly alien appearance. “It is a cortical remapper—it rewrites the cerebral cortex connections to match those in a mapped brain. You will receive all the sensory and muscle inputs from your new body exactly where your brain expects them.” She waggled her hand, a surprisingly human gesture. “There will be some relearning needed, of course.”

“You’re quite mad,” Betty said sleepily. The sedative was in full effect now. “Can’t make me...”

“Sshhh. Just rest for now,” Mary urged her. “We need another half hour for the anticoagulants to circulate. Here, this will help you relax...”

Betty felt a soft weight over her eyes, holding them closed, and then slick fingers started to explore the edge of her sex...

She drifted in strange daydreams for a while, giving the occasional moan of happiness as the skilled fingers worked her over, and it barely ed that she was being unstrapped, and instead wrapped up in some covering.

“Betty?” A musical, familiar voice.

“Mmmm?” Words were too hard to find just now.

“You’re going to start feeling cold now. Don’t worry, we’re doing it to keep you safe.”

“Cold... m’kay...”

“We could probably just put her to sleep now,” someone said.

“There’s no particular reason to wait,” agreed someone else. “Mask, please.”

Something pressed against her face, and Betty’s head started to spin.

The last thing she heard was the musical voice. “Oh my darling, what an adventure you will have! Wolverines in a matriarchal society have a highly active sexual life. I hope you are ready...”

Betty discovered the new clan member with little effort. Their subtlely-different scent caused the rest of the clan to keep a distance, much as they had when Betty had first been released to them.

She sniffed the newcomer’s anal glands in a polite welcome, graciously proffering her own in return, but then deliberately walked away from the clan gathering to a nearby snowbank. Several times she stopped, looking over her flank to the newcomer, until they got the message and shuffled awkwardly in her direction.

Slowly, she traced her message in a virgin snow bank using her lead claw:

ME HUMAN. U?

The stranger stared at her writing for a while, long enough that Betty started to doubt her instinct. Finally, though, they approached the snow bank and—tentatively—started to scratch their own message:

ALIEN

Well shit, Betty thought. She hadn’t expected that. Not content with re-homing human brains, it seemed that they had turned on their own...

At least now, she had a partner. The rest of the clan had eventually been welcoming, once Betty had figured out the hierarchy—a few bad guesses had ended up being quite painful, but she was a fast learner. Her human ability to plan and anticipate significantly outweighed anything that even the smartest wolverine could come up with.

We’re going to have to build a shared language she thought to herself. She had picked up enough wolverine communication skills to survive, and indeed be well regarded by the clan matriarch for what she could do for the clan, but it certainly wasn’t as widely expressive as human language.

She had seen the little green aliens from time to time, clearly observing Betty’s behavior and the reactions of the pack. They had been particularly drawn to clan orgies, the first one of which had nearly killed Betty, but fortunately her quick learning had left her only ravaged rather than ripped apart. Having a slavering wolverine in heat worrying at your nipples had been quite an eye opener—particularly, adjusting to having four nipples rather than two—but nothing compared to some of the more... animalistic activities that the clan got up to when everyone’s glands really got going.

She gestured, and scented, and finally the stranger got the message, following her back to the clan. Betty sighed internally... this alien had a lot to learn....