One of the first things Nathan Cryogen discovered from experimenting with his new powers was that he could tie someone's arousal to virtually anything. He quickly realized that he could have them getting aroused from things as simple as walking, talking, or standing still. Or even have them getting aroused from touching their hair or starting a car's engine. The only limit was imagination. In playing around with the arousal synapse, he also discovered a nub, hidden deep within it, that controls orgasm. Once he had a grasp on it, he found that it operated in much the same way as any other synapse. He could isolate it or tie it to unique things itself, allowing people to get aroused by things but never climax, or setting them to trigger orgasm with a simple gesture.
What he had also learned was that setting up tens of people to work together in a productive manner was complex, but it was nothing next to hundreds or thousands. And what had started out as a hot and satisfying relationship between him and Zena, was fast turning into a rivalry, complete with lots of showing off and one upping. They had so far avoided criticism from Elise and her multi-dimensional people, but it was only a matter of time until one of them got too drunk with power, or went too far in showing off.
After all, they were supposed to be working together. In theory. They were supposed to be creating some kind of world order, but it was difficult to do so properly, when they were finding themselves more interested in creating their own competing tribes. What had started out as a purposeful job to integrate the people of Earth was now resembling something more like a chess match.
Every time they played around with peoples' sexuality, they were essentially creating new beings linked up to an immortal flow of dimensional energy. This meant that much like how Nathan could take lots of hits and shrug them off, so could the people under their control. So having them fight each other would be as foolish as it would be pointless. No one could really die. At least, not as long as they were connected to the flow of energy, and he and Zena had made a pact in the beginning never to go that far. From the exploration they had done into the knowledge of the billions of beings in Elise's dimension, it seemed as if killing was one of the few things that would get you sent packing.
So Nathan was keeping things clean and so was Zena, but that didn't stop them from playing the role of shadow politician, breeding warring factions behind the scenes. They started in America and the people there were already so pitted against each politically that it wasn't hard to manipulate them a little further. The two had both done a remodeling job though, with Nathan changing his party name to the Freedom Party and Zena changing hers to the Utopia Party.
The issues their parties fought for weren't important to Nathan or Zena. What mattered was who won and so far, Nathan's candidate was shaping up well.
The day started out normally enough, with Nathan whistling, while on his way to the campaign hub for his candidate. It was a beautiful summer day out. The sun was shining, there was a light breeze, birds were chirping, and Nathan's assistant, Julie, was traipsing along behind him, in heels, wearing a tight black dress that accentuated her form. She had jet black hair to match the dress and was chewing on a pen, as she half-stared at the notepad in her hand, almost running into Nathan as she did.
She didn't run into him though. Not this time. One of the quirks that she'd retained after Nathan had given her a new purpose was that she was clumsy. Another was that she had a poor attention span. Nathan had found that although he could make her temporarily better at these things, it never quite stuck. That was how he knew when he'd hit on something in a person that's unchangeable. Some aspects of a person bounced back like elastic, as if he'd never made changes at all. It had been like that with Li. She had been submissive in the beginning, but she bounced back and it quickly became tiring going in and moving things around every time he wanted her to bend a knee. She was still under his command, in her daily actions, but the quirks of a submissive never stuck.
Julie, on the other hand, had a deep level of submissiveness in her. Just to see what would happen, Nathan had tried making her dominant once and she'd bounced back in a matter of minutes. He had a feeling that if he let her, Julie would follow him around everywhere, of her own volition, regardless of whether she was on the clock. It made sense. With his power, he was easily the most dominant male on the planet.
Nathan reached out with his mind while he walked, feeling out for signs of Zena's work in nearby people. There were some blips and he considered trying to rewrite them, but it would only slow him down right now. Instead, he reached inside Julie's mind and looked around. The setup he'd put in place the previous day was still there. She already had a habit of biting her pen, so he'd linked up a tiny flow of arousal to the action. He'd also separated her orgasm nub and attached it to her saying the phrase, "There's a message for you."
It was a common phrase from Julie. Nathan was the primary consultant for his candidate's campaign and Julie had a way of using the same phrase over and over for no apparent reason. It was the perfect fit. One of Julie's other common phrases was, "Let's get em, tiger." Nathan laughed at the thought of it. He hadn't yet linked that one up to anything, but it could prove amusing someday.
Julie was still chewing on her pen, even as they walked up to the tall, old building and went inside. Nathan glanced back at her and raised an eyebrow. She blushed and bit down harder, causing her to blush even more. He grinned and got his nametag from the security detail, going into the back room, where the candidate was going over plans with the other campaign leaders.
The candidate's name was Ariana Holmstead and she was tough as nails, with a robust, gregarious personality. Sharp as a whip and sharper on the debating room floor. Nathan had chosen her mainly for her presidential qualities and her electability (she had a reputation as a congresswoman for twenty storied years) but he had to admit, he'd also chosen her because she'd caught his eye. Despite being well into her fifties, she was in fit shape, a little skinny but not enough to look weak, and she had dark skin, with flowing sliver-black hair that came down to her shoulders. She also looked killer in a business suit, somehow managing to find pants that looked formal and still made her ass difficult to keep your eyes off of.
Those who knew Ariana were well aware, just as she was, that the clothing choice was meant to distract her political opponents. What they didn't know, not even Ariana, was that it had been at Nathan's command that she'd chosen to do it. Truthfully, he didn't care much about distracting her political opponents, but he did want to distract Zena and he knew the girl would see right to the source of it.
"Nathan, welcome," said Ariana, as he and Julie walked in. She offered her hand and he shook it, steadily, gave her a brief political smile, and found a clear spot of wall to lean against. The other people in the room were all credible consultants with decades of experience and some of them saw Nathan as a threat. He'd rewritten them to listen to him, when needed, but many still held an elastic level of independence that he couldn't really mess with.
They didn't know they were here because he'd personally picked them out to help run Ariana's campaign, but they did know he didn't have a reputation in politics and they didn't fully understand why he was there. One of them, an older gentleman dressed in a suit that looked equally old, was staring him down from across the table.
Nathan ignored his gaze and chose that moment to wave Julie over. The poor girl tripped over her heels and fell to the ground. In seconds, the older gentleman was up from his chair, helping Julie off the ground. Even as he was helping her, he sent a challenging gaze toward Nathan, as if to say, look at how much better of a man I am.
Under normal circumstances, Nathan might have been annoyed, but instead he found himself grinning. The campaign was doing well, in part due to the expertise of the gentleman who was helping Julie off the ground. They'd already won several primaries and were on track to secure the nomination for the Freedom Party. No one else was coming close, in part because of the skill in the room, and in part because Nathan had done a little sabotage. Most of the other hopefuls had mysteriously found themselves dropping out of the race to pursue other things. He'd left two others in the race, to make it more believable-looking when Ariana inevitably won the nomination, but he had his eye on them, in case he needed them to make last minute career changes when nomination time came.
For the moment, there wasn't much to do other than show his presence and look like he was there for a reason. He never consulted in front of the others, only in private with Ariana, in case he said something politically ignorant. When alone with Ariana, it was relatively simple. If he said something stupid, all he'd need to do is turn back the time in her mind a notch or two. Doing it to a whole room at the same time was infinitely more complicated and messing it up could cause a person to feel out of sync with the world around them.
He'd never felt the feeling firsthand, but he had the sense that it wasn't pleasant.
