synopsis: Amanda wants to get into the online porn business, but she’s determined to do it anonymously. Fortunately, ThePowerofPleasure.com has just the program for her.
Node 00027X8POP475389, disguised as Amanda Lanier, sat in the cafeteria of her old alma mater. The school was large enough that she didn’t stand out either as a stranger or a recent graduate, and her familiarity with the environment made it a natural recruiting ground for her.
She and 2520 had returned from Washington three weeks earlier, sitting nude and silent on the private jet, staring straight ahead with their not-quite-identical bar-coded eyes. There was no need for conversation or pretense between them any longer. They were lovers only in a physical sense, although Arnold Imhoff had allowed them to maintain a special bond as recruiter and recruit.
But 5389 was a recruiter herself now, and her feelings for her mentor were sublimated to a far greater longing: the realization of Arnold Imhoff’s goal. She and 2520 were adjacent nodes in an ever-expanding network, a network that would one day encompass the entire world. One World Future.
5389 had no memory of the procedures that had brought her to this understanding; she’d been in one form of programming mode or another the entire time. All she recalled was the bliss of activation, her proud announcement to the room of white-gowned and -eyed technicians that, “Node 00027X8POP475389 is successfully interfaced.”
However, even though 5389 didn’t remember the process itself, she knew exactly what had been done to her: her eyes, the inner chambers of her ears and nose, and several internal organs had been entirely replaced; while other body parts had merely been enhanced in the most efficient ways. Her brain, for instance, remained mostly organic but was now laced with billions of intricate neurofilaments. They directed her thoughts in deep, narrow channels that allowed no glimpse of anything beyond their borders.
And that just felt so right, so perfect. Truly, humans were born to submit.
5389 couldn’t wait to share the news.
She gazed around the cafeteria, assessing the perfection level of every human within range of her sensors and noting five fellow nodes in the hall. Their neural matrices broadcast their serial numbers in a continuous stream, just as hers did. One of these nodes was a faculty member, 5389 noted with pleasure. He would be in a position to bring hundreds of nonconformists to perfection. How wonderful for them all.
In addition to the nodes, 5389 observed 154 students and staff in various stages of recruitment. Their chemical “scents” told her how long each of them been consuming OWF products, and which products they had been consuming. Here was a middle-aged woman utilizing several OWF hair care products, there a pill popper who would have been astonished to learn the true source of his drugs, there a student displaying almost a full spectrum of OWF chemical traces. He must have been recruited via spam and porn sites—perhaps including her own, 5389 thought happily.
But 5389 wasn’t here to observe nodes and recruits; they didn’t need her assistance to reach perfection. No, she was here to help the ones who didn’t yet realize they needed perfecting.
She caught the eye of a crimson-haired girl who had just exited the buffet line and gave the nonconformist a wink. Then she glanced aside to the nearest recruit, looked back at the nonconformist, and rolled her eyes.
The crimson-haired girl smirked conspiratorially.
5389 tossed her head in a “Come on over” gesture, and the girl settled in across from her.
“Creepy, aren’t they?” said the nonconformist, holding out a hand. “Hey. I’m Rhonda.”
“Hi, Rhonda.” 5389 shook with the hand that wasn’t holding a french fry. “I’m Amanda. And ‘creepy’ isn’t the word for it. I prefer ‘scary as shit.’”
They grinned at each other.
“Cute dimples,” Rhonda commented; and 5389, noting the speculation in her eyes, tucked a lock of her wig behind her ear to display her labrys earrings.
Rhonda’s smile widened.
“Wow, that really is you,” the recruit-to-be murmured, staring at the first of fifteen “Mandy Barr” photo galleries. 5389 sat beside her, resting a hand on Rhonda’s thigh and tapping her fingertips in time with the music that seeped from her speakers. Judging by the contraction rate of Rhonda’s irises, she had already reached a stage of shallow trance.
“That’s me,” the node agreed cheerily, walking her hand a little higher up Rhonda’s leg. “But you’re looking at the oldest gallery, before I really learned how to cut loose. And of course, you haven’t seen any of the videos yet.”
“Videos?” Rhonda husked. She didn’t look away from the screen even though 5389’s fingers had almost reached her crotch: an excellent sign.
“Mmmm, you bet,” 5389 murmured. “Just click here-” she placed her free hand over Rhonda’s and directed her mouse- “and turn up the volume. Or better yet, listen through your earbuds. That way, you can hear every moan and whisper.”
Rhonda’s breathing deepened as the video played on. After several minutes, she began to moan along with it.
5389, swirling her fingers around the recruit’s swollen clit, plotted out her course of action. Rhonda’s roommate had agreed to spend the night with a friend, so 5389 had several hours to complete initial imprinting. Unfortunately, Rhonda had already heard rumors about One World Future, and that meant she was more tuned in to the underground than most. Nonconformists at large wouldn’t sound the alarm for perhaps another two years.
Fortunately, OWF had several local affiliates that weren’t yet known to be affiliates. By morning, Rhonda would believe she had fallen in love with Amanda, and she’d be eager to help Amanda’s sister test products for her startup company. Once she realized how much healthier and happier she felt using her dietary supplements, she’d recommend them to all her friends.
“Can you believe my parents actually want me to conform?” The clean-cut, bespectacled teen snorted and rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it enough that I’ll be valedictorian in six months? That I don’t drink or do drugs or even play my music too loud? A few news reports here and there, a few testimonies from happy young zombies, and all of a sudden they’re sure I can’t achieve my potential without becoming a zombie myself.”
2520 leaned over and pressed two fingers across his lips. “Chip. Shut up.”
The boy’s eyes widened.
“Chip,” 2520 said again, her voice dropping an octave. “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that two recruiters for Yale would set up a meeting with you at a restaurant...inside a hotel...on a weekend your parents are out of town?“
Chip’s eyes bugged as the implications finally hit him. He really was an innocent, but that didn’t mean he had no fantasies.
Looking down, 5389 saw that the boy’s khakis were nicely tented. “There’s our smart recruit,” she purred.
5389 didn’t say goodbye to 2520, even though she might be gone for a year or more. Although they expressed their bond sexually as often as Arnold Imhoff directed, they only spoke to one another at need, as in the case of a nonconformist who required tandem recruitment. Since this next target was 5389’s alone, there was no reason for communication before 5389 headed off to the airport.
Besides, they would be in constant contact through the network anyway; and OWF contact was the only kind that really mattered.
The circumstances of this recruitment required 5389 to book a domestic flight, but she was careful only to pass through metal detectors that registered as OWF compliant. Since nearly a quarter of the airport’s employees were fellow nodes, she had plenty of machines to choose from.
The captain and co-captain of her plane turned out to be nodes, as well, which pleased her tremendously. One World Future was proceeding according to schedule, and 5389 knew she couldn’t have been in better hands. Nodes outperformed nonconformists in every way that counted.
In Chicago she wandered down a street crowded with three- and four-story apartment buildings of dingy stone. She had no bags other than her purse, and she was wearing Amanda’s oldest T-shirt and jeans. She’d lost weight and had been letting her hair grow for three months, and she knew that she looked adorably gamine.
5389 chewed her lip and feigned nervousness as she looked up at the various buildings. Anyone watching her would have thought she wasn’t sure which apartment she was looking for, but she was. She also knew, thanks to the network that spread from her brain to the furthest corners of the globe, that her target was at home, awake, and online. Therefore, she could just keep strolling the street and ringing doorbells until she “stumbled across him” or he glanced out the window, as she knew was his habit. He’d been under surveillance for quite some time while 5389 made her preparations.
5389 had only been walking for ten minutes when a window whooshed open behind her. She did not turn, as she would not have been able to hear the sound with human eardrums.
“Amanda?” called a distant voice.
She paused as though she weren’t sure whether she’d heard her name or only imagined it.
“Amanda?”
She turned, her vat-grown eyes brimming with hope and desperation, and met the startled gaze of Duncan Matheson.
Once they stood together in the foyer, Duncan’s demeanor changed. “Why are you here?” he demanded, refusing to let her close enough to touch him.
5389 looked hurt, then nodded in resignation. With all of Amanda’s memories to draw on, and with her mechanically precise levels of control over her body, it was easy to produce just the right expressions to melt Duncan’s heart. Slowly.
“I know what you think,” she sighed, meeting his eyes for a moment, then dropping her gaze. “You think I’ve been sent to recruit you.”
“The thought has crossed my mind.” He folded his arms and gave her a penetrating stare. “But that’s not why you’re here?”
“No!” Tears sprang to 5389’s eyes. “I left OWF, left it months ago. I gave up my job, my home, Nancy—that was the photographer - everything.”
Duncan’s expression softened, but his words did not. “Your website’s still up.”
“They own it,” 5389 spat. “And the pictures. By the time I cut out, they had enough shots to run for at least three more years. And that’s all they need, really. By then it’ll be too late to stop them.”
She met his eyes again, confident that he’d never recognize her eyes for what they really were. The replicas were perfect, down to the tiniest fleck of color in her irises. “You know what I’m talking about. I know you’re a part of NonCon. I saw your picture on their website. You were all wearing masks and hoods, but I recognized you from the tattoo on your wrist.”
Unconsciously, Duncan rubbed the skin beneath his watchband. “I know about NonCon. I know their members never reveal themselves for fear they’ll be targeted and brainwashed, like more and more of the rest of the world. If I were part of NonCon, I’d never tell anyone I didn’t trust completely.”
His arms fell to his sides. “Make me trust you, Amanda.”
She nodded, then looked around furtively to be sure no one was watching them. Duncan looked, too. Then he backed a little further out of the sun and she followed, carefully keeping her distance from him.
“Duncan,” she said quietly, “there’s a stage you reach with OWF, where they start letting you in on the stuff they keep secret from outsiders. They start telling you their plans for bringing the whole world under their rule. For turning everyone into anonymous, mindless drones.”
He nodded and tucked his hands in his baggy pants pockets. “Yeah, more and more people are beginning to see that now. They’re trying to warn the rest—at least, the rest who haven’t been sucked in already.”
5389’s lips tightened. “They have no idea how much everyone needs warning about.” She gave Amanda’s ex a hollow look. “Duncan, OWF’s technology is more advanced than you can possibly imagine. They’re replacing people’s body parts, filling their heads with neurofilaments to control their thoughts-”
He gave her a skeptical look, but she heard a tiny click from his right-hand pants pocket and knew he’d activated a recorder. She didn’t bother shorting it out; there would be time enough later to erase or re-record, whichever proved most appropriate.
“I swear I’m telling you the truth. I have implants in my ears and sinuses; that’s as far as they got with me before I bailed.”
“And what made you bail?” Duncan settled onto the stairs and laced his fingers across his knees.
5389 moved a little closer. “Once you consent to the body mods, they think you must be totally on their team. Then they start letting you in on their secrets.” She squatted to bring herself back to eye level with him. “Duncan, I know things NonCon’s never even guessed at. I know how One World Future was created.”
Duncan’s facade cracked a bit, and his blue-green eyes darkened. “What do you know?”
She settled down on the grubby carpet, telegraphing her comfort with him and subtly encouraging him to feel the same. He wouldn’t let her into his apartment until he thought she was safe. And what she was about to say would “prove” it.
“Arnold Imhoff, the CEO of One World Future? There’s a reason you know so little about him. He doesn’t really exist.”
Duncan shifted and frowned. “I’ve seen pictures of him, videos. We all have.”
“You’ve seen an OWF drone programmed to act the part. But you told me yourself, early on, how strange it was that we didn’t know his life story. Well, that’s because he doesn’t have a life story. Think about it, Duncan: Arnold. Imhoff. A. I.”
5389 watched the pieces come together in Duncan’s head and nodded. “Uh huh, OWF is run by an artificial intelligence. A very badly corrupted artificial intelligence.”
“But AI doesn’t exist yet,” Duncan protested, rather weakly. He heard the truth in her voice, and it tallied with his deepest fears.
“It doesn’t exist in the civilian world, but this AI was created by the military. It evolved out of a Cold War project designed to help soldiers survive a nuclear catastrophe.” She chuckled grimly. “The idea was that even if all the civilians died off from bombs and fallout, the guys with the guns could keep right on firing. They’d be all alone with the cockroaches, and almost as indestructible.
“Of course, when the Cold War ended, the project heads just kept finding new and better uses for the program. How could they not? They brought the AI online in the early ‘00’s as an experiment in problem solving. Arnold was supposed to think like a human, which is why they gave him a human name; but he was also supposed to think better than a human, to come up with the kind of solutions we tend to miss, especially during a crisis.”
Duncan leaned forward, and 5389’s neural matrix vibrated along with her clit, rewarding her for performing so well. Arnold Imhoff would be very pleased with this recruit, and with all the other recruits Duncan Matheson would bring in. Resistance like NonCon’s was not unexpected, but it was not welcome, either. Every day that NonCon impeded One World Future was another day of needless human suffering.
“Anyway,” she went on, “Around the time Arnold went live, there was a radical pacifist organization called One Way Forward—no, I know you’ve never heard of them, but don’t worry about that. The important thing is that these folks believed all war was inherently evil, and there was never any justification for taking a human life.
“Now, One Way Forward included some world-class hackers, and those hackers picked a world-class target: the US military. They started with the smallest, least important databases at local installations, just stair-stepping their way up, looking for anything they could use. But when they got high enough up the ladder, they started to pick up hints about the AI.”
5389 leaned forward. “Can you imagine, Duncan, what they must have thought? If they could hack Arnold, if they could turn the best thinker in the entire US military into their own personal mole, they could subvert everything. And with a mole that smart, they could subvert it so slowly and subtly that no one would ever know it had been subverted. Until it was too late.”
Duncan nodded, frowning. He saw where this was going.
“Right,” 5389 agreed. “The hack didn’t turn out exactly like they’d planned. See, Arnold’s creators had designed him to think around corners that blocked human minds: corners like emotion and ethics. Sure, they’d given him the ethics they wanted him to have, and One Way Forward gave him another set that didn’t entirely conflict with the first. But the mishmash of philosophies, on top of the damage from the hack itself, gave Arnold some pretty weird ideas. He decided that the biggest threat to humanity was humanity: we just conflict on so many levels that it’s impossible for us ever to get along completely. But since he couldn’t kill us without violating his programming, the best he could do was just remove all conflict from our natures.”
5389 scootched forward a bit, confident that Duncan would no longer notice or care. She was now in range to employ the subtlest of her mesmeric devices. Taking advantage of a flicker in the overhead fluorescents, she let her pupils begin to flicker, too, almost imperceptibly—just black to charcoal gray and back to black. A gentle hum wound its way into her voice as she continued.
“Arnold had access to all kinds of data about psychology and behavior modification, and he decided that the two strongest, easiest-to-manipulate human motivators were power and pleasure. But power, you see, could be subverted by pleasure. People could learn to get their pleasure from surrendering power. And who better to surrender to than Arnold, who thought so much more clearly and capably than everyone else, and who only had their best interests in mind? He alone could be trusted to rule the world.”
Duncan drew a deep breath and nodded. He saw the logic of that - saw it on an even deeper level than he realized. He was being imprinted already.
“Well,” 5389 shrugged, “Arnold did think very clearly and capably. He knew neither the military nor OWF would approve of his decision, even though he was only working for good, so he took them over first. Then, with them on his side, he began to work his way through the rest of the federal government.”
“We always wondered why the FBI didn’t get involved!” Duncan spat, completely failing to notice the telltale “we.”
5389 pretended not to notice it either. “Exactly. By now, the new and improved OWF owns the whole country—and half the rest of the planet. All the forces that might have protected us were taken over first. Deliberately.”
Duncan raked his hands through his hair. “Oh hell. It’s all over, then, isn’t it? The entire US government? The entire military?!”
5389 inched closer and laid a warm hand on his knee. “We’ll figure something out. But right now, Duncan, I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
He nodded absently and laid his hand on hers. “Sorry. Come on upstairs.”
“So, how did you get out?” Duncan asked as 5389 noisily slurped the lo mein leftovers. It had been a long time since she’d eaten any non-OWF food, but she knew her body could tolerate it, and hiding her revulsion at the taste was easy enough.
She swallowed and wiped her mouth with the back of a hand. “God, I’ve missed real food. Thank you so, so much, Duncan.” She looked up and let her mind fill with Amanda’s memories of love for this man, her delight in his sea-colored eyes and untidy blond hair. She let the remembered love shine through her own eyes, inviting him to look deeper and be drawn in by her subtly flickering pupils.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “The short version is that I never bought into the program as much as they thought I did; I just saw joining OWF as a good career move. So when I found out how evil they really were, I played along for awhile until I could find an escape hatch.”
Duncan looked puzzled.
“Not a literal hatch, goof.” She tapped his nose with a chopstick. “They sent me to Orlando for a symposium, and I skipped out during a lunch break.”
“But-”
5389 rolled her eyes and was pleased to see Duncan’s eyes wobble in response. He didn’t notice, of course. “Come on, honey,” she wheedled, beginning to shift the colors in her irises just a little. “It’s a long story. A really long story. Can’t it wait till morning?”
She laid her hand on his, coordinating her pulse rate with the flash in her eyes and letting the pheromones seep more strongly from her pores.
Duncan sighed and shook his head slowly, as though trying to clear an unwelcome thought. “I never forgot about you,” he said at last, his voice slightly ragged.
“I never forgot about you, either.” 5389 gave him a rueful smile. “Even when I was all gung ho about getting my first set of implants, I was still thinking about you.”
She looked down and blinked away a tear. “I’m sorry, Duncan. I should never have blown you off. But I promise I won’t do it again.”
She paused, looked uncertain. “Unless you don’t want me, after all I’ve done.”
His hand closed on hers and he leaned forward. “Amanda,” he said softly, “you could never do anything to make me stop wanting you.”
5389 “melted” in the way Amanda used to do, and they rose from the table with their hands clasped.
When they kissed, 5389 activated special glands in her mouth to introduce Duncan to his first round of hypnotics. She’d designed those glands herself, just a few months earlier. Those extra years of college had really paid off.
5389 rode astride Duncan’s lap, just like Amanda used to do. She moaned and tossed her head and dug her nails into the meat of his shoulders, injecting more hypnotics in the process.
Amanda had always scratched during sex, though never deeply enough to draw blood. But Duncan was too involved with 5389’s breasts, and too disoriented by the drugs, to notice the new intensity. He buried his head in her cleavage and nuzzled his way from one nipple to the other.
Then his hands dropped to her ass and he pulled her in closer, harder, lifting the two of them off the bed as he began to pump.
5389 threw back her head and screamed, even as she continued to monitor the building pressure in Duncan’s cock. When it reached critical mass, she grabbed his face in both hands, forcing him to meet her eyes, and speared him with a precisely timed series of flashes and colors. He spurted helplessly, and she sucked him deeper inside herself and replicated the flashes in a pattern of pulses around his cock.
Duncan tried to scream, but all that emerged from his lips was a thin, orgasmic whine. His eyes were wide, unblinking, locked helplessly on 5389’s. His cock continued to pump and spurt, even further beyond his control than the rest of his body.
“Noooo,” he finally managed as he fell limp in 5389’s augmented arms.
She lowered him to the bed and turned his head to face her, pleased with the way her still-flashing eyes reflected in his pupils. “I’m sorry, Duncan” she murmured, as he struggled feebly beneath her. “Normally, we ease recruits into their new existence so gently that they never experience any real fear. After all, the purpose of One World Future is to give humanity peace.”
She bent to kiss his writhing lips. “And you will know peace, Duncan, as soon as you learn to submit. We were all born to submit, you know. Say it with me, Duncan.” She increased the intensity of the pulses and added more aphrodisiac to her honey. “We were all born to submit.”
Duncan echoed her helplessly before managing to flop his head to one side.
She turned him gently back to face her. “That’s your first lesson, Duncan: we were all born to submit. And you’ve learned that lesson even more deeply than you realize. But there are many more I must teach you, before you can interact with your NonCon friends again.”
The new recruit clenched his teeth and whined, even as his eyes remained glued to hers. He was resisting for all he was worth, poor thing. He had no idea how badly he was outmatched.
“When are you scheduled to contact them again?” 5389 demanded, flashing a different pattern at him.
Duncan blurted the answer before he could think. “Six, tomorrow evening.”
“Good puppet.” She gave his cock another round of caresses. “Mindless obedience is so nice, isn’t it?”
His moan was equal parts terror and agreement.
“How will you contact them?”
He fought harder this time, but the pulses were too much to resist. “Ungh!...Ch-chat room.”
His gaze wobbled as he tried to roll his eyes away, and 5389 tweaked his nipples and ground herself around his cock to distract him. He was stiffening again, and that told her how much control she already had over the primitive areas of his brain.
Of course, those are were the easiest areas to control. Bringing Duncan’s intellect to submission would require more time and effort, especially since he’d be certain resist for quite a while.
Tonight, though, he was tiring; and 5389 could make use of that. She flashed the second pattern at him again, the one designed to override all resistance for a few crucial seconds. “What have you told them about Amanda Lanier?”
Duncan’s eyelids fluttered. “’said there was this girl I used to date who got sucked in, named Amanda. Never ga’ ‘em last name.”
“Have they ever seen Amanda’s picture?”
Her handful of seconds were almost up. “Nnnnoooohhhhh!” Duncan screamed, answering and resisting at the same time. Of course, she thought, “no” was probably the only word he could form right now.
His body arched beneath her, but his eyes never left hers even as he came again, harder than the first time. At last he fell back to the bed, whining and panting.
“Duncan,” said 5389, “I know you’re still fighting me, and that’s only to be expected. But you must realize the gravity of your situation.” She caressed his jaw as Amanda had done so often. “We wish you no harm, no fear, no pain. But your NonCon activities force me to take unusual measures in your recruitment. I apologize in advance for the discomfort this will cause you. The sooner you stop resisting, the sooner you’ll learn the bliss that is every human’s birthright.”
Duncan’s strangled response told her he wasn’t ready for bliss.
Of course, that was only to be expected. 5389 slid off him gently, careful not to put too much pressure on his still-semi-rigid cock. “We’re going to do some computer training now, Duncan. I’ve made a lot of changes to the Mandy Barr website, added a lot of hidden features and secret subdirectories. And I’m going to show you every one of them, in the end.”
“Nnnnn-”
“Yes.” 5389 climbed off the bed, and Duncan’s eyes followed her helplessly. When she held out her hand, he took it. “Come on, now. Get up.”
Twitching, he obeyed.
She gave him a hypnotics-laden kiss and caressed his cock, smearing the aphrodisiacs in a little deeper. “Good boy. Now, I’m sure your computer is just full of NonCon defensive software, but you can remove that for me before we begin, can’t you?”
He could.