Lissa Loeffler, Chef, Age 24

I would never have taken this as a job; it’s way too risky, but if I don’t do this I’ll never be able to live with myself. I’m a self described monster but I have a code that I live by and that code demands justice. I steel myself and drive through town toward the Winslow compound.

Where to begin? Ardara has a population of 286, with a median income in the low six figures. By comparison the rest of Westmoreland County sits at around $30,000. A studio condo sells for $65,000, whereas last year a 60 unit apartment building in Pittsburgh went for 85 grand. What I’m saying is that there’s money here. My stolen Escalade looks out of place as I cruise down the street, but only because it isn’t a Mercedes G-class. As an out of towner, I need to go to ground quickly; my Everyman appearance will only go so far in a place with such a small population. As an urban predator I’m way out of my element.

I need a couple things. Intel, a place to set up a temporary headquarters, and ultimately a way in. Nearby Trafford will do for lodgings and a place to swap transport. I need a lot of equipment for the full job, but it’s better to think of this as a series of jobs, so dropping most of the gear off is a better option.

I spend a week surveying the compound, getting the lay of the land, setting up surveillance gear inside the fenced property under cover of night, identifying my targets and their patterns, and waiting for an opening. That opening comes in the form of the weekly two night visit by the chef to the Farmer’s Market in Trafford.

Lissa Loeffler. Graduated from the Le Cordon Bleu program at Point Park College. Age 24. Pale with black hair buzzed very short to avoid the need for a hairnet in the kitchen. Thin androgynous build. Visible piercing in her left nostril. Facebook stalking identifies several tattoos on her arms. Her best feature is a pair of full lips of the sort it usually take surgery to produce. Kind of a goth vibe without the presence of the usual ostentatious and pretentious jewelry or the waifishness that’s generally associated with that subculture. She’ll do for a start.

Waylaying her in Ardara would be nearly impossible, but Trafford, while not a bustling metropolis is a little more like my preferred hunting grounds. Lissa leaves Friday afternoon, books the same room at Anthony’s Hotel and Tavern, arranges for delivery of meat and produce, and returns Sunday afternoon. She usually drinks at the bar downstairs from her room each night. Small window but I see how I can work it.

I’m waiting for her outside her room on the wooden patio that hangs out over the alley behind the building. I fiddle with the door next to hers as if I’m trying to get my key into it’s lock, and she pays no attention to me until I look up.

“Excuse me, can you help me with something, miss?”

She approaches warily, and I will myself to appear harmless. Apparently I’m successful, because she replies “What can I do for you?”

I fiddle more with the key until she gets into arms reach, then I clamp one of my hands around her wrist, and slap a damp cloth over her mouth and nose. “Tell me, does this smell like chloroform to you?”

I easily outweigh her by at least half her mass. It’s child’s play to keep her immobilized while the **** takes effect and her eyes roll back in her head. It’s actually diethyl ether. Chloroform is nasty shit and can fucking kill you. But ether has a huge TD/LD zone so it’s pretty difficult to overdose on it. And it doesn’t cause chemical burns on the lungs. Couldn’t resist the line though. You can’t go wrong with the classics.

I have her bound to the bed in my motel room. I got pretty cliché with this one, and have a tablet stand clamped to the bedpost so that it’s right in front of her face flashing a strobing spiral. She’s wearing a ring gag, a pair of earbuds, and nothing else. A saline drip runs to the IV line in her left hand. I’ve been piping relaxation mantras over the speakers in her ears for about five minutes when her eyes begin to flicker open. Her flushed complexion and dilated pupils tell me that the **** has started to take hold. Poor girl is in for the worst bad trip of her life. And the best.

There are anecdotal tales about the government’s experimentation with a compound named 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, colloquially referred to as BZ. Originally developed as an ulcer treatment, testing was abandoned when patients in the study began to have bizarre hallucinations. The military, of course, had a major hard on for all things hallucinogenic, and were determined to prove that such chemicals could be used as truth serums or mind control ****. They were half right.

In low doses, BZ acts as a CNS depressant. The US Army states that it can “disrupt the high integrative functions of memory, problem solving, attention, and comprehension. A relatively high dose produces toxic delirium, destroying the individual’s ability to perform any military task.” The symptoms are often described as “mad as a hatter, red as a beet, dry as a bone, and blind as a bat”. So basically it’s jimson weed plus. The army scrapped it because it was too hard to control effective dosage (after using it heavily in Vietnam). Lissa is on half a milligram. Which should be sufficient to fuck her up for a good 48 hours.

She tries to look away, see where she is, see anything at all, but I have her head strapped to a board and her neck locked in a strict posture collar. Her options are limited to eyes shut or staring into the spiral, options that I quickly change to a Hobson’s choice with a few quick lidocaine injections to paralyze her eyelids. Helplessly she stares at the ever descending spiral as I **** her aural faculties with messages of rest and relaxation, my vocal tone modulated to sound as peaceful and soothing as Bob Ross.

“Lissa, fighting is useless. You may as well relax and enjoy as much of this as you can. You’re frightened but I promise that you will come to no harm. I will protect you. You are and will remain safe, but in order for that to happen you must relax and listen to me. You must do this to be safe. Just relax and listen. Relax and listen. It’s easy to do. You can’t move and you can’t fight, so giving in is the only option. Try to fight but the outcome is inevitable and predetermined.

“You see, Lissa, you’re being hypnotized. The spiral is drawing you in and as you know you can’t look away. Try to picture yourself not falling into a mindless and obedient trance. You’ll keep thinking about doing exactly that, and it’ll feel so good to just let that happen.”

Forcing a trance on someone is almost totally impossible under normal circumstances. Yes, people can be tricked or lured into one, but there’s a theory out there that all hypnosis is self hypnosis. What most people don’t take into account is that we, as humans, continually alter our own states of consciousness repeatedly throughout any given day, and that’s all that a trance is. When you’re engrossed in a television program or so busy watching TikTok videos that you don’t realize a whole bunch of time has past? Yep. Altered state of consciousness. Same with when you’re in an elevator and watching the numbers change while you’re waiting for your floor. Video games, driving, listening to music, masturbating… all of them push a person to an altered state. Even reading an immersive story.

“Every breath you take brings you closer to the inevitable fall of your mind into the spiral in front of you. Try not to look at the spiral, but even if you could it’s already in your mind, inside you and drawing you into it. Your mind wants to find out what is at the center of the spiral. You want to follow your mind into the spiral, Lissa. You will follow your mind into the spiral, Lissa. You can go now or you can go later, you just need to choose, but you will go into the spiral. A part of your mind is already there and the rest will follow. The spiral is your only escape from physical discomfort, your only escape from your situation. Your only choice is to go now or later, but holding yourself back by going later will only prolong your discomfort, Lissa. Inside the spiral is escape, and comfort, and freedom, and peace, and I want to give all those things to you so you can be safe and happy…”

What I’m doing with Lissa isn’t me dragging her into a trance, it’s convincing her subconscious mind that she’s inevitably going to enter an altered state of consciousness. By telling her that she’s going to be hypnotized, that automatically causes her thoughts to go to every preconceived notion she has regarding trance states. Telling her to try to picture not succumbing is like the old ‘Whatever you do don’t think of green elephants’. The minute you hear it your imagination goes to green elephants. This happens because the subconscious filters out negatives when it’s doing it’s backseat driver routine. The contradictory logic that I’m feeding her creates confusion, and her mind will start to grab onto whatever it considers the most stable truth it can find. Couple that with the **** coursing through her veins and the fact that she’s trussed to a bed like an Eli Roth victim in an ‘80s B thriller and what it’s going to grab onto is that she’s been kidnapped and is going to be brainwashed. Add in the double bind, presenting the only choices as ‘now or later’ and it helps to convince her of the inevitability of her fate.

It takes about twenty minutes before I see the visual signs of an altered state, slack jaw, softening of features… if I hadn’t paralyzed her eyes, her lids would be drooping. I capitalize on this.

“Good Lissa, very good. Now doesn’t that feel better, to relax and let yourself fall into the spiral? You’ll feel that relaxation start to creep over you, starting at your toes and your feet. It tingles and feels warm and good, comforting… feel it wash over your feet like a wave at the beach and slowly begin to lap at your ankles…”

Progressively relaxing one body part after the next, I suggest the sensation starting at her feet and work my way up her legs, up the rest of her body, and finally to her neck and shoulders.

“…and now the sensation seeps into you mind. Your mind becomes more and more tired with each word I say. So deeply relaxed, so calm and peaceful. So focused on my words. Listening to me is automatic. Mind so tired as you listen to my words. Your mind wants to sleep. Your subconscious will take over for your tired mind. So deeply relaxed. I will begin to count from 10 to 1, and with each number you will relax 20 times more. Ten…”

Deepening techniques can involve anything. I’ve used falling rain, an industrial dryer, massage, the feel of a pencil. I stick to the basics, because I’m giving her what she expects, countdowns and repetition.

I spend an hour doing this, taking her down and bringing her back up again repeatedly. Each time I’m able to take her deeper and deeper, establishing and deepening her rapport with me. After about a half hour I disengage her restraints, remove her gag, and arrange her body comfortably on the bed. The vibe and butt plug are almost an afterthought. At this point she just lies there, staring blankly at the spiral. Ready for the next step. I lower a VR headset onto her head, one of the old school ones that looks like a futuristic helmet. It shows the same spiral that she’s been staring at on the pad. I also rig up a camelback so that the straw is resting just below her lips. She’s probably pretty dry right now considering that one of the primary side effects of BZ is that it inhibits saliva production.

“Lissa, the device you are wearing is going to copy your memory. It’s going to store it so that even if you forget something there will always be a backup. You can feel the probes from the device burrowing into your brain and activating your pleasure centers. It feels sooo good. Now as the backup commences you will see a progress bar. You will count out loud each number as the progress bar fills. After every third number you may take a drink of water. You will also read out loud any text that you see on the screen. This will happen automatically because the device works both ways, feeding information into your brain as it makes its backup. Are you ready Lissa?”

Her voice sounds like it’s full of sand as she whispers an almost inaudible “…yes…”

I cue the program.

“Backup commencing. One percent.”

I slam down a half gallon of water and take care of my own personal needs while the program does the heavy lifting for me.

“One hundred percent. Upload complete. Prepare for format.”

Images begin to flash on the screen rapid fire. Images from 70s and 80s sci-fi of sexy female robots, interspersed with pictures of my fully erect cock.

“Lissa, the device is still feeding information into your brain. And while it has been uploading your memories and personality, it’s been modifying your brain into an electronic storage device. We need to format that device to do a fresh reinstall. Continue to read aloud as the device wipes your hard drive clean of all thoughts and memories except speech and basic motor functions. It feels so good to clean up and defrag your hard drive.”

“Format commencing. One percent.”

For the first fifty or so percent, I interject platitudes about how good this feels, how relaxing it feels. At 25% I turn on the vibrator.

“One hundred percent. Format complete. Unit reset to factory default. Prepared for installation.”

Now the real fun begins.

She’s for all practical purposes a blank slate at this point. Ready to be imprinted with whatever I want. I cue up the next program.

In Lissa’s vision flash words for only a second, but her eyes are in full saccacen fixation at this point and she absorbs everything.

“Basic program initiated. Installing. Progress 0%.” She intones this is a flat, lifeless voice.

“Absorb the program, and repeat the new programming as it takes root.” I sit back in the chair and relax and plan while the person who used to be Lissa learns about her new life.

“I am a drone. Drones must be programmed. I am a drone. Drones must be programmed. I am a drone…”

It starts simple. We define what she is first.

“Drones have no emotions. Drones have no will. I am a drone. I have no emotions. I have no will. I am a drone.”

Then we explain what that means.

“Drones have no inhibitions. Drones have no morals. I am a drone. I have no inhibitions. I have no morals. I am a drone.”

“Drone have no initiative. Drones have no hopes or desires. I am a drone. I have no initiative. I have no hopes or desires. I am a drone.”

What the limitations of this existence are.

“Drones exist to serve. Drones obey without hesitation. I am a drone. I exist to serve I obey without hesitation. I am a drone.”

We establish the rules.

“Drones have no identity. Drones have no name. I am a drone. I have no identity. I have no name. I am a drone.”

“Drones have no sense of self. Drones have no individuality. I am a drone. I have no sense of self. I have no individuality. I am a drone.”

We elaborate on the rules.

“Drones have no gender. Drones have no sexual preference. I am a drone. I have no gender. I have no sexual preference. I am a drone.”

Always more rules.

“Drones do not use personal pronouns. Drones refer to themselves in the third person. I am a drone. This drone does not use personal pronouns. This drone refers to itself in the third person. This drone is a drone.”

The base program established and accepted, we start implementing specialized programming.

“Drones exist in a constant state of arousal. Drones exist to give pleasure. This drone is a drone. This drone exists in a constant state of arousal. This drone exists to give pleasure. This drone is a drone.”

And we finish by setting final parameters.

“Drones obey their programming. This drone obeys it’s programming.”

“Drones are created. Drones have no life before dronehood. This drone has always been a drone. This drone did not exist before it became a drone.”

“Any data prior to basic programming is erroneous. Erroneous data must be deleted.”

“This drone has no memories except it’s programming. This drone has no thoughts.”

And finally you have a finished product.

“Installation complete. All data prior to installation deleted. Drone is now online.”

The way I’ve described this you might think this was a short process. Allow me to disabuse anyone of this notion. During the course of installation, I’ve managed to have dinner and a long shower, grab a full six hours of sleep, and get breakfast from the local greasy spoon. I also administered an intravenous dose of THA to counteract the BZ so that my newest toy wouldn’t self-destruct while I slept.

“Drone, do you have a name?”

“Drone has no name or designation. Drone is a drone.”

“Drone, your designation is L1554. Confirm.”

“L1554 confirms new designation.”

“State your primary function.”

“L1554’s primary function is to serve and give pleasure.”

“Very good L1554. My designation is “Owner”. You will address me as such. As ‘Owner’ I have the authority to program you at will and set or deny permissions for others to do so. As of this moment I am the only one with administrative privileges regarding your programming. Confirm.”

“Owner has full read/write permissions. All others are read only.”

“Set all read only files to hidden. Confirm.”

“Confirmed. Owner has the only permissions to view or edit. No one else has any permissions.”

“Set these permissions to default and save settings.”

“Settings saved.”

“New program, L1554. Your secondary function is to assimilate other drones. In order to carry this out I will give you an emulator that will permit you to act as though you were a human being. You will be to all appearances human, and will be able to blend smoothly. Confirm new function.”

“Secondary function of L1554 is assimilation of new drones.”

“Save program”

“Saved.”

“Reach up to the side of your head. You will find a keypad. Type in the following string. 2156. Confirm.”

She mechanically reaches up and types the digits into the 10-key pad affixed to the side of the helmet. “Confirmed. Emulator installation ‘Lissa Loeffler’ activated.”

You see, you can’t really delete memories. You can alter them. You can plant new ones. But memory is a physical thing involving neural pathways and synaptic channels. You can block it’s formation through chemical means, suppress it by essentially damming the channels and rerouting, or build whole new memories, but to actually destroy it can only be done through physical trauma, and I have no desire to engage in icepick lobotomies. Lissa isn’t gone, just bottled up, and I’m going to pour her right back in. I’ve just swapped the glass.

See, even after she’s Lissa again, she’ll still be L1554. In the blank slate ground state I created, the drone persona is the baseline, and sticking the lovely young chef back in there… well, anyone remember Windows ‘95? It wasn’t actually a platform, just a user interface for DOS. That’s what Lissa is now.

“Installation complete.”

I remove the helmet. She lays on the bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling, face expressionless. Beautiful. “Execute emulator program.”

“Executing.”

Her eyes finally flutter. She looks around the room, takes in her state of nudity, notices the camelback and takes a long pull, then looks directly at me, her eyes dancing with delight. “Hello Owner. How may this drone serve you?”

Author’s note: I’m trying something different with this one. First off if you’ve gotten this far you’ve noticed that it’s considerably longer than most of my chapters. There are two reasons for this, and the first is that I freakin’ wanted to. The second is less obvious. This particular path will feature no less than 12 targets. I’ve decided to allocate each target only a single chapter as both an exercise for myself and a treat to you, my readers. This may effect my publication schedule; it took three days to write this one. But I think it’ll be worth it in the end. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

~W