Princess

From the moment Beck broke the treeline she was sprinting, pushing herself to her limit to cross the mansion grounds as quickly as possible. Adrenaline pumped through her, and she welcomed the extra strength. Despite all her planning and preparation, she was in danger, and the best way to keep safe was to get inside as fast as she could. She only had about thirty seconds until the next sensor sweep. Despite the danger, the thin, wiry girl grinned a wolfish grin. She loved feeling alive.

With seconds at most to spare, Beck reached the walls of the palatial mansion that rose high in the middle of the spacious grounds. She immediately pressed herself tight against the stone, and waited for the tell-tale flicker of sensor lights to pass. Once they did, and no alarm triggered, she allowed herself a laugh. A vulnerability, just as she'd been informed. With luck, the rest of her intel was good too. It had certainly cost enough, but to Beck no price was too high for the chance to screw over a corp. SPQ Conglomerate was one of the worst. Everyone knew the kinds of shady dealings and unethical practices they were tied up in, but due to their political influence and inordinate wealth they were untouchable. The injustice of it made Beck rage. She'd seen what SPQ had done to the poor part of the city she'd grown up in. Between their pollution and their recruiting of the hopeless and helpless for illegal human experimentation, they'd killed hundreds, and ripped the heart out of her entire neighbourhood. It had always been rough and dirty, but it had had a heartbeat.

A life. A vibrancy. Not anymore. That was why, for the first time in her life, Beck had left the megacity she'd been born in, and traveled to a remote country house. Revenge. It was what she was best at. Beck prided herself as one of the best off-the-grid hackers most people had never heard of. She wasn't the kind to go on the extranet and brag about her exploits, only to get picked up by a corporate task force two weeks later. She kept things quiet and professional, despite her aggressively punk appearance. As always, Beck was wearing her black battle vest over a simple tank top, and baggy black pants with dozens of pockets for all the gear she might need. The skin she was showing on her arms was covered in tattoos, and she had a pierced lip, nose and eyebrow. She'd never been one to shy away from a few body mods - the jagged metal of bootlegged tech-implants showing through her skin in several places was proof of that.

Now that she was past the sensor grid, Beck got to work finding the drain pipe she'd noticed on the building holo-plans. It led up to a window with a nearby external system access panel, probably intended for maintenance use. Access points like those hardly ever had any meaningful security. Beck had hardly been able to believe it when she'd noticed the flaw on the plans. It wasn't like such a huge corp go get so lazy, but at the same time, it was so perfectly like them to be so arrogant as to assume no-one would ever try to hit them in such a place: the personal country home of one of their most senior executives. According to her intel, as an executive, Evelynn Aurelia had a hard-wired connection between her residence and SDQ headquarters back in the city. If Beck could access that connection on her end, she'd easily be able to get her hands on all kinds of insider information, and hopefully that would include something obscene enough that, just for once, the politicians and corrupt media wouldn't be able to ignore it.

Beck found the drain pipe. Climbing it was easy for lower-rung city rat like her. Once she was thirty feet in the air, she started feeling at the stonework around her for the access panel. It didn't take long to find, and it didn't take much longer to pry the panel open to expose a small console. Using only her legs to grip the pipe she was clinging to, Beck reached a hand behind her head and felt her way down her spine until she reached her central implant. Then, she sent a mental command to open it and release her jack. She quickly pulled it out of herself, the thin wire unraveling until it was long enough for her to reach across to the access panel and jack herself in. Beck couldn't help shuddering briefly as she felt her mind opening itself up to a brand new system, interfacing with all its protocols and functions. There was security, of course, but Beck breezed past it. She came from a rough part of the city, and looked like it, but her cyberbrain augmentations were top-of-the-line, at least for the black market. She could perform trillions of calculations per second, enough to deal with all but the best encryption. In an instant, the system was hers. She only needed it for one thing: opening a window.

With the agility of a monkey, Beck clambered into the window. Just as expected, the room she found herself in was nothing more than a spare bedroom, dark and empty. With nothing more than a thought, Beck closed the window behind her and switched on the lights. It was easy, now that she'd tapped into the system. It was just like a rich corper to have everything integrated, despite how insecure it was. Beck grinned to herself. She wasn't one to get cocky on the job, but so far everything had been going perfectly to plan. Beck crept out of the bedroom and looked around. From the detailed building plan she had downloaded to her memory she already knew where she was, but she'd learned the value of not taking anything for granted. She needed to find Aurelia's office. It wasn't marked as such on any of the intel she'd received, but she'd identified a few likely candidates. Fortunately, as far as she could tell the mansion was empty, so she had plenty of time to search. Beck made her way along the corridor and down the staircase to the first floor. As she did, she couldn't help but marvel at her own surroundings. It was like she'd stepped into a previous century. The whole interior of the building was lined with real wood panels, the carpet on the floor was as soft as velvet, and the light fittings looked like they were covered with diamonds. The opulence was tasteful, though, rather than overwhelming. The degree of wealth it represented was obscene, yes, but Beck couldn't help finding it beautiful as she walked down the magnificent staircase and into a large, high-ceilinged room dominated by a huge mahogany table with an open fireplace at one end.

As she was walking across the room, Beck froze.

She didn't mean to freeze, and at first she thought it was some kind of instinctive response, or perhaps a consequence of her own distractedness. But no. She couldn't move. She was held in place, mid-step, her muscles locked up and unresponsive. Surprise turned into confusion, turned into fear. This was very, very wrong. Beck focused all her energy on trying to lift just one foot, but she couldn't. Something had paralyzed her from the neck down.

"Welcome!" announced a refined, feminine, authoritative voice. "I must admit, you're earlier than I expected."

The figure of a woman emerged from the doorway Beck had been heading towards. She was taller than Beck, which wasn't hard - everyone was taller than Beck - but it wasn't that which lent her such a domineering presence. She had a full figure and was wearing a floor-length yet revealing red dress, and she moved like someone who'd never needed to make space for anyone else in her life. Beck knew straight away who she was: Evelynn Aurelia.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" Beck snarled. She knew that if Aurelia had been expecting her then she was almost certainly in extreme danger, but she also knew better than to show any fear.

"New tech," Miss Aurelia replied. She made a small gesture with her hand, and the wood panels on the wall next to Beck slid away to reveal a set of emitters thrumming with energy. "A little something we've been working on. A disruptive energy frequency targeted at the cybernetic enhancements you have in your spine. It intercepts all the signals your cyberbrain is trying to send to your muscles. Quite effective, don't you think?"

"Fuck you," Beck spat. She hated everything Aurelia represented, from her arrogance to her educated, upper-crust accent.

Miss Aurelia just laughed. "I suppose you must be wondering how I knew you were coming?"

"Let me go, you fucking corper!" Beck screamed, but despite her defiance, she was curious.

"How eloquent," Miss Aurelia commented. "Let me make it simple for you: you were being played."

That took the wind out of Beck's sails. "What?"

"Did you really think some dirtbag extranet hacker would have access to all that information about my personal dwelling? Please," Miss Aurelia scoffed. "That information didn't come from any hacker. It came from Glaxxo Integrated, one of SDQ Conglomerate's main rivals."

"Bullshit!" Beck spat. "I got that from Ajax! He'd never-"

"They got to him," Ms Aurelia interrupted flatly. "Everyone has their weak points, little girl." Beck snarled. "Even the people you think you can trust. He approached you about this job, didn't he? Seemed rather eager, didn't he? But you didn't even question it."

Beck was torn between blind panic and blind rage, but at the same time, she was desperately trying to figure out what was really going on. "But then, how did they..." she started to ask, even though she was already starting to piece it together.

"How did Glaxxo get the intel? Because I leaked it to them, of course. Not that they know that." Miss Aurelia flashed a predatory grin, and approached closer to Beck. "It was so easy to leave out a couple of my more subtle security systems. I wanted to see if they'd believe it, and who they'd send, and how the information would travel. I've been tracking it all the way. It's been very, very informative."

"Fuck!" Beck exclaimed. "But... I..."

"You're a pawn in a game, little girl," Miss Aurelia told her, with no hint of sympathy. "Nothing more. The only question you need to be concerned with is: what happens to you now?"

"Either let me go or kill me," Beck hissed, her voice defiant. "Just do it quick. I ain't telling you shit."

Maddeningly, Miss Aurelia just laughed again. Beck wanted to tear her throat out, but that desire only underscored how powerless she was. She was still straining to move, and still couldn't. The feeling of her own body rebelling against her was the most disturbing thing she'd ever felt. " But Beck - that is your name, isn't it? - those are both just so boring! I can think of much more interesting things to do with you. Much more interesting. I could send you back as a double agent, for instance."

"If you think I'd ever do anything for you, you're stupid even for a corper," Beck snorted.

"I know you wouldn't. Not willingly, anyway." There was a sudden threatening note in Miss Aurelia's voice that sent a chill down Beck's spine. Miss Aurelia approached even closer, until she was just inches away from Beck. At that distance, her presence was overpowering. All Beck could smell was her expensive perfume. The executive reached out to stroke a finger down Beck's neck. The hacker girl hated that she couldn't pull away. "But once I get in your head, I can make you do or think anything I want."

"Just try it," Beck spat, mustering all her defiance.

"Thank you, I will," Miss Aurelia replied, sounding amused. With Beck still paralyzed, she was unable to stop the domineering woman reaching behind her and using her long, immaculately painted nails to pry open her cybernetic access node, at the back of her neck. Then, Miss Aurelia reached behind herself and extended a connection wire from her own implants. Beck grit her teeth. Aurelia was going to try and brainjack her. Beck was a good hacker, but she was under no illusions that it would be hard to hold out against someone who undoubtedly had a next-gen cyberbrain. She did her best to mentally prepare herself as Miss Aurelia jacked in to her.

The instant the connection was made, Beck felt a sharp, headache-inducing pressure in her skull, as well as a near-overwhelming flood of data as Miss Aurelia's numerous and highly sophisticated attack programs started probing her defenses. Her security protocols responded in kind, rotating and randomizing all access routes to her core systems in order to keep the attackers at bay for as long as possible. Beck found herself struggling to keep up. Aurelia's hacking capabilities were like nothing she'd ever seen before. They seemed to be constantly multiplying and evolving, trying to find new and innovative ways to circumvent all the barriers she was putting up. They seemed able to sink their digital claws into every little foothold they made in her mind, making it that much harder to resist the next assault. Eventually, though, Beck managed to fight her way to a stalemate. Even though she was visibly sweating and grunting with the exertion, she was able to look up and Miss Aurelia and give her a vicious, triumphant grin.

"You're gonna have to do better than that, fuckface," she said. "I ain't no amateur. I don't skimp on security." It was true. When she'd just been starting out as a hacker, at thirteen, she'd witnessed another young hacker get their brain burned out by a corper who reverse-hacked them and overclocked all their heat-producing systems Not a nice way to go. That had impressed on Beck the importance of good-quality protection.

"You're impressive, Beck, I have to admit," Miss Aurelia said. Beck's sense of triumph starting to feel hollow when she noticed that Miss Aurelia's smile hadn't diminished even by a hair. "Unfortunately for you, it won't matter when you disable your security protocols for me."

Beck laughed, but even to her ears she sounded a little nervous. "And why the fuck would I do that?"

"Oh, I didn't say it would be voluntary," Miss Aurelia replied threateningly.

"W-what do you mean?" Beck asked. She'd long since learned how important it was to trust her instincts, and at that moment, they were screaming at her.

"Brainjacking isn't the only way to get into someone's head, little girl." Miss Aurelia started walking in a slow circle around Beck. "I have some low-tech ways of getting what I want."

"Just tell me what the fuck you're talking about!" Beck yelled. She hated that she couldn't properly turn her head to follow Aurelia when the executive walked behind her.

"Hypnosis."

Beck snorted. "You mean like out of old movies? That's all bullshit, lady."

Miss Aurelia gave a rich laugh. "I assure you, it isn't. But I'm glad you think so. It's much more convenient when no-one expects what I can do to them. Let me show you."

Beck felt Miss Aurelia reach around from behind her and touch the fingertips of her index fingers to Beck's forehead. Beck still didn't really understand what she was trying to do, but out of instinct she did her best to squirm away. Since the most she could do was turn her head, however, escape was impossible.

"Get the fuck off of me!" Beck screamed, but to no avail. Like a skilled rider taming a wild animal, Miss Aurelia seemed completely indifferent to the way Beck was wildly jerking her head around, and was able to keep her hands exactly where she wanted them, resting lightly at the front of Beck's head.

"Shh," Miss Aurelia said, in a voice so soothing it became creepy. "There's no use in fighting. Just relax."

As she spoke, Miss Aurelia drew her hands back and apart, tracing a pair of lines across Beck's forehead, from front to temple. She was touching the hacker so lightly that her fingertips were just barely grazing her skin. The motion seemed innocuous, but the effect it had on Beck was anything but. Beck felt a wave of warmth, a wave of tingling, wash across her skin and down her face. She got goosebumps all the way down to her fingertips. Suddenly, Aurelia's touch was all she could think about. It was as though the way the corporate executive had touched her was so light, so gentle, and yet so precise, that her nerves couldn't quite decide if she was being touched at all or not. Beck felt like her mind had momentarily short-circuited. Before she could re-orient herself, Miss Aurelia repeated the gesture, but further down her face. She touched both of her fingertips to the tip of Beck's nose and then moved them apart again, touching Beck under her eyes and all along her cheekbones, breaking contact at the sides of her face. The effect on Beck was the same, but stronger. All of a sudden, the room before her was swimming before her unfocused eyes.

"W-what... are you doing to me?" Beck managed to say.

"I'm hypnotizing you," Miss Aurelia answered matter-of-factly. "I'm stimulating sensitive patterns of nerves on your face. It causes an instinctive relaxation response. Intimate contact, if delivered in an appropriately skillful way, bypasses all your critical and higher-brain functions. You can't fight it. Even me telling you this is priming your mind to respond just the way I want you to."

"What... the fuck," Beck murmured. She found that she was so off-kilter she could barely make sense of what she was hearing.

"It's OK. Soon enough, it won't matter if you understand or not." Miss Aurelia touched Beck in the same way for the third time, this time at the bottom of her face, caressing her on both sides at once on her chin, and then tracing twin lines along her jawline and all the way back to the start of her neck. Again, Beck felt a strange, soporific feeling wash over her. She couldn't fight it. She didn't know how. She couldn't focus for long enough to figure out what exactly she was even trying to fight. It was like a warm, smothering blanket had been placed over her mind, turning her thoughts to melted mush. Her body felt so weak. Beck hated feeling weak, and she hated even more that she was powerless to do anything about it. Next, Miss Aurelia touched her forehead again, but this time with only one fingertip. She ran her finger down Beck's face this time, all the way between her eyebrows, over the bridge and tip of her nose, and across her slightly-parted lips, finishing at the tip of her chin. Once more, Beck found herself utterly fixated on Miss Aurelia's touch. When the powerful, confident woman touched her, it stopped her thoughts in their tracks. This time, she even found her eyes naturally following the motion of Miss Aurelia's hand. As she lowered her eyes to look down, she felt her eyelids becoming heavy and starting to fall shut. What little free thoughts Beck had left were starting to truly panic. What was happening to her?

"Sleep."

As Miss Aurelia spoke the command, her voice full of iron authority, she moved her other hand directly in front of Beck's face and, quick as a whip, snapped her fingers. To Beck, the combination of the sudden, sharp sound and the blunt, expectant command were dazzling. She felt like she'd been hit by a flash grenade, or like she'd just slammed back her tenth shot of tequila. Her eyes had blinked open and were now staring dead ahead, unable to move. Beck couldn't move her head anymore either. Everything, every sound and everything she could see and feel, felt muted and distant, like she was at the bottom of a deep hole and peering out. But there was no stillness or tranquility in the quiet, just the fuzziness of sleep.

"Beck?" Miss Aurelia whispered in her ear. Her voice was quiet, soft and poisonously seductive. "Disable your security for me."

Her words echoed around in Beck's head, making it so hard for her to think about anything else. Disable her security? From what felt like a long, long way away, alarm bells were ringing, telling her that she shouldn't. But why shouldn't she? Beck found she couldn't answer that question. It was so hard to think. Much too hard. Everything felt sluggish. The idea of trying to muster the energy to resist seemed simply exhausting, whereas obedience felt easy. Simple. Natural. Obedience didn't require thought. Beck bowed to the gentle voice in her ear, and issued a neural command to disable all security protocols guarding access to her cyberbrain.