The waking world returned so abruptly that the transition was jarring.
Okay. Take stock.
Surprisingly comfortable surface underneath. Lying flat on it. Straps over arms, pinning them down. Ditto for legs. Curved head cradle. Blindfold that prevented even the faintest trace of light. A suggestion of music, just loud enough to be audible, some weird New-Age track with lots of synthesizers and woodwinds.
Still dressed, at least, but all illusion would have vanished along with consciousness, leaving only a slightly-tatty stage magician’s tuxedo put together from thrift-shop components. Well, not the first time Eureka had seen that. Shoulder-length dark hair still in a tail at the back of his neck, as near as he cold tell.
That blindfold was a major problem. No sight meant no illusions.
Phantasm tugged at the restraints. They were soft, not biting into skin even when he increased the force, and the circulation appeared to be fine when he wriggled his fingers and toes, but they were adamant. The padded cradle that supported his head allowed a limited amount of motion, but not enough to dislodge the blindfold.
Completely comfortable, and absolutely helpless, in the hands of a villain.
With most… well, many other supervillains, that would have been a good reason to panic. Even with some superheroes, if he were being honest.
Eureka, however…
A villain who never used lethal force, who was more likely to employ devices that triggered hysterical laughter or temporary paralysis or flashy lights that induced pleasant hallucinations, at worst distractions like skin turning to many-coloured scales for a couple of hours, leaving mild irritation for a few days. A villain whose agenda had never been made clear, but generalized terror and mayhem seemed to be low on the list of priorities. Kidnapping was out of character for her, but then, other things had seemed to be so, and had turned out to be more like her typical antics than they had seemed at first blush. At the moment, she’d even made certain that he was restrained safely and comfortably, so it seemed unlikely that she had anything horrendous in mind.
So while it was frightening to be so vulnerable, Phantasm couldn’t honestly claim that he was simply scared. There was a shiver of other emotion beneath it, just a shadow of one he hadn’t experienced in far too long, and if he let it in the door, he suspected that it could easily grow to take over all the empty space inside that it had once occupied. Something left from before he’d gained the power of turning his visualizations into images and sounds others could perceive, and had immediately lost a huge degree of control over his own life.
Which was both more frightening than being immobile with no idea why, and the kind of feeling that the League insisted held the seed of self-destruction, something to be rigorously denied and suppressed.
Then again, it wouldn’t be the only thing the League had told him to do that…
Phantasm shied away from those thoughts without letting them reach the end. It would be more productive to think back to earlier encounters with Eureka, to see if there might be any hints there of anything he could use as leverage, or any weaknesses, anything that might help him escape this situation.
Battle after battle blurred together in his mind, though. He couldn’t recall where each fight had been, what it had been over, which of her many toys she had used, sometimes not even which of them had won.
What he did remember, with overwhelming vivid clarity, were moments.
The moment they’d been fighting hand-to-hand, and she had given him that wild grin when they grappled right up close, and then she’d managed to tap her rainbow-anodized metal gauntlets together at the wrist, and everything had changed. The gauntlets were linked to a minimal exoskeleton that ran up her arms to meet over her spine, and once they’d activated, he’d been lost. Half a head taller than her, all his own abilities based entirely in illusion, he never stood a chance against the strength of steel motors and cable tendons. She’d given him a teasing kiss on the end of his nose, and warned him to kneel now so she wouldn’t have to hurt him; while the League had reprimanded him later, he’d known the battle was over and did as she said, which led to his wrists being bound behind him with soft cotton rope around a metal pole while she completed whatever she’d been doing. She’d even paused on the way out to press a small sharp folding-blade jacknife into his hand so he could cut the ropes away once she was gone.
The moment they’d been fighting in a park at night, and the skies had opened, and the grass had quickly become so slippery that when Eureka fell, Phantasm tripped over her and also went down. That early version of her power armour hadn’t been adequately waterproofed, and it had shorted out. Phantasm had felt so utterly ridiculous, soaking wet and muddy and with hardly any visibility, that he’d started to laugh and hadn’t been able to stop, and a few heartbeats later Eureka had joined in. She was still giggling as she stumbled away empty-handed, the opposite direction from her original target. Technically that had counted as a win, but it was really more of a stalemate.
The moment he’d had to go into a crawlspace to establish whether she had stashed stolen goods there to retrieve later, and had found her there as well… the first part of that one still brought colour to his cheeks, even before Eureka had surprised him with a gas that made all his muscles go rigid, his joints no longer under his control. Or Eureka’s, since she’d grumbled about having to squeeze past him repeatedly in the limited space, and he’d discovered that even pressure on his frozen limbs didn’t move them. She’d fussed around, making sure she hadn’t lost anything, searching for one small item she was sure she had dropped, but finally told him the gas would wear off in another five minutes and had fled. Not until he’d seen Avalanche, one of the top-tier superheroes, similarly frozen but left mid-posturing on a busy downtown corner, had he wondered whether she’d lingered to keep him safe.
Was he that pathetic a superhero that the villain he fought most often felt sorry for him, or didn’t consider him a real threat?
Actually, given their win-loss record, she would be right about that.
But he’d still rather fight her than any of the others he had to tangle with in the course of any given month. Even if she was the only one who could beat him two times out of three, she never made him feel bad about it. That always came later, when being scolded by one or another League rep.
On the other hand… he was currently not only in her power, but in some location she had chosen specifically for whatever her purpose was.
Thinking about past battles had been meant to help him calm down and ground himself, bring his League training firmly back to the forefront. Somehow, it only left his emotions more chaotic.
“Good morning, sweetie,” Eureka said brightly. “I see you pulling on the restraints. They’re more than strong enough to hold you, but you keep fighting them if it makes you happy.”
“How long was I out? Where are we?”
“Aren’t you just full of questions. You slept for about two hours, long enough for me to get us both back to my secret lair and make sure I have you all secure. Which also tells you where you are, hm? You’ve been awake and squirming around all cute for, oh, twenty minutes or so? Sorry, I was working on something.”
“Why… oh. That whole thing with the orphan sanctuary was a trap?”
“Better late than never, figuring that out! As though I would ever hurt anything in that building. I love animals, I mean, I have four cats I rescued and I make cool things for them, and even if I don’t find human kids interesting or want one, I still wouldn’t ever hurt one. Eww. Just, no. But I just knew that would make sure you came running as fast as you could. It took you longer to get there than I expected, but I’m patient. I suppose you were in the middle of thwarting someone else’s nefarious crimes, huh?”
“Something like that.” The prices the mechanic charged were a crime, but not one he could thwart. “Why am I here?”
Eureka laughed. “Because I perfected a new device, my best ever. It’s hard to find an appreciative audience for some of my toys, and I’m really proud of this one. Oh, and I need to test it on a human, of course, but every simulation I’ve run has come up perfectly. The more recent ones, at least. So you aren’t in any danger.”
“Test it? What does it do?” That was alarming enough to drive away the creeping desire to yield to the inevitable and just surrender completely.
“Oh, it just makes a few little changes,” Eureka said coyly, laying a hand over her captive’s rapidly-thumping heart. No power gloves, but then, why would she need them right now? “It won’t hurt, though.”
“I can’t stop you. I can’t get away. I can’t get out of these restraints or use my powers.” Phantasm swallowed hard, the words triggering feelings that he would really rather not be feeling right then. “No one else is coming. Or cares. Just tell me. Please.”
“Aww. Well, if you’re going to ask that nicely…” Eureka leaned down and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to turn you into a woman, sweetie.”
“You’re… what?”
“I think you heard me. I’m going to turn on my new invention, and it’s going to radiate a field over you that will alter your body to match whatever I program into it. It can’t be reversed. Once the machine finishes, whatever it does becomes the new natural. It would take a second run through the machine to reverse it, and only if I tell it to scan and save your current state before it starts. It has a random setting, but for you, I’ve spent hours crafting a perfect new body that will be beautiful. I’m annoyed with you because you keep getting in my way, but not annoyed enough that I don’t want you to like the new you. And I think afterwards, I’m going to keep you as a minion.”
Phantasm didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched out long and tense.
Then he laughed, though it trailed into something precariously close to a sob.
“Go for it.”
“Well, aren’t you brave, oh Prince of Illusions.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Isn’t that what you are?”
“It’s what people call me. It’s not what I am.” There was nothing left to lose. She let her voice shift out of Phantasm’s deeper register, and into the one she’d worked on so hard by herself in her copious free time. “My name is Claire. I started HRT a year ago. And I am so. Fucking. Exhausted. So just go to it. I’m not going to resist.”
Eureka paused, and something changed in her voice as well, but in her case it was emotion. “Exhausted? Why?”
“The League’s High Council says it wouldn’t contribute to a wholesome image if I were to transition as Phantasm, and they keep delaying on giving me permission to create a separate female hero persona. I doubt they ever will. And if they do, I’ll be forced to wear one of those stupid costumes that they insist are appropriate for women. Looking sexy is fine and all, but not when fighting villains.”
“Oh dear,” Eureka said softly. “I didn’t know about that part. The permission, I mean. I’ve seen what they make women wear.” Tentatively, she began to stroke her captive’s hair, a feather-light touch.
With the gates open, the rest followed. Claire would have closed her eyes, except that the padding inside the blindfold pretty much kept them closed anyway, but she could feel tears leaking out and being absorbed. “I can’t get a decent full-time job because I have to be up all night on Sunday night and Wednesday night, they won’t change the schedule even if it’s really stupid to have a set predictable routine like that. So I have to juggle two part-time ones, and they’re both terrible, but it’s the only way I can pay for my hormones and cover the rent on my shithole apartment and have a car and actually eat. Forget putting together a new wardrobe, or electrolysis or anything. Provincial health care will cover basic bottom surgery, someday, but nothing else. And I have to spend time I don’t have on working out, which I hate because the last thing I want is more muscle on my upper body, and doing combat training with Yeoman. The Council wasn’t supposed to tell and he’s not supposed to know my other identity but he keeps making sarcastic little comments that certainly sound like he knows.”
“Oh, he would. I don’t like him. I was just avoiding him, but maybe I need to track him down.” Eureka kept stroking her hair, not quite as tentatively.
“I can’t have any kind of decent relationship, sexual or otherwise, with another human being, because even if I had any time and energy for it, I’d have to worry all the time about villains using them as leverage or the League deciding I’d told them too much. I don’t dare even get a cat for company. I couldn’t afford it anyway, but it would never see me and someone nasty would probably steal or kill it.”
“That’s very sad. I thought you were alone because you wanted to be.” For a supervillain, Eureka sounded oddly sad.
“I just seem to be using illusions to hide myself constantly. I have to bind my chest and then add illusion to Phantasm so he looks more masculine still. The rest of the time I use it to minimize all the little tells that I can’t do anything about otherwise, so I can at least get through a day of work or grocery shopping without any extra hassles. I just don’t think I could bear it, even if it feels like cheating. I’m so tired. The League won’t let me walk away and go civilian, not without an implant that would block me from using my powers, and I need those, they’re part of me now. But hurray for you. I’m the inconvenient one they won’t mind declaring MIA after a fight and never bother to look for, so no risk and no consequences.”
“Oh no,” Eureka said, and her voice had tears in it. “Now I feel terrible.”
“You… what?” Claire thought back through the sudden torrent. “Why do you sound like you know a lot about me?”
“Well… um… I got curious.” Eureka’s hand stilled on Claire’s hair. “You always seemed like you were just going through the motions, with this awful empty heaviness, instead of believing in what you were doing, and it’s been getting worse for, um, I guess about a year? So I maybe stalked you a bit, and I got Illuminatus drunk and charmed them into telling me what they know. Although that really wasn’t very much that actually matters, I guess. So, well… I sorta knew about the HRT? And I know that people can be terrible sometimes, although I didn’t know just how mean to you they were actually being. So I thought maybe I could give you a plausibly deniable excuse. Oops, the crazy villain turned me into a girl, and there’s no way to fix it, so I guess I’ll just have to endure it somehow and not like it at all, absolutely not, but I have to keep fighting for, uh, justice or whatever. You’re really smart, I didn’t think I’d have to leave a very big opening for you to find it and escape, and I didn’t figure you’d hurt me or anything. Only I couldn’t ask for consent, because then you wouldn’t be able to honestly swear that it was against your will anymore, y’know? But now that seems, like, really shallow or… or something. I’m sorry. And now I don’t want to take the blindfold off ‘cause I don’t want to see how you’d look at me, even though I probably should just let you go. Now what do I do?” Her voice was climbing in pitch and volume both. “I always mess it up when I try to do anything nice for anyone. That’s why I’m a villain.”
It took Claire three tries to find her voice, and several syllables to get it under control enough to make sure it was in Claire’s range, not Phantasm’s. “Hold on. You went to all that trouble… as a nice surprise for an enemy?”
“Um, not for any other enemies. Except I never really got the sense that we were enemies, I guess?” Eureka sighed. The tears faded, replaced by heavy resignation. “I guess I’d better just let you go.”
“Just… just wait.” I’m absolutely helpless and in the hands of… someone who did a huge amount of work to set up a way to give me something she was sure I wanted, and expected me to assume that her motives were bad ones?
Oh, that is just too much…
“Mmhmm?” Eureka’s hands froze on the blindfold.
“You were expecting to keep me a prisoner for a while and then make sure I could escape?”
“Well, I… I wanted to see if you liked it, so I could change things still. Just… just pretend that it was something I wanted instead. And I wanted to see you be you for a little while. Even if you were mad at me and hated me.”
“What if…” Claire licked dry lips. “What if I didn’t try to escape?”
“What?” That came out so high it was almost a squeak.
“Well, not much. None at all’s less fun. I… there’s one other thing that’s really bad for being a hero. There’s pretty clear subtext that it’s almost as big a sin as being trans. I’m submissive. I figured that out before I got my powers and had to join the League. I… a lot of the time, I like having rules to follow. And doing things to please someone in control. And being tied up, or overpowered, or spanked, or… that kind of thing.” She could feel her cheeks getting hot—she wasn’t ashamed of it, exactly, since it was just part of her, but as with being trans, reactions weren’t always sympathetic. “I, um… we’ve pretty much established that I don’t have anything in my life that’s worth keeping. So how about we go with your original plan, only you make sure I can’t escape? And you won’t have to worry about whether I’m okay with that?”
Eureka considered that, while Claire held her breath.
“You realize that makes you a supervillain too?”
“Avalanche has had at least a dozen accusations of sexual harassment and assault against him, and the League just makes them go away because he’s top-tier. The whole justice system will support the League unconditionally.”
“I know. He made me an offer once that was just… yuck. Girls, boys, both, neither, sure, but absolutely never ever him.”
“Is that why you left him downtown?”
“Trust me, I was tempted to do worse while I had him helpless.”
“I think a lot of women, including female superheroes, were probably privately cheering for you. But they hate and harass villains who do things that are less evil. That plant chick who keeps targeting major sources of pollution… she might be messing up businesses and stuff, but the businesses aren’t taking it seriously that we’re on the edge of total catastrophe bigger than any villain. That guy who goes after bigoted law enforcement, I mean, c’mon. I don’t know what your goal actually is…”
“I wasn’t sure either. But I think I am now.”
“I bet it’s not anything bad either.”
“Are you kidding? I have a machine that can transform people. And there are a whole lot of people out there who don’t get to be their own best selves because of stupid social garbage. I’m pretty sure I can make it smaller and more portable, with some work.”
“That… that is absolutely something I can support.”
“Hmm.” Claire squirmed, suddenly sure that Eureka was looking her over, and the tone had changed when she finally spoke again. Now it was all… supervillain-y. Just shy of tying a damsel to the railroad tracks. “Are you quite sure you want to be my minion? I might do things just to remind you who’s in charge. And there might be a bit of physical punishment if you disobey or make mistakes. And there’s a possibility of sex being involved.”
“As long as I’m not small and yellow and annoying, and the sex doesn’t involve me having to be a guy, I’m good with that. Doing what you say is bound to be better than doing what the League says.” And seriously, Eureka was sexy as hell, if they weren’t forced onto opposite sides..
Eureka’s breath, on Claire’s cheek, smelled like cherry Kool-Aid.
“And I’m going to make you be a cute girl. Sometimes I might change details a bit. I’m still working on a catgirl program with ears and a tail that work properly and respond to emotions. I’m probably going to test things like that on you. Maybe dress you up sexy, except when we have to go out where there might be a fight. Then I want you wearing something sensibly protective. I look after what’s mine.”
“Um. O-okay. I trust you.”
Eureka pressed a kiss to the base of Claire’s jaw. “But we’re going to have a long talk about boundaries and limits and fantasies and safewords and all that kind of stuff. And then I’m going to honour that. And I’m going to make sure we both tell the truth.”
“How?”
“Hear the music that’s playing?”
“Uh… yes.”
“I was wearing earplugs to filter it out. I took them out a few minutes ago. The harmonics of it get way down into your brain and make it impossible to lie.”
“Truth music?”
“Yep. And I don’t have to try to shrink that. Any speakers will do. I haven’t been able to figure out a way to get it into, say, a political debate, or anything like that.”
“I, um, I can help with that. I can probably get us in anywhere, with a little work. You’ve invented so many amazing things.”
“You just signed up to help me invent them and put them to use.” Claire felt Eureka’s breath against her lips, and tried to get just enough extra height that she could reach.
Eureka giggled. “Oh, this is going to be fun. But let’s get you all fixed up and happy and feeling good first.”
“You said… you said it could save current state?”
“Yes. I was going to, just in case.”
“Please don’t. I’m never going to want to go back. Ever.”
“If you’re sure. Once I tell it to start, I can’t safely stop it, and at that point it will be too late for a scan.”
“I’m sure. Phantasm is all that’s left of before, and keeping him around wasn’t my choice. I want him to die.” It was maddening just to be so close and not there yet, but that was bearable, because she really didn’t think Eureka was going to suddenly change her mind or suddenly reveal that she’d been lying all along and had something else in mind for her captive. “Please, Mistress? Make me… make me whatever you want? A cute girl to serve you?”
“Well, okay. You talked me into it. Actually, you can probably talk me into a lot that way. Don’t go anywhere.”
Claire squirmed. “I’ll, um, stay right here, Mistress.”
“I’m going to leave the blindfold on because the light is pretty bright and could damage your eyes. And you’re so much more adorable blindfolded than you would be if I just swapped it for tinted goggles. Try to take notes, okay? It would really help if you could write down, or record, or whatever, your experiences with the things I invent. How it feels and things like that. Oh, man, this is going to be so much better than I ever thought!”
Claire heard Eureka walk away, fast light steps, leaving her alone.
That was okay.
She’d decided.
And she’d told Eureka she trusted her without even knowing about the truth music. That probably meant that she really did, right? It wasn’t just a desperate grab at a possible escape?
Not that it mattered. She had two roads, and the one she had been forced onto was increasingly unbearable, but she could choose to take this unexpected new path that offered… well, everything that she really needed to make her happy, when it came right down to it.
Was it just thoughts of a future as the minion of a sexy mad scientist that were making her feel sort of warm and tingly all over?
No, there was something else happening.
Instinctively, she writhed against the restraints that held her, gentle but firm in their control. Some little animal part of her mind was terrified: helpless, blind, with a device made by a genius supervillain pointed at her and already starting to transform her. She had no idea what she was going to look like. Eureka had said she’d spent a long time on the design, but what did Eureka find appealling?
She took a deep breath. Panicking wouldn’t help. Once the machine started, there was no safe way to stop it. She was committed. All she had to do was surrender to it, accept it, and look forward to whatever lay on the other side.
“Know something?” Eureka’s voice murmured, right in her ears on both sides. There must be tiny speakers, like ear buds, built into the blindfold, because she was sure Eureka wasn’t close to her. “Fighting with Phantasm and using my powered gloves and all to overpower him was kinda fun. I mean, I invented them instead of something else for a reason. But I bet it’s way more fun with a gorgeous girl who’s actually loving every minute of it. It’s just so hard to find a good super-minion, and I’m too bossy to team up with a partner and just not taking the chance on a non-super. I am really looking forward to this.”
It helped. The anxiety lost ground.
As the sensations mounted, it grew more difficult to remember what she’d been afraid of, anyway. She couldn’t seem to feel the restraints anymore, but then, she couldn’t seem to move either. Her whole body was relaxing so profoundly that she simply couldn’t fight past the wonderful warm heavy lassitude to do anything. After months in which tension had become an everyday fact of life, it felt like paradise.
Nothing to do now except immerse herself in the process, and wait for the proper beginning of her brand new life.