(The following story is part of the continuing adventures of Service Unit 4U. The correct reading order for these stories is: "I'm a Slave 4U", "Even the Stars Fall 4 U", "Bent 4 U", "Kill 4 U", "I Would Die 4 U", "4 U 2 B Free", "This Is Just 4 U", this story, and the upcoming "All 4 U".)
"I'm Coming 4 U"
It really shouldn't surprise me that the infallible, irresistible, unbreakable, irreversible programming of the MKPerfect Corporation has an escape clause. It does surprise me, of course, because I was subject to that perfect conditioning and one of the most important ways to keep someone from breaking your mental control is to make them believe that escape is impossible. The last thing you want to do is let your slave think about ways to free themselves from your inexorable brainwashing. I was certain it was impossible because I was commanded to be certain. Everything I believe as Service Unit 4U is true, even the things I know to be false.
But with the expanded perspective that's filling my brain now, it seems obvious that you would want a way to unwind the complex series of directives and commands that turn ordinary human beings into perfectly programmed service units. As much as I've always thought of the Directors as incapable of error or mistake, I've also spent enough time fixing problems caused by their decisions to know when I'm simply accepting a truth that's been provided to me. The intense, irresistible pleasure of believing what I've been commanded to believe always bridged that gap, but the truth-the true truth-is obvious to me now.
If the Directors kidnapped and brainwashed a target who was supposed to be off-limits-not that anyone's off-limits as far as the new Director is concerned, but that wasn't always the case-they'd need a way to undo that mistake. A trigger that would unpack all of the secret structures inside the slave's mind and erase them, along with the memories of their installation, leaving them once again the normal person they were before with no memories of the service unit that once took up residence in their brain. A trigger that they were constrained from even thinking about, but that could be activated easily and effortlessly by their Master.
A trigger like, "Do you remember what happened the day we recruited you, Service Unit 4U?"
Not that Master simply asked me that question. She doesn't want Haley Keene back, not the Haley Keene that existed before the Directors pulled her out of the common mass of time-wasters and dullards and sharpened her into the perfect tool of obedience they needed her to become. An ordinary woman with no special skills, no heightened perceptions, and no understanding of the secret war for the fate of the entire human race? I would be useless to her like that. And my Master only wants me to be free so I can be of greater use to her.
So I'm in the brainwashing suite. I'm following the spiral in front of my eyes down and down, deeper and deeper, as Master teases my slick and dripping cunt with her fingers and helps me to sink into a perfect state of peace and pleasure. She has a brainwashing program queued up, a custom suite of special instructions that we've spent weeks working on together on top of the months it took her to recover from her taxi accident in Lisbon. (She still walks with a cane. I don't think her leg is ever going to heal properly. She's still everything to me, though.) She waits until I'm open and receptive, even beyond the programming that renders my mind malleable to her will... and then she speaks.
"Do you remember what happened the day we recruited you, Service Unit 4U?" And suddenly, I do.
It doesn't even feel like a memory. It feels like it's happening all over again, like I'm watching it all unspool from a front-row seat inside my own head. I'm smoothing out the wrinkles in my blouse compulsively as I walk along the sidewalk from the light rail station, feeling the early March chill on my legs through my pantyhose and wishing I'd chosen the pantsuit instead of the skirt. I'm nervous, because the call I got from Perfection Staffing mentioned a long-term assignment at a salary that barely even made sense to me.
"No, they've seen your track record at Blackburn & Finch and thought you'd be ideally suited for the position. It involves a certain amount of travel, some late hours, and potentially working on short notice, but you've handled all those things wonderfully so far, and unless your family circumstances have changed, or you've developed a close relationship that would prevent unexpected job commitments...?"
"No, nothing," I said, privately relieved that I'd gotten away with spending all my overtime and weekend hours at work watching YouTube videos on my phone and sexting my fuckbuddy Devon while soaking up company cash that I used to buy weed and vibrators. "When do they want to meet?"
"Friday morning," the woman said on the phone. "At the Emerson Tower, downtown." I know now that she's Service Unit 1H, permanently tasked with overseeing the recruitment process and smoothing over any difficulties with potential slaves. Only the Directors and service units handle the actual brainwashing suites; it's the best way to ensure that nobody has a troublesome attack of conscience while programming a new recruit. Even when the original 1H passed away in 1997, they simply slotted a new person into the same role, with the same designation, and kept right on going. She wasn't just being professional, she was following her programming.
At the time, though, I just thought she was one of the bland corporate drones I swore I would never be. Seeing it now, the irony is almost fucking hilarious.
She's there to meet me when I get inside, waiting just inside the lobby with a professional smile and a key card and a red dress that looks so good on her that I instantly hate her. "Haley?" she asks as soon as I walk through the door, extending her hand for a perfunctory shake. "Good to see you. Please, follow me." We head back to the bank of elevators, and she swipes her key card over the call buttons instead of pressing one. The down button lights up instantly.