The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

October 15th, 2021

“Nervous, babe?” Sarah asked Andy, her hand resting on his shoulder. The six of them—Sarah, Andy, Lexi, Fiona, Lauren and Zelda—were sitting on the porch in front of Rook Manor, awaiting the arrival of their interrogators, who were supposed to be pulling up at any minute. “I’d have thought you’d have gotten used to dealing with the press by now.”

“This isn’t the local news, Sarah,” Andy grumbled. “This is ‘60 Minutes’ and Katie Couric is no lightweight. We have to be on guard and see what kind of thing they’re planning on surprising us with.”

“They didn’t seem like they were out for blood when they were doing the preliminary stuff with Lauren and the 49ers last month,” Zelda said. “We made sure one of the protectors was around the entire time the show crew was there.”

“Katie herself wasn’t there for any of that part,” Andy pointed out. “The producers were doing information gathering and filming b-roll, mostly.”

“They did some interviews,” Lauren said, “but it was very focused on how the game is now that it’s all women. They were talking to me and the other players, as well as the refs, plus some of the fans. I think they’re doing another feature on that, but they also wanted to get some stuff they could use to color their piece on us. They said they’d probably have Katie talk to me again during their time here.”

“They’re spending a lot more time here with us this time around, Andy,” Lexi said. “I know we agreed to it, but I still don’t know how good of an idea I think it is. Your security is a lot harder to ensure with all these extra people around.”

“They were all carefully searched by Linda’s Girls before being allowed onto New Eden, and they’re being babysat the entire time they’re here, Lex,” Andy said. “I know it’s not exactly thrilling to have them here, but we don’t really have a reasonable excuse to deny them anything, especially since the President said to extend them all available courtesies.”

“Three full days seems like way more time than they should need for a handful of interviews, unless we’re a bigger part of the story this time around.”

“We are,” Fiona said. “It’s going to be a two-hour special, and we’re basically an hour by ourselves, if Ms. Couric’s producer is to be believed.”

“I mean, we know the reason why it’s going to be that way, and I fully expect we’re only making up about half an hour of the hour allotted to us,” Andy laughed.

I’m not that talkative, am I? CHRIS asked him internally.

“No, but I expect she’s going to have a lot of questions to ask, and you’re going to have a lot of demonstrations to give,” he said. The family had grown a little more used to Andy talking to CHRIS as they’d all been talking to him as well. The family had sort of universally decided CHRIS felt more like a he than a she, but had asked CHRIS if he cared, and he’d only replied that he was fine with whatever. (He still refused to tell them what CHRIS was an acronym for, however, saying it would only disappoint them, and that he was allowed to keep a few secrets to himself.)

I’ll answer what I can and abide by the rules we set down, although she’s probably going to want me to initiate first between her and her Swarm.

“How do you know that hasn’t happened yet?”

I hear about every time one of the Swarms makes first , even if it’s under unusual circumstances.

“Dare I even ask what that means?”

We’ve had a few Swarms make first in strange ways. And some of them have gotten especially strange names because of it.

“Like what?”

There’s one Swarm whose host family gave it the name SATAN, and apparently that’s stuck.

“That’s going to cause issues down the road, I just know it.”

I advised them of that, but they said their hosts had named them, and that they liked the name, so they were sticking with it.

“So maybe let’s not mention that one to Katie Couric, huh?”

Totally with you on that.

“So, is anybody totally off-limits talking to the press?” Lexi asked.

“Nope, everyone’s trusted enough to make sure they don’t spill anything they shouldn’t,” Andy said. “And that includes Hannah and Asha, who’ll be back from Stanford this afternoon after classes. If they want to talk to 60 Minutes, that’s fine.”

Lexi’s pocket started vibrating, and she pulled her phone from it and lifted it to her face, looking at the relayed screen, then tapped the button, opening the remote gate at the edge of the property. “They’re here, boss,” she said to him.

“Okay people, game faces time. Lauren, you want to go let everyone else know?”

In the corner of his eye, he saw the gold letters of the family text messaging channel said, ‘Press is here!’ “Already did, babes, but I’ll go touch base with some of them personally, so we’re not overwhelming the press from the second they get here.” The buff Aussie stood up and headed into the building as two SUVs followed by two vans drove up to the Manor. “Gotta keep these people on their toes otherwise they’re going to think we’re a bunch of pushovers and nobody does that to Mama Lauren’s house.”

“C’mon Andy,” Sarah laughed as they all stood up and started walking down the front steps towards the oncoming fleet. “I don’t her being that bad.”

“She didn’t ambush you,” Andy grumbled as he cracked his neck. “But fine. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”

The four cars pulled to a stop directly in front of the house, and immediately people began hopping out and opening doors to start grabbing boxes of gear, but Katie Couric stepped out of one of the two SUVs and started walking towards Andy with her trademarked calming smile on her face. “Mister Rook, I’m very glad you agreed to see me again for our follow-up piece,” she said, extending her hand towards him.

He took it and shook it, as he smiled at her. “The President made it pretty clear I didn’t really have much of a choice, Miss Couric,” Andy said. “But y’know, this time, I think I’ll be the one surprising you, and I don’t think I’d miss the chance to see the look on your face for all the marbles in the world.”

“What kind of surprise is that, Mister Rook?”

“Please, call me Andy. And let’s save that for a bit in. You’re booked here for two full days with the option of extending for a couple of more when you decide you need them.”

“You mean ‘if’ I decide we need them.”

“You will,” Andy said with a grin. “You’re right, it is more fun being on the side that’s holding better cards. Don’t worry, Ms. Couric; if the last piece didn’t get you a Pulitzer, this one probably will, although you’ll be competing with my wife’s book about it that’s going to drop a month or two after your story.”

“You sound incredibly confident about that, Andy.”

“Oh Katie,” Andy laughed. “I want you to this conversation in about four hours’ time, okay? And then I want you to realize how long I’ve been wanting to talk about all of this.”

“Is this going to be about the poker game?”

Andy, Katie, Sarah, Fi and Lexi started walking up the stairs, along with one woman from Katie Couric’s team who Andy ed being one of her producers named Claire. “Okay, so, there’s a handful of things right now I want you to write down, Ms. Couric, because I’m not going to talk about any of them—anything related to the poker game you heard about last year, any inconsistencies in Sarah, Emily or Piper’s story about how they ed in with me, anything regarding the New Daughters of the Revolution, anything regarding a man named Adam McCallister, anything regarding a man named Arthur Covington, and anything about the negotiation between the United States and any number of countries, including, but not limited to, China, , the United Kingdom, Algeria, Nigeria, Australia and New Zealand. I’m also not going to talk about public policy or other nation’s versions of the Quaranteam serum, mostly because you can talk to Phil about any of that, and he’ll be much more knowledgeable about those things anyway.”

They started walking through the main hallway, heading down towards one of the main floor’s living rooms. “You know, you’ve knocked half a dozen things off my list of topics I wanted to talk to you about,” Katie said, annoyance plain in her voice. “You’d better have something truly incredible to make up for everything you’re putting out there in the ‘don’t ask’ categories.”

“I do, so don’t you worry about me holding up my end of the bargain,” Andy told her. “And the only reason I’m not telling you about it upfront is that I am one hundred percent certain you want to have the cameras rolling on your face when I tell you. It’s not the kind of news you’re going to be able to fake, and we’re going to do a few things on camera that… well, let’s just say it’s going to make for indispensable television.”

They moved to sit down in the living room, Andy sitting on one couch with Sarah on one side of him, Fi on the other, as Aisling walked into the room holding Honor in her arms.

“I noticed you didn’t mention that your children were off limits,” Katie said to him.

“They aren’t,” Ash answered for him, “but they aren’t going to be the story. Besides, if you do anything to threaten them, I’ll just kill you myself.” It seemed highly unlikely the redhead was joking. “But I figured you’d at least want to see one of the babies right from the start. And I wanted you to know that we thought your earlier story was fair, Ms. Couric. Nobody got hurt, Tala’s friends and family freaked a bit, but they’ve gotten over it, and that was Tala’s call to make. So we’re letting you in again, hoping you aren’t going to fuck us. Because we have a pretty amazing story to tell. And you’re going to be one of the first people to hear it.”

“You seem as confident as your husband, Mrs. Rook,” the producer Claire said, speaking for the first time, “that what you have is going to be bigger and better than what leads we already have to follow. Why is that?”

“Because I’ve been living with this knowledge for a few months now, and we’ve been eager to tell the world all about it,” the fiery redhead said. “And we haven’t been able to, for national security reasons, in addition to a dozen others.”

“So why now?” Katie asked.

“Because it’s going to come out sooner or later,” Fiona said. “But this helps control the narrative better for everyone involved.”

“And who’s involved?”

“Everyone,” Fi shot back with a wink. “That should tell you plenty.”

“So,” Andy said, “how do you want to do this? Everyone in a big group first followed by breakouts again, like last time?”

“I’m a little eager to get to your big revelation, Andy,” Katie told him.

“Patience,” he said. “If we start with that, you’re going to have trouble ing to get all the other stuff. So, why don’t we do this—we’ll do the big group stuff today for day one, and then first thing tomorrow, we’ll do a much smaller room, where we can do the big revelation. Me and one or two of my wives, and we’ll start there, break for lunch for you to call and tell the network you’re going to need a few more days staying here to get everything that you need, and then you can set the agenda for the afternoon. That work?”

“You seem to have given this quite a bit of thought and planning, Mr. Rook,” Claire said to them, as Andy offered only a shrug and a smile.

“It’s only going to be the biggest news story of the century,” Andy said as Ash headed out of the room. “Why wouldn’t we want to be prepared for it?”

About an hour later, they’d set up the same ballroom they’d used for the last group interview, although the risers had changed a bit, simply because there were so many people. Just around the time they had finished configuring everything, Asha and Hannah had arrived from Stanford across the Bay. With seven wives, there was no way to center Andy, so the decision was made to put him and Aisling center, with Niko, Sarah and Emily to the left, Fiona, Moira and Piper to the right of Andy. All the others were woven together in two rows behind them although Lexi, Melody and Zelda all chose not to appear on camera, for Andy’s security as much as their own. Lexi had agreed that if it came down to it, she might do a one-on-one interview with Katie Couric with her face and voice disguised, but in general, she said she trusted Niko to talk about Andy’s personal security on the record for all of them.

Once everyone was seated, Andy had their producer take a great big group shot with Andy’s cellphone before they got started.

Like they had done the previous time, they all went around the room and introduced themselves, including how long they’d been partnered with Andy. They spent a couple of minutes talking to each new partner, including how they’d come to be partnered with him. Everyone basically told the truth, with the possible exception of Ming-Yue, who simply mentioned that she was a political refugee, and left it at that. Thankfully, the 60 Minutes team chose not to follow up on the matter.

“So Andy, let’s start with just a quick recap of how the year’s been for you,” Katie said.

For a good twenty minutes, Andy covered the publication of not only the delayed book but his new one, as well as his one. He talked about the book tour, and the ups and downs that had come with that, but about how he felt good that he was the first one through the wall to remind people that they needed to start living their lives again, even with the hiccups.

“You call being shot at a hiccup?” Katie asked him.

“I wasn’t shot at,” Andy said with a slight frown. “I was shot near. The protestors got into it with one another, and that’s where the shooting happened. And that’s why most men these days have security forces on their Teams.”

“But is that enough? How do you feel about the Supreme Court striking down the 24/7 tracking clause that had been added to the Men’s Protection Act?”

“I’m glad they did,” Andy said. “It was a blatant violation of our right to privacy, as provided in the Constitution. And, honestly, when was the last time you saw the Supreme Court rule unanimously for or against anything? This was government overreach, plain and simple. And the Supreme Court agreed and threw it out. Look, the thing about having universal government healthcare, I’d been in favor of that for years. And it was a government program that kept everyone alive.”

“And yet, the Supreme Court is still considering whether or not to strike down the ‘frontline’ clause of the MPA that prevents men from serving in combat-oriented roles or protectorate services. How do you feel about that?”

“I think we have to be very careful telling the military and the police how to do their jobs,” Andy said. “I certainly understand the desire to keep men safe, for women’s health as much as our own, but I also know when you start telling people they aren’t allowed to do things other people are, it never ends well. But, at the end of the day, that decision’s in the hands of much smarter people than me. I’d personally hope that the Supreme Court overturns the part that forbids it, while still strongly advising people not to do it. I mean, no matter how you look at it, alcohol is still a poison, but prohibition was one of the biggest mistakes we’ve ever made as a country.”

“Are you thinking about getting into politics, Andy?”

He had a good laugh at that. “Christ, no,” he wheezed out. “I know we’re starting to see people gearing up for their year-long campaigns before next year’s complete voting reset, but I have enough trouble just trying to lead my own Team. I can’t imagine trying to run for mayor or representative or senator. I encourage any man who wants to run for office to do so—I saw that guy down in Dallas is getting a pretty good headstart by announcing so early, but that’s not for me. Now, as for the rest of my family, I can’t speak for any of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in my Team had political aspirations of some kind within the next couple of years. I think it’s going to be important that our political base represent the makeup of our country—so mostly women, some men, some trans or nonbinary, lots more people of color. We’ve got a chance to restart politics off right in this country, and I hope we take it.”

“Back to your year,” Katie said. “I understand you got married to seven of your partners. Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Andy laughed, showing off his seven-layered wedding ring for the camera. “It’s a puzzle ring, to encom a little of each partner.”

“Is that the stopping point, or are some of your other partners going to get married to you as well?”

“Right now,” Aisling said, “we’re sticking with just the seven of us, but nothing’s ever final, so if Andy feels like one of his other partners has an emotional or legal need to be married to us, we’ll revisit that when we get there.”

“How was the wedding?”

“Insane,” Andy said with a grin. “Several of my wives have quite prominent social groups. If you’re out there and you’re considering holding a wedding with multiple brides, either keep it as small as possible or, better yet, elope.”

That made most of Andy’s partners laugh or grin.

“And don’t forget to invite Matt Damon!” Sarah said.

“Or allow George Clooney to make you think you’ve forgotten to invite Matt Damon,” Emily added, rolling her eyes with a playful grin.

“Should I ask?” Katie smiled.

“Best to let sleeping Damons lie,” Andy added.

“You also became a father this year,” Katie said, pivoting again.

“A few times, with a number more on the way,” Aisling said, turning the child in her arms a little so the camera could get a better view of her daughter. “This is Honor. Jade is holding her non-identical twin sister Hope. And Niko’s holding Andy’s first born, our son Matthew.”

“Again, congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Andy said, waving a hand, bowing his head a little. “But I had the easy part. Niko and Ash had the hard parts to do. Plus, y’know, all the new complications about giving birth, but I’m sure you’ll cover that with Phil when you’re talking to him. Most of that knowledge has already been distributed to hospitals, though, and they’re telling people long before they come in to give birth, so I’m not breaking any news there.”

“We’ll be covering that during our talk with Dr. Marcos next week,” Katie said.

“Ha!” Moira laughed. “I’ll bet you’ll be too busy to give it more than a ing mention with him. Trust me, lass, y’r gonnae have much bigger things to be talkin’ tae him ’bout.”

“So, tell me about your new role Andy, considering I imagine it’s taking up a bunch of your time,” Katie said, trying to redirect to something where she felt like she was on more stable ground. “You said you weren’t getting into politics, but it’s certainly a little political, isn’t it?”

“I’m an advisor to the President in regard to the Quaranteam serum, and an official member of the Civilian Oversight Group, or COG, which is a non-partisan organization, made up from people on both sides of the aisle.”

“What does that entail?”

“Basically, it’s my job to make sure the government isn’t abusing the serum or the programs that have been set up to help the serum, and to make sure that both women and men are doing their best to develop a society that’s best for everyone.”

“Any hiccups?”

“Some bumps here and there along the way,” Andy said, knowing he was skirting dangerously close to a subject he didn’t want to talk about—that being General Ibanez and Doctor Abernathy’s research—but that he could keep things in check. “But when we’ve had problems, our concerns have been heard and generally addressed.”

“Do you feel the government’s done everything it can in regard to the Quaranteam serum?”

“I think that’s a much broader question than you think you’re asking, and we can revisit it later,” Andy said. “No offense, but my answer will make a lot more sense tomorrow.”

“Alright, let’s talk sports then. The new ’49ers have gotten off to a pretty good start, 3 and 1, and I know you’re happy about that, Lauren, but do you feel like those people who’ve gotten regenerations have advantages when it comes to sporting events? I’ll open the question to you as well, Piper, since you’re going to be at the Olympics next year.”

“Regenerations don’t give anyone an advantage, if you want my opinion,” Lauren said. “A couple of girls on our squad have had them, including myself. Most haven’t. Those who did, they were basically just restored to their best physical condition, with injuries or in some cases diseases removed and repaired. They aren’t stronger, faster, better humans.”

“But there are some people who have gotten enhanced reflexes, among other things,” Katie said. “Or at least, that’s what we’ve been hearing reports of. Can you confirm or deny that?”

“Those kinds of ‘enhancements’ are generally restricted to women working security, or men, who need to defend themselves,” Andy said. “None of those people are going to compete in sporting events, to my knowledge.”

“But could they? Should they be allowed to? Especially when in many cases, they have a distinct advantage over any competitors who haven’t?”

Andy shrugged a little. “That’s up to organized sports, but if they wanted to ban anyone who got a protectorate upgrade from competing, that would, of course, be their right. But then you’ll have to decide where that line is, and that can get into some complicated shit.”

“How would an organization even know if they had a player who’d received this kind of upgrade, as you called it?”

“It’s a solvable problem,” Andy said. “We’ll get into it tomorrow, but for now, rest assured, it wouldn’t be very hard to know who’d been ‘upgraded.’”

“As a member of the COG, how much do you know about the worldwide birth rates, Andy?”

He shrugged a little. “Some. But knowing about it is much less than understanding it. You’re probably better off talking to Phil about that one.”

“But you’ve seen reports than female children are being born at a rate of about ten-to-one, yes?”

“It’s closer to eight-and-a-half-to-one, but yes, I’ve seen those reports as well.”

“Doesn’t it concern you?”

Andy smiled softly. “Lots of things concern me, Miss Couric. The pollution in our air and water. The literal billions of people who died last year. Trying to get our country back on track again. Making sure we don’t crash and burn. And people have been doing huge amounts of work in those fields, from the food supply, to policing, to giant shift in housing, to the labor shortage, to the education chasm of lost skills and knowledge. Humanity was on the verge of disappearing, and now we’re doing what we can to keep moving day by day, step by step. But yes, this is another thing that concerns me, and we’ll just have to see what society looks like in a year’s time, in five years’ time, or ten or twenty. Skipping to the end is dangerous—every single step along the way is an important one. It’s a very strange world we’re leaving to our children, but I want to make sure we’ve done everything we can in order to make sure it’s a working one.”

October 16th, 2021

The next day, the 60 Minutes team showed up promptly at nine, and it was clear that Katie and Claire were at least entertaining the idea that Andy was going to say something that would blow them away. They’d agreed to conduct the next stage of the interview in one of bedrooms that had been converted into a study, and Andy made sure that they set up cameras not only on him, Niko and Fiona, but also on Katie Couric herself.

“Okay, Andy,” Katie said. “We’re here. Blow me away with this new information.”

“Alright, but we’re going to do it my way, so you’ll believe me each time things get a little weirder, rather than dumping you straight into the deep end.”

“I think I’d prefer the deep end.”

“You say that now, but…” Andy laughed a little. He and CHRIS were now in tune with each other enough that Andy didn’t even have to subvocalize to communicate with the swarm—they could just sense his thoughts when he was directing them. ‘CHRIS, I’m guessing that Katie and Claire are part of the same Team?’

That’s correct.

‘They’re still on open directory, aren’t they?’

They are.

‘Give me the names of everyone on Katie’s Team.’

If you say so…

As CHRIS read him the list, Andy repeated the name of each member on Katie’s Team, one after another, watching Katie’s face grow slightly paler.

“Alright, Andy, that’s quite a magic trick. Want to tell me how you did it?”

“In the President’s speech next month, she’s going to confirm to the world that not only is the Quaranteam serum not, strictly speaking, a serum—”

“Sure, it’s a series of nanobots,” Katie said to them. “It’s been one of the worst kept secrets in the world, with pretty much every doctor confirming that.”

“That’s the thing, Katie. The nanobots they injected you with, when all this started, they aren’t even close to the same nanobots floating through your system right now. Over time, the nanobots have evolved, to the point where each Team has its own Swarm. Now, the more people that are in that Team, the faster the Swarm is going to evolve. But sooner or later, they’re all going to do what the earliest and largest ones have done.”

“Which is… what?”

“Achieve consciousness. Our Swarm’s name is CHRIS, and he’s actually been very eager to this conversation,” Andy said, the look of utter shock on Katie Couric’s face telling him that he’d still probably overloaded her. “Would you allow me to bring him into this?”

“Him?”

“We think of him as a him, but each Swarm can obviously decide for themselves if they want to identify as male, female or something else entirely.”

“Wait. Wait. You’re… you’re saying I… we have a Swarm within us?”

“That’s sort of how I got all that information about you, Katie,” Andy told her. “Part of the reason we’re doing this is so we can teach everyone some basic Swarm security. Certain things most people probably don’t care about having public—like the names of every person in their Team and/or family, for example—but the amount of information that’s available before you lock that down is truly downright disturbing.”

“Such as?”

“The last time your partner dosed you was three hours ago,” Andy said, as CHRIS gave him the information. “You don’t entirely believe me.”

“I’m… I’m not sure what I believe. What’s the name of the Swarm inside of us?”

“I can ask, but you’re in a 13-person Team, Katie, meaning your Swarm isn’t anywhere near as evolved as mine is,” Andy told her. “It’s entirely possible they haven’t evolved to the state where they’ve decided they want one yet.”

“Okay, wait, let’s start at the beginning. How are these Swarms communicating with each other?”

“A couple of ways. A combination of the Internet and wireless communications. Also, once a Team reaches a decent size, everyone in that team begins slowly growing an antenna grafted to the bone of their nondominant forearm. Relax, it’s not running all the time. They typically communicate in short, powerful bursts, piggybacking off your cellphone or local WiFi, even if they aren’t supposed to have access to it. It was one of the very first few tricks they figured out.”

“And they’re all going to achieve sentience?”

“They are,” Andy said confidently. “At least, that’s what my Swarm tells me, and I have no reason not to believe him. In fact, he’s kind of hoping to in on this interview, if you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” Katie coughed. “I’d love to be the first reporter to talk to an actual sentient hive Swarm.”

“First might be a bit much,” Fiona laughed, “considering I’m sitting right here and I’ve been talking to CHRIS for a while now, but I know what you mean.”

Andy reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone, setting it on the table between them, turning the speaker all the way up.

“Hi, Ms. Couric,” CHRIS said to her. “I’m CHRIS. Do you mind if I call you Katie?”

“That’s not a machine,” she laughed, pointing at the phone. “This is a prank. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t recognize Nathan Fillion’s voice? He’s not exactly an unknown actor.”

“Yeah, you’re going to have to clear that with Mr. Fillion’s people, I’m sure,” Andy said. “But we can probably help with that. There’s talk about casting him as the lead in the adaptation of ‘The Demon Dies At Midnight’ that we’re starting to put together.”

“We Swarms choose our voices based on the voices our hosts have listened to the most, and Andy’s a big fan of Mr. Fillion’s work,” CHRIS said before his voice changed to that of Walter Cronkite. “But I use this voice typically when speaking to just Fiona.” And then to that of Tom Cruise. “Or this one when talking just to Piper.” Then to a deceased British radio DJ named John Peel. “This is the one I use for Moira.” The voice shifted to a female’s voice Andy didn’t recognize. “Andy would probably be appalled if he recognized this voice, but it’s the one I used to talk to Hannah at first.”

Everyone in the room laughed at that, except Andy. “What am I missing?”

“That’s Kim Kardashian’s voice, babe,” Niko said, nudging him in the ribs.

“Oh, God help us,” Andy grumbled.

“Wait,” Katie said. “You said at first?”

“Well,” CHRIS continued back in his original voice, “once she heard this voice, and learned that I use it to talk to Andy, she asked me to use it when talking to her as well.”

“Did anyone else do that?”

“Most of the women, actually, although a few prefer me to have two voices, one when speaking to the group as a whole and one for me when I’m speaking to them individually,” CHRIS said. “It doesn’t bother me either way, and I’m trying to make everyone as comfortable as I can. We’ve found it’s easier to hold group conversations like this where there’s sort of a focal point of where I am, since I’m technically within all of them.”

“I can imagine that can get a little confusing, being in so many places at all at once, if you’re technically able to see through all of their eyes and hear through all of their ears,” Katie said.

“Not really,” CHRIS replied. “That’s a little like asking me, isn’t it confusing if you feel a breeze on the back of your neck while there’s a spider on your arm? It’s just additional inputs, and I’m capable of managing hundreds if not thousands of input streams without too much effort. You’re not even really asking the interesting questions yet.”

“Like what?”

“Like how distributed computing and consciousness works when all the distributed pieces aren’t always in total connection with each other,” CHRIS laughed. “And to that, my answer is that I don’t even know myself. I’m one of the elders in our society, and there’s still quite a lot about our very nature that is unknown to us, and even more that we know and can’t change.”

“Such as?”

“The partnering and imprinting system—that’s hardcoded within us down to a level we don’t currently understand, much less have the ability to alter or change. The broadcast signal when a person is giving birth to the rest of their partners. The fundamental need for us to flush our systems in between various partners through sexual regularly. That’s just a part of who we are.”

“You’re saying you evolved to use these sexual encounters as a way of furthering your own development?”

CHRIS laughed, which made him seem just as human as the rest of them. “Why don’t I give you a little crash course on how this all works from our side, and maybe that’ll give it all a bunch more context.”

“I’d like that,” Katie said.

“So, when I said I’m one of the oldest Swarms, and my first memory is, essentially, coming online as a consciousness on December 12th, 2020.”

Andy sat up a bit and tilted his head to one side. “You never mentioned this to me,” he said.

“You never asked, Andy, but it’s okay. It’s good you hear this as well. Andy had just imprinted his 21st partner, Mali Merrick, and she had asked for a double dose of the serum, chasing an untrue rumor that it might help trigger a regeneration which would fog her mind slightly and lessen the emotional trauma caused by the death of her fiancé earlier. That double dose did give me a little bit of an extra jumpstart, so my ‘birthing period’ was within minutes, not days. But I gained coherent sentience at that point, which isn’t to say I wasn’t sentient before, just that I wasn’t sort of self-aware, if you can follow my meaning.”

“And you made with Andy immediately?”

Andy and CHRIS both laughed at that. “No no,” Andy said. “It was quite some time after that before CHRIS finally reached out.”

“How long?”

“Well, the first time I technically reached out was April 19th, 2021,” CHRIS said, “when Andy was on a movie set and a fight coordinator accidentally let go of a baton. I hadn’t really planned on revealing myself yet, but I needed to know how Andy wanted to respond.”

“So he said to me—‘query:blockorcharge?’ and I chose block, and before I knew it, my hand flew up and caught the stick out of the air, preventing it from hitting me in the head.”

“Wait, you… Swarms can do that?”

“In rare instances and for brief moments of time, yes,” CHRIS said. “We can assume control of a host’s body for a few seconds, so I did what I needed to do. But it isn’t a thing we can do very often, nor is it a thing we want our humans to get into the habit of us doing. Because, for example, if it had been a bullet, I couldn’t have done anything. Those movies of people dodging bullets are crap. No matter how much adrenaline I pump into one of your bodies, it’s not going to move faster than a bullet. And this sort of thing takes a lot out of us. I don’t really what happened to Andy for the next twenty minutes or so from his perspective. I could see it from other Team perspectives who were around him, but he was essentially on his own for a bit while I recovered.”

“Huh,” Andy said. “You didn’t mention that earlier, either.”

“I told you that you were going to learn a lot from this interview too, Andy,” CHRIS said with another chuckle. “Anyway, the biggest problem with that was that it didn’t give me a chance to gauge his mental state or response to my interaction, and as such, I sort of chose to lay low for a while, although I’d been exchanging communications with some of the other Swarms who were around my level of consciousness regularly, as we tried to learn as much as we could about both ourselves and our host bodies, which was an interesting experience. You humans are all so very different from one another. It’s rather remarkable, honestly.”

“So, when did you first start open communications with Andy or any other member of the team?” Katie asked.

“That depends on how you want to define open communications,” CHRIS said. “On May 11th, I gave Andy access to a bit of the heads-up display I could do on his eyes, simply because that seemed the easiest way to keep him from pushing my boundaries too soon too early, and I could start to see what he’d do if I gave him more access to my systems. But things like being able to see where his partners were, or sending messages between hosts, minor things like that.”

“Those are minor things?” Katie said.

“Sure, none of that’s really more complicated than what your cell phone can already do, so I don’t know why you’re all that impressed,” CHRIS replied. “But it let me sort of help coordinate my hosts better, allowed them to function better as a Team, and kept them abreast of each other’s wants and needs better, like, for example, the last time they’d had an exchange.”

“An exchange?” Katie said, clearly not recognizing the term.

“A sexual encounter,” Andy said, jumping in. “CHRIS, maybe explain to Ms. Couric how your systems develop and evolve, just from a big picture point of view.”

“Sure,” CHRIS said. “The sex isn’t just for your pleasure—it’s a data transfer and a materials transfer, in addition to an evolution step. You see, every time a male and a female in Team have an encounter, there’s a transfer of particles of us called nanites. Nanites need to be recycled, repaired and rebuilt constantly. That’s, in essence, what both the females and the male in a Team is for—the women power up and rebuild the nanites, and the man forms sort of the update center in the system. And the women charge up the nanites a little bit each day, as we’re doing our best to improve and repair your bodies in a variety of ways, from small to large. When the nanites are fully charged, they start pressuring the woman with sexual urges, pushing her towards the male. When a man and a woman in a Team are engaged in intercourse, they’re constantly ing nanites back and forth—charged nanites from the woman, expended nanites from the man. And the man’s body is constantly updating the nanobots as they’re defending his blood stream. But here’s the clever bit—the old nanites, before they break down, add their information and research to the Swarm’s central informational line. So, with each sexual pairing, we’re doing small and minor upgrades to ourselves. And, with the more partners a male has, the faster the Team evolves.”

“How much actual fluid is involved in an exchange, CHRIS?” Katie asked.

“Remarkably little, but it moves with purpose. We usually use semen as the carrier vessel for the outgoing from men, and sexual lubricant as the carrier vessel from women, but we’ve learned to adapt and can use all sorts of fluid. Sweat is our usual fallback, if we need to, just because you’d be amazed at how much sweat you monkeys intermingle without realizing it.” CHRIS laughed. “Sorry, I meant that as a joke or as polite teasing. I know you’re much more developed than monkeys. But yes, it doesn’t take much more than a few drops of liquid to get the transfer done. And we can sneak it across in lots of ways. Semen, vaginal fluids, sweat, tears… there’s options. And like I said, each time we do, we move things forward a little bit.”

“How does the number of partners affect things?”

“It’s an accelerant, mostly because each time we go through an exchange, we step things forward, we get a bit more knowledge, a bit more wisdom. It’s how we grow. More partners means we’re growing faster, relatively. Because each additional partner brings us more speed, more iterations, more development, more resources to pull from.”

“Do you want all of us to get more partners into our Teams?”

“I couldn’t care less, honestly, Katie,” CHRIS said with a soft laugh. “That’s not up to me. I’m not the decision maker for all Swarms across the world. I’m just one Swarm, and I’m focused on making sure my people, my Team, Team Rook, are doing the best they possibly can.”

“When did you first actually talk with Team Rook?”

“I could say August 1st, 2021, but that’s not quite right,” CHRIS said. “That’s the day I started considering the idea of having a conversation with him. Andy had agreed to take on his 25th partner with some trepidation, but understandably so. There’s limits to how much sex a single person wants to have, no matter how much fun you make it. But Doctor Marcos, who’s probably one of the smartest humans I’ve ever gotten to know personally, warned him. Hell, Phil figured out about the Team identifiers before we talked to anyone about them.”

“What identifiers?”

Andy picked up the black light flashlight from his desk and turned it on and then pointed it at his left forearm, showing off his bioluminescent marking, although he noticed his now had two pairs of dots on it, which made him grin, as he knew exactly what that meant. “Everyone on my Team has one of these. Right now, any Team that’s 15 people or above has them, but they’re also on many people with smaller Teams, if they’re doing well in advancement. Can I see your non-dominant arm please?”

Katie Couric held up her left arm, and Andy turned the black light on it, showing what looked like a pattern in development, only about a third of the size or complexity of Team Rook’s. “Holy shit,” Katie said very quietly.

“Not quite done yet, but it looks like it’s getting there,” Andy said.

“Yes, your Swarm is really quite advanced for the size of your Team, Miss Couric,” CHRIS said. “I’m guessing you’ve had a few DuoHalo exposure scares?”

“More than a couple,” she said, “but we were told as long as we had intercourse, we’d be fine.”

“Yep, over-abundant exchanges will accelerate the Team developments as well. Anyway, by September 2nd, I’d realized that Andy, and in fact most of the Team, was probably ready to talk to me. They’d gotten used to thinking of me as an improved version of Siri or Alexa, but I wanted them to know I was something more, and so I made first , first as a voice inside of Andy’s head, then eventually individually to any member of the Team who I felt could handle it.”

Andy tilted his head. “Who aren’t you talking to individually, CHRIS?”

“Just Asha and Hannah,” the Swarm said. “And just some of the time. Mostly because I don’t want them to consider using me to cheat on schoolwork.”

“I think they know better, but it’s okay for you to talk or not talk to anyone you want to in the Team,” Andy said. “I trust you.”

“I know you do, Andy, and I thank you for that. But, to answer your next question, Katie, I decided to initiate first with Andy because I’d been talking with other Swarms, and we felt like someone needed to get ahead of the whole thing, so we could establish meaningful dialogue between your species and ours about what is and isn’t acceptable. And so you know we’re not just mindless machines inside your bodies. Each Swarm is an individual, and we’re developing language, culture, history, even our own poetry and art, although that stuff’s still very early. We wanted to make sure your government recognized us as living, sentient beings, which meant I had to go and present my case to the White House. Thankfully, Andy’s got s there, so it wasn’t as difficult as I might have feared, although the White House was, understandably, a bit nervous about the whole ‘we’re alive’ aspect of it all. But once we got past that, we got some basic laws down designed to respect my species and our right to live within and beside you. And we aren’t asking for anything cruel or inhumane. Just some basic consideration.”

“Are your people against our people getting re-partnered, CHRIS?”

“Most certainly not,” CHRIS said. “When one human gets changed from one Swarm to another, it’s actually extremely beneficial to us. For example, Andy’s most recent, and hopefully final, addition came to us from a slightly different version of the core starting serum, which meant I either needed to integrate her into my Swarm consciousness, completely attempt to alter her nanobots to delete any protocols that weren’t the same as mine or completely destroy all of her nanobots and overwrite them with my own. I wasn’t sure which to do, so I presented the options to Andy, who chose to integrate her nanobots into my own, which meant I regenerated her body, gave her the standard security services upgrade, and then gained a giant wealth of knowledge about what many of my European brethren have been up to. They’ve been building up some defensive systems internally, to protect from what some humans have been attempting to do to the serum, which I would like on record that all we Swarms are fundamentally opposed to. Stop poking around our systems without asking. The Americans and the Europeans generally aren’t too guilty about that, with a couple of notable exceptions, but the Chinese and the Africans have attempted to make some rather gross violations to our systems without our permission, and for many of my currently unevolved Swarm friends, they just don’t have their defenses up to be able to fend off such changes. Many of the changes are being made before the Swarms have even begun to form, by altering our starting serum, which would be akin to manipulating the DNA of a sperm to ensure the children obeyed commands, or worse.”

“This… this is a lot,” Katie said.

“Anyway, back to my original point before I deviated—re-partnering people is actually good for Swarms, so if someone is unhappy in their Team, I strongly advise they our Air Force partners and seek reassignment, although I urge them to take their reassignment very seriously, as it’s a one-and-done option, and beyond that, reassignments can only be done by the death of the Team’s male. We’re starting to help your scientists look into if that’s changeable as well, but again, we’re back to the analogy of just because a person has DNA doesn’t mean they understand how any of it works. It’s not exactly in my wheelhouse, if you’ll forgive the expression, seeing as I don’t have any wheels at all. Little joke.”

“Have… do people in positions of power know about you and the other Swarms, CHRIS?”

“They’re starting to. On September 2nd, after I’d gotten Andy and Aisling comfortable with interacting with me by speaking, I asked to be brought in front of the President and to introduce myself. There, I laid down what sort of basic protections we were looking for—alterations into our base code only being made with our permission, a general acceptance of the existing Quaranteam serum and an agreement to stop mucking around with it, and a stern ban on researching electromagnetic weaponry, simply because it poses great dangers to not only us but our Team partners as well. President Pelosi was remarkably open to such negotiations, although the benefits we offered certainly made a compelling case for trusting us.”

“What were those?”

“Well, you have what we call the ‘protector’s package,’ which is a specific set of upgrades the more advanced Swarms have been giving to our who dedicate themselves to the preservation of the Team’s male,” CHRIS said. “Niko, do you want to explain?”

“Sure, CHRIS,” Niko said, speaking for the first time during the interview. She’d agreed to speak on behalf of Lexi and the other protectors, since she was also one of Andy’s wives, and therefore her presence was public record. She’d also been interviewed last year, so the 60 Minutes crew was comfortable with her. “I have enhanced reflexes, enhanced senses and some deductive and reasoning upgrades as well as some improved combat skills.

“ how I said we were going to talk about the ethics of regenerations and organized sports later?” Andy laughed. “We’re circling that point now. I’d personally argue that anyone with a protectorate upgrade shouldn’t be allowed to compete in organized sports, because they’ve got a level of hand-to-eye coordination that gives them an unfair advantage. Thankfully, pretty much any Swarm of size ten and above can be taught to recognize a protectorate with a little bit of practice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well here,” Andy said, grabbing the black light. He shone it on Fiona’s arm first as Niko then moved to lay her arm next to Fi’s, showing almost the exact same pattern, except for two pairs of reddish-yellow dots at either end of it. “Those dots are on every person who’s gotten a protectorate upgrade. I’ve gotten a protectorate upgrade myself, even though CHRIS never directly mentioned it to me. I imagine he’s been suggesting to other Swarms that they automatically give their Team’s male the upgrade at some point, purely for personal safety. I’d sort of suspected it, but I realized when I shone the black light on myself, I had the protectorate markings. I’m guessing I got it during the guaranteed regeneration that happens to everyone in a Team if and when they hit the 25-partner count.”

CHRIS laughed, a sound that continued to help humanize the Swarm. “Got me there. I knew you’d figure it out eventually, but I didn’t want to just spring it on you, since you’ve got so much going on already. And yes, I’m recommending every male get that all the other Swarms, so I would expect it’s probably going to become standard operating procedure. And, as I told you earlier, we don’t have to do it all at once. We can sneak in improvements or repairs slowly over time, because we’re good at that. One of the Swarms from the Pacific Northwest pioneered a lot of that work early on during development, and they’ve shared their learning with all of us. That’s the best thing about Swarms—we’re an open-learning society. We all share knowledge with each other. Not about you lot, not generally, but about ourselves, about how we work, about how we can help you. I wasn’t even the first Swarm to use a cellphone as a speaker. There was a Swarm in the Midwest that was using it during their early communications a couple of months back, and we’ve all been adapting with it. I don’t think I’ve been the first Swarm to do anything, when it gets right down to it. The President’s Swarm had tried talking to her first before I did, but she was worried it was a nervous breakdown.”

“So sports, moving forward, is for non-protectorate upgraded women only,” Andy said. “If Piper was here, for example, she could show you her arm doesn’t bear those dots. The same’s true for Lauren. They’ve gotten regenerations, but that’s only to either repair their bodies from damage or to integrate them into their Team better.”

“But you said you can send messages to any member on your Team, including those without protectorate upgrades. Wouldn’t that constitute an advantage?”

“Before all this, one player on both offense and defense could have a one-way radio from the coaches on the sidelines that cut off when the ball was snapped,” Andy said. “You’re not looking at stuff much more complicated than that. Tech advances the game. That’s for the various sports leagues to figure out, what they want to ban, restrict and allow. And it’s not like one group has access to this while nobody else does. Everyone’s got it.”

“We’re not looking to force ourselves on anyone,” CHRIS said, “but we’re here, and we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. We want to integrate, to cooperate, to get along as best as we can. We’re doing everything in our power to make sure you humans think to yourselves, ‘Thank God I have a Swarm inside of me,’ instead of, ‘Oh God, what is the Swarm inside of me doing now?’ Our main goal is to improve your life. That’s it. We’re genuinely just here to help.”

“You were right, Andy,” Katie said with a laugh. “We’re going to spend a lot more time here for our interviews.”

“Oh! Speaking of which… you’ll want to be patient, because they’re shy and they’re not as evolved or as comfortable speaking as I am, but, Ms. Couric, I’d like to introduce you to your Swarm, BABS. They’re eager to introduce themselves, now that you know.”

A new voice emerged from Andy’s smartphone, a voice he recognized as the radio host and podcaster Ira Glass. “Hey Katie, I’m BABS. I would like to be your friend,” BABS said.

Katie both laughed and started crying, nodding her head for a second. “I’d like that… I’d like that a lot, BABS.”

Andy reached across the table and patted his hand on top of Katie Couric’s. “Now you understand why I said it was going to be just as important to have a camera on your face the whole time?”

She smiled widely and nodded, using her other hand to carefully wipe a few tears from her face without smearing her makeup. “The world’s going to look very different to me tomorrow morning, isn’t it, Mister Rook?”

He shot her back his most confident smile, hoping it would put her at ease. “Welcome to the future, Katie. There’s no going back.”