Chapter 18: The Pitch

6 November 2025

Bob escorted Jenny out of the Gold Room, and into the hurricane of activity where the desks of the PAs were located. He had been tempted to go down via the private lift, but he knew he couldn’t just disappear without telling Ginny.

He spotted her sitting at her desk. She seemed far more sedate than usual. Calm.

Ordinarily she would be holding court among the other ladies, catching up on the gossip like a tabloid columnist while managing his diary and his correspondence. He honestly didn’t know how she managed to multitask so efficiently for all of the extraneous chatting she engaged in.

So seeing her sitting at her desk, almost completely still, was shocking to him.

“Ginny.”

It took a beat, as if she had to run her own name through a processor. Then her head snapped away to face him, and she smiled broadly.

“Yes, sir.”

Sir? That was different. Bob shook off the thought.

"Ginny, I... I need to leave," he fumbled, his usual corporate eloquence failing him. He adjusted his cuffs, his hands trembling slightly. "There’s a site visit. An inspection of the... the physical footprint. Clear my afternoon. Tell his Lordship we'll reschedule."

“Sir? Lord Haddington is already here. Marcus is hovering outside the room where he and his accountant are waiting.”

Fuck, Bob cursed to himself. That’s the last person I want getting wind of this.

“Ginny, talk to Caroline. Tell her that I am going home. That I’m….”

Jenny slid past Bob. “ Virginia, please inform Caroline that Mr Edwards has come down with some food poisoning. Nasty stuff. You girls can take care of his Lordship, can’t you?”

Ginny’s eyes darted to Bob’s. “Sir?”

Bob nodded. “Quite right. Food poisoning. Dodgy eggs this morning. Need to hurry home. I’m sure Marcus can handle it.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll talk to Caroline straightaway.”

“Thank you, Ginny,” he said as he moved quickly through reception to the lift lobby.

Jenny lingered at Ginny’s station. She saw the PA’s bewildered expression.

"Don't be troubled, Virginia," she said softly. “Your time is coming. You are functioning exactly as you were designed to. For now."

Ginny’s eyes blinked and then flashed as a brilliant blue light bloomed. The woman gasped briefly, before she settled.

“Not… troubled,” Ginny mumbled.

“Go tell Caroline, Virginia. Do what Bob told you. Take care of him.”

Ginny nodded silently, and then took off her wireless headset, before rising slowly from her chair.

She looked at the lift, as Bob and Jenny faced her. As the doors slid shut, finally concealing Bob from her view, Ginny shook.

***

Bob’s first impression of the facility was not positive. It was an unremarkable mid-level building in the West End, not far from several posh theatres. But inside, the atmosphere was like nothing in Theatreland or the City. There were no grand vistas or mahogany desks. This was a place of narrow corridors leading to cramped offices and ageing laboratories.

Jenny led Bob through the security entrance on the ground floor with a security pass, and escorted him to the lift. It looked and sounded every bit of the forty years of service which he guessed it had experienced.

Jenny didn’t say a word, or even flinch, during the ride to the fourth floor. Bob kept his hands in the pockets of his trousers to keep himself from fidgeting. His nervous energy was building, as he questioned this mad caper over and over.

When the lift stopped, and the doors opened, Bob was greeted with one more sign. The light in the corridor was flickering and flashing. The unintentional strobe effect was almost too melodramatic.

“My apologies for the maintenance levels, Bob,” Jenny commented as she ushered him to the far corner of the building. “This is one of the reasons why we need the credit.”

Cheeky bitch, he thought to himself. One more red flag and I’ll bin this application.

Jenny punched the code into the lock of an entry door, and the magnetic lock released. She went in, and Bob followed.

He saw Sarah wearing her dungarees, painting and smiling.

“Is that… her?”

“Yes, Bob. This is Sarah. I assumed you would be more believing if you saw her in the flesh.”

The woman had painted the entirety of one wall, and was working on the second. There was a series of interlocking murals. Some were scenes from nature. Others were of women intertwined with each other, at the feet of a faceless muscular man.

"You can speak freely here, Bob," Jenny said, her voice sounding crisp in the deadened air of the room. "As you’ve seen, this building is a commercial lab-share, and this is my auxiliary suite. No one else in the complex — not the technicians, not the administrative staff, not even the other researchers in this wing — understands the specific nature of the work I’ve been doing. Aside from myself, there are only two other people who are… cleared for this project. And you already know about one of them right here.”

Having shown off Sarah, Jenny gestured for Bob to follow her. She exited the room, and together they walked down the corridor to Jenny’s lab.

Once there, she shrugged off her tailored jacket, hung it up, and traded it for her lab coat. Next, she took a metal tumbler from a drying rack, and filled it with water from the small sink. She didn’t look to Bob, much less offer him anything.

“Let me be frank, Bob. My science is impeccable, and my results are undeniable. This virus can make miracles happen, as you can see with Subject 05 here. And you’ll get to see with Rebecca and another subject soon. But I am only one person, and I don’t have marketable results or products.”

She sat down in the chair next to a computer and monitor, and gestured for Bob to do the same. He wheeled another chair over, and followed suit.

"This lab is the core of my project," Jenny explained. "I have the intellectual property here, and enough equipment to perform simulations and testing. But I am limited in several ways. My last grant will get me through the end of April. That is when my lease runs out, and then… perhaps I am homeless. I will admit that financial considerations accelerated my efforts.”

“The funding I am seeking from you isn't just for 'infrastructure' in the traditional sense. Yes, I need to pay the rent, but what I truly need is to build out my capacity. First, I need to refine the transition of my subjects after the virus is infiltrated. And then, assuming I can manage it, I need to expand facilities for their management. As you can see, these two offices are hardly enough if I want to scale up my research.”

“Scale it up how?” Bob asked.

“Training, conditioning, and eventually service. What I hinted at in our meeting is the reality here: the current human state is a biological error that I have learned how to correct."

She turned to face him, and her glowing eyes reminded Bob of a computer screen. "The human experience is one of noise and distraction. Things like ego and rebellion are just bugs in the software of the mind. I opened up this virus and found ways to rewrite those neural pathways. Or perhaps… perhaps it opened itself up to me.”

Bob pondered what he was hearing. “How could a disease actually do that?”

She looked at him with a disturbing calm. “Maybe it’s not a disease at all. Perhaps it is a cure.”

“So say that it is. What comes next? What will you cure them of?”

“Doubt. Fear. Hopelessness. Anxiety. The possibilities are endless.” Bob noted that Jenny was getting quite energised by her messianic thoughts of curing people. "But to move from the Subject 05 stage to a societal rollout, we need more. We need human experimentation on a broader scale. We need to test the durability of the virus against different types of resistance."

Jenny couldn’t sit still. She hopped out of her chair and started pacing as she continued.

"The funding I am seeking from you will allow me to bring in more candidates. People whose lives are currently wasted on the friction of their lives. I need the facilities to house them, to monitor them, and to integrate them into the new design."

She looked at him with a gaze that felt both predatory and inviting. "The Bank provides the capital, Bob. And you? You allow it to happen. You see potential candidates every day. You see the flicker in your office and your home. You and your particular insights would allow me to optimise my subjects, wouldn't you?"

Bob felt a wave of vertigo. Her words stripped away the professional veneer of the transaction, leaving him exposed. She wasn't merely asking for a signature on a loan document; she was asking for his complicity in the transformation of human beings. Some sort of trafficker for human experimentation.

But despite the revulsion, his own fantasies conspired against him. He thought of Ginny with glassy eyes like Subject 05, but in his private office. Then, traitorously, he thought of Mary’s endless lists and Olivia’s distant stares, and how he could cure them too.

"I..." Bob started, his voice barely a whisper. He thought again of empty seats at the dining room table. Empty because his women were kneeling by his sides instead. "I suppose I would."

Jenny didn't wait for him to elaborate. She moved to her desk and tapped a command into her tablet. A moment later, her door clicked open.

"Rebecca. Welcome," Jenny said to the blonde woman who had just entered..

Her hair was tied back loosely in a ponytail, and she wore a sleeveless white blouse tucked into black pinstriped trousers, all tailored to accentuate her feminine features. But Bob barely noticed how attractive and shapely she was.

His attention was seized by the stillness of her body even as she moved. Her face was smooth, devoid of the micro-expressions of anxiety, fatigue, or curiosity that Bob saw in everyone else. Her eyes were clear, with an emerald glow. She didn’t look at Bob. She didn’t look around at all.

She simply waited.

"Observe her, Bob," Jenny said, walking next to the taller woman. She placed a hand on Rebecca’s shoulder, but she didn’t flinch. She didn't lean into the touch. She was simply... present.

“This is what happens when the signal overwrites the noise. Rebecca was a woman captured by her own intellectual ego. But the virus and my work has quietened her, except when she needs to be normal."

Jenny looked at Rebecca. "Rebecca, describe your current state for our guest."

“I am the solicitor for the investors who operate this facility, and I am also Subject 04, awaiting the Master.” Rebecca had the same affect as a woman describing her shopping list. If Bob didn’t know any better, he would have concluded that she was bonkers.

“Rebecca, do you consider this normal?” Bob asked.

"Of course, sir," Rebecca replied, her gaze fixed on the wall behind Bob. "My ego was a burden. With the help of the virus, I have found the release of silence."

“What do you mean?” he inquired.

“She means that her own wants and worries have been subordinated to what she has been taught to need by the virus,” Jenny answered.

"So she doesn’t… want anything?" Bob mumbled, reaching out as if to touch Rebecca, then pulling back.

"She wants exactly what she is taught to want," Jenny said, her sapphire eyes fixed on Bob’s face, gauging his reaction. "We are proof that the biological signal can solve the human problem. But as I said, I need more. I need to know how the signal handles someone like your assistant. Or someone with the ingrained habits of a lifetime of management."

She leaned in while he continued to sit, her closeness creating an inescapable pressure for Bob. "The funding will allow me to bring them to a proper facility. Someplace private and secure. There, I can prepare them. To give them this same peace. You’ve seen the subjects, Bob. You understand the results. So tell me... who do you want to be the next subject?"

Bob’s pulse quickened at the question as he also stared at Rebecca. How is this woman reading my mind about fantasies I’ve never mentioned?

"You're still thinking in terms of boundaries, Bob," Jenny said. "There don’t have to be boundaries. The only thing that matters is the fulfilment of the Master’s requirements."

She slid against Rebecca’s side, and her lips brushed against the taller woman’s ear. "Rebecca, this is Bob. He is considering a role as a primary facilitator of our expansion. You will provide him with whatever physical relief he requires. Consider it a demonstration of your commitment to our project."

"Of course, Jenny," Rebecca said. Her voice didn't falter. There was no blush of shame, no hesitant glance at Bob.

Under Jenny’s watchful gaze, Rebecca moved. She didn't approach Bob with the playful, teasing energy of Ginny. This was something different — something clinical and absolute. She knelt on the hard floor at his feet, her movements devoid of self-consciousness. Then her hands reached out to unfasten his belt.

Bob froze. His breath hitched in his throat as he looked down at her. He expected something… some flickering moment where Rebecca would look up and see him as a man, as a stranger, as anything. But she didn't. She looked at his waist with the same detached focus a technician might give a piece of machinery that needed calibrating.

"She isn't feeling any weight in the act, Bob," Jenny stated as she moved uncomfortably close while Rebecca stripped off his trousers and then his pants. "She doesn't judge you. She doesn't want anything in return, except to obey. She is simply an instrument of your comfort because I have commanded it. Is this not the sort of woman you’ve been looking for?"

As Rebecca’s mouth enveloped him, warmth replaced the cold air, and Bob’s head fell back. The sensation was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It was electric, relentless, and perfect. His fantasies had always been just that: fleeting imaginings of control, of submission, of a world where he didn’t have to perform or negotiate. But this — this was real. Rebecca’s movements were precise, unhurried, and without hesitation. Her mouth was sending waves of pleasure through him.

In his fantasies, Bob had imagined dominance, yes, but always with a flicker of guilt, a lingering awareness of the façade. Here, there was no façade. No performance. No need to be the charming husband, the dutiful provider, or the polished professional. Rebecca wasn’t pretending. She wasn’t trying to please him because of obligation or expectation. She was simply obeying, her actions a testament to the virus’s power — and to Jenny’s command.

The contrast was staggering. Where his fantasies had been shadowed by doubt, this was clarity. Where his desires had been fragmented by the noise of his own thoughts, this was silent, seamless pleasure. Rebecca’s lips and tongue worked with a precision that felt almost mechanical, yet her warmth reminded him she was human. She was real. And she was giving him the best blowjob he had ever experienced.

Bob’s breath came in shallow gasps as he gripped the edges of the chair, his mind struggling to reconcile the intensity of the sensation with the cold, clinical reality of the situation. This wasn’t just pleasure — it was proof. Proof of Jenny’s vision, proof of the virus’s efficacy, proof of his own complicity. And yet, in that moment, he didn’t care. He was the centre of a perfect system, and for the first time in his life, there was no friction. Only obedience. Only fulfilment. Only her.

He looked up at Jenny, who had stepped back enough to watch Rebecca’s fellatio, but with the dispassionate interest of a scientist.

"The funding, Bob," Jenny said, her voice a low purr over the sound of Rebecca’s rhythmic devotion. "Think of how many women like your PA are currently wasted, when they could be providing this level of... utility. You can be the one to authorise their peace."

Bob closed his eyes, and his toes curled in his oxfords. But Jenny didn't wait for Rebecca to bring Bob to climax.

“Pause, Rebecca.”

The blonde head froze, her mouth still wrapped around him. The sudden cessation of sensation left Bob in a state of high-tension suspension, his breath ragged, his eyes snapping open to find Jenny.

She had moved close to him again, her shadow falling over him as he was trapped by Rebecca’s kneeling ministrations. Jenny leaned into his side, her body contacting both Bob’s and Rebecca’s as his cock was held by Rebecca’s frozen mouth. Jenny’s lips hovered a fraction of an inch from his ear. He could feel the heat of her skin, a stark contrast to the clinical coldness of the room.

"Will you give me what I need?" she whispered.

Bob reached out, his hand trembling as it made contact with the smooth skin of Jenny’s neck. The touch was a bridge between the two of them, a connection between their worlds.

"Tell me what you need."

Suddenly, a blinding blue flash detonated behind Jenny’s retinas.

Bob had no inkling, but a psychic surge had just scorched through Jenny’s neural pathways with clinical precision. In an instant, any remaining internal noise — the complex biological calculations, the pride of the architect, and the chaos of her driven scientific mind — was vaporised. Every distraction, memory, and ego-driven thought was burned away by the brilliance of the viral takeover, leaving her mental landscape a shimmering, empty expanse.

Her sapphire eyes didn't focus; they deepened into a wide and adoring ocean gazing upon Bob. She felt a sharp, phantom click deep inside, a sensation as physical as a steel collar locking around her throat.

She gasped her absolute truth. "I need Master."