Part Four: Forever.

I never went back home. It’s not as if I had any desire to do so, anyway. My old life had ended, and there was no more point in me returning to any vestiges of an existence that no longer mattered. My mother was going to receive a notice that her daughter Madeline Banks had been lawfully reassigned, a standard stipend for providing material to the state, and a warning that any attempt to make contact was going to be punishable by immediate Demotion. She was going to be fine. We rarely talked, anyway.

Instead, my new life unfolded itself in all its glory. After I had overseen the enslavement of all of my former colleagues I was transported to the Central Registry. There, I was fast-tracked through official registration and classification, received multiple stress tests, and was finally and officially confirmed by all involved parties and agencies as the thing that I already knew I was: Property of the State, serving under Hector Petrescou, fully controlled by the implant in my brain.

When that was done it was time for me to receive my government-issued place of residence, with my own choice of wardrobe and access to personal transport that matched my position as a high-value servant of the system. My new quarters were spartan, of course, but even having quarters of my own felt surprising. A drone like myself deserved nothing more than what was strictly required for its optimal performance – but it turned out that my optimal performance would indeed require both physical and mental rest as well as the opportunity for limited self-expression and recreation. I would of course have preferred to spend all my time working and serving – but even Government drones can experience exhaustion, burnout, and sleep deprivation. 

More importantly perhaps, my special position as Citizen Drone required a certain outward appearance, both for internal and external optics. Most Government officials preferred not to be confronted with (or to be seen with) any obvious examples of their system of oppression – and because of that, elegant citizen drones like myself were a common option when full control and/or ownership of a State servant was desired. They could use us just as fully as any other drone behind closed doors, but at the end of the day we would still look like any other class-2 Government servant clocking out and going home to our own private domicile. 

Not that I spent much time at home, anyway. There were far more rewarding places to spend my recreational time. Hector Petrescou was as well-known for his egalitarian approach to leadership as he was known for his socialite lifestyle, and I was proud to immediately become an integral part of that. My master was not an ostentatious man, and his parties were never more lavish than it was expected of him – but still, his home welcomed many guests almost every evening of the week. It was an honor and a privilege to count myself among those guests and to spend my evenings at my own discretion. There could hardly be anything more relaxing and fulfilling than being part of it all, among like-minded people: People that served the State. People that were passionate and bright and ruthless, all coming together to exchange ideas and strengthen bonds – or to scheme behind each other’s back. I didn’t care what they were there for of course. All I cared about was the excitement of being there for them. It didn’t matter if they wanted to talk to me and meet Hector’s bright and promising new assistant – or if they wanted to take me to the bathroom and get their dick sucked. None of it was work. It was all pleasure. 

And so I gave myself, over and over and over, for my master, for his privileged friends, and for the State, in boardrooms and cars and on silken bedsheets and beneath dinner tables, always eager, always proud and willing to be as valuable and desirable as I was. I could never get tired of this. The chip in my brain literally wouldn't let me. I was a high-class citizen enjoying the company of the State’s most influential and powerful elites, and I was a pretty favor that Master could hand out. A fuckable piece of meat to reward those that served the Government.

This was my life now, and I could not want anything better than this.

It was a cool rainy night in the capital district. Two weeks had passed since my enslavement, and it wasn't the first time that I found myself on a bed with silken sheets in one of our master’s guest bedrooms, naked and dripping with cum, next to the other piece of human property of this house. The air was thick, and the man that had used us had just left.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” I admitted.

Helen turned herself over next to me, cradling her head in her palm, elbow pressed against the mattress beneath her. “Uh-oh,” she said drily. “A dangerous proposition. Do you already need your monthly chip realignment?”

I chuckled. Helen liked to joke about that whenever I looked even slightly worried. “No,” I said, “But... I've been wondering about something. It’s… fuck. I’m almost afraid to talk about it because I’m afraid I might jinx it.”

She gave me a probing look and scoffed loudly.

“Well now you gotta,” she said with an obvious air of exasperation. “You can’t lead with something like that and then not share.”

I sighed, and bit my lips. As I hesitated and thought about how best to word it, I let my eyes wander across Helen’s naked body. A soft tingle went down my spine as the chip in my brain made me think about how hot it was that she was property, how hot it was that everything she ever used to be before her enslavement had been turned into this eager plaything that was grateful for its own subjugation. I knew that it was the obedience and pleasure protocol bypassing my own natural judgment; artificial thoughts in lockstep with synthetic arousal and reward – better than any classical conditioning, better than any hypnotic trance, better than anything that could ever be done with external methods. I might be free to do my own thinking, but I could only want what my chip allowed me to want. I had no free will. And neither had the beautiful drone next to me.

I was so lucky.

Asking the question that had been burning in my mind felt like it could ruin it, because it meant questioning the entire foundation of my existence.

I asked it anyway. I had to. I had been thinking about it far too long. My whole life if I was honest. And now I was in a position where I might actually get an honest answer.

“Why don’t we just enslave everyone?”

Heavy silence followed. Helen smiled gently as the question hung in the air like unexploded ordnance.

Then she spoke. “Oh, that,” she said, and let out a quiet chuckle. “That was sooner than I expected. It took me almost two months to ask our Master that question. It feels almost sacrilegious to ask, doesn’t it?”

I laughed with nervous relief, and nodded, and Helen continued with a smirk: “Well, first of all, thank you for asking me instead of Master. I feel very flattered. Thanks for believing that I would know the answer to such a wide-reaching question of governance.”

"You're the less scary one to ask," I prodded. “And I was right though, wasn't I? You're the assistant of the Minister of Citizen Volition, and you know the answer.”

"I do," she answered with a nod. "And it's easy: It’s the Law.”

I furrowed my brow, taken aback. That's it? But...

“But… we make the Law,” I said. “We can just change it. Actually, we don’t even need to. We can just do it. Who is going to complain when no one has any free will left?”

Helen shrugged. “No one, of course,” she said. “But that’s just not how it’s done. Enslavement was established as a punishment for misbehavior only, and by Law that’s still all it is and all that it will ever remain.”

“But everyone knows that’s not the truth,” I said. “They know that they’re all just material waiting to be processed. We can criminalize anything we want. We can enslave anyone we want.”

Helen smirked. “Of course we can. But you of all people should know the value of a comfortable lie that you can tell yourself. As long as the prospect of free citizenship exists, the overwhelming majority of people will simply obey because it is the easy thing to do. Their lives are comfortable enough, and safe enough, and free enough to just keep carrying on. They are used to it. They’ve never known anything else.”

“But what about insurgencies? What about dissenters?”

“You mean the Opposition Party?”

“No,” I scoffed. “I mean people that actually want to change things. Terrorists. Liberation movements. Free agents. You’ll always have those. People like that piece of material that ruined my audit. People that don’t care if they live or die as long as they die for a cause.”

Helen seemed rather amused by that. “Yes. Sure. You’ll always have those people. But they’ll always be fundamentally doomed to fail.” For some reason her words sounded particularly final.

I furrowed my brow. “What? Why?” There was always news of criminal resistance cells causing trouble. They never went away. It was a constant threat.

But before Helen could answer, another voice interjected. “I’m sure you can answer that riddle yourself, Maddie.”

We both gasped with joy as we noticed who had joined us.

“Master!” we squealed with excitement, twisting our naked bodies and instinctively spreading our legs. There was no need for false dignity and professionalism here. We weren’t working. We were free to be his eager whores.

Hector Petrescou closed the door behind himself with a soft click. He had his dinner jacket draped over his shoulder, and he had already loosened his dress shirt and tie. He laid his jacket over the back of a chair and pulled off his tie as he stepped closer. He was smiling, and I could tell that he was a bit drunk. 

“Go on, Senior Advisor Banks,” he said. “Analyze the situation for me. Tell me why the Government has never been toppled by insurgencies. I’ll take Helen in the meantime. Bonus points if you get it before I’m done with her.”

“Yes master,” I said. Next to me, Helen was already spreading her legs wider. She gave me a wink. Fates, she was so fucking hot.

I shook off the arousal, and focused on my task. “It’s a complicated and complex problem,” I said. “Communication, surveillance, transportation, money, propaganda, personnel, logistics, sheer numbers, information, technology, protocols, the ability to drone– oh.”

“‘Oh’ what, Madeline?” Master asked with a smile. He had just gotten out his pants. Helen was down on her knees in front of him. Her hands were on the hem of his underpants, ready to pull them down and receive his cock.

He looked down at her. “Keep going Helen, I can multitask.”

Helen pulled them off and eagerly wrapped her mouth around our master’s erect meat. For a moment I was distracted by the sight of it, arousal throbbing between my own legs as I saw another drone serve its master.

Then I caught his eye and snapped back into obedience. “It’s a simple answer, isn’t it?” I asked. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have just expected me to come up with it on the spot.”

He nodded. His hand was slowly brushing through Helen’s hair as she served him. “A very reasonable assumption, yes,” he said. “But what is it?”

“I think I've got the answer,” I said slowly, not entirely convinced of myself. “But let me think for a moment so I didn’t miss anything.”

He let out a soft moan, and looked down at the beautiful drone at his feet with a shivering sigh. “Very well, but don’t take too long. You know that Helen is just as proficient as you are.”

Okay, let’s get this right, I thought. There were no stakes here except for disappointing Master, and I was free and autonomous enough not to lose my mind over a little game that my owner was playing with me. His enjoyment wasn’t dependent on my success, but stemmed from the fact that I was his to play with. There was no way to displease him.

Still, I wanted to impress, and so I quickly went over all the factors that I had already considered and double-checked to see if I had missed some important potential threat. Some potentialities were more problematic than others. Harder to deal with. Easier to become crises. The kind of crises that would have toppled any other regime but ours. The kind of crises that had, in fact, always eventually led to the downfall of authority and control.

Except for one thing: This time, we had one advantage that no other system of oppression had ever had before. That was made the answer simple. All you had to do was look one step deeper.

Just as I convinced myself that I had found an intelligent answer to the problem, Helen gasped and whimpered as her owner pulled his cock out of her mouth. She had been sucking him off hard, like she always did. Master moaned and shivered, and pushed her onto the bed. I felt myself bounce as she hit the mattress next to me, spit still glistening around her lips. She spread her legs and offered her holes, and Master grabbed her, pulled her to the edge of the bed, and pushed himself into her receptive cunt with a moan.

“Better be quick now,” gasped Helen as he started pumping into her. “Oh Fate, yes! Use me! Use me!”

Again I couldn’t help but briefly be caught up in the incredible arousal of it all. Next to me, Helen was screaming, and Master was grunting, and I heard the slapping of his body against hers. So wet. So hard. So right. I wanted it too. I wanted him so bad. I was naked. I was wet. I was ready to be used. 

Except that I was already being used. Right now my task was to please by coming up with an answer for my master, or at least fail in an interesting way. To satisfy him. To prove that I was smart and valuable and committed to serve.

And I was.

In the end it really was a simple answer.

“They can never reach critical mass,” I said with a satisfied smile. “We can always control them before it happens! Turn them into drones! Make them serve!”

And just as I said that, Helen screamed, and came – but he didn’t stop. He kept fucking his twitching and convulsing piece of property until he finished himself. 

It didn’t take him long at all. I had delivered my answer just in time.

He gave me a lopsided smile as he pulled out of her. I looked down, and watched his cum drip out of Helen’s glistening, quivering pussy. It was so hot.

“Not bad,” he said. “But also not quite correct. It’s–”

“Yes. I know,” I interrupted. “I just wanted to let you come before I elaborate; I know it’s not the enslavement itself.”

A nod. “Go on.”

“As I said, It's not the fact that we can enslave people and make them serve the state. Anyone who wants it badly enough can remove their chip,” I said. “There’s always some novel exploit that lets you survive it – or you can simply take the risk. If you’re really good, you can even manage to jailbreak it and turn it inert. That way you can create uprisings with hundreds of people that can’t be enslaved in the field. Thousands, even. Similarly, there’s always ways to procure information, money, and weapons. We will never be able to stop that.”

My master nodded. “So what is it then?”

I smiled. “The same reason we don’t just enslave everyone.”

His eyebrows went up. 

I continued. “To enslave everyone, we would have to do it all at once. We might be able to do it, but I'm sure it's been thoroughly analyzed many times and calculated not to be worth the risk. The moment we start the process the cat is out of the bag. People would know for certain that it’s going to happen to them, and they will all start resisting. It would be worse than the Great Establishment, and we simply don’t have enough capacity. That's why we keep it the Law.”

He nodded. 

“But insurgencies have the same problem. To topple the Government, they would have to form all at once, in huge numbers – but they can’t. Before they are big enough to be a serious threat, they must always first be big enough to show up on our radar and get infiltrated. And the moment they are infiltrated, we already have them.”

My master smiled, and I could tell that I had impressed. I had served. I had pleased him!

He nodded. “Anyone we get alive, we can implant,” he said knowingly. “And anyone we can implant will betray everyone they know, and then the people they know will betray the people they know, and on and on and on, until they are all dead or enslaved or until their numbers are crippled and their attack vectors are known and closed off.”

My pussy was on fire with lust. My chip was working overtime, and the pleasure and obedience protocol was burning between my legs. Imagining enemies of the State being made to betray their cause was one of the most satisfying and arousing things I could think of of.

“It's an impasse. Both sides are equally disadvantaged,” I said. “We’ll never get them all – but we don’t have to. It doesn’t matter. As soon as they recover and regain their numbers, they will be vulnerable again. They can never win!”

In that moment, Helen kissed me violently. I felt her leg curl itself around my body as she pulled herself on top of me, her tits against mine, her warmth and touch burning against my skin. For a long moment she was all over me, furiously and desperately close, like an unleashed animal, her lips against mine, sucking and smacking, hot and wet and soft, hands grasping and wandering and squeezing, and I let myself be overwhelmed by her need, let myself be consumed by her kisses – until our Master cleared his throat, and Helen pulled back, ready for a command, ready to listen and obey, still panting and quivering from whatever the chip in her skull had made her feel. I had no idea what had just happened, but I didn't mind. It must have looked really hot for Master.

And just as I considered that, Master spoke. “Ask Helen what she used to be before she was my drone.”

I obeyed, and I asked her what I had been commanded to ask her, and she smiled the wonderful smile that I had grown to love and crave.

“That’s classified information,” she said proudly. Her voice was still unsteady and slightly breathless. “I am not allowed to share it without my master’s explicit permission.”

“You may tell her, Helen. Tell her how we met.”

Helen’s breath was hot against my neck she leaned in closer and sighed. Her eyes were bright and misty as they looked into mine, and I heard the awe in her voice as she spoke.

“It was upstairs,” she said. “In Master’s bedroom. You can’t even imagine what we had to do to get me past all the security. But we did it. Somehow we did it.”

She smiled. “Fates, I was so close. I couldn’t believe we had done it – and what I was about to do. I knew I was going to die, of course. Five bullets for him, and one for myself. Whatever you do, don’t get captured alive. It’s the only thing that must never ever happen.”

My pussy was seeping wet by now. It was obvious where this was going, but I couldn’t wait to hear her say it. I wanted to hear the words out of her own mouth.

“We did everything to make sure that it wasn’t a trap," she said excitedly. "We were smart about it. Thorough. But all it took was one tiny mistake down the line. Someone I had never met let something slip, and that was it. Just one tiny loose thread was all that it took to unravel it all.”

She pushed herself off me, up on her knees, and I looked up at her naked and thoroughly used body. She was still dripping, and a strand of cum was running down the inside of her thigh.

“We could have made a pawn sacrifice,” she said, a hand gently brushing down between her tits and abdomen. “Sent someone with minimal knowledge. Someone that couldn’t compromise the movement even if they got captured. But I made the choice. It had to be me. I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be a symbol. A martyr. A hero.”

She smiled, and looked at our master. “Instead I failed, and they put a chip into my brain, and then I let him rape me and betrayed everything I had fought for! I gave them all away, and we turned them all into level zeroes! I got to watch it! I got to watch them all become State property!”

Fuck yes! I whimpered with arousal as I imagined it. My hand was between my legs, frantically stroking the seeping wetness of my cunt. Master hadn’t told me to, but his permission was implicit. I was his enslaved whore, controlled by arousal and sex. He wanted to see me like this, and I was more than eager to give him everything that he wanted from me. 

“Yes!” I whimpered. “Yes! Fates, that’s so fucking hot!”

Helen nodded. “You know what’s hottest?”

“Tell me,” I said, still fucking myself, still imagining Helen struggling and screaming and losing and finally thanking our Master for enslaving her. My fingers were desperate. My soaking pussy was screaming with need. Yes! Yes! Yesss!!!

“I’m only here because he wanted to fuck me,” Helen said. “I might be smart and capable and driven, but there were so many others that he could have turned into his drone. There were so many of them that were just as bright and passionate and full of potential as I am. But me, he wanted to possess – to use! Because I was pretty! Because I was fuckable! Do you know what he told me?”

And in that moment, as Helen said this, I remembered the heart-pounding moments of my audit, when I had been nothing but a pathetic little collaborator instead of a fully controlled and obedient tool of the State. I remembered all the things that Minister Hector Petrescou had said to me as I stood quivering and powerless before him.

Especially one thing.

My quivering pleasure boiled over as the realization licked itself into my core. “He told you that you were lucky!” I whimpered.

Lucky to be pretty. Lucky to be fuckable. Because that's why he wanted to own us!

I came hard. Uncontrollable screams of ecstasy and joy spilled out my parched mouth with impossible relief. My body shivered and contorted as lay naked in front of my owner with spread legs, his property and eager servant, and I was endlessly proud that he had seen it all, that he had seen every last bit of me. Everything I was was his. 

As I slowly came down from the high of it all I noticed Helen leaning over me, looking down at me, smiling softly.

“I’m afraid that I spat in his face when he said it,” said the beautiful drone that would once have rather died than be enslaved. “But I think he forgave me when I spread my legs ten minutes later.”

I laughed and took her hand as she nestled herself next to me. Both of our hands were wet. Neither of us minded. We simply lay next to each other like the drones we were, unable to feel anything other than love and appreciation towards each other, unable not to be turned on by how utterly we had both been made to serve. It was so nice. I was so glad that she had been there that day, to witness it all. My last moments of being material. My last moments of being anything other than an eager tool of the Government.

‘You’re really fucking lucky, Citizen.’

I remembered. That's what Hector Petrescou had said to me after an audit that I should have failed. I remembered; His gaze in the lobby, as we all stood lined up, already nothing but material without knowing it yet; his eyes lingering on me for a brief moment before continuing, already imagining me naked and enslaved and eager to let myself be used. Yes. That was the reason he had said it. He might not even have lied when he’d said that he wanted me for my resourcefulness and willingness to adapt, but in the end I just happened to be the one-in-a-thousand piece of material that he wanted to keep around – because I was his type.

It was such a good thought.

My master hadn't spoken for a while, choosing instead to simply sit at the edge of the bed, lazily stroking his cock as his drones had a moment for themselves. Maybe he was only waiting for me to put the pieces together. Maybe he already knew what I was about to say, just like he had known that I was going to thank him for enslaving me on the day of the audit.

It didn't matter. I still looked at him, struck with awe and gratitude. “You would have used me regardless, wouldn’t you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Using failed audits for personal pleasure is against the Law."

I could tell that this, too, was nothing but a game. There were no microphones here. He did not need to pretend that the Law mattered to the Government.

“You’re the Minister," I said with a smile. "You can do what you want.” 

“Are you suggesting that a high-ranking member of the Government would knowingly abuse his position of power for personal gain? How can you make such scandalous claims?”

I leaned closer. “Because you didn’t tell the chip in my brain to erase my ability to even consider breaking the Law. Because you turned me into a high-functioning and fully conscious drone without any mental blind spots.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I should turn you into a more conventional drone. Turn you into a mindless tool. A comfort drone. A fucktoy.”

I shrugged dismissively. “If you wanted to do that, you would have already done it. You prefer me the way I am.”

There was a moment of silence, then he nodded. “Exactly. But that’s the reason why you're actually wrong, for once. I wouldn’t have used you if you had turned out to be only pretty and fuckable, and nothing else. You would have become a high-cognition drone without an identity of its own, just like the other pieces of material you enslaved that day, and I would never have thought about you again. But you weren't. You left an impression, and thus I wanted to have you. As a souvenir. As a statement. As something that I genuinely wanted to keep. Call me sentimental, I guess.”

Helen and I exchanged glances, and I couldn't help but think about all the reasons why our owner wanted to have her. I had seen her work eagerly and tirelessly. I had seen her unquestioning commitment to the State we both served. I had seen her complicit and forthcoming and utterly eager to do everything to support the system she had once been ready to give her life fighting against. I had seen her debase herself and whore herself, without shame or dignity, living only to please, existing only to give herself entirely. She was everything that our master wanted in a drone. A souvenir. A statement. Something that he genuinely wanted to keep.

I was so proud to be just as worthy as her. Just as desirable. Just as fuckable. Just as bright and capable and eager and ready to serve the State, and just as incapable of ever wanting to be anything but the most perfect tool of the Government that I could be.

I truly was lucky.

But then I considered my Master. A man that was responsible for millions of enslaved souls, and who had personally overseen the processing of tens of thousands of them. Thousands of fuckable women that he could have turned into his personal playthings. Thousands of pieces of material without any right to freedom or dignity or any will of their own, all of them potentially the next piece of material that he wanted to possess.

And yet, despite that, he had only found two that fit the bill.

“Maybe you’re the one that got lucky,” I said.

He smiled enigmatically, and the fact that he showed no offense but only appreciation was one of the many reasons I loved him. I might be his property, but the reason I got to be his property in the first place was the fact that he wanted my opinion and my thoughts just as much as he wanted my body. It was such an incredible privilege.

“I’ve considered it,” he finally said, and looked at Helen and me with an expression of satisfaction. Two naked women that were entirely what he wanted them to be.

He turned back to me. “Yeah. You may be right. But also: Shut up and spread your fucking legs.”

I obeyed with a smile, and let him use me.

He took me slowly, spreading my pussy lips with utter deliberation, and I shivered with gratitude as he finally entered me. I felt him, hot and rock hard, as I became his willing plaything. Sizzling electricity shot through me, goosebumps rising on my flesh, nipples aching with the desire to be touched, my hips instinctively thrusting in time with his penetration, and I whimpered with joy to be as lucky as I was. I looked up at him, and saw him staring at my tits with an expression of appreciative greed, and it felt so good to be naked for him, to be so close to him, to have no more distance, no more inhibition, no more shame. He pushed himself all the way inside me, and I felt his pelvis push against the inside of my legs, felt his pubic hairs against my skin, and I moaned for him. I wanted him even deeper. I wanted to spread even wider. Anything to make myself more satisfying to use. Anything to offer myself whole.

But he was tired after a long day, and he had already fucked Helen before me. Today I was nothing but a light and inconsequential dessert, and he used me lazily, almost incidentally. I could tell he was already thinking about other things. I was nothing but a pleasant piece of ambiance to accompany more important matters. A piece of classical music in the background. A nice drink. Comfortable shoes. An enslaved pussy to fuck.

And so he fucked me, slowly and without urgency – but in the end he still finished, and I eagerly let him cum over my face. I thanked him for using me, like I always did, and felt the wonderful gratitude and arousal that I always felt – but some part wished that he had fucked me hard. Some part of me wanted to be abused and handled like meat and fucked without consideration or care, like the Government whore that I was, like the piece of property that I was.

What I wanted didn't matter of course. Neither in intention nor in outcome. As long as my master got what he wanted, I had served – and the chip in my brain rewarded me accordingly. I was utterly satisfied, and equally glad to completely submit to that satisfaction. My controlled brain had no choice but to want it. No choice but to love it. No choice but to fantasize about the next time I would serve.

There was always going to be a next time, now.

Our master soon left us to retire to his private quarters, giving us permission to stay the night and finish ourselves off if we so desired. 

We both eagerly did so and gave in to our implanted instincts and desires. It didn't take me long to ride the lingering wave of arousal that still rolled through my body after my master had used me. I thought about his cock inside my body, thought about the obedience that he had programmed into my helplessly controlled brain, thought about the beautiful drone next to me, just as willing and eager and shameless as I was. Eager for another command to obey. Eager for another piece of material to enslave. Eager for another opportunity to serve the State and give everything to be a good instrument of the very same oppression that had taken our wills.

I was so lucky.

I made myself cum, and soon heard the whimpers and moans of another drone next to me doing the same, and I smiled as I watched Helen convulse in ecstasy like the shameless Government whore that her owner had turned her into. She laughed and sighed as she came down, and took my hand into hers. We both looked into each other's eyes, and she squeezed me gently as we both lay there, breathing and utterly content, rewarded for our obedience by the control chips in our brain at the end of another day of service. Tomorrow, we were going to shower and dress and be presentable and professional; Citizens of the State, Advisors and Assistants to the Minister of Citizen Volition, competent and bright and eager to serve. We were going to help our master manage the systematic erasure of free will on an industrial scale and be responsible for the enslavement of hundreds of pieces of material. We were going to personally oversee and authorize dozens of them. We were going to enjoy every single one of them.

And between all of that, we were going to give our bodies and let ourselves be used – because there was no part of us that did not exist to serve.

We were both so lucky.