The Reflex

With a heroic effort, Keila realized that whatever the...the fuzzy thing...was doing to her mind, it was traveling through the mental link she shared with Strawberry. She tried to shut down the connection, but it wasn't really designed to ever be shut down and her head was getting foggy and it was so hard to think...

"Come here," Doctor Sindel said, taking her by the arm. Gratefully, Keila let herself be led. It just seemed so much easier, somehow, to let someone else guide her and show her what to do when she was this confused. "I have something even more important to show you through here."

Keila followed her along down the small hallway. As they headed away from the animal, her thoughts started to clear a little...but only a little. Whatever the atarax did, it was strong. "Through there," Doctor Sindel said, pointing to the next door. Keila's instincts started to kick back in, to warn her that she shouldn't be listening so readily to the woman she came here to investigate, but the atarax had rendered her so docile that she'd already opened the door before she questioned the wisdom of doing so.

She only just noticed the rows and rows of cages, each one containing an atarax, before her brain shut down completely.

*****

"Doctor Fallon Sindel knows best," the voice said. "You love Doctor Fallon Sindel with an intensity exceeding any other loyalties, any other emotions, any other considerations. Doctor Fallon Sindel is the perfect woman, and you wish nothing more than to serve her in every way. You wish to please Doctor Fallon Sindel, emotionally and physically. Anything Doctor Fallon Sindel says is beyond question, anything Doctor Fallon Sindel does is beyond reproach."

Keila fumbled around with shaky hands, pulling loose the teaching box from her head with a yank. Just reprogramming a teaching box was a criminal offense, but it shouldn't really matter, not to Keila. No matter what Doctor Sindel had done to modify it, a civilian box shouldn't be able to even scratch the layers of defenses Keila had hardwired into her brain.

But that was when her brain was working. Keila suddenly realized that she didn't know how long she'd been unconscious or what had happened to her during that period. She raised herself up from the bed she was lying on and looked around.

The first thing she noticed was that she was completely nude. Her combat suit had vanished, taking a small arsenal of tools, weapons, and handy gadgets with it. Keila grimaced. She'd been trained to operate without equipment, and she'd even been stripped of her tools on missions before, but that didn't mean she had to like it. All she had now was her skills, her enhanced physique, her implanted neural link, and...she reached down to her thigh, and pressed at a spot that looked and felt like flesh. It popped open, revealing a small compartment in her leg. "They never find the hold-out blaster," she muttered with a smile.

She quickly assessed the room. It was bare, vacant except for the bed and the teaching box. She was pretty sure it didn't belong to Doctor Sindel--the woman might be austere (magnificently austere, her hindbrain whispered) but nobody could be this empty of personality. She felt sure that Doctor Sindel would have a tastefully decorated room, one in keeping with a woman so lovely, so intelligent, so...

Crap. She still felt a little woozy from being hit with all those ataraxi fear reflexes at once, and it was difficult to figure out just how her brain should be running. But she felt sure that she shouldn't feel that warm and fuzzy about a woman who'd screwed her over that badly. Thankfully, she had an extra something for even the worst cases of brainwashing. Her partner. Strawberry, she sent. I need a full diagnostic, sensory back-ups, and a decontamination run on my mind.

No sensory back-ups available, Strawberry sent mournfully, her voice still a little slurred in Keila's mind. Diagnostic scans are showing nominal. I can't tell what's wrong with you any more than I can tell what's wrong with me.

Keila stood up, her legs still a little shaky. Send again? she replied. No sensory back-ups?

None at all. There's a blank in my systems from the moment you opened that door until just a few seconds ago. I can tell that information has been uploaded into my memory during that period, but the time-stamps are all corrupted, and the back-ups as well. I can't tell what thoughts shouldn't be going on in either of our heads, Keila.

Crap on a stick. The link, she sent back. The ataraxi can't affect machines, but you're constantly monitoring my mind. When they hit me, it must have channeled up the link into your mind. Keila felt a chill in her gut. That meant that all Strawberry's defenses were down too. Strawberry, can a teaching box input data into your systems?

In the state I was in? Inconclusive, Strawberry replied. I've never been that helpless before.

"All right," Keila said out loud. "Nothing we can do now but move forward, and try never to be that helpless again." She unclipped her blaster, resealed her thigh, and cautiously opened the door, praying that it didn't open onto a nest of ataraxi.

It didn't. She was in the other part of the dome, the one designated for living quarters. Moving silently, she found her way through the standardized layout of the dome until she found the commons area. Sure enough, Doctor Sindel was waiting for her. She was wearing a loose white robe, now, but she still had her wrist-remote on. Keila wondered if she ever took it off, even during sex. She wondered why she was thinking about sex with Doctor Sindel.

"You've been out for seventeen hours," she said. "Which seems to map nicely to the data on my exposure; clearly, the effect has nothing to do with the mental capacity of the subject. Nothing personal, my dear; it's clear that you're a very intelligent woman. I'm just more intelligent than you are."

Keila nodded, then caught herself and stopped. "Doctor Sindel," she said, fighting the desire to kneel. "I'm afraid I have to detain you in custody for...for attempting to brainwash an officer of the Galactic Union, and for tampering with a thought-altering device for personal use. I..." She raised her blaster. "Please don't make me hurt you," she whispered.

"Oh, you can also add on conspiracy to overthrow the government, appropriation of military technology, and illegal exploitation of xenobiological specimens for personal gain." Doctor Sindel smirked, leaning back in her chair. "But I don't think you'll do anything about it, you or 'Strawberry'." She paused. "I meant to ask--why did you call her Strawberry?"

Keila answered before she could even think about it. "I had an imaginary pony when I was a little girl, one that could ride in space." She blushed bright crimson, the first time she'd ever done so in twelve years of duty. "You...you shouldn't know that. Internal transponder data's classified."

"You weren't unconscious during those seventeen hours, Keila," Doctor Sindel said. "That was the most interesting part of all, really. You've been a tremendous help to my researches. I never had the chance to interview myself while actually under the influence of the ataraxi reflex. It was quite interesting. You were pleasantly chatty, quite open with information, docile, polite, and eager to please." She smiled, and Keila was uncomfortably aware of a strange taste in her mouth that she hadn't registered until now. "Very eager to please."

"I..." She heard the words of the teaching box now in the back of her head, like the rhythm track to a song. "I have to take you in. I'm sorry."

"Oh, but I have such plans for you," Doctor Sindel said. "After all, troubleshooters are meant to be above suspicion, their loyalties to the Union unbreakable." She stood up, letting the robe hang just a little bit loose, and Keila felt herself salivate at the sight of those taut thighs. "If you clear me, and then report back that someone in authority needs to personally see my findings, well...that carries a lot of weight, doesn't it?"

The gun felt heavy in Keila's hands. "I...I won't, I can't. I mustn't." Doctor Sindel took a step towards her. "I'll shoot!" she shouted desperately.

"But you love me, don't you?" Doctor Sindel untied the belt around her waist, let the robe hang wide open now. Keila felt a rush of arousal, and knew Doctor Sindel must be able to smell it in the air.

"I..." It was no good, she couldn't deny it. Fallon's beautiful eyes filled her whole world, seeming to beg her not to shoot. "Yes," she said. "I do. But I'll shoot you anyway." Every fiber of her being told her not to do it, that Fallon was the most important thing ever in her life, that she should sooner take the gun and put it to her own head than fire on beautiful, perfect, unimpeachable Fallon Sindel, but Keila would not give in.

Doctor Sindel looked her in the eyes for a long moment. "You would, wouldn't you," she said. "I'm very impressed, Keila. Troubleshooters really are all they're claimed to be. Ten hours under the teaching box, your mind practically turned to mush, and you're still able to think clearly enough to recognize your duty." Keila heard a tiny beep, and realized too late that Fallon had pressed a button on her wrist-remote while she was staring at those gorgeous eyes.

"That's easily remedied, though," Doctor Sindel said as the door opened. Keila spun to face the new threat, but even as she registered that the maintenance robot that came in through the door was carrying an atarax, the all-too-familiar sensation of drowsy bliss flooded into her mind. "Now what do you think of your duty, Keila?"

Duty. Keila tried to dredge something out of the thick white fog that seemed to be enveloping her thoughts, but she couldn't remember what it was. She knew she had a duty, she knew it was important, but... Strawberry, she sent. What is my duty?

Strawberry's voice in her head sounded almost as dazed as her own. Duty...we have a duty to...to...to please Doctor Sindel, it replied.

Of course, Keila thought. It was so simple now. She wondered how she could ever have forgotten. Even through the dizzy haze, she could hear that endless repetition and she clung to it desperately, letting it guide her out of the fog her thoughts had become. "Doctor Fallon Sindel is the perfect woman, and I wish nothing more than to serve her in every way," she said in tones of wonder.

"Very good," Fallon said, sitting back down. She spread her legs, revealing a pussy already glistening slightly with moisture. "Such a smart girl, learning her lessons so well. Come here, Keila, I want to reward you."

Keila walked towards Fallon mechanically, her mind scarcely registering that the robot had approached them. The fog in her head seemed to get thicker, but that just made it easier to listen to the voice that told her to please Doctor Sindel. She dropped to her knees, and it felt so right to be kneeling before Doctor Sindel. It felt so right to look up into her eyes, and it felt even more right when Doctor Sindel wrapped her hands into Keila's short red hair and pulled her to Doctor Sindel's pussy.

Her nostrils filled with the scent of Fallon's pussy, drowning out everything else. She knew Doctor Sindel wanted her to lick, and suddenly that was all she wanted to do, all she could ever imagine doing. Every moan, every quiver of Fallon's thighs was just another sign that she was pleasing Doctor Sindel, and that was everything Keila ever wanted. She felt her thoughts slowly drain out into a blur of pleasure and obedience, but somehow even that seemed right, too.

"Very good, good girl," Fallon whispered to her as she licked and licked and licked. "I...ohhh, yes...I have a special reward for you, when you're done. My robot here is going to take you and show you a special room, with lots of pretty animals. And then I'm going to teach you some more. Doesn't that sound nice, Keila?"

Keila's words were muffled by Fallon's cunt, but somehow Doctor Sindel seemed to know what they were.

THE END