Jewel Ascending Ch. 14

**

With time growing short, Jewel had a decision to make. She made it quickly. They had no allies but fortunately, thanks to Jean Claude's paranoia she already had a team of paramilitary professionals; her bodyguards.

Melinda approached Jewel and proposed a daring plan. All of her bodyguards even seemed eager to jump into action and face the danger.

"Why?" Jewel managed to ask.

"It's what we were originally hired to do. Babysitting you and body-guarding your husband is child's play compared to the type of operations Jean Claude normally conducted."

"We were actually all thinking and talking about quitting." Another said. "Jean Claude had us doing more exciting operations."

"Like this one?" Jewel asked.

"Yes."

Using Jewel's social network of peers she was able to quickly find and contact an uncorrupted official. Kyle Oldsworth was on the board of oversight with the EQG, Allegoria's equivalent of the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshalls office. They were Allegoria's premier law enforcement agency.

Working with the Elite Queens Guard Jewel and her team had finally organized a plan of action. The EQG would not simply be able to walk in arrest Horace without the danger of him purging his files. If all evidence were destroyed there would be no case. They needed Jewel to assist.

The plan they put forth was simple.

The nanobots were supposed to compel Jewel to arrange a visit to see Horace. Melinda and the EQG wanted that meeting to take place at NSSA&M's department headquarters. This would facilitate the electronic eavesdropping needed to confirm their suspicions of Horace's treasonous activities.

Jewel would need to bring in the listening devices with her.

Her excuse for visiting would be that Jewel would be taking over Jean Claude's position on the board of trustees that oversee the NSSA&M department. She is entitled to do so as a noble and as his widow until such a time as a new board of trustees is voted in. Once inside Horace would likely try to immediately assert his control over her using the nanobots, and then the electronic surveillance should be able to trace all the signals to his hidden servers.

It was foolproof, they said. But they had to move now, before the two weeks were up and before Jewel fully succumbs to the nanobot's enslavement.

**

The operation was scheduled for the next morning. Jewel would be wired and monitored by her own security team with Melinda as its head, but they would ultimately be under the aegis of the Elite Queens Guard.

Horace Jarrod Inon would go down hard if he didn't cooperate.

Jewel would have to appear to be completely under the compulsion of the nanobots. Working with the EQG they had cobbled together a false signal generator that would broadcast fake data imitating the nanobots communications protocol with the controller. It would also interrupt the return command signals and mitigate the command orders thus increasing Jewel's ability to resist and perform her role...hopefully.

Once inside Jewel would attempt to get Horace to confess or admit his plan. If Jewel could start him talking it was hoped that in his hubris he would reveal everything.

**

Jewel's limo pulled in front of the NSSA&M's headquarters building. Following Melinda and accompanied by two more of her body guards posing as her personal staff, Jewel strode across the lobby of the building. A short elevator ride to the top floor and she was in the executive offices of Allegoria's most lucrative service industry; The National Social Services Acquisition and Maintenance Department, also known as 'the bimbo lottery.'

Jewel followed her 'aide' who led her down the hall to the executive boardroom. The board meeting was already begun. They had timed her arrival to make an entrance.

Jewel had walked into the boardroom and was immediately challenged by Horace and the other members of the board. As a noble woman of Allegoria and her deceased husband's widow Jewel asserted her right to be there. After some arguing back and forth the board eventually voted for a short recess to let Dr. Horace Jarrod Inon meet privately with Jewel.

Once back in his office however, the whole plan went to shit.

Horace escorted Lady Delacroix back to his top floor corner office and politely offered her refreshments as a distraction. Once she refused he went to his desk, reached into the top drawer and removed the controller for Lady Delacroix's nanobots.

Horace was concerned that it was too soon. Jewel was a few days early ahead of the minimum two week period where the new mental pathways might be established and he could begin her compulsory training and conditioning.

Fortune favors the bold, he thought with an aggrieved sigh. In that moment Horace dropped all pretense of civility and immediately activated her controller.

Jewel was taken by surprise. She had acted according to plan and as she was coached earlier and imagined that she would only have to fake struggling against the nanobot control. It hadn't been the full two weeks and according to her hypnotherapist it was reasonable to expect she could still act independently, if with difficulty.

Instead she found she was suddenly enamored with Horace. She couldn't imaging any one else in her life but him. She wanted nothing more than to help him achieve... greatness.

NO!

Jewel's inner conscience screamed back at her.

I WILL NEVER BE A SLAVE TO A MAN AGAIN!

Horace would try to compel her obedience and Jewel knew she would not have to play her role well. She truly had to struggle. She had to fight. Her life and freedom were on the line. Everyone she loved was in danger if she failed.

Jewel needed that confession, and as she struggled against the nanobots she fought. Despite her mind telling her to submit, she fought. Jewel hurled insults. She taunted Horace; all to no avail.

It was with the greatest effort in her life, she decided to change tack and play the role she was trained for. The role she had been disciplined and conditioned and hypnotized to follow. Jewel stopped resisting and took the path of least resistance. She let the obedience wash over her like a cool blue ocean.

Jewel stood now calmly before Horace, a picture of equanimity and submissive femininity. She let her body relax from the physical effort and emotional toll it was costing her.

In an effort to encourage him to talk she suddenly understood. Just go with it.

Amazingly, once she stopped fighting she was able to speak clearly and calmly and it was the simplest question that did it.

"Why?"

The signal generator faking her succumbing to the nanobots appeared to be doing its job because when Horace looked at the controller in his hand he smiled an evil victorious smile.

"So you want me to monologue do you? Fine, I did it because I care too much. I care about the people more than I do about myself. I care enough that I am willing to risk it all to remove the corruption and the bullshit that is the Allegorian Nobility from the face of the Earth."

"And replace it with despotism? Replace freedom with slavery?" Jewel wanted to spit out her anger. Instead she embraced the control and calmly, like a kayaker riding a river rapid, sought out the easiest path through the rough and turbulent water. Working with the nanobots instead of fighting and struggling against them for control of her own mind and body against the nanobot implantation.

Horace merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Sometimes, for the greater good, sacrifices must be made."

"There's no way you can do this alone." Jewel observed.

"Of course not! I am an anti-royalist but I know that I'll need allies. I've been working with someone you know." Horace taunted.

"Who?" Jewel couldn't help but ask, assuming he meant James.

"Ivan Ivanovich" Horace answered simply.

Jewel was nonplussed. Seeing her confusion, Horace momentarily lost his smile but still continued to gloat.

"He as been working with me to topple the noble government of Allegoria. Imagine the power I'll wield and protections I'll have in an alliance with the most powerful criminal boss in world history."

Jewel only suspected she knew who he was talking about. Wasn't Ivan Ivanovich simply another investor in some of the companies she now owned?

Suddenly understanding and clarity dawned on Jewel.

If Horace had originally been working for her dead husband Jean Claude Delacroix, and John Claude had invested in these companies with Ivan, then that was further proof that Jean Claude had been conspiring to overthrow the nobility. Horace was merely seeing the original plan through to the end.

"But why me?"

"It was nothing personal. You were just a means to an end. With your money we can finance our plan. We can enslave and rule over the nobility and finally make the government of Allegoria more responsive to the people."

"You mean responsive for you."

Horace grinned again.

"Sure. In fact, you are my scapegoat. Your husband was the one to see the need to remove the nobility and impose a more effective style of leadership. Now that he's dead, I'm merely going to see this plan through."

Jewel was astonished. Her astonishment was quickly replaced by resolve.

Wow. I never thought that I'd ever be the one to try and save the Allegorian Nobility from slavery.

"A society founded on slavery can never be truly free." Jewel tersely pronounced.

"Exactly" Horace replied "So now you get it. I must do what I feel is right to end all of it. All the corruption, the lies, the hypocrisy..."

"And you should know better than anyone. Jean Claude was considering donating you to the service. Can you imagine the number of clients who are willing to pay to bed a feminized male countess? Paying and the fantasy of power over you are part of the attraction; a noble whore as it were."

Horace took Jewel's chin in his hand and gripped her painfully, turning her head to admire her beauty.

"Such incredible potential...especially for one as hot as you..."

Horace didn't get to finish. The sounds of sirens approaching from the distance caught his attention. Withdrawing a hidden pistol from his desk he went to the widow to investigate.

"Oh dear...someone has been naughty." Horace didn't sound angry, instead, he just sounded disappointed.

"They're going to arrest you." Jewel smiled as she said it. Soon he would be in handcuffs and jailed.

Horace was disappointed. He would have to flee the country. He had so many goals and dreams to make the world a better place, but now they would not come to pass. Somehow Lady Delacroix had discovered his scheme.

Still, they would not capture him or take him alive. He had plans in place for even the most unlikely scenario including this one. Horace sighed with exasperation yet he also saw an opportunity to exact revenge on Lady Delacroix for her part in destroying his plans.

"Lady Delacroix. Take this gun." He placed it in her hands.

Jewel was confused.

"Face this way." He said as he turned her to face the door and the sounds of the police attempting to break it down.

Jewel felt her horror grow as her body obeyed.

"Shoot anyone who comes through that door." Horace ordered.

Jules had grown up in America. He knew how to handle a gun. Jewel remembered those lessons and watched, her terror increasing, as her hands clasped the pistol and held it ready.

"Good bye Lady Delacroix, until we meet again."

Jewel was repulsed as Horace actually kissed her on the lips, longingly and romantically, then smiled, and stepped and disappeared from her sight behind her.

Distracted and disgusted by Horace's kiss, she was unprepared for when her bodyguards posing as her personal assistants and the agents from the EQG finally burst through the door into the room.

They had weapons drawn and looked surprised to see Jewel, alone in the room.

"Where is Dr. Inon?" One asked.

Jewel's finger pulled the trigger.

The surprised look on the agents face didn't fade when she looked down on her chest and noticed the bullet hole appear in the front of her suit jacket.

The second agent had her weapon drawn and fired.

Jewel didn't even have the luxury to scream in horror as her fingers pulled the trigger again, and as the agents returned fire she felt sudden red hot agony in her chest. The gun fell from her hand as she collapsed backwards and down onto the plush Persian rug of Horace's executive office.

Her eyes closed and darkness came swiftly.

**

The agony was exquisite.

Jewel was used to agony in her life.

First there was the emotional agony she endured for years as she was tormented and paraded about and made into Jean Claude's plaything.

Then there was the physical agony as she was raped and abused and made into Jean Claude's sexual submissive and slave.

But this agony was different. This time, she welcomed the pain, the agony.

It meant she was still alive!

Jewel woke. Her vision was blurry at first. She waited patiently for her vision to clear and focus. She heard beeps of a heart rate monitor. She heard the whoosh of the respirator machine giving her air. She was in a hospital room.

No. She was in her sick room in her mansion. Jewel turned her head and saw a nurse.

And Donna.

"She lives." Donna said with an emotional gasp of joy. She looked ready to cry.

Jewel's vision blurred again as her eyes filled with tears. The agony inside her chest gave her focus. She was definitely alive!

"What happened?" Jewel wondered. She couldn't speak. There was a tube down her throat. Her throat was dry. She needed water.

**

One week later Jewel was finally recovered enough to sit up from bed. The ventilator was removed and she was breathing entirely on her own.

"The agents had body armor on" Melinda reminded Jewel. "You didn't"

"They reacted as trained and returned fire. Fortunately for you their shots went right through you just below your shoulders."

"The surgeon was able to fix you right up. You won't even have any scars." Donna added.

"What happened to Horace?"

"He escaped and is currently at large." Melinda informed.

"How?"

"The arras in his office."

Jewel remembered the rich tapestry that hung on the back wall of Horace's office and understood there was an alcove behind it. The alcove must have a hidden escape that wasn't in the building plans.

"Now what happens?" Jewel asked.

**

Jewel watched the official video as Melinda and the EQG agent interrogated Dr. Patricia Agonia. With their control app running on Patricia's nanobot controller that they had found in another desk drawer and with the access codes stolen from Horace's computer they were eager to know why Horace had targeted her.

After learning that Dr. Agonia was a member of the Society for the Restoration of the Matriarchy, Dr. Horace Jarrod Inon wanted to remove her from the Bimbo Lottery program. She was becoming much too influential and gaining too much access inside his department.

When he was unsuccessful due to Countess Wanda Oldsworth's influence Horace decided to use her to garner secrets of the SRM and use them to his advantage.

The EQG didn't even have to use her controller's applications "interrogation mode" that compels obedience and truthfulness to questions asked and answers given on the Hypnotherapist to compel her to confess her knowledge of Horace's scheme. As one of the enslaved she was eager to tell everything she knew about Horace and his plans.

Confession it seems was good for the soul.

Jewel struggled to come up with any feelings of hatred for the one woman who she felt she could trust to help her make her life more bearable...she had done exactly that...but for the wrong reasons. She did it to make her former husband's life easier, and not her own. She only used Jewel to free herself from enslavement and not out of any feelings of sympathy for Jewel and her long sad history.

Jewel knew it was the years of hypnotherapy working to keep her calm and let her anger fail to take root. Yet it was that same hypnotic conditioning that had thwarted the control application long enough for her to induce Horace to monologue and brag about his genius and his exploits.

Jewel turned her attention to the report from another EQG computer forensic expert who was trolling though the data stored on Horace's servers. It seemed that Jewel and Patricia Agonia were not the only ones injected with the nanobots. Jewel would be astonished to learn that Neil, the CEO of the software company she owned had also been enslaved for enslaving several young women back in New York, and was later sold to Horace and the NSSA&M to become a service provider for the department as a way to keep him hidden from authorities back in America.

The scandal threatened to go international. But once they summoned Olivia from her dorm their worries were allayed. He...she...had completely succumbed and only knew of her life as Olivia now. The EQG wanted this kept a secret for now.

Jewel finally received the control device for the nanobots implanted inside her mind. The EQG wanted to keep it as evidence but Jewel invoked her noble authority to take custody of the device.

Jewel hesitated as she held the activated controller that now interfaced with the nanobots inside her mind. According to the medical literature they uncovered in Horace's files and Dr. Agonia's testimony, it clearly stated that if a test subject with nanobots experienced an interruption of control during the initial implantation that a debilitating stroke resulting in death was a distinct possibility occurring in 90% of all test animals.

Jewel remembered Jean Claude and the first stroke that nearly ended his life and left him impaired for several months before the neurological treatments enabled him to recover. The first month was the worst as he was nearly a complete invalid. Only the fact that they were on a lengthy cruise during which he received the most advanced and powerful nootropics was he able to conceal the seriousness of his condition and eventually recover.

Donna stood by Jewel as she struggled to control her feelings. Donna didn't want Jewel to have a massive stroke and possibly die. But she didn't want Jewel to be enslaved either. It just wasn't fair that after all the pain and suffering life had brought Jewel that she should have to risk the end of her life so soon after finding love and happiness.

Donna suddenly wondered if she was thinking about Jewel or her own loss should Jewel leave her.

Her reverie was broken when Jewel turned towards her.

"Here." Jewel said as she held out the controller to Donna.

"What?" Donna asked her male wife. She didn't move to take it.

"I want you to do it."

Tears began streaming from Donnas' eyes.

The EQK agent that had been briefing Jewel found that he had a sudden need to be elsewhere and left. Within a few seconds they found they were alone.

Jewel handed the controller to Donna and carefully placed it in her hand.

"I just want you to know that" Jewel's voice momentarily caught "that I'd go through it all over again just to end up here with you."

Donna could barely see and had to wipe the tears flooding from her eyes.

"I don't want to leave you." Jewel sobbed.

Donna held the controller in unsteady hands, unable to even read the screen through her tears. She looked up at Jewel.

"Then don't."