Chapter 27: Thoughts

13 November 2025

Rebecca

And with that, I was heading back to the facility. Behind me, the coffee shop was a receding blur. I left Emily sitting in her booth. The girl is several steps further away from the chaotic entity that had entered; she is slowly quietening while the virus continues to progress through her. Her mind still contains all of its files, but it can become a blank slate as soon as she is claimed by the Master.

And in the meantime, Emily will also eventually be less of a variable for which Jenny needs to account.

As I entered the lab, I could hear my heels clicking on the tiled floor. Jenny was hunched over a terminal.

“Hey, love, what are you so tense about?” I asked.

I watched as she straightened up. It was unusual seeing her looking like this, especially since she infected herself. We all noticed how our bloody posture had improved under the virus’s influence. So for her to be bent over, it had to be serious.

“I’m trying to plan out how to help Master get everything he desires in his life. But there are issues that I just can’t wrap my head around.”

I stopped at the edge of her workspace, and leaned over to peer at her screen.

“GABA-A potentiators? NMDA receptor antagonists? What am I looking at here?”

Jenny took off her specs, and pinched her nose. It was a surprisingly human gesture for her.

“I’m researching chemical compounds to make it possible to recalibrate subjects who aren’t susceptible to the virus.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her euphemisms.

“Recalibrate subjects? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to use your chemistry set to cast an Imperius curse on men.” The fact that she didn’t smile at the reference meant I was far closer to the mark than I expected. “You are trying to do exactly that, aren’t you? Are you barking?”

“Not at all. It makes perfect sense. Now that I understand how the virus works, it’s child’s play to turn any woman into one of Master’s subjects. But the virus refuses to bond with men for some reason. It triggers some kind of extreme immunity response. The body just rejects the invader. So, since I can’t co-opt men that way to do Master’s bidding, I’m trying to be creative.”

I couldn’t fault her logic, even if, yet again, her methods were rather fanatical. And, I had to admit, I now thought and felt the same way.

“Why don’t you go down to the second level? Introduce yourself to Anastasia Melnykova. She goes by Stasi. She’s Ukrainian. She’s been in London since shortly after the war started. Her family evacuated from Kyiv. She’s really smart, and has some background on psychoactive pharmaceuticals.”

That got a smile from my colleague.

“Thank you, Rebecca. That sounds like a brilliant idea.”

“That’s my speciality, after all,” I said with a smile and a laugh. “So now that I’ve drawn your map for brainwashing, how is the other project coming along? Have you talked with Master about claiming his family?”

Jenny shook her head. “He isn’t ready for that yet. I have a feeling that it’s going to take a little more… persuading. I have no doubt that he wants it, but he refuses to admit it.”

“Okay. But has he prohibited it?” I asked. “Are we under any restrictions?”

“No. He hasn’t explicitly said anything. So… I suppose we are not restricted.”

Jenny turned back to her tablet, and linked it to her monitor. She swiped away the other research, and brought up the folder she had prepared on the Edwards family.

“As you know, since he hasn’t commanded us, that’s why we can talk about it so freely. I’m sure that if he had said absolutely not, we probably wouldn’t even be able to ponder it. Hmm… one more thing for me to research going forward.” Jenny managed to crack a smile with her last comment.

“Always the scientist, hmm?”

“Of course, Rebecca. Just like you’re the lawyer, finding loopholes for us to exploit.”

She had me pegged there, so I shrugged. Then I looked at the first subfolder she had opened from the directory: Olivia.

"The Master’s daughter is the most logical acquisition," Jenny commented. "She is the Master’s legacy. She represents the future for him. From what we’ve been able to figure out, she is shy, insecure, and something of a loner. She will be more easily isolated also.”

She tapped to move on to the next option: Mary.

“His wife is active, vivacious, and intense. She is frequently with others, whether at an athletic club, a social event, or at home with Master and their housekeeper. She is much more likely to resist on her own. My belief is that if we get to the daughter first, and bond her with Master, the mother will be easier to assimilate.”

I looked again at the profiles of the two women. I considered the logic that Jenny had laid out, and I couldn’t see any obvious flaws. Jenny’s analysis was not hindered by ethical or moral hesitations. The only things that mattered were the likelihood of success, and how much that success would please our Master.

While I was thinking, Jenny tapped on a digital photo of the daughter. It was a photo of the girl sitting on a park bench, looking at her mobile, which Sarah had taken during our early research of Master. Back when Jenny and I figured we could use the intelligence for manipulating him.

"You’re right," I said. "Olivia first.”

“And I’ll be the one to make the approach. I’ll get her ready. Then Master will be one step closer to having the family he deserves."

The discussion had gone very smoothly, and I was satisfied that my friend and colleague had our Master’s best interests well in hand. I tucked away the events from earlier in the afternoon. Jenny didn’t need to fret about my special project.

***

Sarah

The cool night air of London hit my face as I stepped out of Chloe’s building, but it couldn't touch the fever burning under my skin. My heels – heels! – clicked against the damp pavement. I had never walked like this. Never worn heels like these. Yet now, it all felt perfectly normal and right.

The metallic tang was back, sharper than ever, coating the roof of my mouth. That taste swirled in me now whenever I was thinking about serving Master in this very special way. It was the taste of a successful hunt.

I headed towards the Tube station, my body moving with a liquid grace that would have been alien to the Sarah I used to be. I didn’t slow down to look at a tree, or a bird, or a mural. I saw them, sure. But none of them were important enough to command my attention. Every person I passed - the man fumbling with his umbrella, the teenager shouting into his phone, the woman burdened by heavy shopping bags - they were background noise to me now. They cluttered the world with their independence and their selfishness.

Those were the things I had traded away.

Well, perhaps traded wasn’t quite the right word. After all, I wasn’t given a choice. Rebecca infected me, and Jenny conditioned me.

And Master made me.

Had I known how good it would feel, though, I would have chosen it. It feels so much better than anything else I’ve ever known.

I thought of Chloe.

She didn’t get to choose either. But she was talking like she would have chosen this too. She didn’t understand it, of course. Still, she was proper tempted.

I thought of the look in her eyes just before I left - that glazed, pliable softness. I had taken her hand, felt the frantic beat of her pulse, and then I had leaned in. I had shared the gift. I betrayed ten years of friendship with a kiss like Judas. And as I took the lift down to earth, the realisation hit me with the force of a physical blow.

It felt exquisite.

The guilt I should have felt was wholly absent, and replaced by a buzzing heat that pooled at the base of my spine. I wasn't her friend anymore. I was her deliverance. I was the one who had reached into her chaotic, cluttered life and pulled the first thread of her undoing.

The betrayal didn't feel like a sin, though. I was making a sacrifice at an altar to our god.

A train pulled into the station, a rush of stale air and screeching metal. I stepped onto the carriage, finding a seat near the doors. I sat like my mentors. It was part unconscious, and part practised for how we knew Master liked us: spine straight to press my breasts out, hands folded to look demure and ready, knees together like a lady.

At least in public.

In private, I am Master’s abject slut and object.

Across from me, a man in a rumpled suit looked up, his eyes widening as they caught mine. I didn't look away. I let him see the amber swirl in my gaze. I felt a predatory hunger stir — a desire to reach out and smooth the stress lines on his forehead, to silence the frantic tapping of his fingers on his briefcase.

But he is a man who is not my Master. Therefore, he is nothing to me. The virus doesn’t care about any other man.

I had once been taught that the greatest art wasn't painted on a canvas or a wall; it was fashioned in the mind. As the train rattled towards Shoreditch, I realised I had finally stopped being a mere observer. I am now an instrument. And the fact that I had been used on Chloe - one of the few people who truly knew the "old" Sarah - made the leash around my neck feel tighter, warmer, and utterly perfect.

I was going home to my loft, but I wasn't the same woman who had left it this afternoon. I am one of Master’s harvesters now.