The car was quiet for a long moment, Julies' question hanging in the air. Simeon took a deep breath, breaking the silence

"You've all seen the ship," he began, "so you won't be too surprised to know that there is another world populated by humans. I don't pretend to know how we arrived there, so don't ask because I can't tell you."

Simeon paused for a moment as Samantha tried to find a more comfortable position in their shared seat. He gave her a reproachful stare before resuming.

"When we came here," he continued, "we assumed we would find a world similar to our own, with us as the ruling class." He paused and sighed.

"Instead, we found that no-one has heard of us. There was not a single Dominant to be found, anywhere."

"Then you're not human," Samantha said, her tone revealing her true thoughts.

"We're not aliens," Simeon reassured her with a slight smile. "We're from Earth; genetically as human as you are."

"If you're not different from us," Samantha began doubtfully, "where do your abilities come from?"

"Everyone has our abilities, but they're essentially unusable. Being owned can partially unlock them, but it's neither permanent nor complete."

Samantha gripped her arm absently, skin tingling with remembered pain.

"A Dominant will usually begin to gain their abilities around age 18. They can become active through stress, but unless they're about to emerge naturally, it's only temporary."

"So. why have none of us heard of these "Dominants", then?" Kathryn asked from the rear.

"Because it's impossible to have a Dominant child from normal parents," Simeon informed her over his shoulder. "You need at least one Dominant parent, and even two only have a fifty/fifty chance."

"Okay, then which came first; the Dominant or the Human?"

"I don't know," Simeon replied, shaking his head. "There are a million different theories that ask that question."

No-one spoke for a moment, the only sound the humming of the engine as it carried them down the icy road.

"But I'm not a Dominant, am I?" Julie said quietly, her voice clear in the silence.

"No," Simeon replied, staring out the windscreen. "There's a tiny chance that a mixed couple will have a hybrid child." He continued in a low voice.

"Usually they die soon after birth; their human immune system fighting against the Dominant."

"But not always," Julie said, her eyes settling on the cloth covering his face.

"No, not always," Simeon said, his voice tight. He fell silent.

Julie opened her mouth to ask another question, but was interrupted as the older officer snorted in disbelief.

"Other worlds. Dominants. and I suppose we're going to ascend into the sky in a flying saucer and live in paradise." He sniffed again. "You expect us to believe anything you said?"

"Why don't you shut up?" Julie said in a low voice, her violet eyes fixing him with a chilling stare. How dare he ridicule her history!

"What's your problem?" he asked, unfazed by her anger.

Nyssa placed one hand warningly on Julies' thigh. The young dominant shut her mouth after a long moment, swallowing her retort. It's not important, Nyssa seemed to say silently.

Forcing down her anger, Julie crossed her arms and shut her eyes, blocking out the world around her.

If she was a hybrid, if there was only a millionth of a chance of her existence, and she should be dead. why was she still living?

She thought back to Simeon's face, and the mottled look of his skin. Was that her fate? To slowly die as her body tore itself apart? Julie shuddered, her skin crawling. She fought the urge to scratch at her face, just to verify that her skin wasn't peeling.

"Don't worry about it," Nyssa whispered, squeezing Julies' thigh comfortingly.

Julie smiled weakly, keeping her eyes tightly shut and watching the faint colours that shifted across the backs of her eyelids.

As the minutes dragged on, her thoughts drifted towards Susan. She thought back over the last few days, and the time they had spent together. She physically stiffened in her seat as she thought of their meeting in the dining hall, where Susan had related her experiences with Moira.

"She's at the orphanage," Julie suddenly whispered, her eyes locking onto the spots of lights on the horizon.

"That's their likely destination," Simeon said grimly.

"It'll be tough getting in," Trig added from the drivers' seat. "Moira, plus those guys." He sounded determined, like he wouldn't back down if there was an army waiting for them.

"What are you talking about?" Kathryn demanded, staring at them in confusion.

Julie didn't listen as Simeon tried to explain the situation to them. Her jaw was rigid with apprehension, her eyes shut tight.

Moira now had Kate, and possibly Susan as well, along with the entire orphanage.

She was the only orphan left!



Susan shifted uncomfortably, the wall cold against her naked back and buttocks. A gust of air blew underneath the slightly open window beside her, its icy fingers sending shivers up her spine. Her mouth filled with a ball-gag, she could only moan and pull against the cuffs holding her arms above her head, wishing for her clothes to be returned. Even the invasive safety of the chastity belt would have been welcome around her hips, but Moira had taken that as well.

The head-mistresses office had changed from when she had last been there, the old desk being replaced by a new table where the cloaked man was now sitting, staring at the opposite wall.

The barest tips of his spindly fingers peeked out of the arms of his cloak, sending shivers down Susan's spine whenever they moved.

The door opened and Moira strode in, heading directly for Susan.

"Are you having fun, my pretty?" she asked jovially, pausing to run the tip of one finger down Susan's defenceless outer labia. Susan shuddered, having no choice but to endure it.

"What do you want?" the cloaked man rasped in annoyance, his fingers now constantly tapping against the tabletop.

"Simeon is already on his way," she announced happily, withdrawing her hand. "He seems to have enlisted the help of the police!" Moira smiled with amusement.

"And the girl is with him?"

"He'll bring her to us, or she'll come herself." Moira glanced at Susan with a triumphant smile. "Either way, she'll be here."

"He might drop the device somewhere safe, though. The girl is useless to us without it."

"He won't take it from her, and she has no idea of how to use it," Moira said unconcernedly. "If the girl dies before passing it on, the device will deactivate and we can find it easily."

"Then we simply kill the girl?"

Susan whimpered around the gag, her throat clenching in fear at the pleasure she heard in his voice.

"No, no," Moira said soothingly. "She's more valuable alive."

Moira ran a finger up Susan's bare chest, ending between the small mounds of her breasts.

"We simply trade you for the necklace."

Susan blinked in recognition. They were going through all this for Julies' necklace? It was that important to them?

"You've seen it, haven't you?" Moira said gleefully, her hand cupping one breast.

Susan shook her head unconvincingly, making Moira laugh.

"Adorable," she said, brushing Susan's long red hair back with the opposite hand.

"Are you finished?" the man hissed impatiently at Moira.

Her face briefly darkened before she turned to face him.

"I am," she replied, smiling once again. "Do you need the girl?"

"Take her," he hissed, waving one hand dismissively. "Her whimpering is distracting me."

Susan felt happy she had irritated him. Then Moira's hands were releasing her cuffs, and she realised that here was much safer than being with Moira.

She meekly allowed Moira to lead her out of the room, hoping that compliance would improve her fate. Her bare feet slapped against the smooth wooden floor of the hallway, overshadowed by the click of Moira's heels.

Susan's heart sank as she was led into the dining hall, the row of orphans chained along the wall bringing home the full extent of Moira's power over her. She saw that about half of them were hanging heavily from the cuffs holding them upright, their lidded eyes bearing witness to the drugs coursing through their bodies.

"Here we go," Moira announced, giving Susan a push towards a rubber cot sitting beside the kitchen window.

Susan caught herself on the edge of the cot, her hands knocking a steel collar sitting open on the side. She barely noticed it, her focus entirely on the naked girls coiled up in the far end. Smiling, Moira gave her a hard shove in the back that sent her tumbling over the edge.

"Mm-ph!" she cried out around the gag as she landed.

Before she had a chance to collect herself, Moira's fingers were sliding through her hair and lifting her head up. Susan squealed in pain, scrabbling with her cuffed hands for something to relieve the pain in her scalp. She saw the glint of steel a moment too late as Moira closed the steel collar tight around her neck, an audible click as it locked.

Susan got a tenuous grip on the edge of the cot as Moira released her, allowing her to stay upright. She raised herself up to follow Moira, and was cut short at the rim by the chain attached to her new collar. .

"Wait there," Moira commanded from out of sight, as if she had a choice.

Susan gave up pulling on the chain and slumped down in the corner, making her self as small as possible. She raised her cuffed hands and tried to remove her gag; it only took a moment to locate the tiny pad-lock that was preventing her from undoing the strap.

Defeated, she explored the collar. It was uncomfortably tight around her throat, with the inside covered in a soft, rubbery padding that felt cool against her skin. She found there were holes spaced evenly around the outside of the collar, two on each side of her neck.

She probed at them with her fingers, finding them to be as large as the tip of her little finger. The holes went right through the collar, and she could feel her pulse hard against the little rings of steel inside the slowly warming padding. She shivered apprehensively, completely at a loss for their use.

"Mm-mph, mm-mm"

One of the girls disentangled herself from the group in the corner and began crawling towards her, Susan's eyes widening in recognition.

With a quick glance to ensure Moira wasn't looking, she shuffled over and unlocked the girls' ball-gag.

"Thank god," Cassandra whispered, unashamedly spitting out her excess saliva. "Susan.?"

Susan nodded dumbly, unable to take her eyes off the woman who had once struck fear into her heart reduced to a puppy-girl.

"Do you think you can get this off?" Cassandra waved a gloved elbow in the air.

Susan slid forwards and began working her fingers into the skin-coloured glove, slowly pulling it down. It came free eventually, and Cassandra sighed with relief as she stretched her arm out.

"And the mitten?" she asked excitedly, presenting the ball that her hand had been turned into.

Susan worked the mitten free, and Cassandra began taking the rest of her "outfit" off herself.

"Thank you so much," she whispered sincerely once both arms were free. She slid the discarded garments underneath the other girl who was sleeping soundly in the corner. Susan guessed she was drugged.

"You both went with. that man." Cassandra winced at the memory of her humiliation. "Did that bitch capture Julie as well?"

Susan shook her head.

"Does she know you're here?"

Susan nodded uncertainly, thinking back to Moira's words.

"But she knows you're missing?"

Susan nodded, and then stiffened as she heard the click of heels against the wooden floor.

"Then she can get help," Cassandra whispered excitedly, crawling over to lie with the still sleeping girl. Carefully she positioned herself so as to hide the fact that her arms were now free, grudgingly placing the ball-gag in her mouth and buckling it tight again.

"Having fun?" Moira asked, setting a silver case on the edge of the cot. Without waiting for a response, she opened the cases' transparent top and began studying the contents, frowning with indecision.

Susan swallowed hard as she stared intently at the underside of the box, anxious to know what was in it.

She didn't need to wait long, as Moira finally decided. When she produced a fat syringe filled with a bright red liquid, Susan began squealing in horror.

"Calm down," Moira said somewhat pointlessly, patiently tapping the air from the syringe.

She closed the silver case and placed it on the floor, and then leant over the cot and caught the chain attached to Susan's collar. With one hand she pulled Susan up, tilting her head to expose the silver encircling her throat.

Susan tried to raise her hands to defend herself, but Moira moved quickly, stabbing the needle into the nearest hole in the collar.

Susan froze in her struggles as the needle lanced into her throat, the base of the syringe sitting neatly against the collar. She was too terrified to breathe, her mouth opening and closing like a fish as she tried to scream in pain. It seemed like an eternity before Moira depressed the plunger all the way, its contents emptied into her neck.

With a tug Moira pulled the needle free and released her. Susan collapsed to the ground with a gasp, her cuffed hands protectively clasped around her throat.

"I much prefer this method of training," Moira related conversationally as she replaced the empty syringe in the case for later disposal. "I'll come back in a few minutes for the next one, okay?"

Susan curled into a foetal ball, sobbing incoherently at her violation. She didn't actually hear Moira's last comment, which would have sent her into hysterics.

"Hey, you'll be fine," Cassandra whispered comfortingly, the ball-gag hanging loosely around her neck.

Susan didn't hear her over the sound of her sobbing.

"Don't worry," Cassandra whispered, bringing the gag up to her mouth. "Help will come eventually."

Opening her jaw wide, she slid the gag back in and buckled it behind her head.

Please, she thought desperately, let help come.



From the outside, the orphanage looked deserted, its plain white exterior dark in the twilight. All the windows were shut, curtains drawn across those that had them, and no light could be seen anywhere. Sitting in the parked car, Julie peered out across the street and located her room, remembering when she had jumped out the window only two nights ago.

"How do you even know this is where your friend is?" Kathryn asked.

"She's here," Julie said in a low voice, her eyes focusing on the inside of the building.

Simeon climbed out of the car, followed by Samantha who began stretching her legs.

"About time,' Kathryn sighed in relief as she followed suit, preferring the cold of the outside to the cramped interior of the car.

Julie stayed inside the car, her face and mood bleak as she stared at the building. She didn't want to face Moira again, but desperately wanted Susan back. Memories of their last meeting flashed through her head, reminding her of how close they had come to being Moira's pets.

I can't help though, she thought sadly. Last time I just made things worse.

Trig climbed out of the car, his eyes on the slowly opening front door of the orphanage.

"Sir." he called, watching warily as a blue-clad figure stepped out uncertainly onto the steps.

She swayed for a moment on her heels, and then began to slowly make her shaky way down the path and across the road. Julie scrabbled for the door handle and sprung from the car, staring in shock.

"Alexis?" she called in horror, recognising the girl despite her radical change in appearance.

Alexis ignored Julie, kneeling down in front of Simeon in the snow. Craning her neck, she looked up at Simeon expectantly, working her jaw around the gag.

Gritting his teeth in anger, he crouched down and unbuckled the strap from behind her head. She tilted her head back as he drew the long, slender dildo from her throat.

She coughed once before speaking.

"My mistress has a message for you," she said in a clear voice.

"She says, 'Give me the girl and the device, and I'll let the rest of these lovely orphans go'."

Alexis stopped for a moment, and then tilted her head back and opened her mouth, her eyes staring up at him patiently. The streetlight above shone off the latex covering her body, making her look wet

"Trig, put her in the car," he commanded, his voice brimming with anger. Alexis began whining plaintively, craning her neck and making sucking motions with her mouth.

Simeon looked at her with a vague expression of disgust, and slid the dildo gag back into her head. She purred in happiness, her eyes closing as she sucked hard on the rubber intruder. She stood up then, and turned back towards the orphanage.

Hastily Trig caught her arm and began pulling her towards the car. She tried to twist away, forcing him to grab her with both arms and man-handle her into the car. She whined and fought against him until she was securely buckled into one of the seats.

"I'm calling for backup," Kathryn said after a long silence, staring at the girl now seated in the car.

"No police," Simeon said firmly.

"Simeon, the entire orphanage already knows," Nyssa said sadly. "It's a little late to keep things quiet."

It took a few seconds for Simeon to give a barely perceptible nod. Kathryn climbed into the car and began speaking rapidly into the radio.

"They'll be here in five minutes," she announced, stepping out of the car with a portable radio in one hand. "This is crazy, but after seeing that girl."

She glanced across the group, sliding the radio into her belt as she pulled herself together.

"You people will have to stay here though. This is now police business, and we can't have civilians running around."

Simeon shook his head.

"Then we go in now, and you can't stop us."

"But." Kathryn began.

"You girls stay here," Simeon instructed firmly, pointing to Julie and Samantha. "Don't let Alexis get away."

"You can't go in there!" Kathryn protested, debating whether she should try and stop him.

Simeon ignored her, turning and striding across the road. A moment later, Trig and Nyssa hurried after him.

"Damn it!" Kathryn cursed, running after them. "Stay here," she instructed the older officer, ignoring the fact that he was her superior.

Julie quivered with indecision as she watched them go, thinking of Susan. She wanted to help so badly, but Samantha's hand on her shoulder stopped her from following.

"They know what they're doing," Samantha told her quietly. "I like Susan too, but there's nothing we can do."

Julie sighed helplessly and turned away to lean against the side of the car.

"I know," she said gloomily. "I just hate feeling useless. I want to do something, anything to help! She's my." Julie trailed off, staring down at the crushed snow on the road.

"It's up to them, now," Samantha said, sitting down in the car. "Plus, Trig seems to like her a lot, I'm sure he'll do his best to help."

Julie leant silently on the car, one gloved hand pressing the necklace underneath her clothes against her chest. It was her only real possession, but she would trade it in a second for Susan.



"Are you completely insane?" Kathryn hissed angrily, jumping past them and blocking the doorway.

Wordlessly Trig reached around her and pushed the door open.

"Hey!" she cried out as he grabbed her top with the other hand and pushed her into the building.

The sound of the safety clicking on a gun made him pause for a split second. He glanced around the brightly lit hall, taking in the grey uniformed guards with their weapons trained on him.

"I have the girl," he announced suddenly, grabbing Kathryn by the collar and holding her in front of him. With the other hand he deftly collected her handgun and hid it between them.

"What.Ah!" she cried, before he silenced her with a jab in the back.

The guards studied Kathryn for a moment, looking at her black hair. They gave no sign of recognising her uniform, or that she wasn't Julie.

"This way," one of them said, and began walking down the hall that ran out from the doorway.

Trig started forwards, pushing an angry Kathryn ahead of him. The guards fell in behind them, their weapons never faltering.

"Give me the gun back," she hissed over her shoulder at Trig.

"I'm not going to shoot you," he whispered reassuringly.

Kathryn grunted unhappily. She wanted the gun because she felt safer with it, not because she thought he would use it against her.

"When we see Moira," Trig whispered as they walked, "she's going to know right away she's been duped."

He glanced over his shoulder, seeing Simeon and Nyssa sneaking through the now unguarded doorway.

".so be ready."

"Ready for what?" she asked uncertainly.

"Anything," Trig whispered as they entered the dining hall.

Kathryn gasped in horror as she looked across the orphans lining the far wall; the ones that weren't drugged into somnolence were squirming in various torments. There were gaps in the line where Moira had relocated someone for their "training".

"You bitch," she whispered as she spotted a woman dressed entirely in black, working between the legs of a squirming girl tied to a table.

"Mistress," called the front guard.

"Yes." Moira looked up from the girl. She trailed off as she saw Kathryn, a frown briefly crossing her face.

Slowly her blood red lips widened into a smile, and she began laughing.

"How very clever," she chuckled, making her way across the room. "Substitute someone else for the girl. Let me guess, you come in un-armed whilst Simeon sneaks around the back?"

She halted in front of Kathryn, their eyes level. With one finger, she lifted Kathryn's head up and studied her face.

"Not completely un-armed," Trig said nonchalantly, pushing Kathryn aside and jabbing the tip of the handgun into Moira's ribs.



Julie straightened from leaning on the car and began pacing nervously.

"Sit down and try to relax," Samantha said after a minute of watching her feet shuffle through the snow.

"I can't, not until my friends are safe," Julie replied tensely.

Samantha opened her mouth to reassure Julie, but at that moment a loud burst of static issued from inside the car.

"Very cute," said a female voice once the static had cleared. She didn't sound in the least bit impressed.

Julie spun around and ran to the car.

"Is that supposed to scare me?" Moira asked.

"I'm sure you won't enjoy having to regrow a spinal column," said Trig in a deadly serious voice. "That could take a few hours out of your day, and don't think I can't hit it from this angle."

Moira growled angrily.

"What do you hope to gain? One gun-shot and everyone is going to come running. I can survive one shot, can you survive a dozen?"

There was the sound of a scuffle, and then a loud bang. Julie heard someone yell out, and then with a burst of static the radio went dead.

"Oh shit," Julie cursed. She turned and broke into a run towards the orphanage.

"Julie!" Samantha yelled after her, but she didn't look back.