This file brought to you by -
http://www.mrdouble.com


Subject: REPOST: The Tape Slaves (mc, sci-fi, philosophy) - (8/10) 

good. I really believe you would," he said calmly. "Though I should
point out that I have the same immunity from the tapes as you." Doug
ignored him and placed the earphones on his head and pressed the play
button. "You'll notice, Gina, that I can still talk with you even
though the tape player is running."
     After the tape ended, Gina ordered him to answer some questions.
"How did you know I was here? How do you know these people."
     "I had both your house and your car bugged. Remember the
break-in? That was just a ruse to plant the devices and get you
thinking about conspiracies and intrigue." He became irritated. "Why
didn't you think to sweep your place for the bugs? It should have
been obvious to anybody."
     Gina was shaking with a cold sweat.. This was not going
according to her liking. "Tie him." Irene produced some rope and the
men secured him fast. "Now, who exactly are you?"
     He remained cool as ice. "Ben Warren. You know that."
     "Who are you working for?"
     "Actually, I'm self-employed," he said, smiling.
     Gina cocked the gun back. "Don't get smart with me! If I kill
you now, none of these people will ever testify against me."
     "You've reprogrammed them, have you? You must let me inspect
your coding work."
     "Dammit! You start talking, or so help me..."
     "Very well. No more games. But first," His voice took on a note
of command. "Everybody, go upstairs and have sex at once!"
     There came a chorus of 'yes master' from Gina's four tape
slaves. Then they all turned and walked out of the room.
"Extraordinary, isn't it?" he quipped.
     Gina lowered the gun reflexively and looked around in shock.
"Everybody, come back!" Ignoring her, they all went upstairs like
sleepwalkers. "I reprogrammed them! My commands have the highest
possible imperative level."
     "You don't know about meta-imperative levels yet. The hand held
units don't have enough power for them. Don't worry, you'll get
there."
     Gina brought the gun back up. "Bring them back," She said coldly.
     "How? I'm all tied up at the moment. Gina, I need to tell you
some things, things that only you can know. You're right. I'm not a
psychologist. I never even finished college. My real occupation, as
you must have guessed by now, is Ruler of the World. If you'd like to
hear more I'm willing to tell it. But once you hear it, you can never
be the same again."
     "Start talking." Gina sat in a chair next to the couch.
     "Uh Gina, I don't want to seem pushy or anything, but could you
please point that gun somewhere else. You don't have much experience
handling those things and I'd really rather not die, tonight anyway."
Gina looked at him with narrow eyes. He pulled at his bonds. "C'mon,
what can I do?" She re-cocked the gun and set it in her lap. "All
right. As a college student I majored in computer engineering with a
minor in psychology. I took a class in Subliminals in Advertising and
decided to try some experiments of my own. I made some tapes and
tried them out on other people and to my delight they worked very
well. Too well, in fact. I investigated and found out that the tapes
I made had a certain low-frequency tone also imbedded in them. That
is what made the tapes so... efficacious. It was a freak accident, a
one in a billion chance of hitting the exact patterns and frequencies
of the audio spectrum which resonated with the subject's own brain
wave patterns. Up to that time, I had never been very successful with
the ladies, and at first I used the tapes to get women to sleep with
me. I started with my girlfriend and her mother, then added her
cheerleader friend and my step-sister." Seeing the look of
disapproved on her face, he shrugged and continued. "So anyway, I
found that radio waves modulated along with the audio would magnify
the effect of the tapes, but the radio waves needed to be transmitted
right through the subject's brain. So I built radio transmitters into
the earphones and, voila, the famous tape player."
     "So you decided to make the entire world your little
playground/harem. Disgusting!"
     "Hey, I said *at first*. I was younger then and well, stupider.
Literally stupider. I later found a setup that would raise the
subject's IQ. Works sort of like that eidetic memory you had. I tried
it on myself and my IQ shot up to about oh, around fourteen hundred
and something."
     "What?"
     "Give or take. But the IQ starts falling slowly if you don't
take additional treatments. My IQ hovers around nine-hundred these
days."
     "That's ridiculous! An IQ that high is meaningless."
     "I designed some new tests for myself. Gina, I've lied to you in
the past, but I swear I will never lie to you again. I have a very
compelling interest in being absolutely honest with you."
     "What's that?"
     "You haven't asked me why I don't raise my IQ up again."
     "OK, why?"
     "There's a unfortunate side effect to the combination of waves.
It seems to promulgate incurable brain tumors. Additional treatments
exacerbate the situation."
     "So, how much..."
     "About six months," he said calmly.
     Gina let that sink in. "So..."
     He finished the sentence for her. "So who's going to run things
after I'm gone? One guess."
     Gina's face went white.
     After a long time, the doctor said. "Gina? Could you untie me
now? There's a lot of work to do."

                    ------------------------------

     Doug and Yoshi undressed, preparing for bed. Their memory of the
night's events was very different than Gina and the doctor's. 
     "I sure do like that Gina." Doug remarked.
     "You like anyone who gives blowjobs like that."
     They pulled down the sheets and lay down. Spooning together
Yoshi turned his head and tenderly kissed his husband good night. 

                              Chapter 18
                              The Royalty

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask rather what you can do
for your country."
     JOHN F KENNEDY

"I am the state.."
     LOUIS XIV OF FRANCE

     Gina moved into the doctor's house. The next day, he took her
into his study. "Watch this." He stood facing a wall and spoke a few
words in a language Gina couldn't recognize. The wall slid open
revealing a secret passage. "That was Arabic for 'Open Sesame!' I
love that phrase. You'll need to set up a password for your voice
pattern, also." He walked into the passage and turned on a light
switch.
     Gina moved to follow him, but stopped short at the doorway. A
memory surfaced. She tilted her head to one side. "I... I'm... I'm
never supposed to go in here."
     "Nobody is. That's an old tape command. Very high imperative
level. Come on."
     Gina swallowed and walked on. They went down a stairway and into
a laboratory.
     "This is it." He pointed to a computer workstation. "This is
where all the tape programs are written. Sit, please. I saw the
programs you wrote for the portable. Very good, even for a beginner."
He showed her how to turn the machine on. "There's an on-line
tutorial I set up for you. Very complete, everything you need to
know. I suggest you study it for a few days, to round out your
education. But first," He sat down in another chair. "You have
questions, no?"
     "Only about eighteen million."
     "You now know how I did it. How about why?"
     "OK, why?"
     He cleared his throat. "After I discovered just how potent the
taping process was, I got to thinking. Thinking's pretty easy for me
these days. I realized that if I could do it, then sooner or later
someone else would. I ran some simulations and frankly didn't like
what I saw. My first law of mind control: 'When a relatively simple
method of mind control is possible, it will be used for world
domination.' You see, whoever first develops mind control technology
may or may not use it to try to take over the world. If he doesn't,
then the next person might. Sooner or later someone will, and then
that's it. From that point on, programmed obedience will be a
permanent part of the human race. There's just no way for the people
to free themselves, ever. If some benevolent ruler should decide from
the top to do so, then eventually someone else will enslave them
again. They'd have a much easier time of it than I had. I know of
ways to dispense with the tape players and broadcast the commands to
an entire city at once. There are also ways to defeat the immunity we
share. Don't bother asking how, I intend to take both those secrets
with me. Anyway, the whole world becomes enslaved. No way around it.
After that, a number of possible outcomes develop, most of them
exceedingly nasty. Gina, do you think the ends justify the means?"
     "No." She said quickly. Then, "Well... maybe sometimes."
     "Sometimes. Exactly. Now, if you had the power to end
overpopulation, overnight, would you? Mind you, this isn't exactly a
rhetorical question."
     Gina thought. "I don't know. I might."
     "There's only two ways to limit the population. Either slow down
births or accelerate deaths. I've chosen the first. Would you order
every other person to commit suicide?"
     "Of course not!"
     "Some might. Some scenarios had a single man ordering all the
males in the world to commit suicide so he could live some infantile
'Last Man in the World' fantasy. So much for civilization, maybe even
the race. Or we could go the other way, someone breeding out
undesirable qualities from the gene pool. A lofty goal, but
misguided. And that's not even close to some future horrors. Those
involve two or more factions each with their armies of tape slaves,
fighting all-out war with nukes. Or intrigue that would make
Byzantium look like a kindergarten. How would you feel about
murdering your entire family because they were taped to blindly obey
some other bozo than the one you did?" Gina thought of her father and
got a sick feeling in her stomach. "And that was one of the more
likely scenarios. Gina, if you had *any* idea just how close both the
CIA and the KGB were to landing on the secret, it would make your
skin crawl!"
     "So instead you decided to play God yourself. Rather convenient
logic, I'd say."
     "Like I said, if not me, than someone else. I made myself
immune, like you, early on, but what if I was taped anyway. Then I'd
either have to pretend to obey or be found out. One man can't fight
the entire world. Gina, I'm not playing God. I don't even want to
*be* God. But He allowed all this to be possible, not me. He's got a
lot to answer for in my book." Gina could see that Ben was getting
slightly agitated. "You recently asked me about free will. Would you
end all war if you could."
     "I don't know. War is wrong, isn't it?"
     "Usually. But there are just wars too. We had one in this
country a while back. 'When in the course of human events, etc.,
etc.' Do you trust your judgment to tell the difference? Do you
really want to spend the rest of your life making those kinds of
decisions? How about ending pollution or violence. You could make
everybody on the whole planet a recycling pacifist."
     "What's wrong with recycling."
     "Nothing. Except when one person takes it upon himself to make
the choice for everybody. I've done this, but kept it to an absolute
minimum. Sexual violence is never justified, in my opinion, and has
therefore been eliminated. The same with overpopulation. If you don't
solve that, you haven't got a chance of solving any of the other
problems. And the only fair way to implement that was a universal
rule, one couple: one child. But hey! If you don't like what you see,
you can always change it anyway you like."
     "Why don't you just tape me to agree with your conclusions."
     "Because someone on the planet has to be capable of independent
thought. I've set up the Community Centers to take care of all the
routine business, distributing new tapes, things like that. But I
can't predict the future, at least not the long-term future. After
I'm gone a situation could develop which will require that a untaped
person make a decision. That's you."
     "Why me?"
     "Lots of reasons. You're a female. Females are generally less
aggressive than males. You're young, and come from healthy, long
lived stock. I want to keep these transfers of power to a minimum.
You're bright, you responded well to the memory tape. The queen of
the world should be intelligent as well as wise. You're very
independent. You've been living alone for the last ten years and you
seem to do well that way. And you come from a nice upper-middle class
family, so having unlimited wealth and power hopefully won't corrupt
you too much. That's the biggest unknown, really."
     "And what about my father, about the abortion I had? Was that
part of the plan?"
     "No.. That was an accident. I'm not omnipotent. The odds were
minute, and I think you can work around that. Besides, if you hadn't
worked out, there were others."
     "Others?"
     "Once there were about a thousand young women like you in the
world. Most were disqualified early on. Don't worry, you're it. For
better or worse the decision has been made. Though there was this one
Polish girl who would be standing here today instead of you if she
hadn't gotten married."
     "Married? What are you saying?"
     "I'm saying that history shows that nepotism is both very basic
in the human condition and a very poor system of transferring supreme
executive power. You need to learn to treat the whole human race as
your kin. I would very much like to see you never marry, or have
kids, but I won't use taping on you, or try to issue orders from the
grave. I may be an asocial paranoid megalomaniac control freak, but
I'm not crazy."
     Gina smiled. Then as his words sunk in, "What about your family?"
     Ben became melancholy. He lost his penetrating stare for a
moment. "I had to erase myself. They no longer remember me. In fact,
nobody who knew me before the age of twenty-five remembers me."
     Gina's mouth fell open. She looked at the Ruler of the World,
and he seemed to shrink from larger than life to just a man. Gina
reached out and took his hand.
     "Sometimes I get lonely, but my work keeps me very busy." He
gave her hand a light squeeze and stood up. "Why don't you do some
studying now. I have to go somewhere for a day or so. I can't tell
you where. We'll talk again tomorrow morning." He walked to the
steps. Turning, he said. "Oh, by the way, there's a new tape being
played to everybody now. It gives you the ability to command anyone,
like what I did with your friends. Just give orders in a commanding
voice and they'll be obeyed. Afterwards, they'll have no memory,
unless you want it." He went up the stairs.

     Gina walked through the mall. When she had emerged from her
studies, she felt like doing some shopping. The doctor had given her
a set of credit cards and a checkbook with no reasonable limit on
them, or so he said. She decided to put that to the test. She went to
the auto showroom and bought a sports car. She sat in his office
while he went to "check with the supervisor" about the deal he had
offered her.
     "Why do they always keep you waiting like this," she thought to
herself. When he returned, she asked him, "Did you really have to
check with someone?"
     "Oh yes, Gina. You see my boss says if I give another car away
for chump change he'll..."
     Gina wanted to try out her new power. "Tell me the truth!" She
barked at the man.
     The salesman stiffened and his eyes glazed. "Yes, mistress. No,
not really. It's a sales ploy."
     "Sit down. Tell me what were you really doing."
     "I went out to the service department and had a cigarette."
     "And what do you think of this practice."
     "I like it. You make the customer squirm for a while, then he's
ready to sign just because he's afraid you'll run out on him again."
     "I see. Joe, pee in your pants, right now!" Joe's face made no
reaction as a wet stain appeared in the front of his pants.
     "Now forget you've wet your pants. Don't even think about it for
the rest of the day. But every two hours, you'll pee yourself again.
I want you to have wet trousers all day long. Got that?"
     "Yes mistress."
     "In addition, you will be rude and course with every customer,
other than myself, whom you talk to today. You'll be insulting and
obnoxious, but only when you're alone with them. You will now return
to your normal self."
     Joe grinned. "So Gina, this car is perfect for you. What more
can I do to get you into that baby blue model"
     "You've done quite enough. Sold!" He held out his hand and they
shook. She laughed inwardly as they walked through the showroom.
Everybody saw his pants, but nobody said anything for fear of killing
the sale. Perhaps the supervisor would want to "check with him" later.

     She drove her new car to the mall and went to the more expensive
shops. "If I'm going to be a queen, I should have a crown and
scepter. She bought most of one jewelry store, then went to an
upscale clothes boutique. After trying on a dozen dresses, she bought
them all, giving the sales lady her address so they could be
delivered.
     She sat in the large open area in the middle of the mall and
sampled some chocolate sweets she had bought. People passed her by.
She had discovered that around half the people responded to her
commands. Presumably the rest would be covered in the next few days.
     The feeling of power had brought her sexuality to the fore. A
man in his late forties, was standing at the elevator. She stood and
walked into the elevator with him. He nodded to her cordially as the
they ascended. He was tall, with light brown hair and a healthy,
tanned face. He obviously worked out, he had hardly an ounce of fat
on him.
     "Who am I?" She said, forcefully.
     His face lost all it's friendliness and took on a blankness.
"You're my mistress," he intoned.
     "That's right." The doors opened. "Come with me!" She said,
walking out the elevator and toward the exit. The man followed two
steps behind. A couple of young kids, about twelve or so, who had
been waiting for the elevator also turned and silently followed her.
One was male, black, with a slight weight problem. The other was a
girl, a middle-eastern type, with a large nose and brown skin. They
both wore shorts and sandals. Gina wasn't aware of this until they
were all outside. But, having gone this far, she added them to her
entourage. She was drunk with the power and found the sexual thrill
of dominating the children irresistible.
     "Take us to your car!" She snapped to the man. He led them all
into the parking structure. When they were all in his car she
commanded him to drive to his house, which they soon entered. A woman
came into the front room. She was medium height, about the same age
as the man, and had dish gloves on. A rag drooped over her shoulder.
"Hi, dear. Hello...," she said to Gina and the kids expectantly.
     "Don't speak until you're spoken to." The woman's mouth clamped
itself shut. "Are you two married?" Gina asked the pair.
     "Yes, mistress," came the monotone reply.
     "Have you ever met either myself, or these two?"
     "No, mistress."
     "Good. Girls, I want you to suck these guys until they get
hard." The ladies dropped to their knees and pulled down the men's
pants. They took the soft penises into their mouths and began
stimulating the men, orally. Gina was feeling very strange.
Exercising absolute power over these complete strangers was getting
her incredibly hot. "C'mon guys! Get hard. Now!" The cocks of the two
men seemed to snap up like they were on hinges. "Stay hard but don't
come. You will *not* come until I tell you to. You," she pointed to
the young black kid, "Come over here."
     "Yes mistress." The lad shuffled over to her.
     "Undress me. Leave the shoes on. You, girl. Go fuck the old
guy's fingers." The girl rose, turned her head slowly to the man and
walked to him. She took his hand in hers. Pulling down her shorts,
she lifted one leg high, placing her foot on the older woman's
shoulder as she continued to fellitiate, and inserted two of his
fingers into her pussy, grimacing from the sudden intrusion. She
slowly pistoned his hand inside her. "Don't you come, either. Nobody
comes until I say so. Keep fucking him, and put some more fingers in
there." She took a third digit and tried to take a fourth, but she
was still too small. She was obviously in pain now as she tried to
stretch herself wide enough to take him.

     By now, Gina stood naked in front of the couch. A twinge of
modesty passed through her. That's just your old feelings, she
thought to herself, ignore them. "Now, beg to kiss and worship my
feet." The boy knelt down low and muttered, "I love your feet,
mistress. Please let me worship them."
     "Are you a foot slave?" she asked.
     "Yes. I am a foot slave. I live to serve your feet. Please, let
me kiss them for you."
     "Very well." The boy lovingly stroked and licked her pumps. "Hey
lady, you're a foot slave too. Come worship my feet, also." The woman
stopped sucking her husband's cock and crawled to Gina. Laying on the
rug next to the black kid, she caressed and cooed Gina's right foot.
She sat and lay herself back on the couch and watched her slaves obey
her slightest order. She moved her hand down and rubbed her cunt. The
girl was holding her lips apart with one hand while she tried to
copulate the man's hand with the other. She was having a lot of
trouble. His arm was just too short, and she had to hold herself up
on her toes to give him access.

     "OK. Everybody freeze!" She was surrounded by four motionless
statues. She stood up and unfroze the girls She took them aside and
commanded them, "Here's what you're going to do. You are both sexual
predators. You like to kidnap males and molest them. You've taken
these two and will have your way with them. This is what you will
do." She gave them explicit instructions. "You will not be aware of
my presence at all, but if I give you any additional orders, you'll
obey them without hesitation."
     "Yes mistress."
     "Good. When I clap my hands you will carry out your orders." She
went to the menfolk and lay them both face down on the floor. "Place
your hands behind your back." They complied. "Your hands have been
handcuffed together. You will *not* move your hands from behind your
back. Understand?"
     "Yes mistress."
     "These ladies have kidnapped you. If you make a sound, they'll
kill you. Do you understand?"
     "Yes mistress." Gina clapped her hands. The ladies jerked into
life. "Well, well, well. What have we got here?" The younger one
asked.
     "Looks like someone forgot to take out the garbage," the older
one sneered.
     They went to the men and turned them over. Their hard-ons were
as hard as rock. The young girl's face showed contempt and malice.
"What pathetic worms they are. What shall we do with them?"
     The older woman smiled at the young girl. She placed her hands
on the girl's barely developed titties. "We use them, honey, 'cause
that's all they're good for." The women pulled the girl to her and
they kissed passionately. They fondled and kissed, removing each
other's clothes as they did so. When they were both naked, the older
one said, "Now watch me, sweetie, and do like this. She stood up and
kicked the young kid's legs apart. She placed her foot on his
standing cock and pushed it down to his belly. Grinding her foot into
his organ, she compressed it hard. The boy's eyes went wide and he
held his mouth shut tightly, smothering his screams. The young girl
imitated the same actions on the older woman's husband, causing a
similar reaction.
     The females tortured and agonized the males in all sorts of
ways, as Gina gave additional commands. When they took the men's
balls with their toes and pulled, tears ran down the boy's face. They
shaved the men completely from head to toe. The woman produced a pair
of long needles which were used to pierce through lips and nipples. 

     Through all of this, Gina watched, repulsed and at the same
time, fascinated by the scene. She was masturbating hotly. "Freeze!"
she shouted. "Now switch places!" Now the women lay on the floor,
while the men sadistically tormented them. All body hair was shaved
off the ladies, their labia and nipples were pierced, and the men
stood over them, peeing onto their faces.

     Gina's orgasm was close, she needed to have something inside
her. "Hey, big boy. Over here!" The man stood and came to Gina. She
scrunched down so her butt was at the edge of the couch. "Now you
screw me like you've never screwed before." He slipped his rock hard,
purple cock into her and pumped at her furiously. Gina's blood boiled
higher and higher. "Girls, come suck my tits! Boy, you kiss me." Gina
was giddy with lust. "Oh... Fuck... Funck... Shit... Frunck
meeeeeee!" Her arms and legs thrashed wildly as she orgasmed.

     She subsided the men's erections, and commanded everyone to
clean up and resume their clothes. "Now take us back to the mall.
None of you will ever remember this episode." Soon she was driving
back to the doctor's house in her new car. "Frunck?" she said to
herself on the freeway. "I meant fuck. Hmm.."

                    ------------------------------

     Gina went downstairs to the lab the next morning. Doctor Warren
was waiting for her. "Perhaps you'll be a little less judgmental of
me in the future." he said calmly.
     Gina sat in front of her screen. "Good morning to you too." She
said.
     He sat down and started ticking off his fingers. "Joeseph Donald
Hebert, automobile salesman and old high school chum of your brother,
was sent home from work yesterday for being disruptive on the job. He
won't get a raise this year."
     "That was Joey?"
     "Phillip and Lena Osborne, Leroy Jackson and Fatima Habib, all
find themselves depilated and perforated multiple times, and unable
to account for a lost afternoon. The authorities are now involved,
though they have few leads to go on. It seems that three of them were
seen leaving the mall with a blonde, Caucasian female in her late
twenties, wearing expensive clothes, lots of baubles."
     Gina's hand went up to the pearl necklace she was wearing..
     "Forensics have identified prints and DNA at the Osborne's house
matching both Leroy and Fatima, as well as those from an unidentified
source. If you still existed in any fingerprint databases, there
would now be a warrant out for your arrest."
     "I'd command them not to arrest me."
     "And start spreading more ripples. The older couple think
they've been abducted by aliens. They're going to consult a hypnotist
who will 'uncover' memories of the mother ship. They'll want to go on
talk shows and tell their story. If they do, he'll lose his job as an
trial attorney. They need to not look like lunatics in front of the
jury."
     "I can fix that." she said meekly.
     "I've already done so. Not yet, you still need more study. Leroy
is being harassed by the kids at school right now. He's going to get
into a fight oh, around two twenty this afternoon. He'll be suspended
for a week. Fatima, who shows signs of sexual molestation, isn't in
school today. She has had a nervous breakdown and is undergoing
psychiatric therapy for emotional trauma. 
     Gina hand covered her mouth. "Oh god. How do you know all this?"
     "Are you kidding? Fatima's made the front page. Rape's *awfully*
rare these days. As for Joey... well I'm good, that's all. Don't
sweat it, they're not worth it. I'm just glad you didn't think to go
over to your father's house. Marion was there all alone. When I think
about what might have happened..." He closed his eyes, made a fist
and squeezed it tight for a second, then relaxed it. "Sorry about
losing my temper there."
     "I didn't hurt anybody, really. I wouldn't hurt Marion."
     "You don't like her. I don't like her much either, to be honest
and I could give a rattus rattus' ass about most people. It's *you*
I'm concerned about. You think I don't know how power corrupts? I
could write a book. In fact I already have. Tutorial lesson fifteen.
Why didn't you follow the guidelines I suggested?"
     "I'm only up to number fourteen."
     "See, that's another mistake. Fifteen was supposed to be the
last lesson you studied yesterday, so it would be fresh in your mind.
Do you have any idea what it's like thing to be smart, and then start
to become stupid again."
     "I was going to read it, but my eyes got tired."
     "Not five years ago I could have predicted the very *word* you
would have left off at. Well, read it today please. I'll see you at
lunch." He stood and turned to leave. He stopped at the stairway and
turned. "Gina, I do have enough smarts left to know this much. Did
you happen to catch yourself in a Freudian slip while at the
Osborne's?"
     Gina's looked confused, then remembering, looked offended. "Did
you bug me again?"
     "You were driving a new car, wearing new clothes. I'd have had
to hide the bug on your person. Besides who's going to monitor you
after I'm gone. No, I've been running a Gina Robinson simulation for
years." He tapped his head. "It's pretty well debugged by now. You
said 'fuck' but it came out differently. What was it you said?"
     Gina opened her mouth but couldn't speak.
     "You know what I'm saying. While the middle-aged man was having
sex with you. Just as you orgasmed, you said his name."
     "Phillip?"
     "No, not Phillip! Come on Gina, Think! Sounds like 'fuck' but
add an 'r' and an 'n'."
     "No. I..., I don't remember."
     "Yes you do. I'd really like to hear you say it, Gina."
     Gina's lower lip quivered. She didn't want to think about it.
     "Extraordinary. Well, I'm not going to force you, so I'll say it
for you. The word was 'Frank.' Frank, as in Frank Robinson, your
father. Keep studying, Gina." He turned away and climbed the stairs.
     Gina went pale. Then she buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

                              Chapter 19
                              The Price

"Paris is well worth a mass."
     HENRY OF NAVARRE

"I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married."
     QUEEN ELIZABETH I OF ENGLAND

     As the weeks passed she continued to learn from the computer.
Her skills improved both in creating programs and in giving immediate
commands to people she met. The lessons covered other things, too.
Each chapter in the tutorial was followed by an extensive test. Only
after passing the test was she allowed to advance to the next
chapter. History lessons on a gallery of rulers, from Alexander the
Great to V.I. Lenin, as well as commentaries dealing with various
aspects of leadership were given.

     As Gina's reawakened moral beliefs slowly fused with the taped
personality she had lived with for so long, her interest in sex
leveled out, but still reared itself on occasion. A few times she
called the escort service and had men, and more rarely women, come to