Chapter 5

April came to, slowly. She didn’t so much wake up and just become aware. First of the pain in her joints, symptomatic of either drugging or being stuck in the same position for too long, or possibly both. After opening her eyes and looking around, she decided both was probably more likely.

She was tied to a steel chair, more ziplock’s around her wrists, but this time attached to the back of the chair, legs and feet similarly attached. Whoever had put them there was making very sure they weren’t going anywhere.

Chris Morgan was similarly tied up next to her, although his chair was more than two feet from her, no reaching out for help there. His chin was still on his chest indicating he was still out.

She glanced around the room. It was depressingly familiar. Stark white room, one large window along one wall, with mirrored glass in it, no doubt one way. Recessed lights. A door behind her, with a wall panel next to it, with a palm print reader on it. Camera in the corner, speaker inset in the wall next to it. Two backless stools along one wall. No noises at all, indicating sound proofing. And that was it. Functional, white, nowhere to hide and depressing as all hell. You could imagine children having medical experiments being performed on them in a room like this.

She’d seen rooms like this before and, though she didn’t know it yet, so had Chris. And they didn’t bring her any joy, just another wave of terrible sadness and depression.

She reviewed her memories; they’d been well and truly set up. Desirea had evidently been turned. She should have seen it. No wonder they didn’t get the guy in Moscow, - they knew they were coming. She’d been led, slowly but surely, down the path of believing Desirea, given more and more juicy tidbits, so their own desire to believe would win out. They should have spent more time researching. They should have known.

But they didn’t, and now here they were. Internally debating the past wasn’t going to change the here and now.

“Hey,” said April, trying to get Chris to wake up. A problem shared was a problem halved, right? Well, probably not in this case.

Chris didn’t stir, so April tried again, louder, “Hey CHRIS!”

Still no reaction. About to try again, April was distracted as the door opened, – noiselessly, - and in walked Michael Turnbull, closely followed by Trish Morgan. April recognized from the pictures Chris had shown her. Shorter hair, more of a tan, obviously jacked up in the breast department and probably in the lips too, some collagen injections. But it was definitely her. Barely glancing at Turnbull, April met eyes with Trisha Morgan, and felt the instant antagonism.

“Oh, he’s not going to hear you just yet, my dear. With what we gave him, he’d be out at least another couple of hours if we allowed it. Yelling at him isn’t going to do any good,” said Michael Turnbull, as he grabbed one of the stools and put it right in front of Chris’ sagging body.

Trish, still glaring at April, did the same. As April glanced back at Trish, she suddenly realized why Trish’s glare was so off putting. She barely blinked. It was like being stared at by a statue.

“Still, we can’t have him just lolling around the place. We have things to do, and we need to get this over with. I have so been looking forward to it, haven’t you, my dear?”

Turnbull’s voice was pure velvet, no rasping, no stumbling over words, everything precise, with clear diction and almost no discernable accent, apart from a very slight UK twang. He could be from anywhere.

Trish glanced at Turnbull and gave him a simpering smile. It was strange how much her face changed, - one minute she was stone cold, glaring at April for all she was worth, then the next, her face lit up, almost enraptured.

“Yes, my Lord. For so long. Now things can be as they are intended to be. Finally,” she replied, with a high pitch giggle at the end.

April was almost glad her hands were tied behind her back; she wanted to stick her fingers down her throat and gag.

She rolled her eyes and looked away, and like magic, the death gaze of Trisha Morgan swept over her and her face swung back to look at April.

“I am going to enjoy making this one my bitch,” she hissed at April. “Such arrogance. Such disrespect.”

“Well,” she said, leaning forward, reaching out one hand and gripping Aprils chin, and forcing her head around, so she could stare at her from inches away, “you are going to learn respect. And it will be my pleasure to instill it. And eventually, your pleasure to receive it. You have been playing with my toys, and for that, you will pay.”

“Trish,” intoned Turnbull quietly, while fishing around in his suit pocket.

Trish let go of April’s head, and April took the opportunity to express herself, in the only manner she could. She spat in Trish’s face.

“He’s not your toy any more. You made sure of that, bitch,” she spat at Trish, staring her down and not blinking herself.

This was going to be war, she could feel it. Only one queen bee.

There was a sharp crack as Trish slapped April, hard. April’s head jerked around, but she took great delight in slowly returning her face so it was square onto Trish, spat out a small bit of blood and then challenged, “Is that all you have? You’ll have to do better than that. Chris needs a real woman, not a puffy poser like you. It’s a good thing you have me tied up, because we both know if I wasn’t, you’d be all over that wall by now.” She nodded at the wall behind Trish.

To give her credit, Trish didn’t back down in the staring contest.

Turnbull sighed and said, louder, “TRISH.”

Trish turned away from April, and then smiled sweetly at him. “Yes, My Lord. It shall be as you desire,” and then she sat back, putting both hands in her lap, and smiling insincerely at April.

Turnbull leaned forward and snapped a small capsule under Chris’s nose. Almost instantly, Chris’ head jerked back, trying to get away from the intense smell. Even April could smell it.

Chris’ eyes fluttered open, and he sighed heavily, slowly starting to focus.

“Whaa... ?” he got out, before his eyes hit Trisha, and he tried to move forward, only to find himself restrained. Almost immediately, April could see him getting clearer, looking around, taking in the scene, looking thoughtfully at Turnbull, then looking over at April.

He gave her a rueful smile. “How we doin’, April?”

“Same as always. FUBAR,” she answered, a lot more lightly than she felt inside.

“That good, eh? I see we finally caught up with these two,” he nodded at Trish and Turnbull.

“Not quite as we planned though,” April retorted.

“Much as I enjoy playful banter as the next man,” interrupted Turnbull, “there are a few things we should talk about now.”

Morgan turned his head and regarded Michael Turnbull, visibly judging him.

Then he glanced at Trish and said, casually, “This is the man you left me for? Seriously? He must be hung like a horse? Really Trish. I thought you had better taste than that.”

“Oh, Chris,” she said, shaking her head. “You just so don’t understand. You never did. If you’d just gotten with the program, we’d still be so in love.”

Chris regarded her through lidded eyes. “If that’s love, I’m glad I’m out of it. You managed to kill that quite thoroughly that night, Trish.”

She sighed. “Well, it’s never too late.”

Chris laughed. “Oh, I rather think it is. Besides, I have someone else to take care of me. April, meet Trish, my ex. In all senses of the word.”

“We’ve met.”

“You. Well, you’ve been where you shouldn’t be. And I’m going to do something about that. Oh, I’m going to have such fun with you. I’ve been thinking of new ways to make your life a misery,” Trish seethed at April.

“What, can’t take the competition?” retorted April. She got what Chris was doing. The more he ridiculed them, the more annoyed Turnbull and Trish would get. Perhaps that would make a mistake.

Well, Trish was responding, at least. Turnbull, not so much.

“Trish,” he said mildly. “Let them have their fun. It’s only fun they are going to get, you know that. They are only here so we can talk about their fates. So let’s get on with that, then we can break them. They do, after all, so deserve it.”

Chris actually laughed. “Oh my god. Listen to yourself. You are like a cut price Blofeld. ‘No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!’”

Turnbull looked at him patiently, “Captain Morgan. Chris. I can call you Chris, can’t I? I feel like we are almost brothers, in having shared something so ... evocative.” His eyes flicked towards Trisha. “And I know I’ll soon be enjoying your latest as well. And she’ll want it. Just like Trisha does.”

He leaned forward and tapped Chris’ knee. “And, just because you’ve been such a thorn in our sides, for so long, we are actually going to hold off on your conditioning, just so you watch her break, and want me, so desperately. She’ll berate you and put you down and be oh so cruel to you. And we’ll laugh the whole time. Her most of all.

“She’ll even try and be her old self for you on occasion, just so she can revert back to type, to really bring home to you that she’s mine now. All of her. Body and soul.”

“You know, I am actually here,” spoke April, getting her voice heard. “I think I can decide what I want. It’s not like I haven’t been through this all before. I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as it was.”

“Ah, Ms. Carlisle. Yes. Another thorn. Such an interesting job though! Field agent for Ingrams & Associates. What a concept! Jessica Ingrams is so forward thinking! Oh yes, we know all about your little group. Desirea has been most helpful in getting us in deep there. Such a wonderful weekend’s reading, once we got your files. Such amazingly resourceful people, and such a fascinating bunch of missions you’ve undertaken. Although, it’s not like we didn’t know about you before then. Not in such detail, for sure, but we had an inkling. You stole from us, Ms. Carlisle. That little nothing from the DC Bureau. Remember her? You were so close to being taken right there and then, but you never knew it...

“It was only the latitude of my colleague that allowed you to leave. You just didn’t take the warning we gave you though, did you? No, you just carried on, charging in where you weren’t wanted.”

Turnbull paused to get a small flask out of his jacket, and took a nip. “Ahhh. Monologuing is such thirsty work, don’t you agree?”

“And then you chose to get involved with Doctor Jezdic. And we know how that ended, don’t we? That caused us some small inconvenience. You cost us our head researcher, - oh, don’t worry, we have everything he discovered, all his processes and experiments fully documented, so nothing is lost, but still. So hard to find imaginative help like Doctor Jezdic, you know? So devoted to their cause. We only had to provide him with money and an identity and off he went. We never even had to ask, he was so happy to show us his new methods and instruct in their uses.

“And then you showed up, and stuck your oar in, and he ended up with a bullet in the head, splattered all over the pavement in London. You are quite the destructive influence, aren’t you?

“Well, not any more. That particular path has come to an end, and not a moment too soon.”

He paused, and then looked speculatively at April, then at Chris.

“You know, I do want you to know I have some grudging respect for both of you. You are the only people who have hurt us, to any degree. You’ve both been keeping yourself free and making some degree of impact. Given who we are, the resources we have, that’s saying something. To be honest,” he leaned forward, and spoke conspiratorially to the two captives, “I’m somewhat between several potential paths where you are concerned. My board wants you to be executed immediately. They are beside themselves with anger at your actions. They just want you gone, no chance of any come back.”

He leaned back and took another swig from the flask. “But I think that’s shortsighted. So does Trish, right?”

Trish looked at Turnbull and smiled, beatifically. “Yes, dear,” she simpered.

“We think it’s better to give you a chance of mind. Thankfully, I am accorded some degree of ... latitude in my decisions. But then comes the decision of what to do with you? You may not be aware of this, but one of the requirements of our process is that we need to know what state of mind you should end up in, before we begin.”

He nodded at April, “I believe you already know this. The process works best when we know how we want you to think at the end of it. That way we can accentuate certain aspects of your personality that already exist, and suppress others, so we can ... mold you, into the right-thinking person we know you can be. One of the side effects of what Doctor Jezdic discovered in his search for the perfect indoctrination technique was the mapping of the personality genome. You understand what I mean? We can break down an established personality into its component parts, just like researchers have done with the human genome.”

April glanced at Chris, who was starting at Turnbull in disgusted fascination. He was trotting all this information out so conversationally.

“We can map out a personality now, and identify the pressure points we need to affect, in order to get a predefined result. And it’s that much more effective, because if we do it right, it doesn’t mess with the root personality too much, and effectively becomes the personality. It becomes so enmeshed, it can’t be unraveled. And it never has, apart from that one little adventure with your Mr. Hicks.”

Turnbull nodded at April, his expression totally placid.

“Thankfully, Desirea managed to get us the details on that, so we are already hard at work devising new strategies so that little event won’t be repeatable. Ahh, yes. Desirea. We should talk about her?

“Once we understood who you were, what your agency represented, we knew we needed to get inside. The whole situation that obtained us Desirea was manufactured. I mean, it was set up in such a way that those at the top couldn’t help but go to Ingrams and Associates for help. So, we sat back, watched, and right on time, in walked Desirea. She really didn’t take much indoctrination, you know. She was already ripe for the taking. Full of righteous anger and suppressed desire. Quite a lot involving you, in fact, April. Would it surprise you to know that you were the only agent at your little agency she never slept with? That she was so very angry that you held out. You became quite a subject of her attention. Almost an obsession. Once we discovered that, tapping into that need gave us the levers we needed to push her into our mindset. She’s quite the sub, in fact, almost better than Trish is. And also, when dominant, far more vicious and imaginative than Trish as well. Trish has a degree of sophistication where Desirea ... does not. She tends to go straight for the beating. But still, a superb result. And quite, quite useful. Trish here might actually have competition,” he finished, grinning a rictus smile at Trish, who simpered back.

“No worries there, my love. When she was being conditioned, I ensured she was subservient to me in all things. She would never dream of challenging me for any position. She lives to make me happy.”

“Is that what you did with her?” demanded Chris of Turnbull, nodding at Trish.

“Your wife? Well, actually, no. Perhaps a little nudge here and there. She did need to understand her place once or twice, but honestly, the more traditional training methods worked just fine. We only actually use the heavy-duty stuff for those who will ... resist the normal methods. They are time consuming and expensive, and if we get it wrong, well, that person ends up a vegetable. And your ex-wife is far too valuable an asset to take that risk. No, she came almost ready oriented. Ready for what we had to offer.”

Turnbull studied Chris Morgan. “You really didn’t know who she was inside at all, did you, Chris? I guess love truly is blind. Thankfully, I’m not wearing those particular blockers. I can appreciate her for what she is. A clever mind, and a hell of a piece of ass. And mine to do with as I please. Serving my ever desire is what makes her most happy. She could have been for that for you, you know. But no, that boy scout mentality, the whole ‘equals’ and ‘partners’ thing you tried instilling, well, it was never going to work.”

Turnbull suddenly pushed himself forward, on the edge of the stool, and stared Chris eyeball to eyeball.

“Do you ever wonder why she came to us in the first place, Chris? Why she decided to join us and our crusade?”

Chris stared back, but he did blink, which was enough for Turnbull.

“She’s a switch, Chris. Dominant with those she deems lower than her, and subservient with those she sees as higher. You were higher, once. But all that equals-but-different liberal tree hugger crap you tried pushing on her, well, it’s just not what she needed or wanted. It took encountering us. A night of observation of one of our wilder evenings. She came here as arm candy for one of those reporters at that pissant newspaper she worked for. We require couples and well, he needed cover, and you weren’t there, so she volunteered her services. And then she saw what we do. How we put people on the level they are intended to be. And she was hooked. She even took a turn with the crop.”

He glanced over at Trisha, who was staring back, eyes shining and entranced.

“She came back a week later, alone. And that’s when I knew we had her. So, we put her through her paces, with the correct applications of a few laced drinks, to loosen her up and get her in the mood, and she performed! Above any expectations. I’m sure she always imagined herself to be true to you, and this was supposed to be simple exploration. But, it took hold, and well. She came back again. And again. I got involved, and the moment I took control, well. You weren’t even a glance in the rear-view mirror.”

After another nip at the flash, he carried on.

“Well, I say that, but really, she never forgot what the two of you had. You always where in there, buried in her heart. And she wanted you with her, on the same path she was on. To share in the dominance and the submission. But, well, that didn’t work out. We indulged her since she was such a superb convert and then well, that didn’t turn out so well.

“But she’s done well in our organization. She grasped our goals quickly, and became an indispensable right hand for me. She thinks like I do, and I can trust her to get tasks accomplished, and, well, as you know, she’s an incredible fuck too. Imaginative, clever, multi-orgasmic, a real crowd pleaser, in every sense of the word. And we’ve never looked back.”

Suddenly Chris laughed, never wavering his gaze from Turnbull’s challenge. “Oh really? Well, I guess we never know someone totally, do we? Like you obviously had no clue who I was, either.”

There was a few seconds of silence, as the two men regarded each other, and then Turnbull sat back, slumped in his chair, the nonchalant face returning.

“Yes, I will admit to that failure. I do believe you have to own up to your mistakes, so you don’t make them again. We didn’t do any research on you, and trusted what your wife had to tell us, once she’d made the decision to join us. After she’d tasted what we had to offer. She’s quite the switch, that woman. So craven in her desire to please, and so wickedly and perverse in her imagination when she is the dominant. But yes, we thought you were just some jarhead, ripe for indoctrinating. We were more than a little surprised when you pulled that little action and then we went back to look and found you were a Captain in Military Intelligence. Heads rolled over that, I can tell. Your wife spent a month in bindings, with daily pain sessions, just for asking us to bring you in.”

He looked over at Trish, who shivered at the memory, still smiling delightedly at Turnbull.

“The funny thing is that while you’ve been looking for us, all these years, she’s been looking for you. It’s quite amusing to me, that the two of you have been searching for each other for all this time. For different reasons, obviously, but still. Quite the star-crossed lovers. She was most displeased to know you’d taken up with Miss Carlisle, - or is it Miss Burrows? - over there. I rather think she has some plans to make her displeasure known to both of you over that.”

Trish smirked at April, her hooded eyes flashing dangerously.

“But, back to the immediate future. What to do with you? Trish wants to make you subservient slaves. Just dedicated to our well-being, above all else. And I have to say the idea appeals. The idea of you wracking your brains to find new ways to protect us and please us after your past behavior has a certain symmetry to it, don’t you think? But ... you are both obviously able operators. And my thinking is that those talents would be better put to use by converting you to our point of view, and then sending you out into the world.

“And to be honest, I’d rather do that willingly. Like I’ve said, converting people is expensive, risky and has potential to leave vegetables, and I’d rather not take that risk with the two of you if I don’t have to. Oh, I will if I have to. But if you come willingly, well, it’s a much more pleasant experience for everyone. Even if it deprives Trisha here of her desire to make your lives as miserable as she can. If not, well, like I said, we’ll break April here first, and then you get to watch it, Chris. Lose yet another woman to the superior man. Yet another total failure.”

It was clear that while Turnbull was doing his best to sound like he didn’t care, he evidently did. He wanted to humiliate Chris Morgan as much as he could, for reasons only privy to himself.

“I don’t honestly believe you will join us willingly, but I’ve been wrong before, so in the interests of being fair and exploring every opportunity, let’s give it a try? And, before I begin, we will know if you are telling the truth. One thing we are very good at is finding out if people are feeding us a line. I’m sure I don’t have to explain how.”

Chris glanced at April, who rolled her eyes at him.

“Idly curious. Do you ever shut up?” she taunted him.

Turnbull just stared at her for a second, and something in his eyes, or rather, something not in his eyes, absolutely turned her bowels to ice.

“So, you’ve been chasing us all these months and years. Trying to shut us down. Burning down our buildings, trying to free those who have pledged themselves to us. But why? Why are you doing this? No, that was rhetorical. Let me answer the question. Because we took something from you. Something you considered precious. Because we do things you consider reprehensible. But you don’t ask the critical question, do you?”

There was another quick silence where Turnbull looked questioningly at both April and Chris, challenging them to answer him.

“No, you don’t. You never ask why we are doing this. You just assume we are the bad guys. Indoctrinating people against their wills. Creating sex slaves for the dominant and powerful. Well, that alone is enough to engage your ire. I can see it in your eyes.”

He took another swig from his flask, and then offered it to Trish, who declined. He shrugged.

“This is Johnny Walker Blue. I understand it’s a favorite of yours? You want some?” he held out the flask to Chris who shook his head, and then offered to April who similarly refused.

“Your loss. This is the good stuff. Anyway. So yes, we have been doing that sort of thing. Guilty as charged.” Turnbull held up his hands together, as though waiting to be cuffed.

“But you never asked why. There is a reason in the madness. When we found Doctor Jezdic, we just had an idea. A glimmer of a better world. Powerful people who wanted to make more of an impact. Oh, being an elder statesman of industry was all very well, but most of the people are self-aware enough to know that once they are gone, then it’s greedy usurpers scrambling to make a profit out of the cooling corpse of what they spent their life building. Or greedy offspring, suing each other for a great part of the fortune amassed. They don’t want to leave this world like that. They want to make a difference. To make a change. To leave the world better, more stable, than they were born into.

“So, I ask you this. What if we had a world where everyone was rowing in the same direction? Where religious and political differences were eliminated? Where no one was prosecuted for the color of his skin? Where humanity actually agreed with each other, instead of trying to get one over his fellow man all the time? Where there was peace?”

There was a moment as April and Chris suddenly started to realize the scope of what they were looking at.

Turnbull leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, clasping and playing with the flask, as he talked at it.

“What we are doing here isn’t just about making sexual playthings for people too rich to know wrong from right. Yes, we do that, but it’s a step in the direction of where we want to go. And it’s good testing. If we can change a man’s mind from being a masculine strong male to being a subservient faggot for a mediocre couple,” April realized he was talking about Lieutenant Hicks, one of her past missions, “then we can change the mind of people in crucial positions in governments around the world, to get them to see things our way. The right way. So we can start to harness the power of humanity, for its own good.”

There was a stunned air from April and Chris as they saw the scope of what their enemy was outlining. He was right, they’d never really considered the why, - the what had been enough up till now. But this was ... stunning. Far beyond anything they had dreamed of. Real Bond villain stuff.

Turnbull looked up. “I can see you hadn’t considered any of this. You just had no concept of the scale of what you are trying to take down. We have plans. Plans beyond just providing sex toys for the rich. I’m sure you can see how ridiculous your efforts were, knowing this.”

April felt she had to say something. The trouble was, everything she could say would sound like the last, desperate, shocked response of someone with no way to stop it.

“You’ll never get away with it. It’s just so ridiculous in conception. You aren’t going to be able to indoctrinate powerful people. I’ve been on the receiving end of that. It just takes too long. You aren’t going to be able to program the Prime Minister of England. He can’t be out of sight that long!”

She was aware she was reaching, but someone had to say something.

Turnbull smiled at her, a smile that never reached his eyes.

“Oh my dear. We aren’t going to take them. They are going to come willingly. You don’t understand. It’s the people who want our services who are generally the people we need thinking our way in the first place. We aren’t going to be trying to force ourselves on people who are unwilling. They are all too willing. We already have a lot of the people we need to start this process, all ready to come and visit, and then, well, let’s just say they’ll leave a little more convinced than they came. This is all very well planned out my dear. We know what we are doing.

“You have to understand, we aren’t evil here. We aren’t out for what we can get. We are doing the work that has to be done. To bring humanity back from the brink. To get us to work together.”

Chris let out a long breath and then said, “You know the Germans tried this back in World War two. The aryan human. The super man. Look where it got them. This is just Nazi ideals, packaged differently.”

Turnbull straightened the crease in his trousers, before replying.

“No, it’s not. I’ve heard that comparison before. We aren’t trying to stamp out individualism or make it all group think or some kind of hive mind. That would be stupid, and impossible. Humans will deviate in ideas no matter what we do. No, we want that individualism. We don’t want a master race, bred for dominance, as the National Socialists did. We need the cross pollination of ideas. All we are doing is adding a common direction at the bottom of the pile. So things like race or religion or petty feuds or nationalism don’t triumph over humanity working together.”

April thought that put like that, what they were doing was almost plausible. And then she remembered Major Hicks, as she had found him in that hovel in England, beaten, emaciated and so full of despair, and she knew that all that Turnbull had to say was PR for a mind control domination-based empire.

“So the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor, and they just stop complaining about it? With you at the top, pulling the strings?” she asked, sardonically.

“Well, someone has to have a guiding hand. Might as well be me,” he replied, disarmingly, smiling at her and showing a full mouth of bright white teeth.

April could see that this man was a fanatic. Nothing she or Chris could say could persuade him out of his own perceived rightness. He was the worst kind of evil, a true believer in his own righteousness.