Altered Ch. 06

What the fuck do I do with her now? I'm no killer and neither do I want to be. I can't just let her go, she might just come back to finish the job. She might not have a choice. Failure with the OEC meant death, not always the person making the mistake but someone they cared about.

"Please! My family, my friends... Kill me."

When enthralled, impulses like suicide are rarely an option. Why? Suicide is one of the hardest things in the world to do. But try doing it when you are totally in love with someone when the meaning of your life is their life. Only the strongest of minds have been able to do it.

But, killing her was not an option. So, what were my choices, even if I let her go and she didn't come back AND they didn't kill her she would still tell them that she unblocked my memories. Granted they didn't know who I was per se, but they could read her mind and see what she saw in me. I couldn't take the chance that she wouldn't put the OEC on my trail.

"Come with me Greta, we need to get you some sugar water. I doubt Anna has Gatorade so we'll have to do the best we can."

"Thank you, thank you, you're the best!" she gushed.

I led her down to the kitchen and I fixed her a drink of really watered-down wine. The sugars and water would help replenish her. I fixed her some pasta and told her to wait downstairs for me.

I went back up to Anna's room just in time to see her come to.

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Arrrgh, my head is pounding, I feel like I have the biggest headache ever," she groaned.

Her eyes popped opened from a squinting to wide eyed, like she was surprised by something. She sat up and raised her arms over her head and waved them around. She flexed her fingers and showed me her hands, they were no longer scrunched up into a claw. Tears were falling down her cheeks.

"It's a miracle! I'm healed!" she cried.

"I see that!" I beamed, sharing her joy. "You may be healed but you have a lot of rehab to get your muscles back!" I said when I saw her jump out of her bed and stumble around her room. "Be careful or you're gonna fall and break something!"

She ran toward me and hugged me, weeping into my chest. It was amazing how much younger she looked in just a few hours.

"You almost didn't make it!" I said. She gave me an inquisitive look, "You were fine as far as I could tell but it looks like you had an assassin come after you last night."

"What are you talking about?" she asked with a worried tone.

"Did you have a servant named 'Greta'?"

"Yes, I begged her to come back and work for me..."

"Apparently, she was a mole for the OEC, they sent her here to take you out."

"They wouldn't dare!"

"You must be totally out of the loop, the OEC is at war with the Illuminati."

"Did you kill her, where is she?"

"No, she is downstairs eating..." I said and she looked flabbergasted. "Don't worry she is harmless... for now."

"What do you mean?"

"I had to sap her during our battle, she is now under my control... I know you would feel better if she was dead but I don't want to kill her... I don't think she had any choice."

"That could just be what she is saying now."

"She cannot lie to me while she is under my influence, besides I might be able to make my influence over her permanent..."

"What?"

"If I did, she would never try to harm you again, but it would all be for nothing if you cannot help me."

"Why would I help her?"

"I want you to help her because you can, you are no murderer..."

She thought for a bit then replied, "I think you are right, I don't want you to kill anyone... I don't want you to change. And I don't think I could kill her either, but I do have people... What would I have to do?"

"I want you to fake her death and give her a new ID like you did for me. You have people... I'll take her with me when I go to America. But, in the meantime you are gonna have to get some security here, for you and for Catalina."

"I owe you my life, Mike. I don't like this but if it's what you want it will be done. I have to make some phone calls... leave me to it."

I bowed and said, "As you wish!" [The Princess Bride] She wouldn't know the reference, I doubt she watched very many American movies. She merely shooed me away.

I went down to speak with Greta, "I need to know if there are any other assassins? Secondary, targets?"

"She was a target of opportunity, they really don't care about her, they just wanted to send a message. But..."

"Not killing her will piss them off," I finished for her.

"Yes, exactly," she concurred.

"I'm going to have to kill you, Greta!" I said, her eyes grew wide. "Not for real, but if you don't want your family to be punished... it's going to have to look like you're dead."

"Thank you, Mike."

"I get that you learned my name when you read my mind, but I need to know what else you know."

"I don't know much really, I only had time to watch quick bursts... flashes really. Think of it like watching a movie on fast forward, how much are you really going to get out of it? I knew where to find your bad memories and your repressed memories and bring them to the surface. It's a psychic's top defensive maneuver. I didn't have time to look at them really."

"You know you are under my control... right? As a trained psychic, you must know all about Vampirics and how to counter them."

"Yes, you are right... but, for some reason your influence is strong. None of my defensive techniques have worked... And I kind of don't want them to either."

"My influence will fade in a couple of days. What will you do then?"

"I don't know, to be honest I was brainwashed to be cruel and heartless. If I revert back to what I was, I might try to vindicate myself."

"I cannot let that happen... but I'm not going to kill you. I will give you a choice and I want you to think on it today and let me know when you feel the 'spell' breaking."

"OK... what's my choice."

"I can make you mine... How you feel now will kind of be permanent. Or you can go to jail... Illuminati jail."

"I can be yours... Permanently? How wonderful. I chose that!" she said excitedly.

"No, right now you are too much under my influence. I will ask you again once you start to feel my effects on you wane."

"Oh, pooh. OK, if you think that's best. But, just so you know, I think this is wonderful. For the first time in a decade I can feel emotions other than hate. They brainwashed me as part of the program I was in. We basically become sociopaths and can only feel emotions for our families... I know you think that I am under your influence and all, but for the first time in years, I feel guilt, regret, doubt, love, anger. Please, don't let me got back to that again, I beg of you."

"I want to believe you, really. And if you feel the same tomorrow, then I'll see what I can do. Now keep drinking, you need to replenish your fluids."

She drank my concoction and I kept making her more until she finally said she could not possibly hold any more. After a few hours, her skin returned to a smooth consistency, her pasty white skin turned pinkish and full of life once more.

"Tell me about yourself, Greta."

"What do you want to know?"

"How did you come to work for the OEC? Where are you from? I don't know anything about you really..."

"Where to start... You want the long or short version?"

"Let's go short and go from there..."

"OK... I grew up in Oslo, Norway. My mother is Swedish and my father is Finnish, they immigrated to Oslo for work. My father was Ataruian and my mother was not. This caused a rift in his family as they believed that he was diluting the Ataru race and needed to keep the bloodline strong.

"I showed signs of having psychic abilities when I was young, but I was not very strong at it. But it made my grandfather very happy. So happy, in fact, that he tried to rape me when I was 13. He believed that my child and his would have stronger abilities..."

"That's sounds eerily familiar," I said. "My mother was raped by her father..."

"Yes, well, I ran away before he could go through with it. I couldn't go home because my father helped my grandfather in the first place..." she said, choking up and she took a minute to recover before continuing. "I was homeless for many months and with my psychic abilities I was able to keep away from the authorities, steal food, and even 'convince' people to give me a room for the winters... I would convince them I was a relative... By spring I was be off to greener pastures. I eventually immigrated to Germany, where I was spotted by some Trackers."

"Trackers?"

"You don't know about Trackers? You ARE Ataruian right? Even I knew of them when I was young."

"Yeah, well until recently, I had a mental block in my head preventing me from remembering much of my early years. You are the one that inadvertently freed my memories, so excuse my ignorance and indulge me. My mother was taken from me when I was 13 and I never had the chance to learn about Trackers... I was raised in the human foster care system."

"Well, the Trackers are Ataru that have the ability to see auras. They can track anything based on its signature and energy it leaves behind. It is very similar to the way a dog smells, except they 'see' the aura with their third eye."

"Third eye?"

"The third eye is just what they call the ability to see auras, they do not need to use their eyes to see auras, they can just sense them and picture them in their head. All objects are surrounded in an energy field. Different materials have different densities of this energy. Although living beings have the same amount of energy since they are primarily made up of the same material, they form different patterns or 'signatures' when they move and leave trails. These patterns allow a Tracker to track a specific living being. The thing is that Ataruians and Humans have distinctly different auras almost like different colors. The OEC uses Trackers as spotters to find Ataruians and hunt them for various reasons."

"And they spotted the homeless Ataruian wandering the streets and decided to use her..." I said.

"Yes," she agreed, "I was only sixteen at the time and they threw me into a training program. They used more powerful psychics to control me and strip me of my emotions. They used the love of my mother against me threatening to kill her if I didn't cooperate. I was trained to kill, but since I was a..." she grabbed her breasts, "buxom blonde," she let her breast go, "I was used as a mole. I infiltrated a lot of organizations. They used me to blackmail CEOs, politicians and other key people of high influence. I am an assassin, yes, but this was to be my first kill..."

"You mean you have never killed anyone before?"

"No, and I am glad you stopped me... It's bad enough being a whore for the OEC but to have someone's death on my conscience... you saved me from that. Please, don't let me go back to that life, I beg you. You are a good man... If I have to serve YOU for the rest of my life, I would do it gladly if it meant I didn't have to go back to the OEC."

"I see... OK, I'll do it but know this, if I can find a way to strip what they did to you out of your mind AND release my hold over you, I will. I promise you I will free you one day."

She started crying and sobbing, when she could catch her breath she tried thanking me but could only get a few syllables out.

"Don't thank me just yet. In order for me to seize control over you - and this is just theoretical - I would have to have sex with you... for a long period of time..."

"Oh? That doesn't sound so bad. How long?"

"Weeks... I mean not constantly, but according to the conversation I overheard, the sexual dominance is a gradual process, it breaks you down and established a psychic bond that gets stronger over time. It hits a plateau at around two weeks. From there it still gets stronger but in inconsequential amounts. After that point it never gets weaker. Since you are not a fully willing participant I have to keep you under my influence the whole time, so I'll have to sap you once a day..."

"Oh, no. Please, don't sap me again, that was horrible."

"Don't worry, I don't need to sap you to the degree that I did during our battle... You will barely feel it."

"OK, I trust you..."

"So, I contacted my people and I have a security group on the way. They want to interrogate Greta..." Anna interrupted, as she casually walked down the stairs as if not having to use the chair lift for the first time wasn't a big deal.

"Hell no, she is under my protection."

"Listen, Mike, I owe you my life but I cannot stop the Illuminati, they need to know what she knows - they are at war."

"I don't give a shit about the Illuminati, that's YOUR business... But, I tell you what I'm willing to do. Give me a list of questions you want me to ask her and I'll give you her answers. She is compelled to tell me the truth. She cannot lie to me anymore than she can lie to herself. They will get what they want... just not the way they want to get it."

"OK, I will try to get them to agree to that, but what if they will not go for it?"

"You owe me a chance to run, I may not get far but I need to at least try... she didn't ask to be who she is any more than I did. She is someone's lab experiment as much as I am."

"OK, Mike, I'll see what I can do. If they agree to this the answers she gives must be 'helpful,'" she said, as she walked toward her study.

"Oh, Mike, I did not mean to cause you so much trouble..." Greta moaned.

"Greta, people in trouble rarely do. I didn't want to cause Catalina any trouble but she has a kind heart and helped me in my time of need. How can I not do the same?"

"Synnøve... my name is Synnøve. Greta is just the name my captors gave me."

"OK Synnøve... can I call you Syn for short?"

"Oh, yes... that would be wonderful. My mother used to call me Syn as a child," she said excitedly.

"Syn it is then... Although if you get a new ID, I might have to call you something else soon anyway. In private, I will call you Syn."

The whole time I sat with Syn, she sat up straight and did not move. When she did, she would wince in pain. I probably cracked a rib or two in our fight, but I noticed that blood was leaking out of the corner of her mouth.

"Are you ok, Syn. You're bleeding!" I said, concerned.

"Yes, I'll be fine... I've survived worse..." she said, maybe it was her recognizing her injuries for what they were that did it but she swooned then fell over unconscious against the table top.

I ran over to her and scooped her up and set her down on the couch. Her breathing was shallow and I lifted her shirt, exposing her stomach and chest. She had huge bruises going across her chest beneath her breasts.

I wasn't sure what to do with her, if I took her to a hospital and doctors saved her, she'd likely be killed by the OEC. I doubt the Illuminati were in a big rush to save her life either.

I thought hard, trying to remember if there was some way I could help her. I thought back and I remembered conversations I had with my mother. She was a Vampiric too, and she told me that Vampirics had the ability to heal others by transferring their lifeforce into others. It was rarely done however because it was not only dangerous enough to kill but it also left the psychic vulnerable and weak.

The only advantage to healing her is that I wouldn't be giving control of myself over to her, however her getting healing would hasten her recovery of my control over her. I would have to restrain her in case her psychopathic side took control, especially if I lost consciousness.

"Anna! Help me please!" I yelled, hoping she could hear me through her office door. I was afraid to leave Syn's side.

Anna came out of her office in a hurry. She carried a gun with her and her eyes darted around the room looking for danger. She saw me leaned over the coach gesturing for her and she visibly relaxed.

"What is it?" she asked worried.

"She's dying... I don't think she'll make it if I don't help her... but I'll need your help."

"What do you need me to do?"

"I'm going to heal her with my abilities... but it'll weaken me... I need to restrain her and I need you to watch my back if I fall unconscious..."

"I have handcuffs and this gun, but I'm weak myself..."

"If she is properly restrained, you won't need physical strength it's her psychic abilities that I'm concerned about. She is not a strong psychic but if she was fully trained to utilize her abilities to their highest potential."

"Oh, I'm not worried about her abilities, I have a device that will protect me from her... But, she is a trained assassin. She may know how to free herself from handcuffs."

"I'll heal you too then, and we'll use more than one type of constraint... but it'll make me even weaker."

"It's too bad they didn't know about your abilities... If they knew you could already heal people..."

"Ahh, well my abilities don't actually heal anybody, they just kind of 'turbo boost' your healing for a short time. It doesn't cure diseases, although if your body just needed to be stronger to fight a sickness then I guess yes it could cure a disease...Since you are now cured but weak, this will turbo boost your recovery and make your body and mind stronger for a short period of time."

She walked away and came back with an assortment of constraints; handcuffs, thick zip-ties, duct-tape and rope. I tied Syn's legs and arms, there's no way she'd get out of it, not without help and certainly not without Anna noticing.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

"Will it hurt?" she asked.

"Not you, it will be excruciating for me. For you... First you will feel pleasure akin to an orgasm... It will make you exuberant, then you will feel high. But... no pain."

"OK, I am ready."

I grabbed her hand and dug inside myself willing my life energy to flow. Pain coursed through me like I was being electrocuted. My body shook as if I was in a seizure and I had to use all of my willpower to keep control.

"Stop, no more!" she said, and I pulled away from her.

I was shivering, cold, clammy. I felt like my skin was loose and my head was on fire. Slowly the pain faded.

"Water... please!"

Anna rushed out of the room at a run. And grabbed a glass of water and brought it to me.

As she fed me the water she said, "I have never felt this great!"

"I feel terrible," but surprising to me I was recovering swiftly. "Can you get me a pitcher, put a little bit of wine in it. The sugar helps."

After drinking a gallon of water, it seemed, I got myself ready to heal Syn.

"Fuck it, here goes nothing," I said. "Pull me away if I have been at it too long."

I grabbed Syn's hand and started the process over again. This time the pain was even more excruciating, it was like being set back on fire after you were extinguished. This time I felt myself being pulled down a dark well. My eyesight was gone, hearing gone, no sensation whatsoever, even the pain faded away as I lost consciousness.

I woke with a splitting headache, I looked around and I recognized that I was in Anna's room. I had an IV in my arm and I looked to the side and there passed out in a chair was Syn and in her lap also passed out was Chiara!

Next to Syn in another chair sat Victoria reading a paperback novel. She looked as good as I remembered, but her breasts were smaller than I remembered, they were still big but they used to be huge.

I looked around and I saw another lady I didn't recognize dressed in a nurse's uniform, there were two armed ex-military looking guys with military issue Beretta ARX 160s (NATO assault rifles).

Anna walked in the door, "Oh good you're up! We've been worried about you."

My eyes grew wide, holy shit she was a totally different woman, beautiful and vivacious she almost rivaled Catalina and Victoria's beauty now. Her breasts had grown to a full D cup and her ass looked bigger, shit the genetic manipulations... but hell she did look good.