Chapter 3

I called in a favor from a fellow veteran who worked at the company and got a ride into work. Kameron wasn't happy about me ducking her, but she let it go after sending me a curt text message. I went in through the main entrance. The rumor mill must have worked overtime the day before--the guards called me 'Sir' when I asked to see the sign-in book.

Elaine Smith, Institute Positive Telepathic Class. She was already in the building, but no one authorized her entry so I didn't have a clue where she might be sitting.

"The new project manager came looking for you," Ana said when I got to my desk. "You have a meeting with them."

"She was down here?"

Ana twisted her lips as she nodded.

"Shit!"

Ana nodded in agreement. "A nice raise."

"What?" I asked putting my stuff down, getting on my machine, and opening my calendar. Ms. Dare sent the meeting invite at five-thirty in the morning!

"If she's going to micro-manage, I want a very nice raise before I go with you," Ana told me.

"So that's how it is?" I joked.

"No," she winked at me. "But they don't have to know that!"

I stared at her for a second.

"What's wrong?" She checked the front of her shirt for stains.

I shook my head. A generous raise and Ana could afford to divorce the shithead husband! It would benefit me, since she'd need a more flexible schedule if she had to take care of the kids on her own.

"Or maybe a full-time nanny," I said to myself.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "How did the date with Kameron go?"

I coughed for a couple of seconds. "What?"

Ana laughed as she turned back to her computer. "I think Melissa and Kameron aren't best friends anymore. You have a meeting."

I peeked under the shaded glass and saw four sets of heels. One of the women stood up and approached the door.

"Come in," Angela said to me.

"It's okay," I waved. "I can wait out here until you're done."

"We're waiting for you, Michael," she replied.

I didn't like ambushes!

They'd chosen a small conference room. The Institute Positive sat at the head of the table; Ms. Dare, Kameron, and Angela sat to her left and right, leaving only the chair opposite for me.

"Can we talk?" I asked the Positive. "Privately."

"It's not necessary," she replied. "The ladies are going to be working closely with you so we need to be completely honest with them."

I glanced at Angela. She worked for Release Management, essentially a gatekeeper between development and production. RM was too in love with schedules for me to be fond of them. I did tone down the 'asshole' with Angela. Big booty, big benefits!

"It's a lot of money," Elizabeth Dare told me. "Your team can't be as slim as you seem to prefer."

"I'm not a manager," I said quickly.

"That's been made perfectly clear in the meetings leading up to this," Kameron said. "It's why we need Angela."

"I thought you were going to be my manager, Kameron," I said.

"It won't work according to Elaine," Elizabeth said. "If your team isn't going to have a traditional manager, everything around you needs one."

"There's a lot of working around you, Mr. Jones," the Institute Positive said. "What exactly are you going to be doing?"

"I'm the cleaning lady, the babysitter, the handyman, and the fireman," I told her.

"Thank you," she nodded.

"You read what that means from my mind," I said.

"Yes," she replied. "And no ... I didn't do anything to you last night."

I sat down and stared at her. "You had to have done something."

"I got the girls to clean up the bedroom and straighten up the apartment a little. I made sure they got to their beds," she said. "It wasn't for you. Kameron wasn't ready to find a pair of fucked-out college girls in your bedroom."

I tried very hard not to look at Kameron ... and failed. She was studying my face in minute detail.

"And she's ready for it now?" I asked.

"She's tasted your power. Literally!" the Positive replied. "And please, my name is Elaine. It's rude to think of me as 'The Positive' when you know my name."

"Sorry," I replied. "I'm not used to dealing with mind readers."

She smiled at the tone of my voice. "Kameron and I talked this morning. She has a better understanding of the situation."

"Wait!" I raised a hand. "My power."

"Yes," Elaine said with a wide smile. "You're Erotic Mind Control Positive, Michael."

Kameron, Elizabeth, and Angela stared at me with varying degrees of confusion, awe, and hunger. Angela looked really, really hungry!

"That's ... that's ... That's NOT impossible," I said, leaning back in the chair.

"No," Elaine said. "The signs were there all along. You've actually added a few things to the list of signifiers. This is a very successful company!"

I put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling. "Are you sure? It could be somebody at the school."

"Melissa and you, dear," she replied. "Considering nobody fucks without one of us intervening any more, you had a perfectly abnormal relationship."

"Shit!" I said. "What the fuck was I thinking?"

"PTSD," she said. "You crucified three men."

"He what?" the three other women gasped.

"Michael was on the Orphan Teams," Elaine told them.

"That's classified information!" I said.

"On his last mission, enemy soldiers executed the children," she continued. "They ambushed the team too. It was ugly; missionaries died. At the end, Michael gave the three surviving enemy soldiers proper crucifixions, nails through the wrists and feet."

The other women's eyes couldn't have been wider as they stared at me.

"We had to shut the Teams down soon after," Elaine said.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be, Michael. You bought us the 'soon'! We let the tape get out to a few places we wanted to raid," she replied. "You were the boogeyman that let the Orphan Teams do another round without incident."

"Wait!" Angela said. "If he's Positive, how did Melissa manage to dump him?"

Elaine raised an eyebrow at Angela before tilting her head towards Kameron.

"He wanted the little bitch gone!" Angela snapped her fingers.

"He was ready to come out of his shell." Elaine nodded. "It wouldn't have taken him much longer to figure it out."

"He does live with four college girls." Kameron sounded annoyed.

"I wouldn't, dear," Elaine told her.

"What?" Kameron's head snapped from me to Elaine.

"He likes you, but he's Positive," Elaine said in a deadly voice. "If you don't like the new rules of the world, don't play. Let me be clear--I won't allow you to damage him!"

Kameron ducked her eyes.

"Damage him?" Elizabeth asked.

"Michael is not completely out of the hole he dug," Elaine said. "I'm not going to let Kameron or any of you push him back in because you can't accept there is more at stake than holding on to some little girl fantasies that were bullshit even before the world imploded."

Elaine looked at each woman in turn. "He's going to fuck a lot ... and I mean a LOT of women."

"I really wish you'd stop talking as if weren't sitting right here," I said loudly.

"This is an Institute project," Elaine said. "We won't allow a contractor to take our money and flaunt our rules."

I put a hand on my forehead. "I get Ana at double the salary. Fuck it! She's underpaid ... triple."

"Done," Elizabeth said.

I looked at her from under my hand.

"What class am I?" I asked Elaine.

"Pheromonic," she replied. "We have a test set up to gauge your strength. With everyone else we test range also but that's too environmental for your kind of Positive."

"Right now?" I was getting to know how the Institute worked.

"You seem to be accepting this calmly," Kameron said to me.

I stared at her. "Yesterday, I filled your panties with cum."

She blushed.

"That's tame compared to what happened in the hour before you got to my apartment," I said. "I ... Fuck me!"

"Yes, they will," Elaine said, standing up. "Or, Elizabeth and Kameron, I expect letters of resignation on your boss's desk within the hour. The severance package will be generous."

"Why not Angela?" I asked.

"I'm volunteered for the test," Angela told me. "I'm wearing the same panties as yesterday by the way."

I followed Elaine and Angela out of the room. "Don't you think you were a little harsh with them, Elaine?"

She stopped and smiled at me. "This isn't Elizabeth's first Institute rodeo. She helped with two smaller projects. As soon as your company started looking like the favorite, they hired her to signal a serious intent to do this right and not purely to make a profit."

"So..."

"Elizabeth is in there to guide Kameron towards the right decision, whatever that might be. Don't be chivalrous about it, please! If the best thing for Kameron is to take the check, Elizabeth will double it to make it easier for your girl to walk," Elaine said as we turned the corner to the company town hall.

"So Elizabeth..."

"Yes," Angela said. "She knows she's your type. Not that I believe it, since Kameron and I are your favorites! Although, Melissa was the hottest blonde before Elizabeth got hired so maybe now..."

"I just want to be clear..." I looked down at Angela's hips.

Elaine and Angela stopped in front of the town hall doors. Elaine looked at me, "You're the Director's dream Positive, Michael. Ex-Military. Duty. Honor. Practicality. Elizabeth knew what you were the second you shut her down yesterday. If you're willing to lose Kameron, we can go back so you can bend Elizabeth over the conference table and show her who is the boss."