Author's Note:
I'm not writing a lot for Literotica lately (clearly...) but I discovered I had this, unfinished. So here it is.
This is a series, and a lot of the rules are already established, so please read the first four first. This will probably still stand on its merits, but will be less confusing.
#
Kimberly crouched, her entire body still but for her eyes.
She was wearing lightweight, figure-hugging kevlar mesh with expanding pleated leather knee and elbow pads and rigid forearm, shin and outer thigh pads. It looked like a cross between a motorbike suit and a SWAT outfit, but lighter and more flexible than either.
She had a helmet with clear wrap-around goggles and a rigid microphone boom that ended next to her mouth.
Her gloves looked like light motorbike gauntlets but with spikier knuckle pads, and her boots had tough but flexible soles and ankle protection.
Everything she wore was in light-absorbing matte black.
It was the College intern armour, with no insignia except textured College logos on the shoulders and back, and with more attention paid to protection than style.
Many graduates based their uniform on the armour, because it worked so well. Those who did not need armour because of their invulnerability (or confidence) were free to dress how they pleased. Some of the more famous examples had multiple fan sights in the seedier parts of the internet - or a nice line in autographed photos.
But Kimberly, whose speed meant she could dodge almost anyone but did not mean she could not be hurt, had been practicing heavily in the armour and intended to stay in it. The extra weight wasn't enough to slow her down, while any protection at all upped her chances of surviving a close fight. There was a small click in her ear. "Clear from up top. Kim, go."
That was Jules, on the roof, able to teleport in and out of trouble and not dependent on stairs.
They were hunting a petty crook who had taken refuge in a train siding. The College had sent in the students on their first mission. The police were outside enjoying both their break and, mostly to annoy the students, doughnuts.
Kimberly erupted from the shadows of the flat car she was crouching next to, streaked across open space, then flattened herself against a freight car. To normal eyes, she was a blur. Her eyes flicked over Jules' blind spot.
"Clear," she said curtly.
"Alex, go."
On Jules' signal, the chamaeleonic male stopped looking like the edge of a pile of scrap and flowed easily and almost silently across the railyard cinders.
"Stacey, go."
"Megan, go."
Bit by bit, quartering the ground, they pushed forwards. Jules had already seen movement going into a freight car, but they knew the thief was armed and they did not know whether or not he had friends.
By they time they reached the target car, nobody had seen, heard or, in one case, felt, any other human or parahuman presence.
The open door of the car - the only door on the car - was facing a small gap between rails. There was little visibility and little room to manoeuvre.
After a long, weighted silence, Jules whispered "Megan, go."
Wearing identical armour, the tall girl slid out from between two cars. Step by cautious step, she moved obliquely towards the open door.
Five shots ran out, almost as fast as a semi-automatic. Megan jerked, thrown backwards, landing heavy and limp on the cinders. Those with the keenest ears heard a frantic clicking before the robber's brain realised that his finger had already emptied his clip.
There was deathly silence.
The shadows inside the freight car moved. The robber's head poked out. He glanced around, terrified, before jumping down, landing awkwardly but without falling. He took one step, fumbling with his pistol to eject the clip, before Kimberly had him face-down in an arm-lock before he had a chance to cry out.
Megan's body disappeared and the real Megan stepped out from hiding, to a spontaneous round of applause from her fellow students.
The police came in to collect the robber, grudgingly congratulating the interns.
Tornado, in identical armour, and Dr Summers, waiting in a remote monitoring van, did not immediately berate them for anything.
Kimberly was still buzzing after everyone had hugged her, and was almost skipping as the students were detailed to do a final sweep of the grounds.
She was walking past a car, all senses alert but her brain not fully committed to the job, when something struck her on the side of the neck and she blacked out.
#
When she awoke, she was berating herself for her own stupidity before she was even aware of her surroundings.
Restrained - check. Bright lights directed at her - check. Naked - check.
She gritted her teeth before she reminded herself to be perfectly neutral.
She was lying on a table - fairly standard - with firm cuffs over her ankles and wrists and around her neck. She was comfortable, but everything was tight enough that she knew there would be little hope of extricating herself.
She flicked her eyes around, but couldn't see anything beyond a white-walled room with computer monitors and medical equipment just visible at the edge of her vision.
She started carefully turning her head, but bumped into a padded and quite firm pad against her temple. There was one just like it on the other side.
"You're awake. Good. I was beginning to think we had got the dose wrong."
It was a tribute to Kimberly's training that she didn't jerk in surprise at the voice behind her head. She was well past blushing, or panicking that she was naked.
She also didn't say anything.
"Quiet? Don't blame you, really. I suppose you can guess what is going to happen to you now. I'm not sure why Heroes," the unseen speaker said, spitting out the capital H, "and Villains," again, enforcing the capital bitterly, "get so hung-up with mind-control and reprogramming and perversions. Villains turn Heroes into slaves, Heroes try to forcibly rehabilitate Villains with reprogramming and only ever turn out docile drones that eventually return to form anyway."
What?! Kimberly couldn't help her eyes bugging open at that. That couldn't be true!
"Oh, I saw your little reaction, don't try and hide it. I know you're trained to not resist when appropriate, and I must complement the College on that, but really, you don't have anything to lose by chatting with me. It might even delay the inevitable. You know, give you a chance to change my mind or something.
"Yes, my dear, that really does happen. You know as well as I do that there are Heroes with mind-control capabilities. What did you think they did, apart from training? They're 'Counsellors'." The bitterness in his voice as he slotted in the capital "C" was even stronger.
"Never does anyone any good in the long run. Everyone knows - I'm sure you've been taught this, and taught it well - that no mind-control is long-term. Everything reverts. Villains just hope to drag it out for enjoyment, Heroes hope to suppress instincts as long as possible. That really just means that Villains try to produce wanton sluts with unbuckled self-control and unleashed primal desires, or," he enunciated the alternative clearly, "docile but with no behaviour limits.
"While Heroes try to ratchet up the morality and empathy, and internal behaviour auditors, while diminishing any form of self-fulfilment drive, but it turns out you can't increase the urge for social approval separate to the urge for physical gratification or violence. Odd, that, but not something we've been able to get around, yet."
The owner of the voice finally moved around to where Kimberly could see him, looming over her from the right of what seemed to be a standard-height surgical table.
He looked nothing like a normal Villain. He wasn't muscular or handsome. In fact, he had no sex appeal at all. He looked old, but more mature than aged. He looked like an experienced craftsman.
He was sharp enough to see Kimberly's eyes flick over him.
"Don't look like much, do I?" he said, conversationally.
"Let me tell you - I was one of the first. My genius is not flashy, not great in a fight and not likely to be noticed if I'm not careful. My ability is with human-machine interfaces."
He caressed a monitor, lovingly. "X-ray machines, ECGs, MRIs, even standard computers - I can make machines read and respond to people like nobody else. I have several patents registered through untraceable secondaries."
He turned around to face her again. "Obviously, you would have worked out by now that I can make it happen the other way, as well."
She had worked that out. She was not happy about it at all.
He leaned over her. "And yes, I'm telling you this because it gives me immense satisfaction, and because wiping memories is something that can be made to stick."
He straightened up again.
"So what is your name? At least tell me that," he said, glancing down at the tablet computer he was carrying.
She said nothing. Name, rank and serial number were the worst things you could give, when mind-control was an option. It gave them an immediate input into quite important parts of your mentality.
