Alien Mind Control From Planet P

Alien Mind Control From Planet P

Chapter 16

By Gary LM Martin

Elements of five resistance organizations gathered at the staging area, just outside the factory in Silver Spring. In addition to Richard Gonzales, there were eighteen operatives from four groups... and Captain Worth Rogers.

"Captain Rogers, where is the rest of your team?" Gonzales asked.

"They've been diverted. We had late notice of a target of opportunity, a convoy full of prisoners. I was all they could send," Worth said apologetically.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Gonzales. "We're going to need every operative we can get on this one. Did you all bring the explosives?"

They had. They geared up and headed to the factory, posing as technicians. Gonzales had clearance that allowed them to enter.

When they got inside, they found themselves inside a giant hanger, with flesh on the floors and walls. Once again, everyone was nude. The resistance fighters shed their clothes, holding onto their bags of explosives.

As they entered the facility, they saw rows and rows of cocoons on the ground level, but above that, on a second level, they saw a giant beanbag shaped creature, its legs obscenely spread, a tube like a giant intestine stuffed into it. As they watched, every few seconds, something sped out of the creature, into the tube. On the other end, they saw cocoons being spat out of the other end of the tube, all wet and slimy.

Gonzales gave the signal, and the operatives all moved to the wall of cocoons below the creature, and started planting their explosives. All except Worth. He stood by the far wall, away from the cocoons, overseeing the operation.

None of the plant workers seemed to notice what they were doing. They were all wrapped up in their own assignments.

And then Worth heard a door behind him open, and a familiar voice said, "Hey buddy! You're looking well. "

Worth turned to see Tom Faraday, armed with a blaster, smiling at him.

"A little underdressed, maybe," said Tom. He looked over at Worth's sexual organ. "But at least now I finally know what Anna sees in you." His smile only grew broader.

Before Worth could shout a warning, tentacles shot out of the cocoons. They grabbed the other operatives, and kicking and screaming, dragged each of them inside one of the cocoons. Once inside, a smaller tentacle wrapped its arm around each of them, and a fleshy cap went down over their head. As the cocoons closed, their screams were all cut off as one.

Worth turned to Richard Gonzales, who was standing nearby, unmoving.

"Don't expect any help from him, buddy," said Tom. "You're not such a good judge of character anymore, are you? What's wrong, are those vaunted ESPer powers of yours getting a bit dull?"

Worth gave Tom a dirty look, but said nothing.

"No clever retort, Captain Rogers?" he asked.

Worth shook his head.

Suddenly, a young blonde woman, who looked like she couldn't be more than 17 years old, came up to Tom. Like everyone else, she was totally nude. She had small, perky breasts and a slender athletic build. Tom casually put an arm around her, still holding the blaster on Worth.

"Who is this?" Worth asked.

"Oh, you haven't met Kate, have you? Kate, this is the great Captain Worth Rogers!" He laughed and gave her a quick kiss, never taking his eye off of Worth.

"I've heard of him," said Kate. She looked down at Worth's groin in a very obvious way. "He doesn't look so great to me."

Tom laughed. "Ouch! Aren't I rubbing off on her? Worth, Kate's my protégé."

"Your protégé. A teenage girl?" Worth asked.

Tom gave a shit eating grin. "Yeah? Isn't it great, working for the bad guys? A lot of perks, Worth. You should try it!" he laughed, having the audacity to squeeze one of Kate's breasts, right in front of him, eliciting a moan which made Tom chuckle. "Actually, you

will

be trying it, and real soon!" Tom said.

"What does your wife of ten years have to say about your

protégé

, Tom?" Worth asked.

Tom gave him an odd look. "Laura loves Kate, doesn't she, Kate?"

"Laura loves me," said Kate, in a monotone.

"Yeah, couldn't be happier," said Tom. "Sometimes we even let her watch." He laughed again. "All right, come on, you can stop delaying the inevitable now, let's go get your clothes and get you out of here."

"Where are we going?" said Worth cautiously.

"Your wife has a hot date planned for you. I don't think you can refuse this time," Faraday chuckled. His expression grew thoughtful. "On second thought, maybe you won't need your clothes after all."

"You sound so pleased with yourself," said Worth.

"You bet, buddy," said Tom. "Because, once again, you were just so completely and utterly fooled."

Worth looked at his former friend, and raised a chiding finger. "Not completely, and not as utterly as you may think."

Faraday's smile turned to puzzlement as he looked Worth in the eye, and then, as if sensing trouble, turned around-

Just as a blaster shot him. He fell wordlessly to the ground.

Saoirse McKenna, Nancy Kingsolver, and Mark Royce entered through the side door. Saoirse's blaster was smoking slightly.

"Worth," said Saoirse, her eyebrows raised, her face a barely suppressed mask of admiration as she looked him over. "I've never seen you looking better."

"There's no time for that," said Worth. "We've got to rescue-"

Suddenly, Kate gave an inhuman scream. Saoirse shot her, but then Kate's call was answered by another Infected, and then another, and another, and another, as the Infected pointed to them. The Infected started to rush them in large numbers.

They had no choice but to flee. They escaped to their air car, with a crowd of Infected at their heels.

********

"So it was a trap," said Colonel Anderson. "Eighteen men were lost."

"And we almost lost Worth," said Saoirse, her angry green eyes flaring. "If he hadn't insisted we remain behind as backup, he'd be gone too."

"This is a crippling blow," said Anderson. "Have you sent word to the other groups?"

"We have. They've evacuated. We must presume that everyone they sent is Infected by now," said Worth.

"We still don't know for sure that the Cocoons Infect people. We don't even really know what their purpose is," said Saoirse.

"We do know that if the people we sent in weren't Infected by the cocoons, then the Infected people at plant would take care of it," said Worth. "Either way, they're gone."

"What a masterstroke," Anderson marveled. "I wonder who planned this."

"It was Captain Tom Faraday, my old buddy," said Worth grimly.

"He was there?" said Anderson.

Worth nodded.

"It's lucky you got out when you did," said Anderson.

"It wasn't luck," said Saoirse. She firmly grasped Worth by the arm, and escorted him to her quarters.

When they got there, she gave him a kiss with all her energy.

"What was that for?" said Worth.

She wrapped her arms around him. "This mission made me realize something very important. Every day could be our last."

"We have always known that," said Worth.

"But today was almost your last day, Captain Rogers," she said softly, looking into his eyes.

Saoirse removed his clothes, and then her own. And then she firmly and methodically made love to every part of his body, living in the moment of each act as much as possible. And then, when they were all done, and had rested for a time, she did all over again, trying to burn it all into her memory. It was almost an admission that their time together would not be unlimited, that sooner or later one or both of their luck would run out.

********

"It's a shame that whore of yours had to get involved," said Anna, speaking in an unusually agitated tone as her delicate features registered her outrage. "Tom was going to bring you directly to me. We would have been together again in mere minutes, Worth. But that dumb bitch of yours had to stick her tits into it, didn't she?"

An image of Saoirse from the cocoon factory appeared, completely naked. "Tits that, to be honest, sag more than a little. You saw mine recently, husband. They're in much better shape since I joined

Us

. Why do you settle for less? Do you really enjoy slumming?"

Anna's eyes narrowed as she glared at him. "Tell me, Worth, are you still sleeping with Suuuursha? Of course you are! Despite the fact that you're still a very married man. Every time you slide your dick into Suuuursha's all too willing vagina, do you also think about how you are fundamentally FUCKING with our marriage? How you're betraying me? How each time you thrust between those easy legs you're also stabbing me in the back?"

"Tell me, Worth, and be honest about it, every time you fuck her, and come inside of her, do you close your eyes and imagine it's me? Do you moan her name when you come inside of her, husband? Or do you say mine?" Anna asked.

"It can't be a total coincidence that you've chosen a chippie who looks just like me," said Anna. Worth saw an intense fire raging in her eyes, and Anna's tone became even more cruel. "I can't wait to make her my bitch, Worth. When she's mine, I'm going to make her watch you fucking me, long and hard. And when we're finished, I'll jam Suuursha's head between my legs, and make her eat me out. And when I'm done with her, she'll thank

Us

for the protein snack."

And then suddenly Anna's face seemed to transform, from anger to intense sadness, and her tone softened tremendously. "I know you miss me, Worth. If you miss me half as much as I miss you, then you must feel terribly. I know she's only a coping mechanism. But why accept an imitation when you can have the real thing? Everything I've told you is true, Worth. I've been denatured. I can't Infect you or anyone else. We can have children. Please, Worth. It's not too late. Please come to me now. My life...." She gasped, struggling for air, "My life can never be complete without you."

********

Henry Gustav had a most unusual brain. His brain was uniquely compartmentalized. It functioned normally, apparently, but Henry noticed at a young age that he seemed especially good at separating experiences and feelings which were in conflict.

Such was the state of affairs when he inhaled some spores from an Air Love. He instantly became Infected.

But then another variable entered the equation.

Not all strains of

We

were created equal. There was some variation in potency from strain to strain. Usually, not very much of a variation, but sometimes, the strain produced was not as strong as the normative representatives of the virus.

One such weaker strain Infected Henry Gustav, the main with the compartmentalized brain.

Henry Gustav heard the Voice, and joined

Us

. But then, after having sex with a fellow Infected, something interesting happened.

The Voice disappeared, and Henry Gustav regained control.

It was like waking from a dream. The Voice was gone. Its influence was gone. It must have died. He was free, free!

Henry just walked around a park for two hours, marveling in his new found freedom.

Until the Voice came back.

Inexplicably, two hours and forty three minutes later, the Voice came back. It was as if it had never been gone. Even

We

seemed unaware that for a time, there had been no

We

, only Him.

And then, a few days later, Henry Gustav had sex with another Infected, draining her mental energy as she drained his, and his mind cleared again. This time for nearly three hours.

After that, it became clear that he regained himself for a period of not less than two hours and not more than four each time he had sex. Henry was not a microbiologist but his theory was that the virus's energy was drained during sex, either by the draining of his own mental energy, or simply from the chemicals released in his brain during sex.

We

also seemed unaware of what had happened during the times it was dormant. If Henry had had more intimate knowledge of his own brain, he might have concluded that some part of his brain had never been successfully Infected, a part that could be walled off from a temporarily weakened

Us

.

And so during the day Henry Gustav worked on the project to build more Unity Towers. And after he had sex, he had a second life, as a resistance informer who provided information on where the Unity Towers were being grown and what their vulnerabilities were. Each life seemed to be completely separate.

Henry Gustav could not control when he was going to have sex. Not exactly, anyway. He could suggest it to the Voice in his head, but it was really up to the Voice. Sometimes the Voice agreed, but sometimes it didn't, especially when it conflicted with some other task the Voice wanted done. And if Henry asked for sex too often, the Voice would get suspicious, thinking he was trying to distract it from the task at hand. Which, of course, he was.

Henry had sex with a coworker named Lisa. She drained some of his mental energy and he drained some of hers. He learned, in passing, that she still felt love for her husband Brendan, some of which he absorbed in the taking.

When Henry's head cleared, he checked the status boards and discovered that several Uninfected had been brought to the confinement area. They were slowly being taken out, one by one, to be Infected, but several were still there. One of them, a striking blonde woman in her early 40's, caught his eye. The roster said her name was Sarah Pendleton.

"I'll take her," said Henry, to the Infected who were in charge of guarding them.

"No... no... please," said Sarah, as Henry took her away. She didn't really resist, though, as Henry led her by the arm to one of the Infection rooms.

She was trembling as Henry pulled her in and closed the door behind them. She rubbed her arms nervously and said nothing, but her eyes were pleading.

Henry stepped forward.

"Please, no," she whispered.

Henry took her hand. She looked like she was about to cry.

"You have to listen," said Henry. "We're going to sit here for thirty minutes. Then you're going to walk out, calmly and normally, and leave this place. Just walk out. Never come back."

"What?" said Sarah. She looked at him. "You're not... Infected?"

Henry didn't answer. He just sat down on a chair.

Sarah watched him warily. But she sat down too.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Her confidence started to slowly rebound. It became clear that he wasn't going to Infect her.

At the thirty minute mark, he moved to open the door.

"Wait," she hissed.

Henry turned to her.

She reached over and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you."

********

It turns out that Sarah was a member of a resistance group in the Kansas City area, one of the larger ones, with a dozen members. She put him in touch with her group, and a few days later, Henry, in a blindfold, was led before them.

Henry had to be careful about that. He knew when he was going to meet with them, and he persuaded the Voice to let him have sex with one of his coworkers shortly before the meeting.

Still, it was a full hour afterwards before he met up with Sarah, and another thirty minutes before he was led to her group. That meant he had anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours left before the Voice woke up. That would be cutting it close.

"I don't care what Sarah says. He works for them. I think he can't be trusted." So said Becca Macintosh, a fiery short haired redhead who had taken an instant dislike to Henry. She was only in her 20's, but was so assertive that her voice carried a lot of weight in the group.

"But he saved me," Sarah pleaded.

"To get to us," said Becca.

"Everything we do is a risk," said their leader, Robert Barlow. "If we took no risks, we'd never accomplish anything."

They debated, and debated some more, and Henry felt like his time was running out. Any minute he could turn into

Us

.

Finally, at the two hour mark, he said, "I have to go."

"Why?"

"I have an appointment. If I don't show up, I'll be missed."

That got them moving. They decided, tentatively, to trust him, and to use him as a source of information.

Henry was trembling as they prepared to take him back home. He knew he could change at any second.

Before they put the blindfold on him, Sarah was there, touching his hand. "Thank you," she said.

And so Henry fed Sarah's resistance group intelligence which helped their efforts. He gave them information which helped them ambush a supply convoy full of chemicals meant for Air Love incubators. He told them where a shipment of Unity Tower strands were being delivered. He told them the current locations of traps meant to ensnare resistance fighters.

With each success, their confidence in him grew. Sarah always seemed to be his contact person. She liked seeing him, it was plain. But he always met her on his terms. He contacted her only after he had had sex, after the

We

of

Us

had been suppressed.

After several months of this, Sarah started to grow bolder. "Have you ever been married, Henry?"

Henry shook his head.

"Why not? You're such a wonderful guy," said Sarah.

Henry felt badly, because he liked Sarah, and he knew Sarah liked him, but also knew they could never be together in the way she wanted. He would Infect her in the very first moment of sex.

She took his hand, and started to rub it, which was both comical and disturbing. Classically, that is the kind of maneuver an Infected would take to seduce an Uninfected. And here she was, an Uninfected, unknowingly trying to seduce an Infected.

But Henry let her stroke his hand. He kind of liked it. They sat and talked for a while, and he could see how really smitten she was with him. But then he checked his chrono and saw that two hours had elapsed since he had had sex. More than two hours. Two hours and ten minutes. He had been irresponsible. He had put Sarah's life in danger.

He got up and abruptly said he had to go. Better to hurt her feelings than Infect her needlessly.

But as time went on, Sarah's attraction to him only grew. Another time she told him, "I can see the way you look at me. If you feel the same way I do, why...?"

"I can't," said Henry. "I just can't." He paused. "I have to go."

And then Henry left. But he wasn't careful, because he didn't notice her following him.

And then, two nights later, it all ended.

Henry came home to his apartment to find Sarah there. She had somehow let herself in. She was dressed in a sexy red dress which showed off her breasts. She even had dinner all prepared, complete with candles and mood music.

What is this female doing here?

The Voice demanded.

"Hello Henry," said Sarah, smiling at him, seemingly unaware of the danger she was in.

The Female knows you. Who is she?

"You shouldn't be here," said Henry urgently.

This female is uninfected!

"I know, but... I just thought, if we spent some more time together," said Sarah. She smoothed her dress. "Don't you like my dress?"

"Yes, Sarah. I like it very much," Henry found himself saying. The Voice was in control now.

"Oh, I'm so glad," Sarah gushed.

No, no, Sarah. Run, run now!

Henry gave Sarah a big smile, and slowly walked over to her. He ran his hands over her face, and gave her a deep, long kiss, being sure to rub as much of the pheromone into her face as he could.

Sarah shivered, and immediately became sexually aroused. Henry put a hand inside her dress and rubbed her breasts. Her nipples sprang up and she moaned as she absorbed a critical mass of the pheromone.

After that, there was no resistance, if indeed there ever was.

Henry slowly undressed her and himself. Sarah, feeling extremely sexually excited, lay back, waiting for the inevitable, but not at all aware of what that was.