Headwires

"Six feet away seems far enough," he replied smugly. "You're right, by the way. Normally, she would sniff out a guy like me a mile away. But I know what she really wants, deep down. She wants to be controlled. She wants to be programmed. She wants to be a good little machine, and I made it happen." He saw the expression on WildRose's face, and laughed. "Come on, you are kidding me! You mean you're her girlfriend and you didn't know?"

"I..." WildRose felt suddenly defensive. Like she'd been the one to hurt Sharpe. "She's never said anything. She's always seemed happy."

"Oh, but she had a little itch that only Daddy could scratch, honey. A Luddite like you couldn't even understand her kink. You probably think vibrators are a little too high-tech, right? Just want to use your tongue?"

That was it. Robots or not, this guy was toast. "Trust me, pal, nobody ever complains about this tongue after I'm finished."

He giggled. He actually fucking giggled. "That's just...you are going to make me so much money!"

"What, planning to turn me into a slave girl, sell me to the highest bidder? Go ahead and try. I will fucking break you." She hoped it sounded brave, because she could still hear Sharpe sobbing in her ear, hating herself for betraying WildRose but still not able to break Technophile's control.

"No, no, no." Technophile extended a hand, and hair-thin wires streamed from the gauntlet he wore to snake towards WildRose. "No, when I'm done, you won't even notice any differences. In fact, you won't remember me at all. Life will go on for you and robo-slut--"

"Her name is Sharpe," WildRose said in a tone of low menace, desperately rearing back to get away from the filaments.

"Your new handles are whatever I say they are," Technophile snapped out. "Don't interrupt. As I was saying, life will go on for you and robo-slut just like normal. Except that every so often, when you go to fight a costumed criminal, your reflexes are going to desert you. Your muscles are going to turn to jello, your skills aren't going to be anything like as expert as they were, and that villain? They're going to beat you. Not just beat you, but tie you up, dominate you, use you sexually, even slap you around a little. Eventually, you'll escape from them, of course, but they'll get away with the loot."

The wires caressed her scalp now, beginning to burrow into her flesh. It didn't hurt, though. It felt...good. "And I'll have the whole thing on webcam! OMG this is going to be great! Live streaming video of real super-heroines dominated by real super-villains! Forget the ten percent of the loot they'll give me, the subscription fees alone will make me wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice!"

"That's what...unnhh...this is all about?" It was beginning to hurt just a little, WildRose could feel pain underneath the waves of pleasure, but the pleasure just overwhelmed it. "Fetish porn for Internet geeks?"

"Well, that and revenge. There are quite a few people who'll pay handsomely for the chance to beat you up when you can't fight back." The wires felt like they were pulsing now, sending bursts of data into her mind. WildRose felt her legs go out from under her as her muscles stopped listening to her confused, erratic brain. "Nothing you can't recover from in a week or so, though. No point in killing the goose that laid the golden egg. No, you're going to be the slut-bitch of the super-villain community for a long time to come. Your batting average is about to go way down, honey."

WildRose shook her head, trying to dislodge the wires. "Never...gonna...happen."

Technophile stepped in closer, sensing that her body no longer functioned under her control. "Oh, is this where you tell me about that 'indomitable will' I've been hearing so much about? Don't kid yourself. The human brain is just a two-pound computer made of fatty tissues and water, and I am the master programmer. I have leet skills, babe. Hypnosis? Drugs? Those are for chumps and suckers...and losers with big weird eyebrows." He snorted in laughter. "I can actually see the electrical impulses in your brain right now, and I will redirect them to dance to my tune. Your willpower is just a security system, and I will crack every firewall, break through every defense, and hack your little mind until you call me Master. With direct access, like I have now? Won't even take me two minutes."

WildRose tried to deny it, but she couldn't remember what the word was anymore that indicated disagreement. It started with an 'N', she knew it, but... "You...I'll fight, I..." Waves of deep pleasure rushed through her body, making her tingle like she was being fucked by a twelve-inch strap-on, and she felt a sinking feeling as she knew she was being programmed. As she knew how good it felt to be programmed.

"Don't you get it, honey? There is no fighting. I'm just debugging your brain to get it compliant with 'Obedience 2.0', that's all. You'll do whatever I say, just like your girlfriend. She tried to fight, you know. She even begged me to stop. But in the end, she sent you to me, just like I commanded."

WildRose heard Sharpe's voice in her ear as her brain went under for the third time. "i'm so sorry, penny, but he commanded me..." Her voice sounded distant, vacant. WildRose knew if she were to speak, she'd sound just like that. "i couldn't disobey instructions. you understand. i had to obey, obey everything he told me to do. he commanded me to send you to him, and i did. he commanded me to send him super-heroines, and i sent him wildrose..."

WildRose wanted to weep, wanted to tell her lover that it wasn't her fault she'd betrayed them both, but her thoughts were slowing down into the pattern of obedience now. "i did as i was programmed to do," Sharpe said. "i sent him wildrose...and adventure girl..."

There was a loud sound from the loading doors of the warehouse. WildRose wasn't quite sure what it was at first, but when those same doors went hurtling overhead in a low parabolic arc and embedded themselves into the far wall, even her sluggish mind could figure it out.

Sharpe kept talking. "and venus ascendant, and the Girl With No Name..." WildRose heard the strange, zipping noise that heralded twin vacuum pistols firing into robot chests. "...and the Living Doll, and the Manga Girlz, and the Dixie Pixie..."

The wires retracted suddenly. They didn't feel nearly as good coming out as they had going in. "All robots, full defensive positions!" Technophile shouted. "Protect your master!" The robots that had held WildRose released her hands, and she slumped to the hard concrete floor with a smack that she knew would leave a bruise on her left cheek for days.

But Sharpe kept talking in her ears, even as she gazed straight ahead in a semi-conscious stupor. "And Veena, and Smoking Hottie, and the Devil's Daughter and Madame Macabre from the Dead of Night, and Professor Psyche and all the female Utopians, but they might have brought along some of the male members too..." Sharpe's voice was beginning to sound normal again. Obviously, Technophile was a little too distracted to keep up his control.

The air was a haze of plasma bolts and wild energies and freeze beams and smart missiles and flying robot pieces. Adventure Girl was using her venture-vision to melt robots into slag, Venus Ascendant had grabbed one robot and was using it to beat another into the ground like a tent-pole, and Nowhere Woman was blasting holes the size of basketballs through battleship steel. "And Maiden Britain, and Kosmika, and you wanted every single super-heroine I knew brought to you for programming? Well, 'Yes, Master.'" The tone of savage glee in Sharpe's voice made WildRose want to kiss her full on the lips right there and then.

She could have lain there for a long while, just recovering her strength and watching some of the highest-quality robot violence she'd ever seen, but she saw Technophile stealing away in the chaos, and WildRose dug in and found the strength to get to her feet. "Can't escape justice," she slurred out, heading unsteadily after him.

With every step, she felt a little more of her confidence returning, a little more of her equilibrium coming back. By the time she got to the back door, just a few steps ahead of Technophile's desperate attempts to avoid dozens of other super-heroes, she felt enough like her old self to say, "You can't leave just yet. Every super-villain visitor to Samson City gets a complimentary ass-whupping, and you haven't had yours."

Technophile visibly started. He didn't seem so tough, not without two hundred robots backing him up. "Okay, I understand that you might be a little cheesed off, but..." His control snapped. "Goddamnit, how could this happen? She was just a machine, dammit! Just a fucking machine!"

WildRose cocked her head and listened for a moment. "She says there's a phrase that explains it all. Being a Luddite, like I am, I guess I wouldn't understand, but I'll pass it along." She kicked him in the crotch, and he dropped to his knees. "She says 'Garbage In, Garbage Out, motherfucker.'"

She gave him a spin-kick to the head. "I say, 'My tongue makes girls beg for more, and don't you forget it.'"

Sharpe's voice sounded almost completely normal again in WildRose's ear as she said, "You really need to deliver the witty quip before you knock them unconscious, you know."

WildRose grinned, even though Sharpe couldn't see it. "I wasn't talking to him. I was talking to you."

*****

Sharpe zipped up the silver suit, and pointed to the screen. "Alright," she said, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "The left and right arrows rotate the model, and you can just click on the mouse to activate the pressure triggers anywhere on the suit. It's a layered mesh with a conductive weave running through it, so it vibrates in response to your clicks. Left-clicking will produce a sensation for as long as you hold down the button, right-clicking tells it to keep the vibration moving even after you let the button go, and you can of course right-click and drag the cursor wherever you want to move it. F1 will cancel out any right-clicked vibratory spots. Oh, and the soles of the feet are over on this section. That way you don't need to rotate the model through three dimensions."

She felt WildRose's eyes on her, but pressed on. "The joystick controls the cables; just click and hold a button, and then move the joystick to move the cable corresponding to that button. A little trial and error should get you the hang of that. They're supposed to be 'smart' when it comes to docking with the suit, but we'll see how that goes. Once you've docked with the suit, F2 will pump warm saline solution into the mesh, F3 will pump cold saline solution into the mesh. It circulates through little capillaries in the suit and goes right back out through the opposing cable, so don't pump anything until you've docked the matching cable or you'll get water all over the floor. That's why the buttons are color-coded."

WildRose stared in awe at the entire setup. "You've, um...you've been putting in quite a bit of work on this, haven't you?"

Sharpe looked down at the floor for a moment. "It's been a side project of mine for about three years now, Penny."

WildRose took a deep breath. "It's a little much," she said at last. "I mean, I'm kind of a low-tech girl, and--"

Something burst in Sharpe's heart then, and she found herself unable to stop herself from talking. "Oh, come on!" she said. "It's not that kinky, I mean, sure it's not a fetish you're into, but you have to understand, I've gotten off on this since I was sixteen, and I don't think I should have to be ashamed of it, it's not like I don't still like girls, and it's not like this is the only way I can get off or anything, we'll still have plenty of nights where we kiss and lick and fuck and suck as much as ever, I just want you to try it once, that's all!"

WildRose said, "I--"

"It's just a fantasy of mine, I was hoping you'd understand, it's not like you don't have kinky fantasies too, you had that thing where you had me tie you up and pretend to be a super-villain, don't tell me you don't get off on kinky shit, because I know you do, and remember that time where I whipped your ass so hard I literally broke the riding crop--"

"That's not fair!" WildRose said. "I'd been exposed to purple xenonite, my skin could deflect bullets that night!"

"And sure, that Technophile guy was a dweeb and a loser and a total noob, and I'm really glad Professor Psyche made sure there wasn't any of his programming lingering in our heads, but he was right, Penny, I do need this, but I need it from you because I love you and, and," she was crying now, tears of hot shame and anger spilling down her face, "and I want to be programmed and controlled and I, I want to be your robo-slut, I don't care if it freaks you out, if it freaks you out then maybe we shouldn't be together to begin with, but I just want you to give it a chance, I heard it in your voice last night, Penny, I heard that quiver as he was brainwashing you, you liked it just as much as I did when the wires went into your head and he programmed you, and so you should be able to at least understand what it is I get off over, just please, all I'm asking for is one night, if you're still freaked out afterwards I'll put the suit away and we'll never mention it again, but please, just give me this one night, this one fantasy, please!"

WildRose sat there for a long moment. "Done?" she said at last.

Sharpe sniffled a little. "Uh-huh."

WildRose nodded. "I was just going to say, 'I'm a low-tech girl, and not a genius like you, so I'll probably stick to the clicking at first until I get the hang of it.' It's not exactly a user-friendly program for us non-geniuses, you know."

"Then you...then I..."

"Just made a complete idiot of yourself, yes." WildRose grinned. Sharpe had never loved her more than in that second. "But I'll forgive you, so long as I get a turn in that thing sometime tonight."

Sharpe hugged her tight. "Deal. Now let's talk cyber-dildonics. The suit tracks bio-feedback, so all you need to do is go to the slider here and set an arousal level, and the suit will keep me there. The orgasm button is at the bottom, and..."

THE END