Possible special features

I slept with one eye open that night. I left the bike loaded in the truck. If any black SUVs showed up, I’d probably be better off if it was clear I hadn’t attempted to use the bike yet. Nobody came, though, so the following day, I unloaded the unreasonably heavy machine and set it up in the garage.

I still didn’t trust the thing, so I was exceedingly paranoid about setting it up. So I made a makeshift faraday cage out of a couple of woven wire trash cans and placed them around the substantial tablet-like touch screen before I plugged the bike in. I also turned off my Wi-Fi and all of my Bluetooth devices.

With the machine plugged in, a fan in the front wheel made a quiet whirr, and other unknown components made other electrical noises briefly before stopping. The screen flashed on with a brief swirling color start-up screen. It then flashed to a home screen with a bevy of buttons and options. At the top, the name MC1000 stood in proud, bold titanium-colored letters. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t trying to connect to any internet. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any sophisticated way to test it, but I did have an idea.

I grabbed my antique portable AM radio and turned it to max volume. I removed the faraday cage and carried the AM radio around the bike, listening for the telltale buzz of various frequency pollution. I heard nothing. I checked to see if the AM radio would pick up my cell phone’s emissions. I heard an evident change in the background static as I moved the phone closer to the radio. With that data, I was reasonably confident this bike did not “phone home.”

With paranoid testing out of the way, I began searching through the settings for any kind of user manual or hints about the “special features.” Not that I believed they existed. After 30 minutes of searching, I found hundreds of settings, from gravel road simulation toggles to screen brightness adjustments. Frustrated, I opened the internet archive and found a snapshot of the forum story before it was deleted. Sure enough, one of the posts loosely described the process to activate the supposed mind control settings. I clicked settings and clicked through to page 3 of the settings list, then selected additional programming.

“Please type in PIN _ _ _ _” flashed on the screen. “Shit!” I exclaimed, “god willing, this is just a standard 0000 pin.” A loud buzz came out of the speakers as “incorrect pin, two attempts remaining...” flashed on the screen. I tried 1234 and got the same result. I knew the answer wasn’t in the story online, but I checked anyway. I also used Ctrl-f on a few other AnonMC1151 stories. The only idea I had was to try 1000 for the name MC1000. It was my only chance, I thought. I slowly typed the numbers, but right before I pressed the last 0, I paused.

“No, it can’t be,” I spoke aloud as I remembered 1151 in the author’s name. I shakily typed it in. A loading pinwheel showed up on the screen for several seconds. Finally, a small ding sounded, and a new menu popped up titled additional programming.

“I’m in,” I said in my best movie hacker voice. Scrolling through the settings, there were several debug and developer options. I clicked on one that allowed me to change the pin to a unique one I’d never used before. At the bottom of the settings list was an option called “Arousal and Mind Control Settings.”

My breath caught at that. The small voice in my head, thinking there was a tiny chance that this was real, got much louder. There were two possibilities now. Number one was: this AnonMC1151 guy designed an exercise bike from the ground up, including industrial-quality parts, circuit board design, and professional coding, for the sole purpose of making a role-play sex toy or writing prop. The second possibility is that what he wrote was a true story, and a company out there makes functional mind-control devices and sells them on the black market. Occam’s razor is generally a good tool for answering these questions; however, I couldn’t be sure which option was the simplest explanation. So I’d just have to test it.

First, I needed to understand how to use it. There were several options in the sexercise settings, but notably fewer than all the other menus. The settings and their brief descriptions were as follows:

-Activate/Deactivate Arousal and Mind Control Mode (AMCM)

“Activate/deactivate seat stimulation system for programming female subjects. Please read user manual pages 80-90 for detailed instructions. Current setting: deactivated.”

-AMCM active duration (enter time in minutes)

“Enter desired time until AMCM automatically deactivates when no subject is detected. Current setting: 15 minutes.”

-Programming Mode: Manual/Automatic

“Toggle programming mode to automatic to use macro commands inputted in settings (see pgs. 90-115). Set to manual to self-administer verbal commands. Current setting: manual.”

Experimental Intensity Toggle (low/default/high)

“Beta test setting. Alters the intensity of the AMCM stimulation system. Low will result in partial programming acceptance and possible awareness of programming changes. High may result in excessive cognitive restructuring. Current setting: default (recommended)

-Automatic memory adjustment (on/off)

“default setting ON automatically implants the memory of a pleasant workout session into the subject and erases the subject’s memory of the acquisition process and programming (programming will still be followed). Setting OFF allows the user to manually dictate the subject’s memory using verbal commands or allow it to remain unaltered. Current setting: ON

-Trigger phrase for permanent changes (insert up to 100 characters)

“A user-spoken trigger phrase to make all changes to the subject permanent. Current setting “you belong to me.”

-Duration of programming (insert time in hours)

“When the trigger phrase is not used, this setting determines the duration in which programming will be applied. When the duration expires, the subject’s memory of the time during the selected duration will be erased, and all thoughts about the period will be suppressed indefinitely. Current setting: 24 hours”

-Macro Commands

“Insert up to ten single-sentence commands per macro (see pgs. 90-115). 1 out of 3 macro slots is currently filled. Select macro group during route setup when programming mode is toggled to automatic. “

-Arousal and Mind Control Deprogramming Mode ON/OFF

“When toggled on and PIN is accepted, this mode allows for complete deprogramming of subjects. Warning: subjects will retain the entirety of their memories after AMCM was applied and will no longer follow any previously programmed commands. Restraints are recommended. Current setting: OFF

After reading the menu options and explanations, I was more than a little hard. “This can’t be real,” I said out loud as I wiped the cold sweat from my brow. “But I’ve got to find a way to try it.” Images of girls from my past on their knees, looking at me in adoration, flashed through my mind. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I internally chided myself.

I then remembered that one set of macros had been filled. So I decided to click through and see what AnonMC1151 had written there.

“Macro Group 1: You obey Tony without question. You are very attracted to Tony. You are a dumb horny bimbo. You will happily have sex with anyone Tony tells you to. You will have Tony teach you to program the bike. You will encourage other attractive girls to try the bike. You will set up the bike and mind-control girls for Tony. You will believe you are doing everything of your own free will.”

“Yeah... I can see how you got caught, Tony...” I laughed. He had some decent ideas, but the macro probably caused most of his problems. The macro likely made an ever-increasing amount of women suddenly become horny bimbos and start trying to get other women to come to ride the bike. It was inevitable that a concerned onlooker would eventually connect some dots.

“If this is real, I can do better.” I thought while I started planning out how to test the bike.