Chapter 12: The Canvas

6 October 2025

I am Sarah Jenkins.

I am Subject 05.

I am awaiting the Master with all of my being.

***

The world as Sarah knew it was no longer defined by space or time. Now she was governed by colours and sounds.

She was so very happy to have been brought out of the void. Jenny’s compassion, and Rebecca’s guidance, had become constants for her in the days since the incident. At first, Sarah had feared that these two women were trying to tear down her being. It had seemed like they were stripping the paint from her mental walls, and sanding all of her rough edges.

But once she had been reunited with her paints and her canvases, and allowed back into the world, Sarah understood so much better. They weren’t trying to consign her to darkness. They were seeking to unite her with him.

Her masterpiece from a few days ago had completed her bonding with that joyous purpose. She felt her heart beating for him, and she yearned to create for him. And the pleasure. Oh the pleasure.

The viral load in her neural pathways fired in perfect synchronisation when she created for him, and when she cooperated with her new sisters. It wasn't just a physical sensation; it was a deluge of dopamine and oxytocin that felt like being touched by a thousand lovers at once. It was a sexual crescendo that started in the frontal lobe and washed down her spine, leaving her gasping, vibrating, and utterly adored.

Full. Warm. Joy.

Every stroke of her paintbrush which aligned with the Master’s aesthetic was met with a surge of neurological ecstasy. If she got the curve of a line exactly right, the viral reward would hit — a sharp, localised burst of stimulation that made her knees buckle. She was not merely an artist; she was a biological instrument being played by a divine hand.

Sarah finished piece after piece after piece. She had never felt such inspiration, and her energy was limitless. There were times when Jenny almost had to drag her away from her easel to eat or sleep or use the loo.

“Goodness, girl, have you been swimming in your paints?” Rebecca chided her one night with a smile.

It felt so good to smile back at her.

"He will be happy with me, won’t he?” Sarah asked her colleague.

“Yes, Sarah,” Rebecca replied, the emerald light in her eyes reflecting on the wild splashes of colour and shade on the canvas. "You have done wonders. I know he will want to reward you fully."

The "Sarah" who had been smuggled into the facility a week ago no longer existed. The new Sarah was a being of pure pleasure. There was no thought of escape, because there was nowhere to go. To try to flee this feeling of purpose was like seeking banishment into a soul-crushing void.

Jenny no longer needed to test Sarah’s devotion to the project. Sarah had long since learned what being good was, and the viral incentives took care of the rest.

"Why do you exist?" Rebecca asked during a routine calibration, her blonde braid perfectly neat, her green eyes fixed on the readout.

"To be his vessel," Sarah whispered, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her amber eyes wide and shining like hollow glass beads.

"And who fills you?"

"The Master, of course," she answered. As Sarah spoke the name, a small, controlled pulse of pleasure flickered through her.

"What would happen if you failed him?"

The colour drained from Sarah’s face. She felt a phantom chill. "I — the subject disappears," she whimpered. "The subject becomes cold. The subject becomes nothing." As Sarah thought of that, the light faded from her eyes, transitioning from amber to darkness. “Please… I don’t want to be nothing.”

"You won’t be," Jenny chimed in, stepping forward to put her arm around Sarah."Be his. Be everything he wants you to be."

***

The office was unofficially Sarah’s studio now, at least until she was allowed to return to her flat following her “return” from the fictional retreat. Sarah had asked Jenny to adjust the lighting, and the room was now bathed in a soft, amber glow. The light was not the burning yellow which opened the virus. This was a more subtle, and therefore soothing, shade.

Sarah was kneeling on a velvet cushion at the centre of the room, perfectly still. Her eyes matched the colour of the lights, and were infused with a peaceful glow. Every few seconds, a faint, rhythmic pulse of warmth radiated from the base of her skull down her spine. She was experiencing a low-level neural reward for maintaining a posture of perfect silence. To Sarah, it felt like being held by the very air around her. Her mind was a blank slate waiting for the next imprint.

Jenny sat at the work bench, finishing her takeaway chow mein, allowing herself a few minutes to catch up on the news of the day. Her bright blue eyes were calm behind her glasses.

"Jenny?" Sarah’s voice was small, hesitant.

"Yes, Sarah?"

"May I... may this subject have permission to ask a question? About how you became his architect?"

Jenny set down her mobile. She looked at Sarah, and saw submission in Sarah's amber eyes. It made Jenny’s own heart hammer against her ribs, a biological "thank you" from the virus for preparing this sister-vessel.

"Permission granted," Jenny said, her voice dropping into a clinical, reflective tone.

Sarah’s head tilted up. Her eyes were glazed with a shimmering clarity, the yellow tinge heating around her pupils. "Why do you serve the Master so completely? Was it a choice you made all at once?"

Jenny leaned back in her chair and pondered the question. "It wasn't the choice you think it was. As you know, I am a virologist by training. A scientist. I was given samples of the virus by people who didn’t understand it. A doctor doing tribal studies in Africa had taken blood samples from an unusual clan, where the men had many wives and lovers. It had been stored in a repository at my university, ignored for years.”

“What led me to it was a woman who had a mental breakdown. She had been living what seemed to be a perfectly normal life, but when her lover suffered a heart attack, she lost control, and was institutionalised. The write-up mentioned strange electrochemical reactions which had been tracked for months, and then they suddenly reversed after his death.”

“I got access to her, and was allowed to draw some blood. The characteristics were remarkably similar to the African samples, except for those reactions which were seemingly going backwards. It was like her neurons were going on strike.”

“So maybe it was an accident that I even isolated it. But I did, and I knew I was on to something, if I could only figure out what. And I wanted to be special."

Jenny stopped and looked at her hands. "I ran into roadblocks with my research, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I would have funding. I felt that I had to accelerate the work even if it wasn’t safe for my career, and then even if it wasn’t ethical. And then I got a secret package, which pointed me even further in this direction, and suggested that the virus had been weaponised.”

“Suddenly, I wasn't observing the virus anymore; I was admiring it. And… maybe it was admiring me too. So I exposed myself to it. And then, I knew that the Master was far more than just a concept. I am convinced that he is a reality. I serve him, whether I meant to initially or not. And now that the virus has taken hold, there is no going back."

"You did it to yourself intentionally?" Sarah asked.

"I did," Jenny said, a strange, calm light in her eyes. Recalling the day she stopped being 'Dr. Thorne' caused a surge of arousal that made her fingers tremble against the tablet. The cursive name on her coat was just a label on a container that now belonged to the Master.

Jenny felt filled with nervous energy. She stood and began to slowly circle Sarah. "I kept researching it in secret. I was fascinated. It was a virus that didn't kill; it possessed and seduced and enslaved. It targeted specific neural pathways in women, rewiring the response to authority, smoothing out the jagged edges of the ego. I had spent months watching it under the lens, documenting how it transformed the cellular structure of its hosts. But then, a few weeks ago, when the new direction pushed me….” Her voice trailed off.

She could feel the thrum vibrating through her, intensifying as she spoke of the infection. It was a pleasant, heavy weight, as if the air itself had become thick and supportive.

"I don’t want to be cured. I realise that the virus isn't a sickness — it’s an upgrade. But it carried a high price. I abandoned morality. Ethics. Humanity. After I infected myself, I was willing to involuntarily experiment on my colleague. I was willing to kidnap and enslave a total stranger.”

“It took away the burden of doubt, and replaced it with need. I didn’t think about it consciously for long. Rather, I felt the compulsion to bring Rebecca into the fold next. Once we were both bonded in enslavement, we chose you. We are the first three, Sarah. The beginning of Master’s perfect, synchronised world."

Jenny looked down at Sarah, and for a fleeting second, she felt a pang of envy. Sarah’s conditioning was so clean, so nearly total. Jenny still carried the burden of her intellect, a "self" she was forced to maintain to manage the Master’s plans. She hungered for the day the Master would claim her fully and silence the remaining noise of her own mind.

"So, since we’re talking about it, why is it that you wish to serve a man you have never met?"

Sarah didn't hesitate. The question was the foundation of her new reality. "Because I was living in a prison before," she said with certainty, her smile widening into something beautifully vacant. "Before the idea of him, I was just noise. Static. Choices that didn't matter. To serve the Master is to be weightless. When this subject became his, I stopped having to be a person. I learned his purpose."

Sarah leaned forward, her chest rising with a surge of pleasure as her nipples hardened, sensing the proximity of the Master’s design. "The thought of my own will is like glass in my brain. It scrapes and cuts. But his will is a glorious heat."

Sarah’s body relaxed again into a posture of submission. Jenny watched as Sarah’s cheeks and chest flushed. She was responding to the internal stimulus.

She was beautiful, and perfect.

The now-unmistakable taste of the virus filled Jenny's mouth. She knew the Master's arrival was inevitable. And Jenny felt a deep, secret envy of Sarah’s total silence. She was hungry for the day she could lay down her architect duties, and be another slave girl on the floor.

I am Jenny Thorne.

I am awaiting the Master with all of my being.