Sue Pays For More Than A Private Dance

Sue Storm's heart hammered in her chest as she was led to a small room. Her own image met her gaze.

Mirrors.

Every wall, the floor and ceiling, even the door she had come through. The pole in the center of the room was chrome polished to a mirror sheen, and the small stage was mirrored too. The lights were subdued, placed at the seams where the mirrors met. The effect was oddly claustrophobic and gave a vast sense of space, Sue Storm's infinite reflections staring back at her.

And the small line of white powder that lay on the mirrored stage.

Sue Storm held her breath.

She knew what it looked like. Yet it was something she'd only ever seen in movies, not in real life. Sue had never moved in the set of the sort of people who did cocaine.

Stupid, she thought to herself. Of course. What did I think I was buying?

"Are you a cop?"

The voice was soft, feminine. Sue Storm spun. The stripper stood there. Asian. Wearing a bikini with little mirrors glued to it. The heroine hadn't heard the door open. She barely heard it close. This close, Sue could smell floral perfume and sweat, saw the sheen that the dance had raised on the dark skin.

"No," Sue said, and swallowed.

"Do we have a problem?" Nissa said, and she pulled her top off. Small breasts with prominent, thick dark nipples. "A misunderstanding?"

She stepped forward, hips swaying. Her hand touched the back of Sue Storm's neck, just below the hair.

"I..." The Invisible Woman's words caught in her throat. "I don't do..."

Her hand waved at the line of cocaine. Then her hand froze in place. Sue suddenly realized that she couldn't move. Couldn't even blink. Nissa smiled as she withdrew her hand from the Invisible Woman's neck, and only now did Sue see that the smile didn't reach her eyes, that it was too ****, too artificial.

The control disc stung as it finished integrating with Sue Storm's nervous system.

"You will. You will do anything I tell you to do," Nissa said. But the voice that came through her throat wasn't her own. It was the gravelly tone that Sue Storm had heard before.

The villain known as The Controller.

"Welcome to the team, slut."