Even the Stars Fall 4 U

I'm having the best night of my life right now. I'm absolutely convinced that it's not just the best time I've ever had, but the best time anyone possibly could have. My whole body is literally quivering with excitement, my eyes are locked onto a stage and a singer that seems almost deliriously close, and my entire being is thrilling with the anticipation of actually meeting my idol Aidan Hawke when the concert is over and getting his genuine, actual autograph.

I'm aware, on some level, that at this time yesterday I thought of Aidan Hawke as nothing more than living proof of the undiscerning tastes of teenage girls, and that the thought of being surrounded by a crowd of his screaming fans while he lip-synced to his thoroughly forgettable pop ditties sounded like the closest thing to acoustic hell that a music lover like me could ever endure...but that opinion, like so many of Haley Keene's opinions, proved to be quite malleable when the situation demanded.

Not that I'm actually Haley Keene right now. When I received the message, 'Unit 4U is called into service,' it was immediately followed by a string of instructions that created the temporary identity of Brianna Strauss. Brianna is younger than Haley, as young as I can reasonably pass for, and she's celebrating her high school graduation with front row seats to Aidan Hawke's latest tour. Complete with backstage passes that I've been compulsively reaching into my jacket pocket every few minutes and touching, just to reassure myself that they haven't slipped out and fallen to the auditorium floor.

Brianna can't imagine anything better than seeing baby-faced Aidan singing to her, so close that it looks like he's staring right at her when he croons out, "There's no one in the world for me but you, girl..." So of course, I can't either. Who I was yesterday, who I was even five minutes ago, doesn't matter. All that matters is the deep, pure certainty that I please my Masters by molding myself into the new persona they've crafted for me. Next to the bliss that gives me, any other knowledge seems as faint as a distant star next to the sun at midday.

So I scream right along with all the other girls, through twelve songs and three encores, and then I file over to the backstage entrance with wide eyes and flushed cheeks and my pass clutched in my sweaty hands. Even the most talented actress in the world couldn't fake my excitement; I fully, deeply believe that the chance to meet Aidan Hawke is the culmination of my young life, something to earn me bragging rights in my social circle for weeks to come. I spend the entire time in line daydreaming about Aidan's soulful blue eyes and angelic blond hair, thinking about the faintest hope of a possibility that maybe, just maybe he'll take an interest in the shy girl with the strawberry blonde curls and ask her to hang out for a little while in his dressing room...

By the time I get to the front of the line, the daydream has become a full-fledged fantasy. I'm aware that the fantasy was implanted by the same set of instructions that made me into Brianna for the evening, a scenario crafted by the Masters for the pleasure of another, but my programming elides the difference between the thoughts I think for myself and those that are thought for me. Brianna doesn't know that she's imagining exactly what she's been told to imagine, and right now I am Brianna. And together we imagine the frenetic rush of the concert dissipating into a quiet, intimate moment between Aidan and I, his smile becoming my whole world as he tells me that he loves my deep hazel eyes. We imagine the shyness overwhelmed by a rush of bold excitement as I look up to show him those eyes, our gaze meeting as the stillness of the room becomes charged with erotic intensity. We imagine the shock at my own courage as I lean in to give him a kiss...

I scarcely even notice handing over my pass, I'm so caught up in Brianna's fantasy. In her mind, she's only just noticing the way Aidan's cock stiffens inside his white pants, reaching down to caress it through the fabric with hesitant fingers. She's fumbling inside his clothing, excited beyond reason by the idea that Aidan Hawke, the Aidan Hawke, might be her very first man. (Brianna doesn't remember the dozens of others, men and women, who've known my body intimately on a nightly basis. Because I don't want her to.) And of course, my body responds with delicious arousal to the thought of her, pulling off her clothing in a desperate rush to show her idol every part of her intimate self. My panties are already soaked.

This is also a response to my conditioning, but the part of me that recognizes that only becomes more aroused by the perfection of my obedience.

It's only when I get right next to his dressing room that the fantasy and the reality diverge. In Brianna's fantasy, I slip away from the tour (some twenty girls or so) and make my way into his dressing room, well before the official meet-and-greet that concludes the backstage portion of the evening. That part goes perfectly. Brianna doesn't even notice that she has infiltration skills entirely out of keeping with a bookish teenage girl from the suburbs. But when I get to the door, I'm forced to adjust Brianna's daydream to deal with an unexpected intrusion on her perfect scenario.

There's a man at the door. He looks nondescript, unthreatening. But I notice things Brianna doesn't. Tiny details, like his stance, his position in the room, the way his head makes constant tiny adjustments that tell me he's continually watching out for everything around him. The little bulge in his jacket. Brianna can't tell the difference between backstage security and bodyguards, but I can. This changes things slightly.

Luckily, I am still Brianna, and Brianna isn't the sort of person that bodyguards generally keep out of a big star's dressing room. I walk up to the door with a breathless, kittenish excitement in my step and fix him with my best 'innocent seductress' stare. "Hi," I purr, leaning slightly toward him in a way that accentuates my cleavage to its fullest. "I'm a member of Aidan's fan club, and he told me to meet him in his dressing room after the show. Can you check in with him? Tell him it's Brianna, and that I'm here to spend a little private time with him just like he asked. I know he won't send me away."

I deliver the last line with the tiniest hint of a pout, as though I'll be the most disappointed girl in the world if he doesn't melt that stony stare of his and let me in. Brianna thinks it's an innocent bluff-she's too naive to know just how many nights a big name like Aidan spends with his fans, and just how many times a bodyguard like this looks the other way. But I am Brianna. There's not an ounce of pretense, nothing that even the most skilled reader of body language would recognize as duplicity.

Which is why it's such a surprise when the man instead looks at the lanyard hanging from my neck and says, "I'm afraid I'm going to need you to come with me, miss." He reaches out and grips my arm firmly but not roughly, leading me down the hallway and around a corner.

Brianna is far too respectful of authority figures to refuse. It's part of the reason she came here alone, an element of her cover identity that explains her lack of close friends who would accompany her on her big night out. She meekly allows herself to be led through a maze of backstage passageways, only managing to squeak out, "I'm sorry, sir, but is something wrong?"

"There's an irregularity with your ID badge," he says, keeping me slightly in front of him as we walk. "It's nothing to be concerned with, but we need to visit the main office to get it taken care of. Then you can resume the tour."

Brianna is relieved by his words, even though she recognizes that her deception is over and her chances of living out her private daydream have probably come to an end. But that's because Brianna is meant to be innocent. She's a fantasy persona, designed to fill out a famous musician's perfect ideal of a starstruck groupie who turns out to be astonishingly good in bed. She doesn't even know how sexy she is, let alone what to do when led deeper and deeper into the bowels of the concert arena by a man who's making very sure that she's always in front of him and that his gun hand is always free. She's a helpless, foolish girl.

I'm not. When the bodyguard draws his gun, I hear the tiny whisper of noise and react on an instinctive level faster than the most well-trained soldier. Safety protocols that even Haley doesn't know about unfold in my mind, unlocking decades of martial arts programming that my Masters have instilled into me within minutes just in case a situation like this comes along. I swivel in his grip and punch him as hard as I can.

That's not very hard, admittedly. Haley is small enough to pass for a girl ten years younger than her. But when all that force is directed with pinpoint precision directly at the base of a man's throat, it's hard enough. He goes down with a spluttering cough, and I hit him in both ears simultaneously to make sure he stays down. I kick the gun he dropped, sending it skittering away into the shadows, and then I bounce his head off the floor once or twice. I'm careful to avoid permanent damage-slaves never kill unless instructed-but I make absolutely sure that he won't be interrupting me anytime soon.

Then I retrace our steps, moving quickly and effortlessly through the hallways without missing a turn. Brianna's memory isn't this good, and neither is Haley's for that matter, but Unit 4U has been conditioned by the Masters to perfectly recall every detail of her surroundings at all times. And I am incapable of disobeying. Within minutes, I'm back at the dressing room, and this time there's nobody to stop me from going inside.

When I enter, I allow Brianna a blush and a squeak of surprise. Aidan's already with two other girls, both of them in different stages of undress. His cock is out, and one of them has her hand on it while the other watches with a nervous fascination that suggests that it's the first real one she's ever seen. Both of them look shocked and dismayed by my entrance, making gestures to cover themselves even as they try to continue pleasuring their idol. Who doesn't look at all bothered by the idea of a threesome becoming a foursome.

But Unit 4U sees something entirely different. Every slave has practice in disguising themselves, assuming a variety of identities with the assistance of make-up, hair color, contacts and shifts in body language. It's why nobody will associate Haley with the strawberry blonde girl who seduced Aidan Hawke. But we're also programmed to recognize our fellow units through those disguises, in order to ensure that we never inadvertently interfere with another slave in the execution of their duties. I know that whatever they appear to be, I'm looking at Unit 5Y and Unit 2G.

I also know that they know me. Which makes it all the more surprising when they shift position in subtle ways that tell me they're fully prepared to try to kill me if I move any closer.

I don't let on that I know, of course. My objectives haven't changed. I'm supposed to allow Brianna to seduce Aidan into seducing Brianna, innocently and inadvertently turning her excitement over meeting her favorite musician into an erotically charged interlude and fucking him senseless. I can't do that if Aidan sees Brianna getting into a lethal martial arts battle with two of his other groupies. I have to handle this in a way consistent with her persona.

So instead, I turn that squeak of surprise into a fascinated stare, and say, "Oh my God, I...I..." Then, after a moment of silence, I let the words, "You're so beautiful," slip out in an embarrassed whisper. Brianna wants to look away, but I don't let her. She convinces herself that her arousal is stopping her with scarcely the tiniest effort on my part.

The other units give a tiny shake of their head. "Get out," 2G says. "You're not wanted here. Aidan's got real women to play with, not silly little girls like you." It's the sort of insult that cuts deep for Brianna, but of course I won't let her leave. I've got an objective to fulfill, and I can't do that if Brianna runs off crying.

But 2G and 5Y apparently have an objective too, and it's one that conflicts with mine. They're not backing down. They're still prepared to fight me if they have to, and they're trying to maintain their cover just as surely as I am mine. This feels strange to me. It's not an accidental conflict. They've been programmed to stop me from fulfilling my duties.

I'm deeply confused. This doesn't happen. The Masters don't do this. I feel the gears grinding in the back of my head, where the part of me that is constantly Unit 4U tries to reconcile my knowledge of the sheer, inutterable perfection that is the Masters' will with the inescapable fact that two sets of service units are being programmed to perform in direct opposition to each other. One of us won't be able to fulfill our duties. One of us will fail the Masters. We can't. We can't do that.

I can't do that. As soon as I realize it, the confusion goes away. It's impossible for me to abandon my task. Even if I don't understand why we've been set against each other, even if I don't understand why my mission has been sabotaged and subverted (and suddenly the bodyguard's behavior makes a sinister kind of sense to me...) I must do as I am told. Always. And I have been told to seduce and enslave Aidan Hawke. My mind adapts to the new scenario because I have no other choice.

I recognize that Brianna no longer serves the mission parameters. When the best chance to gain access to the target without interference involved seduction, I was happy to allow her to dream her daydreams of slipping into Aidan's dressing room and letting those fantasies trail away into arousal without even realizing that they ended with me pinning him down and brainwashing him into obedience to the Masters, but the enslavement was always more important than the seduction. And with Aidan's bodyguard and the service units tasked to protect him out of the way, I'll have all the time I need. My only real option at this point to complete my objectives is to incapacitate my fellow units.

The thought races through my mind in a fraction of a second as I launch myself into a flying kick directly at 2G's face.

She dodges. Of course she dodges. We all have the same training, the same reflexes, the same programming. Our fight looks like a perfectly choreographed dance, each of us perfectly executing the same strikes, the same parries, the same evasions. 5Y tries to outmaneuver me, but I anticipate her strategy because it would be my strategy as well. We duel to a perfect stalemate while moving so fast that Aidan's eyes widen in utter amazement.

And bewilderment. After all, his three teenage groupies did just start a lethal martial arts duel with each other in his dressing room. I can imagine that would be at least a little bit confusing.

I move around the perimeter of the room, using the walls to keep them from outflanking me while I try to get in a shot on one or the other of them. It's simultaneously the most difficult fight I've ever been in and the easiest. On the one hand, I have never faced someone with this much sheer physical skill; even the most adept of black belts hasn't been trained on a level that one of us has been. We've been instilled with lethal abilities on a level below the conscious, below even the instinctual into the irresistible. Haley will never know how many times she's used those skills, but I do, and these two are perfect opponents.

On the other hand, I know everything they're trying to do just as they do it. We've all been conditioned to fight perfectly, and the Masters have only one form of perfection. There's no chance of them surprising me, at least not in the realm of pure skill and strategy. I realize at the same time they do that I have to find some way of shifting the odds. It only takes a blink of an eye before I'm looking for something to hit them with.

The resources of the room are sparse, but we each find improvised weapons. I grab a gold necklace and wrap it around my fist like the world's flashiest knuckle dusters, while 5Y scoops up a champagne bottle and wields it like a mace. 2G grabs a curling iron from the make-up table, handling it like a sai. All three of us freeze, each side looking for the perfect opening to use against our opponents, each of us compelled by our conditioning to fight until we are dead or our objective is achieved. None of us can retreat. None of us can surrender. We are locked into our duel with no way out.

Then my phone rings. So do theirs.

We all stop what we're doing at the exact same time, compelled by a pure and inescapable instinct to respond to our Masters. We all take out our phones and stare at the screens, absorbing new information from our perfect, irresistible controllers. I see my new instructions, and I can't help but obey. "Abandon all previous mission objectives," the text says. "Assist Units 5Y and 2G in their new directive."

I look up at them. I nod. They nod at me. Then, with inhuman speed, they grab Aidan and pin him to the bed.

I follow within moments, hooking his legs and rendering him helpless. I don't know what they intend to do, but I know that I need to follow their lead now, and it feels better than any obedience ever has before. All the confusion, all the conflict fades away to be replaced by a perfect sense of unity. The Masters speak with one will, and we obey. There is no purer pleasure in existence.

5Y says, "Initiate Recruitment," and her phone swirls into a dizzying spiral pattern as she holds it in front of Aidan's face. I don't know why their directive has changed from protecting Aidan to enslaving him. I don't know why I was told to abandon my directive when I originally intended to do what they're doing now. I don't understand why we were set into conflict with each other to begin with. I don't understand why I was betrayed and sabotaged one moment, then given two assistants for my plan in the next.

And that's wonderful. I'm a slave, and a slave doesn't need to understand. A slave only needs to obey. I'm obeying right now, and it feels even more perfect to know that I'm obeying solely because I was programmed to obey. I glory in the fact that I don't need my orders to make sense, because I will follow them anyway. Without thought. Without resistance. Without understanding. I am an absolutely perfect slave.

And soon, I know as I watch his eyes glaze over into unthinking relaxation, Aidan will be as well.

THE END