Part XI - 5: Your Subconscious is Thy Master

After my workout with Joey and Pete in the weightroom, Joey drove me home in the Mustang and we discussed the possible problems of letting the twins try and straighten out Michael's head.

"I have an idea of who to ask about it," Joey finally said.

"Who?"

"Your dad."

"Yeah! He would know better than anyone. Okay."

When I got through to him, he quickly told me, "Yes, the girls probably could do it if they think they can, but you might be better off if you didn't. As long as they don't know we can undo their tampering, they might just kill their slaves instead of leaving them behind like they did Michael."

"Shit... Shit... Awe shit," Joey said afterwards, staring at me with a sad look.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Well... let's go see how he's feeling. And maybe have another go at his memories to see if we missed anything. I've already told my mom and dad I'm not going to Florida in June. I just hope we can find Penny and David then."

"Shit... " Joey said again as we started walking towards Michael's room.

Michael was laying in bed on his stomach watching someone make some kind of pasta on cable. His eyes never moved even after Joey turned the TV off.

"Maybe it's time to take those commands out that you used to counter Steven's hold on him," I said softly.

"But what then. I guess we can handle anything he tries, but I wish there was a way to give him his, er, what did you call it this morning?"

"Motivation?"

"Yeah... We need a way to give him his motivation back without letting his loyalty to Steven through too."

"But you know as well as I do that they are the one and the same. I spent over four hours the other day before figuring that out."

"I know. Like I said, I wish there was a way. Well, are you ready? I hope he doesn't wreck the room or anything."

"Yeah. Including us. I'm ready when you are."

Joey carefully canceled the commands he had used on Michael in order to make him pull the van over. When he finished, Michael did the last thing we could have expected. He started to cry.

"Shit. Now what?" Joey said as Michael wailed into the pillow.

"I don't know!" I said loudly enough for Joey to hear me. "He's not bluffing it. But at least he isn't wrecking the room!"

Michael started calling Penny's and Steven's names between his sobs. I realized that my earlier attempts to undo his conditioning had resulted in the grief he was feeling. I quickly explained this to Joey, and he suggested we wait a little while to see if it would pass before trying anything else.

A half an hour passed before Michael sobered up enough to take in his surroundings. I couldn't believe how white his face turned when he realized who I was.

"Michael, you don't need to be afraid of me like that," I pleaded. "I want to help you, Penny, and your brother."

"Liar!" he screamed. I almost looked around to see if someone else had said it because he had barely moved. He sat motionless, watching us like a rabbit, afraid to move in case his enemy would spot him.

Joey had been scanning Michael's mind and apparently noticed something.

"Michael, do you know who I am?" Joey asked calmly.

"No... But you must be evil otherwise you wouldn't be here with the devil."

"Shit," I said under my breath. Me? The devil?

"Steven sent me to help you," Joey said, stepping away from me.

"He did? No he didn't. If he had he would have... Oh... " Michael said in a whisper as Joey showed him the inside of his right arm. Joey was using the same trick I had used on Holly and the gate person at the amusement park. Michael saw what he expected to see if Joey really had been sent by Steven to help him.

"Please, sir? Take me to Steven and Penny? I feel like I'm dying inside," Michael said pitifully before softly crying again.

Joey started showing me what he had found. Michael's mind had so many gaps in it that his imagination was using the memories it could access to start filling some of the bigger gaps in. Joey thought he may be able to use this somehow, and we both agreed it would be better if I left Joey alone with Michael.

I had my own reasons for letting Joey try it alone. My greater experience in scanning other minds resulted in detecting what I believed to be a part of Michael's true self trying to reach out to Joey for help. Steven's conditioning had a major flaw in it.

He had concentrated on two things. Making Michael completely faithful to himself and for some reason to Penny also, and also induced the incredible desire to help defeat, capture, and control me.

But they had taken no precautions against anyone else gaining Michael's trust. I wanted to believe that on some level the true Michael was trying to overcome Steven's brainwashing, and hopefully Joey would help draw that part of him out even more. But because of Michael's mind being so unstable, I didn't tell Joey any of this. If Michael suspected Joey was trying to coerce him, he would most likely become violent. This was Michael's struggle. All we could do was let him work it out on his own.

Joey had me call his mom to tell her he wouldn't be coming home for dinner. As usual, Margaret took it with a grain of salt, always thinking we were going to do something sexual, which so far we hadn't. I got a little nosy and poked around inside her head after we hung up.

The night where Joey and I accidentally tipped his and Suzi's parent's off about our relationship was running through her mind. I found the events that had taken place while Joey, Suzi, and I were in the garage and walking around outside very interesting.

Suzi's and my mom had calmed the other three parents down while my dad went to the surveillance room and piped the garage's cameras through to the family room's TV.

They had seen everything. They had turned the TV on the moment I had found Joey sitting in the car. Margaret almost cried herself when Joey had his face buried into my shoulder, especially when my own tears had started to fall. She was torn between the wrongness of what she thought we had done and her motherly feelings for both of us.

I was rather surprised to find Margaret didn't think very highly of Suzi. When Suzi came into the picture, Margaret started to feel protective, or maybe a little jealous. She had fought those feelings in the past, knowing it was inevitable for Joey to find a girl he loved more than his own mother. But as Suzi pulled Joey up against her chest, Margaret felt a pang of hatred towards Suzi.

Even as Margaret thought about this, I sensed her battling those same feelings. She knew they were unfounded, especially when her own assessment of Suzi's character told her Suzi wasn't the manipulating type nor trying to corrupt her son. Logical arguments such as these very rarely help something as illogical as the feelings she had. But for now, they allowed her to keep her mouth shut, hoping either Joey will lose interest in Suzi, or she and Suzi find something they can relate too.

What startled me the most was Margaret and I had both come to the same conclusion. Joey and Suzi were destined to be together. Her intuition had told her the exact same thing mine had told me. I never really had strong doubts about this, but I had hoped... Anyway, this washed away any doubt, any hope I had of being somehow a part of their lives. Or at least until death do us part.

I disconnected at that point, not wanting to find anything else to depress or worry me.

So to kill time, I went and worked on Midge for a while. Despite my strong desire to get her operational, Midge's motor still couldn't run anywhere near the lift off speed. Joey and I spent nearly 100 hours trying to find some reason for this before Joey gave up. I couldn't blame him. I was being stubborn about wanting to fix her myself instead of getting someone else to do it for me. But after almost a month of working solo, I had pretty much given up on that myself.

But I wasn't about to take her to someone in pieces. I worked for two hours straight, carefully reassembling Midge's heart, making sure everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be.

I was nearly finished when Joey contacted me. Michael now believed Joey was his best friend, and had told Joey about his fears and desires. Joey patiently listened and comforted him without attempting to coax any information that Michael didn't freely offer.

After Michael had fallen asleep from exhaustion, Joey said he had reinserted the zombie commands. Michael wouldn't be aware of time passing while he was in that state, so Joey planned to wait until the next day before having another go.

I told him I would be finished in another twenty minutes, and after a shower I'd be ready to eat. I felt something odd when I closed the connection, a feeling that someone needed to say something. I would have reopened it, but I couldn't figure out if I had picked something up from Joey or myself.

I was just starting to scrub some of the grease off my arms when Joey opened the shower door and got in, holding his hard dick with one hand.

A shudder passed through me as his muscular body pressed up against mine. I didn't know what was worse. The strong revulsion I was feeling, or the sadness that was sinking deeper into my soul.

Joey and I hadn't done anything more than kiss a few times since... I can't even remember. Sometime last winter I think. We loved each other, just like we loved Suzi, but it was a love that had reached a point where we didn't need sex with each other to prove it. All of our sexual energy was spent on the slaves at school. I hadn't even fucked Suzi with Joey around since Joey and I took turns in the back of his car that December night.

So when Joey's mouth started sucking at the back of my neck, he almost fell on his face from my involuntary step to get away from him.

"Shit Tim!" Joey said when he regained his balance. "What did you do that for?"

"I'm sorry... " I said, fighting my desire to shed tears. "I can't do it anymore... Not with you anyway... " I said.

"The fuck you can't," Joey said. "Look in my eyes and say you don't want me to fuck you like only I know how."

I raised my eyes up to his, opened my mouth, then froze as I felt his mind enter my own by force. Before I could take any action, he gave me one single command and left my head.

"There," Joey said with satisfaction as I blinked at his suddenly attractive body.

I took a hold of myself and closed my eyes, forcing my mental eye to examine the change he made in me. As I suspected, he had given me a lust for his body that paralleled his own for mine.

"I can't believe you did that," I said without emotion. "I would have never forced something like that on you."