Countermeasures

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Corporate espionage of new brainwashing technology.
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Alexis dropped down from the skylight, landing silently onto the gleaming spotless floor of the facility. So far, her infiltration had gone without a hitch. The security system was running a peacekeeping program of her own design, and would erase itself after she had finished her work here. She still had to stop briefly to interface with another level of security, or a different type of passcode door. It made sense that the facility had several layers of redundancy when it came to security, as the recent rumours surrounding the technology in development here made it a target for anyone in the world of corporate espionage.

But Alexis was among the best, and the tech, as varied as it was, couldn't hold up to her analytical and nanobot enhanced mind. Another door, this one with an iris scanner. Alexis ran a data cord out from her utility belt. One end she attached into the debugging port on the security panel. The other, she plugged into the side of her head, underneath a patch of hair that disguised her interface.

Most people in the developed world at least had some manner of brain interface, as embedded technology was the growing fashion of the 21st century. Of course, most people were limited by commercial brand VR and mindscape technology, but Alexis used state of the art military grade software. It helped to be ex CIA, and doubly helped to be well connected. Alexis wasn't even her civilian name, it was an alias for a being that existed only in the dark depths of forbidden places.

Her mind parried with the security door interface, and after bypassing some sloppy verification code, convinced the system that the precisely expected data sequence had been entered as if the head scientist, Dr Bodenstein, had just placed his eye to the sensor.

The door opened with a low hum of the operating servo. Such a thing as the door opening would of course be logged in the central security computer, but that particular system was due to contract a data wiping virus at around sunrise, and would tragically need to be restored to last night's backup. More's the pity, thought Alexis, smiling.

She caught a reflection of her active camouflage as she passed some mirrored windows in the clean research division. Her complement of a trillion nanobots had altered the pigment of her skin, the color of her hair, and some fine details of her facial features, so that she appeared to be a strikingly beautiful Japanese woman with dark purple hair braided into a neat pigtail. In her sleek black cat-suit, she had to admit she looked rather hot. With a single thought, she saved the current appearance configuration for her own personal enjoyment later.

A small voice of unease spoke at the back of her head. It wasn't that it had been too easy. Much the opposite, the security system was immense, and only herself and a handful of other individuals on the planet were properly equipped to be able to succeed in this mission. It was just that nothing unexpected had happened. Usually there was a stray guard off his usual patrol route for some reason, or else a door with an upgraded security protocol that had somehow been missed on the building plans. But this run had been to the letter so far. Alexis sighed and reassured herself that it was ok to just enjoy it for the few times that actually happened.

Her target was in the clean research division, so she was close. She brought up the facility plans in her visual field, and a holographic wireframe layout of the building appeared in front of her, visible only to her. Two lefts and then the end of the corridor. One guard scheduled to be after the first left, coming towards her.

She stopped before the corner and listened. There was nothing for a couple of minutes, but then sure enough, the heavy footsteps of a guard who had no sense in preserving the eerie quiet came stomping down the corridor towards her ears. She broke the security on one of the nearest labs and hid inside until the guard had traipsed past her, with the look of someone playing a game through his ocular implants, if his random stabs and swipes at the air in front of him with his fingers were any indication. With the coast clear, she left her hiding place and proceeded unhindered to her final destination.

One last security door stood in her path, as was to be expected. This one had a triple security feature that required simultaneous activation in order to avoid tripping any countermeasures or lighting up alarms throughout the entire facility. Appreciating a decent challenge, Alexis got to work, analyzing and developing new code for each authorization but without directly interfacing yet. It took more time that she anticipated, and it was when a guard was within five minutes of walking past this corridor that she finally had all the code she needed. Interfacing again from her skull but splitting the output three ways, she had to use both hands and a foot to click the output cables into all three security panels at once. With less than a tenth of a second in difference for each interface connection, she was able to execute her custom code and open the door as planned. She quickly stepped through as she heard the footsteps of the approaching guard in the distance, and the door closed quietly behind her.

She exhaled deeply. This was it. It was a circular, almost empty room. The floor and ceiling were both paneled in black chrome, dimly lit by a few low energy lights. On a round raised platform in the center was a plastic carry case, about the size of a large suitcase. Around the perimeter of the room were several cameras, which she had expected. The security tapes wouldn't last through the night, so that wasn't a problem. She wasn't expecting the 50″ screens and heavy duty speakers though. There must have been about a dozen of each, equally spaced around the circular wall. They weren't on any plans, or in her informant's dossier of the room's security measures. Part of her just wanted to grab the case and go, but another part insisted she show some due diligence for potential countermeasures here.

She scanned the screens and speakers with all her enhanced human senses and the nanobot implants spread throughout her head. It was as she feared... There were subliminal signals coming from the screens, and from the speakers. The strange thing was that Alexis couldn't isolate the frequency to allow her to save and replay whatever messages she was being hammered with at a speed she could read and hear. The frequency seemed to be scrambled, and ever changing, so that even her advanced implants couldn't pin them down, and every time they tried to record the message, they got garbled code or static.

Maybe she could try running a full spectrum scan on one of the screens at a time... Wait, no! Every second she spent in the room with those devices, her subconscious was being bombarded with hidden suggestions, or external thoughts trying to masquerade as her own. She had to finish the mission and get out quickly, or find a way to disable all of them at once. A quick glance at the circuitry of the nearest speaker told Alexis that the latter option would either take too much time or trip an alarm that would have a dozen guards on her within moments. She instead went up to the box and gripped the handles, ready to lift.

Alexis hesitated. What if this box was just a decoy? Yes, it made sense that they would put all these subliminal signal devices here to bombard her with the suggestion that this is the real tech, that way she would take it and discover when she got back to her hideout that is was nothing but a box of tin cans or something.

Grinning, she thought she wouldn't be manipulated so easily. She had to open the box here and double check that the technology was there as expected. She could see now that her original plan of just grabbing it and leaving was badly flawed, and she congratulated herself for catching it.

The locking mechanism on the crate proved difficult for Alexis to crack though. It had a time scrambled code that changed every four seconds. There was a pattern to the code change, a key even, but Alexis would have to hook up the hex-core processor unit in her head to brute force her way in. And that would take time. Possibly beyond her allowed mission time, even.

She had no choice though. She could feel a strong urge to take the package now and leave quickly, but she was fairly certain that was a thought being delivered to her by the subliminal messages. Actually, wasn't the original mission plan to take the crate without checking the contents? She thought it was, but could she trust that memory anymore?

Dammit, she was compromised, wasn't she? Her thoughts were being invaded relentlessly by the screens and speakers emitting their invisible and inaudible suggestions. The normal mission protocol here would be to abort.

Yes, she should abort. Get out now, before the subliminal countermeasures did anything more serious to her mind.

But then she realized that they really weren't affecting her that badly. Sure, they were telling her to take the crate and leave, which was clearly a ploy to have her leave with a fake unit. And now they were telling her to abort. Everything about them was urging her out of the room, so therefore staying in the room was the best option.

Yes, she had to stay. She had to stay and make sure the technology in the case was the real deal. She hooked a cable from her skull to the case and started the brute force computation to break through the security code.

The subliminals weren't very effective, clearly. She was ably resisting them as she waited for her implant to crack the code on the case. She sat crossed legged in front of the case; this might take some time, and she should be comfortable. Normally she would be wary of so many generators of subliminal messaging, but it was apparent that her superior mind was shrugging off the potential effects of them. She unclipped her utility belt and placed it gently beside her. It was ok to relax instead. She was immune to the subliminal messages, so she should relax, and wait for her implants to crack the code on the case. The mission was going so well and she would be exceptionally well rewarded upon its completion. It felt good. Great in fact.

She felt her mind wandering, and her body becoming more and more limp and calm. Images of her disguised self that she saw in the mirrored glass earlier started appearing in her head. Smiling softly at first, then blowing friendly kisses. A happy, dopy smile spread across Alexis' face as she imagined herself winking and smiling seductively. Slowly, imaginary Alexis started to unzip her cat-suit, head bowed but looking up with enticing eyes. Alexis sighed happily at the sight, and felt a rising tide of pleasure and arousal begin to build in her.

She didn't mean to disguise herself as women she happened to be attracted to, but it did happen to her fairly often. More times than she would freely admit, she would stay in her disguise upon the completion of a mission, take some pictures of her fake appearance in some reveling positions, and possibly have a session in front of the mirror where her alien hands roamed over her transformed body. It was, she would admit, a slight vice of hers. But she had never let her distract her during a mission.

But right now she couldn't get the image of her current self out of her head. She was picturing herself removing the last of her cat-suit now, and kneeling on the floor with her hips raised and her legs wide, while her hand stroked, teased, and danced around her neatly trimmed hair, promising more intense pleasure any moment now.

Alexis felt that she should maybe shake this image from her mind, that perhaps she should focus on the here, the now. But wasn't she alone in here? And didn't she have time to kill while waiting for the difficult code on this box to be cracked?

She barely realized that she was doing it, she just had a dreamy awareness that her real hand had gone to the top of her tight black outfit and started to gently pull the zip down. Yes, why shouldn't she enjoy herself here and now? She had the time, she had the body, and she had a growing, ever more eager appetite for release.

Feeling that her cunt was now wonderfully wet with arousal, Alexis wondered why the subliminal messages weren't trying to get her to do anything else other than their original ploy of trying to make her leave with the case without giving it a thorough inspection first. As she unzipped her cat suit more and more, exposing her ample breasts to the room, she thought that the subliminals could have been trying to make her do anything to get herself caught, like intentionally trip an alarm or otherwise reveal her presence to the guards. Maybe they hadn't been programmed very well, or perhaps she was just able to shrug off any subconscious urge they were trying to plant in her. She finished unzipping her cat-suit and ran her hands sensually down her silky smooth skin, before removing her arms and legs from the suit to leave her entirely naked.

She positioned herself like she had imagined moments earlier and copied the motions she had seen. Running her fingers around and over her cunt, teasing herself one moment and stroking perfect pleasure the next. It felt incredible. Doing this in the middle of a mission in the lair of a high security research compound made it even sexier. She gasped with bliss as her fingers danced to a tune of ecstasy, and soon she drifted off and got lost in mindless pleasure.

* * *

Alexis opened her eyes suddenly and tried to remember what had happened. She was on the floor, her face in a puddle of drool and her torso and legs in a puddle of... something else.

Wait, she was naked?! And how long had she been here? Cursing under her breath, she looked around her to get her bearings. A dark circular room with cameras, speakers, and screens around the edge. In the middle of the room, a raised platform, on which an open crate sat. There was an expensive looking silver helmet in the crate, surrounded by molded padding.

The memories of it all came rushing back to her. The subliminal messages emitted from the screens and speakers were unlike anything she'd ever encountered before. They had got to her and convinced her that her own thoughts were false and their transmitted ones were correct. She placed a clammy hand onto her sweaty brow, and exhaled deeply. She hadn't been prepared for it, and it had done a number on her. Frankly, she was amazed she hadn't been captured while she was passed out in a pool of her own aroused juices. Maybe not as much time had passed as she thought.

At least the crate's security lock had been overcome by her interface processor. She reached out her pale hands to open the lid more completely and examine this helmet closer.

Wait... Pale hands? Alexis grabbed a handful of her hair and brought it into view. It was light auburn! Her nanobots had removed the disguise on her appearance! She looked like... She looked like the person who she was when not doing this kind of work. Her identity was compromised unless she could get out unseen and ensure beyond all doubt that not a single image of her remained on the buildings security system!

But how did this happen? She ran stressed fingers through her now naturally brown hair and felt them hit the interface cord still connected between her head and the crate. Oh, oh no. The crate must have had a countermeasure signal that waited for her to pass out from the constant subliminal bombardment... It had hijacked her nanonbot system, revealing her true appearance. What else?

She tried to access all of her enhanced interface systems. The building plans, her intel feed, her optical display... Everything had been disabled and locked down by a code similar to the one that originally locked the crate. Since her own processor was also locked down, she had no means to unlock it right now. She'd have to get back to her hideout, and use an antivirus program on her computer there.

But without her enhancements... How could she escape here with only her dull normal human senses?

"Think, think, think..." she muttered aloud. Then she noticed the helmet still sitting in its padding in the crate. This whole mission was going badly south now, but there was the prize, waiting for her to pick it up and put it on.

Wait, no. She didn't want to put it on. The mission was to grab the tech and get out. The subliminal countermeasures had convinced her to stay in the room, and now they were trying to make her put the helmet on. This was supposedly the most advanced piece of Virtual Reality simulation technology ever developed. There was no telling what it might or might not do to her if she was to put it on, so it was absolutely pivotal that she leave without doing so.

But maybe that's what the subliminal messages wanted her to think? Maybe she should put it on now to ensure it was the working piece of kit she was supposed to steal, otherwise she could be leaving with a useless chunk of metal that would fit on her head and do not much else...

Yes, she should put the helmet on now.

NO! It was the subliminals again. They were out-maneuvering her own thoughts too quickly. She had to get out! She had to escape... She had to... to put the helmet on.

Yes, that was the most important thing here. Putting the helmet on was the whole reason she came here, Alexis remembered. At least, she thought that was it.

Crap. She couldn't remember which was her own thought again. Put the helmet on? Don't put the helmet on? She thought that maybe she should do the opposite of the dominant thought, but they each had equal merits.

She knew though that each moment she stayed here and lingered in indecision, the subliminals would be pouring more and more suggestions into her mind. She had to get out. That's what she should have done the moment she entered this room: grab the case and get out. She would just pick up the helmet and leave. Forget her cat-suit, forget her utility belt, she just needed the helmet.

Alexis picked up the helmet from its case and before she realized she'd done it, it was on her head.

"Wait! No—" she started to say, but was interrupted by a sharp pain in her head. More accurately, several dozen sharp pains. The helmet was inserting interface needles through her skull and into her brain. The pain lasted only a moment, and was soon replaced by a calm euphoria. Clearly one of the interfacing tendrils had connected to and taken control of her pain & pleasure centers.

A moment later, the entire world went blank. Alexis could neither see, hear, smell, taste or touch anything. Even her body, her hands, her tongue, none of it felt like it was there. She was incorporeal. Nothing but utter darkness surrounded her in every direction, though she wasn't sure she was able to actually look in different directions just then.

Then some bright, bold, two foot tall letters appeared in front of her.

Boot complete. Enter security password

If Alexis could swear, she would have. If she could still feel the helmet on her head, then she would have tried to take it off.

Her own implants compromised, and now her mind so utterly invaded by the helmet's connections, Alexis couldn't think of how to even approach cracking this password. She had nothing left, no tricks, no smarts, no luck.

Below the box, there were buttons to submit the password entry or cancel the process. Not seeing any other alternative, Alexis willed the cancel button to be pressed.

To her immense relief, the darkness faded and she found herself back in her naked body. She blinked a few times then immediately took the helmet off.

"Right!" she said with conviction. "No more messing around!"

She quickly put her cat-suit back on, clipped on her utility belt, and grabbed the helmet. She just needed to get out of the room now before the subliminal countermeasures could do her any more harm. Fortunately, the door didn't have tight security measures to get out, and moments later she was out in the deserted corridor. A glance at her handheld datapad told her that employees would be arriving en-masse within the hour, so she had to make trails quickly. Without her implants active and helping her, getting out was a lot more difficult than getting in, with her having to improvise her way around security doors and narrowly avoid guards she no longer knew the routes of. But through a combination of her steeled determination and luck, she was soon outside where she had left her mission duffle-bag under a bush. Minutes later, with civilian clothing on and the helmet safely tucked away, Alexis emerged onto the main street running in front of the facility and blended flawlessly into the throng of morning commuters.

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