Chapter 4: The Colleague

21 September 2025

Jenny developed a plan to spread the virus in a more elegant manner than rubbing a swab inside someone’s mouth. She had an idea, but she had to hope that it would work. On Monday morning, she would take that leap of faith.

For the rest of her Sunday, Jenny indulged her research side, without holding herself back with restrictions like ethics. Or morality. And she realised that if her simulations were accurate, it wouldn’t even matter if she had willing subjects once they were infected.

The data on how her own brain was functioning now that she had “lit up” the virus was beyond her imagination. Yes, she was still Dr. Jenny Thorne, Ph.D. But at the same time, she might as well be a completely different woman.

She pulled up the fresh set of comparative data — her prior proprietary research on hypothetical infective agents with psychological impacts, and cross-referenced them to her own medical data. She hadn’t predicted how systematic the virus was in her prior era. It was designed to infiltrate an entire range of systems. The limbic system was hijacked, to create a permanent combined state of hyper-arousal and hyper-suggestibility. The endocrine system was incentivised to mass-produce adrenaline to amplify the subject’s energy and abilities, and also oxytocin to induce a deeply focused sense of love and devotion. The nervous system was pumping massive amounts of dopamine to facilitate the rapid development of the new reward hierarchy.

This combination was breathtaking to Jenny. According to the simulations, the virus would trigger a massive release of chemicals and energy pulses in the subject, but only when they were following a direct command from an appropriate source. No, not following. Obeying. As a result, for the infected women, obedience wouldn't just be mandatory; it would be rewarding. It was the most intense rush of euphoria imaginable.

As she cross-referenced the personal sequencing against the data from the package, another strange anomaly caught her eye. The version of the virus described in the package wasn't the origin point; the genetic markers suggested it was at least a third-generation derivative. It had been refined, or perhaps degraded. It was modified from another primary vector. She wondered about the Subject 00 who must have provided the original architecture for this masterpiece. And it made her ponder – maybe the Alexandria source was… Subject 01? 02? She couldn’t even know. Another mystery to circle back to.

So many unanswered questions, which led to her final thought of this session: had she gone too far?

As she pondered that, Jenny’s fingers hovered over the "Sequence Termination" button on her screen. This was the moment she was supposed to introduce a flaw or an antibody — something that could dismantle the viral bond or “cure” the infected patient. But as she watched the indicator flash again and again, she realised that she lacked the will to perform the simulated termination.

If she broke the sequence, this new reality would vanish. She would condemn herself to the chaos of human will, and the friction of dissent. The messy unpredictability of the world would return. He would never get to command her to obey.

That last idea turned her stomach. It made her feel depressed. Hopeless.

Instead, she deleted the termination command. She stopped wanting to know if the simulation would work.

Suddenly, she felt a surge of pleasure, like a combination of being praised and having her clit stroked by a knowing lover.

“Fuck,” she said out loud. “Now it has me sabotaging my work.”

Moving on from contemplating a cure, she explored the limits of the virus's control. Her fingers flew across the keys, refining the viral bond in her simulation, making the "Command-Response" loop even tighter. As she optimised the hypothetical neural shackles, a deep, heavy heat began to coil in her lower abdomen. It wasn't just a sense of achievement; it was another wave of unmistakable sexual arousal that pulsed in time with the blinking cursor. Every time she tightened the leash on the simulation’s digital subject, her own breath hitched, her skin flushing with a feverish, sensitive glow.

It was literally getting her off to perfect her leash.

***

The sun had not yet burned through the London fog on the first Monday of autumn. Jenny had yet again worked far too late, slept far too little, and was leaning a little too far over her workspace.

The sound of knuckles rapping on the glass of her lab door made her jump. She quickly minimised a window showing the "Reward-Feedback" simulations, her pulse racing as if she’d been caught in a shameful, intimate act.

Rebecca Stevens stepped into the room, her tailored jacket fluttering. Rebecca had an undergraduate education in biochemistry, but her parents steered her to law school. She worked as a solicitor for the consortium which operated the science park where Jenny worked.

For the first few months of her time at the campus, Jenny had occasional interactions with Rebecca. She was kind and engaging enough for the most part, but Jenny found her to be a little stiff and rigid at first. But with time, and some late nights at the pub with some of the other women scientists, she had to admit that Rebecca had her merits. She was honest and loyal. She wasn’t afraid to open up to others. She could drink men twice her size under the table, and knew expressions to make a football hooligan blush.

Plus, even to the entirely straight scientist, Rebecca was a proper stunner.

So, until very recently, Rebecca showing up unannounced had become something of a treat for Jenny. Some fun banter, a little ribbing, and then, in Rebecca’s inimitable way, straight to business. But now…

"Jenny? What are you doing here so early again? Don’t you have a life anymore?"

Jenny **** a smile, though her hands were still trembling slightly, the evidence of a new illicit thrill tingling in her fingertips. "Just... double-checking the protein folding. You know I can’t publish until I have every detail just right."

Rebecca walked over, peering at the remaining windows on the monitor. "You look pale, Jenny. Is it really worth it for you to be working this hard for this project?"

Jenny looked back at the monitor, knowing she was concealing the blueprint for a new world from her legal-minded colleague. She wanted to lie to the lawyer, even though she considered Rebecca to be a friend, or at least as close as she came to having friends these days. But of course, the data she was generating, and the shortcut she took with her self-testing, were exactly the sorts of things which would make a solicitor pull the plug.

"Yes," Jenny hissed. "It is absolutely worth it. And more.”

Jenny stood by a large interactive monitor on one wall of her office, her fingers dancing across the interface to bring up the virus's primary sequence. Meanwhile, Rebecca leaned against the edge of a stainless steel table, her arms crossed, watching Jenny with the intensity of a hawk.

"How long have you been at it this time, Jenny? Another eighteen hours straight?”

"Closer to twenty-eight this time," Jenny said, her voice a fraction higher than usual. After a **** laugh, she cleared her throat, forcing herself to shove down any sheepishness.

“And what mystery have you uncovered that merits total exhaustion?”

"The capsid structure is unlike anything in the database. It’s... aggressive. The way it identifies host receptors isn't merely a chemical lock-and-key mechanism; it’s a high-affinity pursuit. Once it gets activated, the viral envelope undergoes a radical conformational change. It leads to a total systemic takeover. Take a look."

Rebecca straightened up, and stepped around the table to better see the details on Jenny’s screen. "Explain it to me like you would to a donor, or to the board. What do you mean by a systemic takeover? What does the virus actually do to the host?"

Jenny hesitated, her gaze as she considered the sterile talking points. She felt the heat rising in her chest again, a secret thrill she had been burying deep beneath her scientific detachment.

Fuck it, she thought to herself.

"If my simulations are accurate... the virus promotes a physiological restructuring. It targets multiple systems with a particular end in mind. It doesn't harm the host; it reprogrammes it. Her. Specifically, it seems to be an enslavement virus. And based on the chromosomal markers it targets..."

She looked up at Rebecca, her eyes flaring with even greater intensity.

"It is designed specifically for women."

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the low hum of the lab's cooling fans. Rebecca’s face went pale, her eyes searching Jenny’s for any sign that this was a mistake or a joke.

"Hold on? So now it’s not just a stripper, but a ****? You’re already on thin ice after what you posted a few months ago. Pardon my French, but what the bloody fuck are you doing?" Rebecca asked, her voice tight with shock and disbelief. "Are you trying to get yourself binned? Why would you even conceive of something so targeted, so... cruel? What is the point of it?"

"It’s not cruel at all," Jenny replied. Intellectually, she knew Rebecca was right. But she had long since crossed the Rubicon on this one. As she stood there, her lab coat suddenly felt too heavy against her sensitised skin. A deep, pulsing warmth took root in her core, and a traitorous arousal surged every time she looked at or even thought about the "enslavement" markers on the screen. While her mind grasped for facts, her body felt the answer, the why she needed. The answer was total, helpless surrender.

Jenny couldn’t speak the words for Rebecca though, because Rebecca wasn’t ready to understand them. Yet.

But she could be made ready.

“Listen, I think you just have to get a more first-hand exposure to the impacts in order to understand how compelling these data are. I truly believe that it will change your mind.”

"Jenny, you’re losing your bloody mind." Rebecca said, trying to pull away as Jenny reached out and grabbed Rebecca’s sleeve. “This sounds like madness, and I’m not even the hard one to convince. You know better than anyone that you can’t get more funding if you can’t explain why this project is sexier than some cure-all pill.”

"I can show you sexy," Jenny whispered, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

Rebecca looked down at Jenny’s hand on her arm, her brow furrowed in confusion. "You’re a mess, Jen. You need to go home or see a doctor. Blimey, have you been exposed — "

"I’m fine," Jenny interrupted. She stepped fully into Rebecca’s personal space, the scent of her colleague — expensive perfume and sterile lab soap — filling her senses. "I think you don’t understand what it means to have a purpose, Rebecca. It’s a liberation."

"Liberation?" Rebecca shouted back, her voice mirroring the strange intensity in Jenny’s eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Jenny didn't answer with words. She released Rebecca’s arm and turned back the touchscreen on the wall. She reached out to her wireless mouse, and made the screen flash the green colour wave she had triggered before.

As soon as the verdant light hit her, Jenny felt the shock of electricity surge through her, and she was rewarded with a powerful arousal. Jenny had built her own Skinner box, and she just got her food pellet, only far better.

Infused with the burst of endorphins, Jenny faced her colleague again. She needed to convince Rebecca, no matter what it took. The virus was demanding action.

"I can't let you take this from me," Jenny uttered, leaning in until their foreheads touched. "And I can't let you stay out there in the cold, thinking this is something to be feared. You’ve always looked out for me. Now it’s my turn."

Rebecca’s eyes widened, as genuine alarm pierced her confusion. "Jenny, stop. This is — "

But the thought was cut short. Jenny took Rebecca’s head in her hands, and pressed her lips firmly against Rebecca’s, sealing the protest away.

The kiss was deep and powerful from Jenny’s side. She poured everything she was feeling — the urgent heat, and the transgressive joy of the takeover — into the contact.

Rebecca struggled at first to fight off the ****, but as the metallic tang flooded her mouth, Rebecca’s strength strangely melted away. Her hands rose and reached Jenny’s midsection, but her effort to resist and push Jenny away was surprisingly feeble.

The effect of the kiss was even more rapid than Jenny expected. Jenny felt that she was injecting the virus into her colleague, as if her kiss were a hypodermic needle. There was a moist cloud being exhaled into Rebecca’s mouth, helped further by Jenny’s invading tongue, as the pathogen surged through the gap between host and target.

Rebecca gasped, and she was finally able to summon the strength to separate from Jenny.

“What the fuck did you do that for? You’ve gone completely mental!”

Jenny watched with clinical satisfaction as she observed Rebecca. The verbal outburst was predictable, but what captured Jenny’s attention were the non-verbal signs. The colour was draining from Rebecca’s face, and was being replaced by a red flush that began at her collarbone and raced upward. Rebecca’s pupils dilated until her eyes were twin wells of dark, yielding shadow.

And Jenny could easily observe through the thin fabric of Rebecca’s blouse that her nipples had hardened.

"I’ve brought you into the experiment," Jenny said softly. "Soon you will see. And you will feel it too."