TRANCE, Inc. 19

"Hush, baby..." Victoria's voice was gentle, soothing, loving.

I murmured numbly and twitched.

"That's right..." She had relaxed after I stopped struggling, and now she traced a fingertip down the side of my face.

All I could see were the lights: the twirling, flashing, spinning, mesmerizing lights. And colors. And shapes. They fractured like a kaleidoscope on the screen and they fractured my thoughts, blanketing my emotions with the dullness of trance layered on top of post-orgasmic bliss.

"Just relax and let go... It will all be over soon."

But even though my physical body was limp, my mind was a battlefield. I felt like there was a cage being built around me. No, a web. A sticky, tightening web that entangled me even as I fought to free myself. But still I fought.

I had been surprised. Caught off guard, because I thought I'd protected myself against betrayal. Now, I just had to hang on with bitter determination and struggle against the foggy embrace of the words that wrapped their tendrils around me. I could hear them now, in the music. Or maybe I was reading them through the shapes.

Relax.

Let go.

Stop thinking.

Stop fighting.

Stop worrying.

And I had only one thought, one shield, to turn them away.

No!

But my silent 'No' grew weaker with every blow that rained down upon it.

Protected by the shield, what small part of my mind and will remained was desperately trying to figure out a plan. It clung to a single idea — Daisy managed to resist the TRANCE conditioning. And if she could do it, then so could I. It was a small beacon of light in the fog, but it gave me hope.

The only problem was that I had no idea how she'd done it. Still, a fledgling sense of grit and determination flexed in my mind. It's possible, I thought. I cannot give up.

"You belong to Landon now," Victoria's murmured words slid into my mind. She sounded so pleasant. Relaxed.

Relax.

Let go.

"Just like me..." Her tone was satisfied. It shivered with a sensual groan. Far away, I felt her lean down over me. The brush of hair across my chest was distant.

No!

There was a wolverine in my chest. A wild animal trapped and clawing for escape. It felt as if it had awakened suddenly and realized it was under assault. That it was being caged. And it wanted out.

No!

The silent, shouted word was no longer a shield. It was an attack.

"Kiss me, and surrender..." Victoria's lips were on the corner of my mouth, teasing me. Her scent was in my nose: the scent of sex and submission and desire and satisfaction. It was almost enough to overcome me. I knew that all I had to do was turn my mouth and give in. It would all be over qui—

No!

There was no way I was letting Landon Shrike turn my Victoria into his mindless puppet. There was no way I was letting Seth Torrance keep my Daisy and my Carmen as his obedient bimbo playthings. And there was no way I was letting this Clayton fucker take my Amber away from me.

With all of my mental strength, I shoved the massive weight off my mind and focused all my effort on a single movement. It wasn't graceful. It wasn't smooth and lightning quick and masterfully balanced. My form was terrible, and if Terra had seen me she would have wondered what kind of grotesque monster she'd created.

But it worked.

My hand clumsily twisted, wrapping Victoria's supporting arm in the crook of my elbow and tugging it out from under her. My hips awkwardly wriggled and lifted, pushing the woman's weight over sideways. The fingers of the other hand wrapped around the screen in front of me and, with what felt like the last of my energy, turned it to one side.

Victoria's weight bounced on the mattress beside me. She gasped in shock. Her eyes widened instinctively. And then latched onto the screen I'd pointed at her face.

She stood no chance. She'd been triggered by this video too many times before. Her mental defenses stood in ruins. "Oh..." she whispered, and I felt a little shudder of pleasure run through the mattress as she gave in.

I lay on my back until my wrist grew tired and my hand slowly dropped to my chest. When my eyes cracked open again and I looked over, Victoria's hand was still in the air. The screen in her hand had been directed toward her face, and flickering colors reflected in her eyes and danced across her cheeks.

I realized the music was still pounding in my ears. I felt like I'd been underwater and only just surfaced. With effort, I rolled my naked body over and pushed myself up onto my knees. Then, groaning, I swung my legs off the bed and shoved off the mattress. The music was still blasting when I left the bedroom, but I didn't figure it would bother the neighbors. I was realizing that the abruptness of the mental invasion had made everything seem heightened, even volume.

Groggily, I staggered into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. I felt like I'd just woken up from a poor night of sleep, and that meant I needed two things.

A plan, and a big cup of coffee.

* * *

The music had stopped, I realized. There was silence from the bedroom down the hall.

I was staring at the table with a warm mug between my palms. The grain of the wood looked like rippling lines and twisting spirals. The problem in my mind was like a lock, chaining me in place as strongly as the invisible shackles I'd just resisted.

I knew that there had to be a way to save my lovers, to once and for all break them free from the hold TRANCE had on their lives. But even though I had resisted the control of the company's sinister mind control program, I knew that throwing off previously entrenched programming from their minds would be an even more difficult struggle. Still, I tried not to focus on the impossibility of the task as I ran through what I knew. I resisted it, I thought. And Daisy overcame it...

The mug was empty, and my brain was buzzing with caffeine.

Then, at last, the third tumbler turned over. Lassiter overcame it, too. I was scrambling back into the bedroom for my phone, taking in the shadowy figure of Victoria as I searched for my pants in the dark.

The woman lay quietly on her back, spread-eagled across the bed. Her big, round tits rose and fell with her breaths. One hand lazily parted her outer folds while her thumb played with her clit. She was quietly murmuring something, over and over, and I couldn't help the flush of heat that spread all the way down into my cock when I heard her words.

"Listen and obey... Cannot resist..."

I steeled myself and stacked the three phones that had been in my pants — mine, Daisy's and Amber's. Clambering up to the head of the bed, I sat against the wall and set them on the sheets beside me. I took a deep breath, then raised my device and unlocked it.

I made a call. On the other end of the line, a phone rang.

Bringgg. The first one went unanswered.

Bringgg. And the second.

I clutched the phone harder. Please pick up... I thought. Please pick up...

Brin—

Click.

"Hello?" The voice sounded rough with sleep.

"Mike? It's me, Chance. Listen, I know it's late but I need your help with something. Right now. It couldn't wait."

A pause. Then, "Hold on a sec." I heard the click of a lamp being turned on.

"You don't need to say anything yet, just listen." My words were tumbling over each other. I had the sense that I was onto something, like the curtains were pulling back. "Yesterday you said that at the meeting you had to resist the urge to obey when Shrike used the trigger phrase. How did you do that?"

Another pause. "Sir?" Lassiter sounded confused.

"How did you do it?" I repeated. "When Shrike used the trigger on Victoria you said she dropped right down into a trance and did whatever he wanted. But you also said that you had to resist the urge to do the same. How did you resist it?"

"Oh. Hmm..."

I waited, my skin practically tingling with anticipation. I almost flinched when I felt a touch on my leg, but when I glanced down I saw it was just Victoria. She continued to stare up at the ceiling, but her hand slowly slid across my thigh and brushed against my thickening length.

I swallowed. Her mantra was quiet, but it shivered through me.

"Listen and obey... Cannot resist..."

Lassiter spoke. "I just knew that I couldn't give in. It was similar to how you feel when you're way too tired but you know you have to keep working. So you shake off the exhaustion and refocus. I knew that in order to continue to serve as your spy, I couldn't reveal myself as being under the power of the trigger. And..." The man cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. "I knew there was no way I was going to crawl across the table on my hands and knees to blow another man."

"Listen and obey..." Victoria's fingers circled around my girth and gently began to stroke. "Cannot resist..."

I swallowed down my lust and nodded, even though Mike couldn't see me. It fit. I knew that I had implanted his status as my spy deep into his consciousness. And I could assume, based on the man's tone, that being straight was also a part of his identity. Mike had reached deep down inside of himself and drawn up the necessary strength to resist his programming. He had used his core beliefs to give him the certainty he needed to take back his will.

I had done the same, in the moment when I decided that no one and no thing could take my loved ones away from me. That was my new identity, the one I'd forged in recent weeks. And it had allowed me to turn aside the invasive power of TRANCE's hypnotic attack.

Daisy, whether or not she intended to, must have pulled from the same well of strength to regain control of her mind.

I had an odd sense of déjà vu, remembering Terra's words. A part of you, a part of your mind, is stuck, anchored, wrapped in the chains of the things you've done and thought and learned. I nodded to myself. "But we can break those chains," I murmured. "By remembering who we are. And who we want to become."

"Listen and obey... Cannot resist..." Victoria's mantra now a double-edged sword. Her hand stroked languidly, expertly, up and down my shaft, and the words fanned a fire of lust in my chest. But I also knew that every time she repeated them she was hammering them further into her mind, building a new version of herself who was trapped deeper and deeper in TRANCE's web.

"What's that, Sir?" Mike sounded more attentive now, more awake, and his voice reminded me that I still had the phone up to my ear.

"No, sorry, nothing. I just figured something out. Something big." My words were a rush. My pulse was racing, with arousal but also with genuine excitement. I wanted to end the call, knew that I needed to help Victoria. She would be the test subject, the one to prove or disprove my theory.

Bang.

A loud noise startled me, and it took me a second to realize that it had come through the phone.

"What the hell?" Lassiter's voice was a harsh rasp, and I thought I could catch a grating edge of fear. "Who could that possibly be, this late?"

I felt a cold shiver down my back. This couldn't be a coincidence. "Mike," I said. "I don't think you should go to the door."

Bang.

Abruptly, I realized that there was something I hadn't told him. "Landon Shrike knows," I said desperately. "He knows that I've been following Amber. He knows that we started to dig into Platinum Services. He knew that I wasn't going to stop until I freed my girls from his power."

Ice spread through my chest. It didn't matter that I was telling him now. I was telling him too late.

Lassiter cursed quietly, harshly. "Then he has to have figured out that someone was helping you put the pieces together." The man must have put his phone down, because were rustling noises from the other end of the line, the sound of doors or drawers sliding open and closed. Like I was on speakerphone listening to Lassiter go through a nightstand or a closet.

I stood, pulling away from Victoria's hand and standing in the dark with my rock hard length swaying in front of me. Cold ran down my spine. A distant memory resurfaced, a silly idea I'd once had about a porn production company sending hitmen to my apartment as retribution for stealing their actresses.

No... I thought. That wasn't possible.

"There you are, slugger," Lassiter muttered, and there was the quick, gentle rapping sound of wood on wood.

Then, a third almighty bang sounded in my ear. It had a tearing, crashing quality. I gripped the phone harder.

"Fuck," Lassiter swore. "That was the front door."

Silence. It seemed like a long time. It could have been seconds, really. Or minutes. My fingers squeezed and relaxed on the phone, and I imagined Lassiter's doing the same on the grip of his baseball bat.

This isn't happening, I told myself. Things like this don't actually happen. It's just in video games and movies.

A rattling noise broke the silence. "He's locked the door." A new voice, loud and nearby, but a bit muffled.

"Who the hell are you?" Lassiter was obviously trying to sound aggressive and in control. "What do you want? Get out of my house. I already called the police!"

Good, I thought, relieved, before realizing that Mike was bluffing. He still hadn't hung up on me, which meant he hadn't contacted the police, or anyone else.

A moment of quiet.

Then, there was a crash and Lassiter yelled. Another yell answered him like a roar and there was a second loud crash and the sound of splintering wood. The phone had probably been knocked to the floor, because there was a quiet thump and when I could hear again the only sound was a low, quiet groaning.

"Hello, Mr. Lassiter."

I heard Lassiter's sudden intake of breath. He must have been on the floor, as well, because his voice was close. It sounded harsh with pain. "What the fuck are you supposed to be?"

"The Gwennen send their regards," a voice rasped. "They don't appreciate spies. Or traitors."

"Who the hell are the G—?" But Lassiter never had the chance to finish his astonished question.

There was a sound. And I wanted to believe it wasn't real, that none of this was happening, because I'd only ever heard that sound in video games and action films. It was the loud crack of a gun going off.

My blood froze.

"Come on..." I muttered. "Come on." I didn't know what I was hoping for so fervently, but there was a deafening silence that cut through me like a knife.

Nothing.

Then, the voice again. It was closer now, like the speaker was kneeling close over the businessman's body. "No pulse."

No... I thought. No no no...

Further away, like the speaker had gotten back to his feet and turned away. "We fix all this up. Quick. If Shrike hasn't heard from his woman in half an hour, it'll be time to deal with Mr. Laurenzi."

I hung up before I was aware I'd done it, before whoever was on the other side could find Lassiter's phone and see that I was listening. Numb, barely able to stand, I stumbled back to the bed and fell onto the mattress. I crawled towards Victoria, the focus of fear driving me forward with desperation.

"Alright, Vi," I muttered, kneeling beside the woman. "It's now or never."

And it was.

I am Mr. Laurenzi.

* * *

Victoria's hand slipped across the sheets toward me, up onto my knee. I had to take her hand and interlace our fingers to prevent her instinctive, programmed desire to reach out and start pleasuring my cock with her body.

"Alright, Victoria," I told her, speaking as much to myself as to the entranced brunette. "It's time to remember who you really are."

I had no idea if my plan would work. But it was all I could think of, and that had to be better than nothing. If my insight was wrong, then there would be no way for me to talk Victoria into breaking this trance herself. I would be at a loss, too, to save Carmen, Daisy and Amber. And at that point, I might as well sit here and wait for the goddamn deathsquad that had just...

I forced my thoughts away from what had just happened to Lassiter. I knew it would probably hit me later. But now I had to focus.

The stakes had just been raised.

Beside me, Victoria's lips were still moving. Her eyes were glazed, rarely blinking. "Listen and obey... Cannot resist..."

On my knees, I held the beautiful woman's hand in both of my own and squeezed. "You've got to resist, Vi," I ordered. I didn't know if she could hear me, but I had to believe that some part of it was getting through. "You've got to. Not just for you, but for me. And for Daisy and Carmen and Amber, too. Because that's what you do. You do things for others, even when it's hard and inconvenient. You take care of people even when you probably don't want to, or when they should be the ones taking responsibility."

I couldn't tell if my words were penetrating into her mind, but at least she'd fallen silent.

"Remember when I took us out to dinner and you saved my ass by getting us that reservation? Or when you showed up at Starside to tell me that I needed to fix things with Daisy? That's who you are. Not this mindless sexbot programmed by Landon fucking Shrike."

Victoria's lips twitched when I said Shrike's name, but her eyelids had drifted closed. Her eyes were darting back and forth behind them, like she was deep in a vivid dream.

I paused, watching her, then went on.

"We trust you, Vi, because you know how to take care of us. And sometimes, maybe, we take you for granted. But usually it's just because you're so good at it that we forget someone is behind the scenes making it all possible. You're that woman. You're the one who takes care of things, who takes care of us. You do it even when we don't remember to say 'please' and 'thank you.' And you can do it right now, by breaking free of this thing."

I was quiet for a moment, hoping that my encouraging tone would reach her, but Victoria lay silent, her chest rising and falling. I wondered how much time I had taken to throw off the hypnotic video that had tried to trap me. Certainly not this long, right?

"You took the right step yesterday, standing up for yourself in that boardroom. And you didn't get what you deserved. You deserved to be listened to and instead you were disrespected and used wantonly. But if you, right now, can stand up and take back control of yourself, then you will be proving that you are that woman. You're the one who takes care of others and is finally learning to take care of herself. And you can take another step. And then another. Until you are right here with me, right now, yourself. The woman who is going to help me save our family. Because that is who you are."

Victoria made a quiet sound then, and turned her head. There was a furrow between her sculpted eyebrows, like she was concentrating. Her face twisted, like her dream had turned into a nightmare. "No..." she murmured, so quiet I could barely hear. "Stop it..."

Is she really...? I wondered, and couldn't stop a brief flutter of hope. I lifted our entwined hands and kissed her knuckles. "Come on, Vi..." I muttered, staring into her face.

Her eyes opened. Behind fluttering lashes, I could see that they were clear.

"Chance...?" she whispered. The dark orbs eyes widened in surprise when, instead of answering, I simply bent my head and kissed her passionately. "Oh..." she murmured into my lips. I felt one of her hands rise up to run through my hair, to pull me closer.