The alarm clock buzzed uncomfortably nearby, nudging Marigold out of her late-evening stupor. She didn't trust her phone for such an important job, so she'd acquired an old digital model and plugged it in with a battery backup, just in case. She checked the time on it every morning, too, just to be certain, so when the buzzing woke her, she knew she had ten minutes. Well, given the inaccuracies inherent in the old tech, between nine and ten, but it was plenty of time either way.

Several guests had commented on how odd it was that The Order's lead technologist in the testing village would use such an outdated piece of technology, but no one knows how easy it is for technology to fail like a scientist.

Marigold stretched out on the bed, brushing red curls out of her face, and picked up her glasses. The alarm kept buzzing, reminding her of what she had to do. She smiled, thinking of Danica. Danica had been the last thing on her mind before she fell asleep, and almost the first thing on her mind when she woke, and that was becoming a habit. A very pleasant habit. Her beautiful dark-skinned lover had left a note on the table, like usual, which Marigold picked up with a smile.

Hey babe, the missive read in that perfect, beautiful, flowing script Marigold had come to expect, sorry to eat and run (Marigold grinned at the joke) but I have to be home for programming hour. That made sense, Danica had an overnight guard shift. See you later! and a flourishing signature with a little heart over the 'i'.

Marigold's scientific mind didn't believe in love at first sight, but when the new girl had showed up a month ago, something had landed hard on the technologist. She held the basic, simple note to her bare chest and laughed at her own silliness.

Oh, a month ago. Three young women on a road trip took a wrong turn, ended up in the village just before 11:30 at night, when the signal went out. Dazed by the effect, hypnotized by their own hacked music device, they sat in their car waiting for recovery, which happened just before one in the morning. All three were pretty, but when Marigold walked into the office at eight and saw the new recruits...

She took a deep breath, heart warm, and put the note down. The alarm was still buzzing, the clock read 11:23. She had roughly six minutes to block the signal, as all the project leads did every night. Two specially-programmed ear buds. It was simple. They didn't block out the sound, they countered it, like a white noise machine. Since she didn't use her ear buds for music during the day, she simply left them in their charger until the alarm buzzed, put them it, waited until she heard the rapid, annoying clicking that signalled the cancelling effect, then put them back. Simple. Routine.

The signal bell was The Order's greatest technology-in-progress. It wasn't really a bell, it was a massive speaker bank in the tower in the middle of town, which would emanate a precisely-calibrated soundwave. Anyone hearing it for more than a moment or two would be stunned, their mind opened to further programming, which The Order was more than happy to provide, via remote activation and projection of hypnotics through all kinds of sound-producing electronics. The combination made sure that anyone in the radius—sadly, only about two kilometres, at the moment—would be a devoted servant of The Order, ready for any kind of gruntwork the superiors had in mind for them. The village existed for testing the signal; it had been all but a ghost town until The Order moved in three years ago, at Marigold's insistence. She needed a laboratory, and now that laboratory was a fully functional living space for a population just north of a hundred people, a few operatives and scientists, mostly the rank-and-file pawns that made up The Order's footsoldiers. Which included her beloved Danica.

Marigold got up, still naked from her earlier lovemaking. A little over five minutes to reach over to the little charging box, pull out the earbuds, and put them in. The signal's ability to remotely activate electronics meant that she didn't even have to turn them on, just put them in, and the signal would effectively counter itself. The first thing she'd developed after she'd developed the bell; the signal would be of no use if it knocked everyone in range out entirely. The effect was mind-numbing, too; Order footsoldiers were capable of a lot, but higher-level thought was not on their list. No scientific inquiry, no philosophical questioning, nothing that might challenge their programming. Some others, like her two lab assistants, were not so deeply controlled; they had gone through much more intense loyalty conditioning and reclamation, allowing them to be trusted with greater cognitive functioning. Some, like Marigold herself, were true believers, and aside from some small quality control testing had never been fully programmed.

The world would know the benefit of The Order, in time. Marigold picked up the small box that kept her earbuds charged. Soon, no one would need to suffer the sort of mockery she'd had to endure in her childhood, the sort of ostracism she'd put up with in university, the abuse her first boyfriend had put her through, the neglect of her first girlfriend. Everyone would be happy, everyone would be comfortable, everyone would pull together for a common goal.

Marigold pushed the button to silence the clock alarm as the display ticked over to 11:26. The only defence against the signal, except for the earbuds in the charger in her hand, was complete sensory privation. Total hearing loss. It was perfect. Range was an issue, but she was working on it.

She opened the little charging case.

It was empty.

She stared at it.

"No," she whispered. Had she forgotten to put them back the night before? "Oh no, oh no no no..." she muttered, looking at the floor, behind the fold-out bed in her small apartment, under the chair. "No no no no nonononono," she babbled frantically, rushing to the bathroom. They weren't there. Where could she have possibly...?

"This can't be happening. It's a dream. I'm fucking dreaming. Please. No." She checked everywhere she could think of. The sinkside. The edge of the bathtub. Behind the door. She ran to the kitchen, scanning the countertops, even looking in the small fridge, throwing open the cupboards. She glanced over at the clock.

11:29

11:30

11:31

11:32

11:33

11:34

11:35

11:36

11:37

it said 11:38, and she was still staring at it, listening to the soft sounds coming from her television and her phone, when she registered the noise of a key in the deadbolt. A familiar dark shape slipped across her view, immediately grabbing Marigold's phone from the bedside table and smashing it, then unplugging the television's power. Marigold was left to mesmerized silence.

"Put this on," said a voice in her ear, and she couldn't help but comply. Headphones.

She vaguely registered that it was Danica that had spoken to her.

"You're going to listen to that," Danica said, her voice muffled by the headphones, "while I fuck you silly, Marigold."

That sounded good to the scientist. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she realized that anything would sound good to her. That was the point of the signal.

Soft music came through the headset. Danica led her back to the bed. It was a nice bed. It had been good enough for her for three years. It had been good enough for the two of them for the last month. There was a voice in the music, but the voice didn't matter. The wonderful feeling of the bed mattered. Danica's lips on her clavicle mattered. Danica's tongue on her nipple mattered. Danica's smooth, perfect dildo in her slit mattered. Her eyes were closed, and she could picture that perfect, round, soft body looming over her, naked and excited, not yet finely toned by the daily exercises she'd been programmed to do. Watching her get more and more shapely had been a joy, and that joy melded with the music and the fucking and the open-mindedness to melt her into absolute mush.

Danica knew her fantasies, and she knew Danica's, and it was something of an irony that Marigold was the mind-controlling scientist and Danica the mind-controlled footsoldier. But fantasies were just fantasies, and reality...

The music swelled. Danica sped up in her motions. Reality was melting into fantasy so easily, and it was getting easier, and easier, and...

Fantasy and reality poured out of Marigold as her body rejoiced in the ministrations of her lover, leaving her more blank and mindless and open than the fatal signal had. The music was still playing, the voice was still in her ears, Danica was still kissing her belly, and behind closed eyelids Marigold saw starbursts even as her orgasm subsided.

She was being helped to her feet. Her nightgown was pulled over her head and down, covering her body, and the sensation of the fabric against her body was new, strange, amazing. Somewhere, somehow, she was led out the door of her little house, still wearing the headphones, and her sandals were on her feet. Her eyes were still shut, but she trusted Danica to lead her. She didn't have any choice. It wasn't a long walk, she didn't think... well, she didn't think at all. Just walked, and listened. Listened and walked. Listened, and sat down in a car. Listened, and sat, Danica's hand in hers, as the car drove away.

"I got lucky," Danica said with a shrug, not looking at the questioner, instead watching the programming process on the other side of the glass, trying to maintain control of her emotions, and her urges. Watching Marigold fall under Resistance control was incredibly hot.

Ten months ago, they had managed to turn an operative, which led to information about the village. Studying the village led to the capture of a guard, which led to the compromise of a guardcaptain, which led to the discovery of the earbuds and their mechanism. Three pairs were made.

One of those pairs was in Danica's purse, sitting beside a loose pair she had stolen from Marigold.

Every night for the last month, before her shift on guard duty, that pair of earbuds went in her ear, and clicked relentlessly for a minute before going silent, and she didn't fall under the sway of The Order. She'd had to fake it convincingly, much as she and Polly and Lise had trained to do. If any of them had faltered even once, the three would have been caught, and converted, and that would have been the end of the mission. She'd trusted the two of them to keep to their training, just as they'd trusted her.

Danica couldn't help feel a bit empty. Someone would certainly put together the connection between the three of them and the missing inventor, especially with Danica's simultaneous disappearance. It felt... wrong that four weeks of perfect acting, each of them on their own, would result in their inevitable capture while she returned to the Resistance.

Maggie, the cell leader, put her hand on Danica's shoulder. "Thinking about the other two?" she asked.

"Yep." The field agent's voice was carefully neutral.

"We'll get them back." 

Last winter, the plan had been put into action, and volunteers were called for. The three of them had to be very convincingly good friends. They had thus become close, spending lots of time together, laughing, joking, living.

Loving.

And then they had spent a month completely apart. The Order didn't want them to be reminded of their old lives, to protect them from the relatively weak and impersonal control that the signal bell applied, so they were assigned different districts and different schedules. Each of them aware that the other two were out there, somewhere, in the city, trying their best to find something to take back that would be worth sacrificing their two friends for.

"Or we won't," Danica said. She chuckled a bit, coldly. "Won't matter to me, will it."

"It's alright, Danni." Maggie's voice was iron-clad and sympathetic.

"I know." She turned. "I'm ready."

Maggie didn't hesitate. The flashlight-like object she held in her hand was raised to Danica's eyes, and the light that came from it was irresistibly hypnotic.

"We're going to give you the scientist," she heard, from miles away. "She wants you badly. She loves you, Danni. It'll help keep her with us, working with us, when you're a couple."

Danica couldn't reply, held captive by the light. She could barely understand the words. But the emotion that welled up inside her, the hope, the joy, the love, made it all the easier for her to leave all the little details behind.