Supine on the damp sheets of her bed, arms stiff at her sides, she wore only her socks. Penny lay spellbound like a damsel in some cheesy skin flick, and the fucked up thing was she was starting to get off on it. Olivia leaned over her possessively, her heat clouding Penny’s mind in other ways. “Tell me about your father’s arrest again,” she suggested, which was not at all how Penny expected this game to go.

“What would you like to know?” The pod-person tone gave her a thrill. Penny felt like she could lie here all night listening to herself mindlessly serve her new girlfriend.

Olivia gripped her thigh and it felt much more familiar than it should have, since they’d only been a couple for an hour. “What were the charges, angel face?”

Penny warmed to the new nickname. “Attempted kidnapping and attempted assault,” she smiled.

“And you said there wasn’t much in the way of proof?” Olivia’s hand crept exactly one inch up Penny’s leg, implying a yummy reward for her patience.

Her glutes tensed, stoking her arousal back into a fever. “Try zero,” she said, still not quite sure what part of her kept up with the conversation. “Daddy gave directions to a lost girl on the train. Some asshat detective thought he was trying to hypnotize her.” Down at the precinct the allegations had made her laugh out loud but now Penny herself was Very Deeply Hypnotized.

She frowned at the irony while her mind twitched in its chains, but Olivia’s hand inched upward again. “Penelope, you’re excited and thrilled to bend to my will.”

The words tumbled out as her head emptied. “I’m excited and thrilled to bend to your will.” Her limbs went limp but her nipples sure seemed excited. And thrilled.

“So this asshat detective,” Olivia said, obviously smiling around the words. “What did her colleagues say about her?”

“You should’ve seen the way they looked at her. They said she acted improperly and they couldn’t get Daddy out of there fast enough. He didn’t really need me after all.”

“I see. Do you remember her name?”

“Uh-huh. Melanie Vorus.”

Olivia brushed Penny’s damp hair from her face. “What about the alleged victim? Did she back up your father’s story?”

All these questions were exhausting. Sighing drowsily Penny murmured, “She told the truth, yeah.”

Olivia fumbled with something and then Penny heard the distinctive whir of her beloved Hitachi Magic Wand, which she’d bought right after moving in. She’d named it BFF. Olivia held it over her belly. “What truth did she tell?”

“That she slept through her stop and got mixed up,” Penny explained with a fresh, dreamy enthusiasm. “She asked Daddy for directions and as they were walking out of the station Detective Vorus arrested him. She made an awful scene.”

“Penelope,” Olivia said as she pushed open her thighs and pressed BFF’s massive, throbbing tip to her crotch, “do you believe that your father hypnotizes lovely young girls?”

“Livvie!” she whined, because the current location of BFF turned it into a perverse trick question. “Of course I don’t.”

The vibrator’s whine pitched up and down as Olivia began to orbit Penny’s clitoris with it. Her whole groin buzzed and she knew with absolute certainty that she was about to explode in a zillion pieces. Oh how she loved her BFF. “It’s important that you listen to me,” Olivia intoned. “Can you focus on my voice?”

“Yes!” Penny pledged, slowly rocking her hips.

“I’m glad things went so well for your dad, but people are going to have questions. I wouldn’t be surprised if Detective Vorus came to see you. The important thing to remember is that your father is a loving, decent man who would never take advantage of a young woman. This is what you believe.”

A fucking tsunami of pure uncut pleasure was seconds away. “Yes Olivia!” she yelled.

“Shh! We don’t want to piss off the neighbors. Now if you’re faced with things that don’t add up in Susan’s story or your dad’s, just use all that clever lawyer stuff in your head to explain it all away. This is what you will do.”

“This is what I will do…” Much quieter this time, but with feeling.

“There’s my brilliant love. You’re about to get your prize. Just remember that when you come your trance will deepen tenfold, and then we’ll have some very important things to discuss. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day. Do you understand?”

“Yes Olivia. Oh god…”

“What a lovely, clever angel I have. Now don’t hold back…”

Whoosh! Penny’s beach-front property dissolved as the BFF-generated tsunami roared ashore. Her hips bucked against the relentless surge—a surge that really was working—as the rest of her will left her, soaking the sheets, cooling quickly. She forgot where she was, what day it was, what time it was…

Eventually she could breathe again and all she wanted to do was be with Olivia.

* * * 
“What do you want now?” Susan demanded through the chain-wide crack of open door to her apartment. The emphasis on the last word implied that it was a brand new day for Mel to fuck up but Susan would rather she didn’t.

Mel wavered in the hall. The hostility was no surprise but hard to face. “Please, I really need to talk to you. Just for a minute?”

Susan made an irritated sound, fiddled with the chain and then the door opened wide. She turned her back on Mel, padding into the living room toward the couch. The black silk robe showed most of her long legs and clashed cutely with the enormous plush turtle slippers. As Mel shut the door behind her, Susan plopped down on the sofa and balanced her coffee on one knee. She didn’t offer Mel any.

She seemed ready for a lengthy, awkward spiel about how sorry Mel was for being such a nutjob, but Mel felt they were way beyond that. “So, do you remember where you were last night?” she asked, taking a seat.

Susan’s head fell forward in goofy disbelief. “Um, sleeping? Here?” She spread her skinny arms to indicate the living room. “We done now?”

Mel put her pleading hands to her lips like Vicki had the night before down at the docks. “What if I said that you got in a van that took you to a warehouse, where you stayed most of the night?”

Susan raised an eyebrow. “I’d say you were wrong. Did you see this?” She grabbed the newspaper, noisily flipped to the middle of the A section and pointed at a headline: “Conspiracy Nut Cop Makes False Arrest.” Mel got about three paragraphs in, reddening, before Susan said, “They’ve got you doing paperwork now, right? They know you’re here?”

Mel recovered quickly. She knew she was good at her job, so digs at her competence didn’t really get to her. “At least they spelled my name right,” she shrugged as she smoothed the hem of her skirt and crossed her legs. “Look, are you telling me you don’t remember walking out of your building last night?” She wished Vicki had taken pictures.

Susan dropped the paper and leaned forward, agitated. “No, because I didn’t go anywhere. Nobody hypnotized me on the train yesterday and nobody abducted me from my own fucking apartment.”

“Susan, I saw-”

She was just getting warmed up. “Nothing. You. Saw. Nothing. You embarrassed me in front of the whole city and now you’re harassing me in my goddamn living room!”

It upset Mel that Susan wouldn’t or couldn’t acknowledge what had happened to her. She smacked a fist against her thigh. “Sweetheart, you’re not safe here! God knows what Crabtree did to you last night! Let me help! I can take you somewhere he can’t find you.”

Susan got up, so Mel did too. “Look, I’ve got to go to work.”

Either she’d been coerced into lying or her memory had been wiped like Vicki had mentioned. If the former was true then Susan was a very good liar. “Did he threaten you? Because you may think I’m an idiot but I can protect you.”

“I probably just need to make one phone call and you’ll be out of a job.” Susan had herded Mel to the door and opened it. “I don’t want to do that, Detective, but you need to get over this fantasy of yours.”

Fantasy… Like she got off on it. Mel found herself out in the hall again. “Fine, Susan. I’ll go.” She pulled a card from her pocket and offered it to the coltish young woman. “When you’re ready to get real, here’s my number.”

As Susan eyed the card something in her expression changed. She knew exactly what had happened to her last night. Her guard came back up a millisecond later but Mel had seen through her. Maybe Susan had let her see. She snatched the card out of Mel’s hand. “Fine, whatever,” she huffed, then shut the door.

On the way to the stairs Mel shrugged out of her jacket. It was going to be even warmer than yesterday. Maybe Susan would work up the nerve to call her and they could go see Captain Ingram. Then someone besides Vicki would listen to her about Richard Crabtree.

Leaking the story to the press had sure been a ballsy move on his part. He had so much to hide, and the creeps he worked for had even more secrets. Mel had heard all kinds of stuff about the syndicate that traded secretly in brainwashed girls. Someone had told her there were a hundred specialists in the city, so they probably weren’t rare. A loudmouthed prick like Richard who fucked with her in the papers might very easily find himself dead. No, there was no way he’d done it. It had to be someone else who hated her guts. Let’s see, there’s everyone I work with. But bad press for one cop made the whole force look bad, and even those jerkwads wouldn’t cross the thin blue line. Vicki wouldn’t have done it either because she wanted very badly to jump Mel’s bones.

There was another obvious possibility. She put on her sunglasses as she left the Helicon building and the sun warmed her face. Maybe Penny Crabtree would be in her office today.

* * * 
Penny practically skipped through the building. She really needed to stop glowing before everyone knew she’d gotten laid last night. Kaitlin was so distracted by Penny’s big smile that she stopped surfing the web long enough to stare. Penny wanted to cover her face (her angel face, according to Olivia) and hide. “What?”

“It’s about damn time, chief,” was all her assistant had to say. She was back to her celebrity gossip blog.

“My brief isn’t going to format itself, you know,” Penny said as she walked into her office and put her bag down.

“I need another cup of coffee and more insight into Lindsay’s cracked-out lifestyle first,” Kaitlin explained.

These kids today… Penny rolled her eyes as she plopped into her chair. Nothing could get under her Type A skin today. I have a girlfriend! she wanted to scream. Instead she logged onto her computer and picked through her email. That was always good for a buzz kill. Only eight messages about her embarrassing penis size. Her normally packed calendar was fairly open for a Wednesday. There was this lunch appointment at Xenia’s, which was tres expensive but the firm was buying today. So far the score was Penny’s cheer: 1, work: 0.

A calendar alert dinged. Right. That paperwork thing for Olivia. Her hands leapt to the keyboard and she located the files before she even knew she was looking for them. Had she just logged onto a server as someone else? Her fingers flew over the keys and the document windows opened one after the other. The case files were unfamiliar—some suit brought by a college student naming Olivia as a defendant—but she couldn’t be bothered with the details so she just copied them all to her keychain drive. It was like Penny had been awake all night thinking about all this shit that needed doing and now she couldn’t take care of it fast enough.

“Chief?” Kaitlin asked over the intercom, startling her.

Penny blinked at her monitor. All the windows were gone. She was finished. How long had she been sitting here? “Uh… What?”

“Someone here to see you. No appointment. Are you still slammed with the Thompson case or should I send her in?”

The Thompson case was Kaitlin Code for “I can make her go away if you want.” It was a futile gesture since Penny’s office was tiny and the visitor was looking right at her. What a surprise: it was Melanie Vorus. A little pre-lunch gloating would make her day even more fabulous. “Detective!” she called, waving her in.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Melanie said, not ungraciously. Now that Penny was officially into girls she needed to take a little moment. Feigning contempt, she checked out the lithe brunette’s radiant complexion, trendy boots and the tight skirt over the toned thighs. Her brown-eyed gaze was soft but intense: the detective had come to spar. Penny half-stood and gestured to the chair by the door, which Melanie closed before taking a seat.

“If you’re here to apologize it’s really not necessary,” Penny soothed.

Melanie’s smile crept upward like there was a bad smell and she wanted to retain her poise. “Oh, I don’t have anything to apologize for.” She played at being impressed with Penny’s little office. “So who do you know at the Observer? That’s quite a hatchet job in today’s paper.”

Penny laughed like she was about to share a secret with a friend. “Oh, just a reporter or two. I thought I should let them know what a bang-up job the police were doing, arresting my dad for attempted brainwashing or whatever.”

“Kind of reckless, though, putting your dad’s name in the article, right?” That gaze was too even and unflinching. She hadn’t come here just to lean on Penny.

“If you were worried about his good name then you shouldn’t have accused him of molesting someone in the middle of a subway station.” Penny swished around in her chair, all cheerfulness and sunshine, hoping to fend off Melanie’s questions with pure smugness.

“I meant he probably doesn’t like you drawing attention to his…” Melanie wrinkled her nose. “Activities.”

Penny tossed her hair and laughed. “Wow. You sure are throwing around some cheap accusations. How’s desk duty working for you?” She checked her watch. “Don’t you have some papers to file? I wonder what your captain would say if he knew where you were.”

Melanie crossed her legs and checked her nails like she’d already heard this before. She was pretty good at the bitchy-girly thing too. “I’m not here officially. I’m taking a personal day. Say, do you know what your dad was up to last night? Because I do.”

Penny pointed at the idiot sitting across from her. “You do know that I represent him in this matter, right? Now you’re telling me that you’re stalking him?”

“Not so much stalking as trying to keep him out of Susan Graff’s panties. That didn’t go so well for me, by the way.” Melanie went on to tell a lurid tale all about this Susan girl being kidnapped by a mysterious thug in a black van, who whisked her off to a secret warehouse where her dad did unspeakable things to her all night.

“Holy shit,” Penny marveled, fanning herself when Melanie was through. “That’s some story. If I’d recorded it I could probably get you thrown off the force. But let’s back up for a second. Did you see this girl come out of her apartment building?”

“No, but I have a witness who did.”

“Right. Did you see her go into this warehouse?”

“No, but again: witness.”

“Oh, and who might these witnesses be?”

“Reliable ones,” Melanie said, averting those brown eyes.

Aha! Penny had finally made her blink. “Really? Okay, did you at any point last night see my father?”

“Nope, but I doubt two different people would try to abduct the same girl on the same day.”

“Well, since you didn’t see either of them with your own eyes, I don’t think you can really say that anything happened. Unless you want to bring your star witnesses into this?” Melanie was suddenly quiet. “No? Then I think we’re done here. Was there anything else, Detective?”

Melanie stood, smoothed out her skirt and smiled, full of things little girls are made of. Somehow this nullified Penny’s brilliant victory, which really got under her Type A skin. “No, just wanted to come by and say thanks for trashing me in the paper, and, you know, see if you’re involved in your dad’s little side business. So are you?”

Penny glared at her from behind her desk. “The next time you want to swing by for a chat, just remember that I can have you writing parking tickets for the rest of your sad little career. Allrighty?”

Unfazed, Melanie blew her a kiss on her way out. “Ciao.”

Penny swiveled angrily in her chair, parade seriously rained upon.

* * * 
The midday sun shone in Vicki’s eyes as she holed up in her apartment, sprawled on the couch with her laptop on her stomach. She pored over Richard Crabtree’s short list of active subjects, feet wiggling ceaselessly. From what she could tell so far his forte was part-timers, which worked for Vicki because that was her angle too.

Well-adjusted, active young women with families and careers couldn’t just disappear to become mindlessly devoted sex slaves. Syndicate business was booming and all those missing girls would be noticed, to say the least. This was the rub, because it was these foxy, unattainable girls next door that most clients wanted. So they’d pay the money and a few weeks later Ms. Unattainable would start showing up two or three nights a week, smiling blankly, her slutty play clothes neatly folded in the bag hanging off her shoulder. This was Susan Graff’s destiny.

Vicki had clients of her own, and she liked to hijack part-timers for a few extra gigs each month, careful never to interfere with their original schedule. Missed dates were the quickest way to reveal herself to the original clients, who tended to get pissy when their expensive sex slaves stopped showing up for work.

Crabtree’s file had notes on availability. Of the eighteen girls on the list, five were out of town, three couldn’t safely play this week for whatever reason, two were fresh like Susan (who was so fresh she wasn’t even on the list yet) and one was newly pregnant. Vicki cursed herself for not reading this thing more closely while she was at the warehouse or she would’ve scoured his database more thoroughly. At the time she’d been trying to stop Detective Brown Eyes from becoming a brand new part-timer. So with seven girls left, four didn’t even seem real, best she could tell. It was common for specialists to pad their lists so they could get more work.

She reached around the laptop to scratch her crotch through her panties. Briefly she entertained the idea of getting dressed. Then she saw something that made her raise up on her elbows, laptop jiggling on her tummy. Yeah. Subject Six-Four-February: Penny Crabtree. Feeling queasy, she Googled a few things, which made her feel worse. What kind of sick specialist fuck would do his own daughter? There were a few JPEGs because Penny was a bit of a public figure. She was cute, and she was a lawyer so she might be smart. Brainy girls were so easy to mess with. They practically did all the work.

She was also the first available subject on the list.

Her cell phone rang from down on the floor. Vicki felt around, picked it up. It was Kim for the gazillionth time. Pissed, she finally flipped open the phone and put it to her ear. “What?”

“Fuck’s sake, Vicki! I’ve been calling you all day!” Kim was a blond, green-eyed sylph and she was a hacker too. Vicki knew well that the best ones were the harmless-looking ladies. No one expected the nerdy looking girl with the emerald eyes to speak their trigger word, sending them into a mindless stupor; and syndicate people looking for the asshole who’d hijacked their slavegirls usually didn’t notice the innocuous, lily-white Chinese girl, at least until recently.

Vicki had to hold the phone away from her ear. “Whoa! Indoor voice! You miss me that much?” They’d hooked up a few times, more out of curiosity than anything else.

“Shut up,” Kim insisted. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

Vicki flopped her leg over the back of the couch. “I’m at home. And I’m fine. Look, I’m busy. What’s your damage?”

“Well, let’s see. Someone’s following me. And Darla’s missing.” Darla was a mutual hacker friend. “And the ‘Hotties’ website is down. I’m hearing all kinds of bad shit, Vick.”

Kim was… Excitable. She’d fallen in love with hypnosis while roleplaying with one of her boyfriends and she still approached hacking like a game. She didn’t take to the ugly side of it very well. “La-DI-DA! Someone’s been following me too but I’m not peeing all over myself. I’ve said it before: get a grip or get out of the biz.”

“I’m being serious! They’re saying it’s open season on us now.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Clay,” Kim said. Clay was in tight with the deliverymen.

Vicki laughed. “Clay is ‘they’? You know how much he loves fucking with you.”

Kim didn’t take Vicki’s attitude well. “You need to straighten up and listen to me! The syndicate has declared war on us. Nobody’s seen Darla in days. People are following us. I booked a flight to Sacramento tonight. I’m going to sit in my parents’ house and eat Cheetos until I’m good and sure no one’s after me. And Vick?”

Jeez, Kim was a psycho. “Huh?”

“Come with me?”

Vicki lifted her foot off the couch and pointed her big toe at the sun to block the glare. “You want me at your parents’ house?” Seemed like Kim was a little more into her than she’d realized. Or she just needed a security blanket.

“I want to look out for you, baby. Please?”

Vicki yawned. “Sounds a little tame. And if you’re leaving town, more money for me.”

Kim’s breath caught with a jagged sob. “Then you’re stupid and you’ll die.”

“Nice ‘Blade Runner’ quote,” Vicki enthused, but she winced at how mean she sounded. “Why don’t you look me up when you get back in town? I promise I’ll do nasty things to you.”

Kim cried in her ear for a few seconds, then hung up.

Vicki stared at the “call ended” message on her phone for a long time.

* * * 
Penny Crabtree lived in a posh part of town, so Vicki had to blend in or she wouldn't even make it to her front door. Thus far she'd received no suspicious looks, which was good considering how much her outfit had cost. She stalked the hallway carefully, trying to look like she belonged in the building.

Dangerous as it was, she was about to go to work.

She felt like the anti-Vicki all dolled up like this, or rather, so much more like a Victoria. Her slinky white dress clung jealously where it could, as her heels tried patiently to trip her. She wore what she hoped was a sunny smile but it was really more of a grimace, because her lipstick tasted too sweet and the new perfume made her want to sneeze. Her mother would've swooned with delight at seeing her this way.

Here was the place: apartment 303. She breathed deeply, psyching herself up, already a little wet over what was about to happen. She knocked and a long minute passed before the peephole dimmed. “Yeah, what is it?” someone called cheerfully.

Playing the role was much easier than wearing the clothes. “Sorry! I’m supposed to meet a friend on this floor and I forgot the number and my phone is dead and I’m late! Can you help me please?”

Silence for a beat, but Vicki was a lost, sweet-faced ditz in a hot dress so the door opened.

Penny was quite a bit more edible in person. She had green eyes like Kim’s but more olive. Her frilly lavender top was somewhere between hippie chic and Victorian goth. Kind of odd for a lawyer in this part of town, but very not-bad for a white girl. “Who did you say you looking for?” she asked, amused and friendly.

Vicki played at being relieved. “Oh thank you! You’re a rock star. My friend’s name is Terpsichore…”

A surprised sound left Penny as the trigger deactivated her. Vicki watched the stunned blonde’s head loll and realized for the thousandth time that she’d never ever tire of doing this. She needed to stop leering out in the hall, though, so she tried to pry Penny’s fingers from the door. She’d been holding it when Vicki tranced her and now it was the only thing keeping her on her feet. Vicki heard the elevator ding, then footsteps and quiet voices. It wouldn’t do to have the neighbors get an eyeful of this.

“Come inside, okay?”

Penny moaned ever so softly, like she just wanted to cling to the door all night like a drunk sorority girl, but Vicki coaxed her inside before the people in the hall walked by. Toddling on her heels, Vicki walked her new subject into the living room, taking in the chichi furniture and the neutral color palette. She felt like a visitor in a foreign country. Penny’s body kept knocking against her and that feverish skin made Vicki’s heart pound. Eventually they reached the couch, where Vicki let go and Penny flopped momentarily before collapsing onto her side.

So here they were.

Vicki adored this moment, with its rush of what shall I do first? Her fingers went to her collarbone as she considered. Her first thought was to hike up her dress and defile the opulent atmosphere of this place by frigging herself silly, which made her smile, but she was here to see how far she could get into this girl’s head, and when she might be free for a little programming session. Staring hungrily at Penny she asked, “Hey, are you listening?”

“Yes,” Penny said, eyes shut.

First she needed to get a feel for the method. There were many schools of thought on mind control. A good specialist developed a signature style and Vicki knew the work of some of the best in the city. Richard Crabtree was new to her, so she had to tread lightly.

“Can you tell me about your schedule?”

Part-timers were keenly aware of their real life doings because they had to keep certain hours free—without ever wondering why—for their secret lives as slavegirls. But Vicki wasn't so much asking Penny to tell her when she'd be free as finding out if she had permission to know. When hackers had appeared on the scene a few years back, the specialists had been forced to invent security systems to keep their subjects to themselves. Much like the software industry, an ever-escalating war had ensued, only the personal data at stake wasn't on a hard drive, it was inside girls like Penny, who at that moment softly declared, "I'm free tonight."

No fancy security protocols here, and she was ready to go, quietly giving herself up to a stranger. Unusual, but Vicki saw it occasionally. Maybe Richard would be this sloppy with Susan too. Still hovering over Penny, she asked, “Will you come with me somewhere?”

“I must obey whoever says my special word.”

Special word. Cute... Vicki pulled up her dress and put a foot on the coffee table. She’d entertain herself while she waited. “Very good. It’s chilly tonight, so I’d like you to find a jacket and get your purse. Make sure you’ve got your keys.”

* * * 
Traffic was bad for a Wednesday night. Anxiously Mel tried to recall a better way across town but nothing came to mind. It was just going to take a while.

Going to see Susan had been a disaster. Unless she could persuade Captain Ingram to believe her, the only option was to kidnap Susan at gunpoint, a misguided impulse since she was trying to save her from kidnappers in the first place.

She’d hoped to rattle Penny Crabtree’s cage and see if she was in on all this, but she’d only made her angry, and she was beginning to realize how much she’d regret that if Penny really was working with her dad.

Next she’d gone down to the warehouse again, but during the day the docks bustled with activity so she couldn’t break in. She’d asked around a little but nobody had seen anyone leave or go in.

After whiling away the afternoon at the harbor she'd gone home to cozy up to her computer. As Penny had so merrily pointed out, Mel had no proof of anything she'd seen the night before, but she’d written down the plate numbers of the black van and Vicki's bike.

The van was registered to a delivery company, owned in turn by a business that Mel had recognized from her undercover days as a front. These were unsavory dudes who were into drug trafficking, gambling and prostitution when they weren't busy killing each other, but one thing they weren't was syndicate material. Brainwashing was way too subtle for them. Still, the syndicate did business with them on some level and this worried Mel, not least because she'd spent the last couple of days fucking with them, and she wasn't keen on ending up in a dumpster somewhere with her hands and teeth missing. Then she'd remembered Vicki saying someone was looking for her.

Not a moment too soon, Mel rolled up to her building.

Quickly she parallel parked on the street, hopped out of her car and pulled her jacket close. Warm days and chilly nights, this time of year. This was a trendy area for artists and scenester types; a good place for a little freak like Vicki to blend in. Teeth chattering, she jogged across the street. The stinky entranceway to the aging brownstone was lit with flickering, yellowed fluorescents. She found Vicki’s bell, pushed it, wondering how much it would rock Vicki’s world to see her doing it. No answer, so she randomly stabbed other buttons until the harsh buzzer sounded and the inner door snicked open.

Inside a couple of guys passed her at the foot of the stairwell. They nodded, taking no real notice of her except for her prettiness. She’d been a smashing success in narcotics.

Mel made her way up the rickety stairs to the third floor. There was no one around but dread settled on her anyway. Her right hand went to the shoulder holster under her jacket. Yeah, her gun was still there. Tentatively she knocked on Vicki’s door. There were no lights on inside and no one answered. Mel knocked more insistently to no avail as worry began to gnaw at her. So what? She’s not home. A young adventurous girl like that was probably out seeing a band or tooling around town on that bike of hers.

Shivering as she turned toward the stairs, Mel hoped so. She hadn’t been much help to anyone today.

* * * 
Humming to herself in her low register, Vicki wiggled out of her dress in the dim candlelight and carefully laid it down next to Penny’s clothes on the clean table. It wouldn’t do if their things were all sticky and wrinkled when it was time to go. The chilly air only excited her more because she was plenty warm on the inside.

Melanie had been so freaked by Crabtree’s warehouse the night before that Vicki had declined to mention she had one of her own. Nothing fancy like his, just an old garage she rented downtown, which was the easiest place to bring her hijacked subjects from wherever she found them in the city. That and the rent was cheap.

The back room had narrow walls and a high ceiling, giving it an intimate but theatrical feel. Vicki was a bit of a grease monkey, and she kept her big red rolling tool chest in the back corner by the sliding door so she could mess with her bike on Saturdays. The Hawk stood dutifully on its center stand nearby. She’d brought Penny here in a cab, unconcerned with being seen because Penny wasn’t going to remember any of this tomorrow.

The other corner of the garage was reserved for her hacking stuff. She’d installed an expensive dentist’s chair that she’d found at an auction. Electrical work wasn’t her thing so the wiring had been tricky, but the chair raised, lowered and adjusted to different angles. Surrounding it were a few beat up computer monitors and some old storage cabinets from the ‘50s stuffed full of sex toys. Vicki had lit candles throughout the room, partly for ambience and partly for the hypnotic effect of the flames, but mostly because this old dump needed some paint.

Penny reclined in the chair, pale and naked, the candlelight reflected in her blank stare. Vicki hopped sideways onto her bike, which was where she conducted most of her hacking sessions. Sitting naked atop the powerful machine was both comforting and arousing. Not that she needed help getting in the mood with sweet, impressionable Penny here, but Vicki was kind of a freak and it drove her to do odd things.

It had, after all, driven her into this profession.

“Penny, can you hear me?” she called.

“Yes, I can hear you fine, Vicki.” They were on a friendly first-name basis now.

Vicki couldn’t help herself. “Can you feel me near you?” She managed to get it out before the giggles seized her.

The dumb “Tommy” reference was lost on sleepy, adorable Penny. “No. Sorry.”

She was like a fucking robot. Richard Crabtree must’ve known what he was doing if he’d made his daughter this submissive. Most specialists were really just con artists who fooled their subjects into compliance. Maybe the poor things believed they were sitting in a Starbucks sucking on an iced mocha while they had their heads rewired, or maybe they’d been told they were Very Easy To Hypnotize. They usually showed at least a glimmer of their normal selves as they did whatever Vicki wanted them to, but Penny had been dominated by someone with an ego the size of a planet. Vicki wasn’t sure how to work with her.

Whatever method Crabtree had used, sex slaves were supposed to like sex, so most techniques reinforced pleasure while using it to crush resistance. It followed that getting Penny off might make her a little more enthusiastic. Also Vicki wanted to taste her, so she hopped off her bike and approached the big chair.

“How about a nice, relaxing orgasm to make you more comfortable?” she asked.

“I’d love that.” She sure had no qualms about being serviced by a girl. Vicki sensed a jittery need just below the zombie girl vibe.

“Fabulous,” Vicki purred, pushing apart those alabaster thighs. Penny sat up slightly, presenting herself while staring carefully at the ceiling. Not one for foreplay, Vicki put her nose to Penny’s sex and inhaled. Mmmm. Barbie ‘tang. She blew on Penny’s slit, smiled at all the squirming and moaning, grabbed her pale thighs and went to work.

She was glad she’d taken off her dress because lipstick and Penny juice were all over her in short order. Penny hungered so badly and Vicki burned to feed her, so they were perfect together. She sucked loudly and waggled her tongue, too overcome to play it cool. She thought about jamming her thumb in Penny’s asshole but decided to save that for later, which turned out to be the right call because Penny quaked against Vicki’s lips and wailed like she’d just found religion.

The church of Vicki had many followers.

Hacking was like welding sometimes. You had to heat the joints before you could work with them. Now Penny was white-hot and melty, ready for new connections in her head. “Tell me about your hypnotist,” Vicki said. “Do you know his name?”

Penny stretched, languorous, but frowned in the flickering light. “He?”

Vicki had no reason to think Richard Crabtree hadn’t done the work. Her name was on his list, after all. She stood up and wiped her chin. “Who’s your hypnotist, Penny?”

“My neighbor Olivia,” was the reply, full of puppy love.

Interesting. “So it’s not your dad?”

Penny smiled at the absurdity. “No! My father is a loving, decent man who would never take advantage of a woman. This is what I believe.”

Right… If Richard hadn’t done the work, why was his daughter on the list? Was it another padded resumé thing, to show the syndicate what a ruthless bastard he could be? Maybe he’d hired this Olivia person to do the work so he wouldn’t have to interact with his own kid in… That way. Whatever was going on, it smelled fishy. “Tell me about Olivia,” she demanded.

“We’re dating. Sometimes she hypnotizes me and tells me to do things. I’m excited and thrilled to bend to her will.”

That heavy recitation told Vicki a lot about the strength of Olivia’s methods. “Is she your first girlfriend?” she guessed.

Penny’s smile broadened. “Yeah.”

Vicki took a step back. “Something’s not right. Come get dressed, I’m taking you home.”

Penny swung her legs off the chair and slowly got to her feet as Vicki went to the table to fetch her clothes. “Something’s not right,” she repeated.

Penny picked her purse up off the table. Not her panties or her skirt. Vicki’s hands were shaking now and she struggled to shake out her dress. She knew this was a setup and cursed herself for not seeing it sooner, but she couldn’t figure how the trap would be sprung. “Penny, stop fooling around and get dressed!”

She head a sharp exhalation, and a sweet-smelling cloud enveloped her. She turned to see Penny through the dust, palm upturned at her chin, lips pursed. Vicki’s dress fluttered out of her hands. “Ow!” she cried as her knees banged on the cold concrete. Then she was on her back on the filthy floor, heart racing, and then… Slowing. Her limbs grew cold as she began to fade.

“Gotcha,” Penny declared, suddenly very alert.