by Loki Renard
Their love had been created in a strange twilight in which neither one of them had really understood what they were or who they were.
She looked into his eyes. “You… how could you do what you did to me? Not years ago. The last few days.”
“I had no choice,” he said. “There’s only one way to break the conditioning, and that’s to either severely emotionally disrupt a person, or to overload their senses. You always responded better to sexual stimulus than anything else.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. Her world was gone. Loyalty to Oversight had been her primary concern for years and suddenly it didn’t matter at all. She was left with a hole where her loyalty had been and a growing anger as she realized what had been taken from her.
“If you want to kill me, I understand.”
Katie looked at Jason. “Why the fuck would I kill you?”
“Because I did this to you. I perverted our love, and turned you into a killing machine.”
“You were under the same influence I was,” Katie said. “You didn’t have any more choice than I did, did you?”
Jason shrugged. “I should have made another choice.”
“How? How would you have made another choice?”
She saw in his face that he did not want to admit that he’d been just as much a puppet as she had been.
“I’m so angry,” she said, speaking through gritted teeth. “I am so very angry.” She looked up at him. “What do we do now?”
Jason shrugged. “Well, honestly. I thought at this stage you’d be trying to kill me.”
“You really thought that?”
“Yes.”
Katie scowled. “You’re a stupid asshole.”
“Careful.” Jason frowned down at her. “It’s one thing to want to kill me. It’s something else to speak disrespectfully.”
His twisted logic almost made her laugh.
Chapter Five
Katie had been quiet for a long time since their discussion. Jason watched her from inside the house as she leaned over the balcony and looked out over the forest. Her reaction had not been at all what he expected. He had expected her rage to be directed at him, but she was not angry at him at all. When she looked at him, it was with the fierce gaze he didn’t quite understand.
As he tried to work out what she was planning, Katie came indoors and put out her hand. “Give me a gun,” she said. “Actually, give me all your guns.”
“Why? You’ve decided you’re going to shoot me?”
Katie screwed her face up at him. “Get over yourself, Jason. This isn’t your fault. This is theirs. This is Oversight. They did this. So give me my guns, and your guns. And anything else that kills people, because I’m going to get them. I’m going to destroy them.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Well, I don’t need you to let me, do I?” She pushed past him and tried to snatch a weapon. Before her fingers could curl around the butt of the pistol, Jason caught her by the arm.
“Whoa… easy…” he said, giving her a little shake. “Think, Katie. You’re not going to go out with a gun and end Oversight. Oversight isn’t a person. It’s an idea.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He let the profanity slide for a moment. “I mean they have the technology now. You can kill the people who ordered it used on you, but that’s not going to stop them from doing it to other people. Hell. If they catch you, there’s nothing to stop them using it on you all over again.”
She was angry, but she was listening. He saw that in her eyes.
“So what do I do? Just cut my losses and live in the forest like a fucking hermit? Let them get away with what they did to me? They stole my mind, Jason.”
“You’re going to keep your cool, you’re going to bide your time, and you’re going to do as you’re told,” he informed her in clipped tones.
She was getting out of hand. As soon as the conditioning had broken she had more or less returned to her previous untrained state. The way she’d been before she came to Oversight, in the early days when he hadn’t demanded much in the way of obedience from her because he hadn’t understood how important it was.
When she’d been conditioned, she’d been easier to control. But now Katie wasn’t showing him any kind of deference or submission—and that Jason could not allow. He had not freed her mind just to see her run headlong back into danger.
“You’re not my boss anymore, Jason. You’re just a guy who went through the same shitty thing I did.”
Her words hurt. He might not mean anything to her, but she meant damn near everything to him. If that meant he had to play the cold asshole all over again, he’d do it.
“I’m just a guy who is going to put that collar back on you and tan your ass if you don’t start listening to me,” he growled, giving her another little shake.
She ignored his threat. “I want revenge, Jason. I’m going to have it.”
“You’ll have it,” he promised her. “But we have to be smart about it. There are two of us and Oversight will have agents looking for us as we speak. Trust me when I say you’re going to get your revenge. But not by charging into trouble.”
“How, then,” she hissed at him. “Give me an answer I can use.”
“Sit your ass down,” he said, dumping her into a chair. “And try listening.”
Katie sat and scowled, looking beautiful for her fury. He was sympathetic to her anger. That same anger had driven him for years, but unlike Katie, he was capable of focusing it. She was about to go postal if she got the chance.
“What they did to you and me isn’t as simple as one drug, or one medical exam, or one orgasm,” he explained. “It’s a process. There are several stages and each of them have to be done exactly right. You push too hard, you can break someone’s mind, turn them into a complete lunatic or a mindless zombie. It’s not easy making an elite agent.”
“So?”
“Long story short,” he said, sensing her impatience. “If we destroy the information, we destroy the process. We destroy Oversight. Without conditioning, they’re just another government agency. You have to remember, Katie, most of the people you want to kill are people who are puppets to this thing as much as you were. If you go into Oversight guns blazing, you’re going to take out a lot of innocent people.”
“So what do we do then?”
“We use our skills,” Jason said. “We infiltrate Oversight. We destroy the process and we get the hell out of there.”
“How will that help? Everyone is going to still be under the influence.”
“A limited number of people, yes. But we can help them. Once the process is destroyed, we can help them. Break their conditioning.”
“You’re going to fuck everyone in Oversight?”
“No,” Jason chuckled. “Erotic control is the most effective on you, Katie, but not everyone is conditioned the same way. I’ve spent the last few days breaking you hard because frankly, I didn’t know how much time we’d get and I wanted to make sure you got your mind back before Oversight caught up with us. There are other ways of breaking conditioning. Like I said. Our first goal is to destroy all information relating to the process.”
“Destroying a hard drive isn’t going to be enough revenge for me,” Katie informed him bluntly.
“We’re not going to erase a hard drive. We’re going to destroy Oversight’s base completely. We’re going to pump enough magnetic energy through the complex that every single 1 and 0 in the place is forever corrupted.”
“Oh, a big magnet,” Katie scowled. “That’s not going to cut it either… I need blood. I need a life for my life.”
“Well, you’re going to have to settle for the right thing, and not your animal urges,” Jason said without sympathy. He was starting to suspect that the conditioning still had some residual effects that were overriding Katie’s better judgment. It had been so long since she’d really exercised her judgment freely that she seemed to be tending to extr
emes. He was going to have to keep a very close eye on her.
“It’s not a big magnet,” he informed her. “It’s an EMP. And I promise you, it’s going to rip their world apart.”
“An EMP. That’s quite a plan, Jason. It wouldn’t work, but it’s quite a plan.”
Jason’s blood ran cold. The words had not come out of Katie’s mouth. They had come from behind him, in a cold, refined British tone.
He turned to see a woman standing in the lounge. She was in her late forties and was of a slim but tall stature. Her mouth was wide, her eyes held devious intellect, and she was smiling like a cat freshly bathed in cream. Caroline. He knew her well. She alone held the reins of Oversight. Nothing happened without her knowledge. She was the leader, the lover, the mother of all. Behind her were at least twenty agents, each of them with a gun trained on him and Katie alike.
This moment had been inevitable. This was the reason he’d had to be so forceful with Katie. Oversight had eyes everywhere. He had been on a clock from the moment he’d taken Katie into his custody, and now the chickens were home and roosting.
“Caroline,” he said, feigning indifference to her sudden appearance. “It’s been a long time since you left Oversight. How does it feel to have the sunlight on your skin again?”
“Smart ass boy,” Caroline observed impassively. “You’re right. I don’t leave the office very often, but I wanted to be here when they came for you. I wanted to see the look on your face. It’s quite priceless. Come here, Katie.”
Katie looked at him and for a moment his heart sank, thinking she might be on the precipice of doing something very stupid. The moment passed and she simply walked over and stood next to Caroline with a strangely deflated expression on her face. It was as if Caroline’s appearance had completely reversed all his hard work. All the woman had done was walk into the room and Katie had fallen in line immediately.
“How did you get past my security systems?” He asked the question without really expecting an answer. It didn’t make any sense for Caroline to tell him how the trick had been done. However, Caroline was riding high on her triumph and in a mood to converse.
“Do you know what a Judas goat is?” Caroline lifted her hand and ran crimson fingernails through Katie’s locks while Katie stood there with a blank expression.
Jason didn’t bother with a response. One wasn’t needed. Caroline was going to tell him precisely what she’d done so he could appreciate her genius. The woman was brilliant, but she was also arrogant and without any real moral compass.
“In places where wild goats are causing too much damage, hunters will send out a goat wearing a tracker. Goats are herd animals and don’t like to be lonely, so the goat will search the wilds until it finds a herd of wild goats and joins them,” Caroline explained with a twisted smile. “And then the hunter follows the tracker and the wild goats are shot. The little Judas is left alive, of course, so it can bring more wild goats down. Our sweet Katie is a good Judas, isn’t she? She deactivated all your security. Didn’t even know she was doing it either. It’s all in the chips she has installed. It’s interesting, now, with all this technology we have. You can effectively turn a human being into a walking listening device.”
Jason looked at her without expression, denying her the triumph of the moment.
“Perhaps you don’t understand,” she said. “Every word you’ve said. Everything you’ve done, I’ve seen, Jason. And that’s how I know you’ve been a very, very naughty boy.”
She walked toward him, sashaying her hips with every step. Thanks to high heels, she was slightly taller and she was able to look down the length of her nose at him. “You’re going to pay for this, Jason,” she said in viciously pleased tones. He had angered her, he knew that. He was the thorn in her side and had been for a very long time. For five years he had actively undermined her entire operation and now she thought she had the upper hand. She was gloating. And it was going to cost her.
Caroline tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes in an expression of feline cruelty. “You don’t have anything to say before I do what we both know has to be done?”
“Just kill me,” he said, hoping he sounded suitably bored.
“Oh, no,” Caroline tutted. “I have absolutely no intention of killing you. I’ve been searching for you for years, Jason.” She lifted her eyes from him and spoke to her agents. “Take him in and make sure he’s prepared for me.”
Jason’s heart began to beat faster. The comment about preparation was distinctly ominous. It meant that Caroline had more than revenge in mind. She was going to reprogram him, and Katie too, no doubt. In a few short weeks the work of years would be erased and he and Katie would once more be Caroline’s puppets.
“No,” he growled, driving his fist into the throat of the first man to lay a hand on him. Unfortunately, he was surrounded by enemy agents and after the first one went down another one took his place. He couldn’t risk using his firearm in case he hit Katie, so that meant hand to hand combat. The odds were not good. He was severely outnumbered, and though he managed to incapacitate several of Caroline’s agents, eventually one of them managed to get a stun gun to his neck.
In a split-second, a completely debilitating voltage was applied to his body. Every single muscle cramped at the same time. His eyes rolled back in his head, his tongue lolled about, and as much as he fought for consciousness, he lost it.
Chapter Six
The next thing Jason was aware of was being bound to a medical examination table, completely naked, his arms and legs strapped down with reinforced materials. The room was dimly lit at the edges, no direct light. He knew he was no longer at his home in the wilds. He had been taken back to Oversight, where they had the equipment and resources to contain him for a lifetime if they decided it was necessary.
“Wakey wakey, Jason.”
He opened his eyes and looked into Caroline’s hatefully beautiful face. She had the kind of features that could have earned her the adoration of millions, but she’d wanted more than that. She’d wanted total dominion over the bodies, minds, and souls of men. Katie probably thought he was a control freak, but he was nothing on Caroline.
Caroline was a pretty maniac, a woman of incredible intellect and absolutely no moral compass whatsoever. She was wearing an altered uniform that clung closely to every sparse curve of her body. She was not greatly muscled. She had no need to be, with hundreds of willing agents ready to act on her slightest whim. She was almost slight of frame, though there was nothing delicate about her. The woman was made of something harder than titanium and colder than ice. And she was trailing her long fingernails up and down his bare midsection, riding the ridges of his abdominal plane with as close to a playful look as she was capable of.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” she confided, leaning closer to him. “I watched what you did to Katie through her eyes. You’re a brute, aren’t you, Jason? You enjoyed what you did to her. You enjoyed fucking her pussy, and her ass, and her mouth. You enjoyed spreading her open and putting your little toys to work.”
“I did it because I had to,” he growled through clenched teeth as her fingers began to drift lower than he liked.
“You did it because you love her,” Caroline said in outright mocking terms. “After everything you’ve seen, you are still a romantic at heart.” She let out a dark feminine chuckle. “It would be sweet, if it weren’t so pathetic.”
Her fingers wrapped around his cock and squeezed as she leaned in and hissed in his ear. “I’m going to make you better, Jason. I’m going to wring every last drop of sentiment out of you. But first, I’m going to make you cum harder than sweet little Katie ever did.”
“I don’t think so,” Jason growled. “I’m not attracted to you.”
“Liar,” Caroline laughed. “You can’t help yourself. You know that. You know how this works.”
His cock was beginning to grow in her grasp, a physical reaction and nothing more, but still something Caroline would
no doubt take as a first sign of triumph.
“It won’t work on me, Caroline.”
“You know that’s not true,” she hissed before pressing a hard, punitive kiss to his mouth. It did nothing for him. Her lips were too hard, her kiss devoid of any real passion or heat. “You know this works on everybody.”
“Everybody but me,” he said firmly. “I know something you don’t know about conditioning, Caroline.”
“There’s nothing I don’t know about the practice of breaking a man,” she replied triumphantly. “It’s my art.”
“And you are a master of it, or you were.”
“Oh, hush, silly boy,” Caroline laughed. Her fingers tightened around his cock as she began stroking him with hard, punitive pumps of her fist. His body reacted naturally to the stimulation and his penis was soon erect. That didn’t mean he was enjoying what she was doing; to the contrary, he was quite removed from it.
“You like toys, don’t you, Doctor,” Caroline said mockingly. “Let’s see what we have to play with, shall we?”
There were a great many devices at her disposal, trays upon trays of various bits and pieces. The first thing she did was slide a cock ring over the head of his penis, a simple rubber device designed to maintain his erection. That wasn’t where it ended though; no, Caroline had much more in store for him. Next was a thick plastic sleeve of a device, which she slid over his cock. The inside of it was a gel material that conformed to the ridges of his penis, creating a tight-fitting sheath.
“This is a prison for your penis,” she informed him. “You’ll stay hard in this for as long as I see fit. And you’ll cum as many times as I command.” She smiled darkly. “Women aren’t the only ones who benefit from punishment orgasms, Jason, and you’ve been a very bad boy.”
She hit a button on the device and it began to slowly hum and heat, the gel softening around his cock, forming and reforming so it felt almost like being licked. The gel was exuding a warm moisture that coated his shaft, creating the sensation of being given a deep-throated blowjob. Not precisely the definition of torture, but Jason knew that would come later.
