Corporate Takeover: The Tradwife Trap Pt. 3

Elliot moved tentatively past them in bare feet. Part of his slow movement was a general soreness that plagued him for the past few days. It was like he ha the flu, and every joint and muscle ached. Still, this limited freedom excited him and he led, rather than followed, the pair of women down the hall toward the main lobby. He was surprised to se ethe double doors opened, and the sound of men’s voices came distantly from beyond the threshold.

The lobby had been repurposed for the morning, and a large square table stood in the center of it. His was the only chair empty. Farrell, Jason, and Ted all sat around it, filling plates with fresh fruit and waffles and traditional bacon and eggs. The rich smell of good coffee floated across the lobby and Elliot’s stomach roiled in anticipation of a big meal.

“There’s the other prisoner,” Ted said before pushing a blueberry muffin into his mouth.

“Might as well join us,” Farrell said. “Either that or we’re back in the rooms. Or that other room.”

“The dark room?” Elliot asked, seating himself with the men. “You’ve been there, too?”

Elliot wasted no time in filling his plate like the others. The melon was crisp and delicious and juicy. The light coming in from the glass walls of the lobby made the scene feel cheerier than it should. Several of the young woman stood around the perimeter of the lobby, those taser devices on their sides, so not even the sunlight could erase the ominous mood entirely.

“We’ve all been there.” Elliot looked at Jason, who shrugged while forking eggs into his mouth. “We compared notes already. Whatever it is they’re doing to us, it seems to be the same.”

“Mind controlling us.” Farrell grimaced. “That’s what’s going on in that room. You don’t know that? How come when I first got here, all I could do was think of ways to escape. Now? I get sick to my stomach at the thought of running away. I bet you all do, too.”

Ted nodded. “I hardly think of it anymore. Hell, they could leave the door open and I’d probably puke before I walked out.”

“So what does that mean? We still don’t know what the end game is,” Jason prodded.

“I have no idea,” Elliot answered.

“I have some idea.” Farrell gestured around the table. “Have you bothered to look at yourselves lately? When was the last time any of you shaved?”

Elliot’s hand lifted to his chin and rubbed. It was true. He hadn’t shaved since the day he arrived, but there was no rough stubble on the curve of his chin or his cheeks. He saw Jason doing the same.

Farrell continued. “I don’t know how or why, but they are doing something to our bodies. I feel like I have glass in my joints. And the face looking back at me is starting to look like someone else. Another week fo this and who knows what we look like. Me? I’m done.”

Surprising them all, Farrell pushed back from the table, the scoot of the chair echoing in the lobby. When he stood, one of the pretty young woman called over:

“Sit down, please.”

Farrell looked at the other men seated around the breakfast table.

“You come with me or end up being whatever benson wants you to be. Either way, I’m not standing for it.”

That much turned out to be true, Elliot thought. Farrell turned and sprinted for the door. He was tall and well-built, his muscles sluggish from inattention over the past days, but he was naturally strong and quite fast. He almost made it to the exterior doors before a trio of women fired their tasers at him. Metal wire snaked toward him. One struck behind him where he’d been an instant before. The next hooked in his meaty thigh, the other in his neck. As if someone had hit a STOP button on a remote, one second Farrell was running, the next he was on the ground, still as a store mannequin. His eyes were open and even from several yards away, Elliot saw the fear and pain in them.

While the others ate and sipped their coffee, a gurney was brought in to take Farrell away. None of them attempted a similar escape. And, after he was gone for a while, they abandoned even questioning why they were there and tried to manufacture some normalcy. That lasted until the young women called them away and back to their cells. As he stepped again into the blinding white room, Elliot wondered why he hadn’t tried to escape with Farrell. Maybe the man was right. Maybe he was lost already.

Julie came by later that day with two armed assistants in tow. Elliot remained seated while they entered.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Rogers, just a quick injection today.”

“Is this one of those days where I lose my mind for eight hours?”

Julie laughed, a genuine one by the sound of it. “No, sir. You’ll barely know you had anything. You might feel a little queasy, but there’s water for that. You’ll be fine in no time.”

While she dabbed the crook of his arm with alcohol and tapped for a vein, he looked into the startlingly pretty face of his captor.

“Whata re you doing to us?”

“Why, we’re making you better, Mr. Rogers. Better than you could ever imagine. Don’t you trust us?”

Of course he didn’t. They had taken him hostage, subjected him to all manner of drugs and whatever happened in the dark room. They locked him in a cell and refused to answer any questions.

“I rust you,” he said. He didn’t know why he said it, only that it was out of his mouth before he knew he was saying anything at all.

“Good. There, all done. We’ll be back around dinner. We’re very happy with the progress you’re making.”

“Thank you.”

He watched them go, rubbing the crook of his arm at the point of the injection. When the door was closed and locked again, he wondered over his response, the quick way he’d abdicated all blame and merely done as they’d asked. After several minutes of this thinking, he began to cry and he cried for a very long time.

Benson’s nails were whats he thought of as fashionably long. Not so long she couldn’t type or do the ssort of work required of her, but long enough o be marked as feminine. It should come as no surprise to her that she admired all things feminine, even in herself. Some might accuse her of having the ambition and steel of a man, but that was only because so many mistook weakness for femininity. She did no hold with that sort of thinking. Streangth had no gender.

Curiosity, though, that might be the domain of the woman. Men were often content to understand things as theyw ere, being relatively simple creatures. Benson wanted to know the reasons behind things. And she especially wanted to know who was funding her enterprise. She rolled her nails on the deska gain, poindering just this thing.

“I need to know who he or she is.”

“Why does it matter?” Julie knew enough o remain quiet until benson spoke lest she interrupt some important train of thought. Benson wasn’t cruel, but Julie knew a flare of anger when she saw it. Benson merely had the composure to tame her emotions.

“Because the what I do is important, but the why is equally important. I want to know that what I do is done for the right reasons. From these files, it appears to me that all of our current subjects require the work we do to make them more useful members of society. Some of the uses are less than I would have chosen for them, but all worthwhile and less dangerous than the men they were before. But I must not be complacent. I must know that what I do is done to further my own aims. I may be the recipient of financial kindness, but I am no mere employee.”

Julie said nothing.

“I invited him here,” Benson said.

“Oh?”

“Yes. Under the auspices of touring the facility, seeing what kind of work we do here, and to satisfy their curiosity about how it is we do what we do.”

“Mystery solved, then.”

“Not quite. I hate surprises. Before our patron ever steps foot in the facility, I want to know who they are.” She emphasized the last with a tic of a nail on her wide desk.

“How do we do that?”

“We go to Langston Airfield. More precisely you go to Langston Airfield and look for flight plans. Any arriving in the three days before and after the twentieth. Any private charter might be our patron. I want all the names. And I can begin researching from there.”

“How do you suppose I get those?”

“Most are public record. And you are a resourceful young woman. Whatever you cannot gain by legal means, use your wiles. I trust you.”

Julie grinned. “Thank you, Dr. Benson. I won’t let you down.”

Elliot ran his ahnd around his chin and over his cheeks again. His light brown eyes stared back at him, but they stared from a face he didn’t fully recognize. Farrell was right. They were changing. It wasn’t just the fact he no longer needed to shave. The hair on his face was almost gone, and what remained was fine and light, almost invisible to the naked eye. When he touched his cheeks, he knew his skin had softened, too. And wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes were erased in the days since he arrived at the Janus Institute. Was it weeks? Perhaps not that long, but the days were flying by in a haze. He was no longer sure of any measurement of time, and he did not trust himself to remember precisely what happened from moment to moment.

His transformation was subtle, but discernible. His body was eroding, the rough edges beings anded away by this invisible process. His legs were almost as smooth a shis face, and his ass was starting to fill out, making the standard white jumpsuit he wore, one of several he had been provided so he didn’t wear the same jumpsuit day-to-day, showed off how pronounced his rear was becoming.

When the door opened, he looked casually to Julie, who stood there with the two helpers behind her.

“Good morning,” he said. His voice was lazy, just like his thoughts.

“Good morning, Mr. Rogers. Would you ome with me, please? It’s time for another special session with Dr. Benson.”

It was a strange feeling to be terrified and elated all at once. Part of him thrilled at the idea of being with the lovely doctor, while another, desparate voice begged him not to go and urged him o run from this place. If they shocked him, begin running when he woke again. Never stop until he was free or slept forever.

And on top of the thoughts of escape came the waves of nausea, leaving him tottering, gripping the sink to steady himself. Bile rose in the back of his throat. Only when that happy voice inside him urged him to the door so he could be with Dr. benson again was obeyed could his stomach relax.

He was shuffling down the hall in bare feet, surrounded by three very pretty girls, marched toward th dark room where he would lose himself in the spirals again.

“Whatever it is,” he whispered, “I hope it’s quick.”

Julie said nothing. Her smile said it all.

Once the drugs hit him, there was little resistance left in Elliot Rogers. A quick induction from benson and he was open and ready. The colorful spirals spun on the ceiling above them, and now Benson added another layer of mind-warping technology to the mix. She inserted earplugs and hit play on her laptop. She couldn’t make it out aurally, but she felt the thump of bass in her chest while the sounds rolled and rose and fell. It was a deep bass sound, filled with long tones and signals that were designed to keep the mind from pure focus, to rip apart any thought untila l that was left was the open acceptance of the thoughts Benson inserted in her subject’s mind. She saw him blink harder when the sounds began and made anote of the effect. This was still new, and careful analysis of its effects was needed.

There would be another addition to her repertoire today, an idea she had when debating the best manner for an old persona to be discarded in favor of a new one. It was a direct approach. Another click on the laptop and the images at the bottom of the spiral were pictures of Elliot himself. The Elliot from before, smiling at a camera. All manner of leisure and formal dress, all kinds of expressions and situations. It was a life unfolding in images buried at the bottom of a spiral.