The chilly air of Alphonse's dorm room was cut by the soft humming of a high end laptop, built more for specs than style. Alphonse himself sat hunched over, squinting at the glow of the screen in the darkness. The page he had stumbled upon was unlike anything he’d seen before, its dark background and neon lines carrying an aura of the illicit.

Or at least, an aura of a programmer who used dark mode, which was always a good sign.

It was late - late enough that his roommate Quincy was out on the town, courting danger or a damsel (or both). Alphonse sighed, running a hand through his mousy brown hair as he considered the proposition before him: a chance to buy into the surreal, the impossible.

Stealth Control Nanobots™

They were the stuff of whispered rumours and online conspiracy theories. The government had banned the technology long ago, citing concerns over privacy, consent, and potential for abuse. Concerns that were well founded. Even though the tech had never reached the mainstream, and was tightly controlled for government use only, there were still regular stories of leaks. It seemed like every few months some starlet would seem to lose her mind, and go masturbate in public, or dance nude on a balcony.

Stealth control was always blamed, and tighter controls always followed. Alphonse wondered how many of these cases were real – and how many times a drugged up rock star would just blame their latest bender on stealth control. “It wasn’t me! It was just my body!”

Still, if they were real… well, basic logic would dictate for every case you heard about, there were probably hundreds of people being controlled in ways that weren’t overt enough to make the news.

And if that were true, then maybe you could just buy a vial of the stuff from a random Russian IP address.

Alphonse knew he was talking himself into it.

His mouse hovered over the 'Buy Now' button, his heart pounding. He looked at the reviews again: users swearing up and down that the tech was real, functional, and life-altering. A few death threats to the seller. Someone asking how to exit vim. It seemed legitimate enough…

A mental image of Luna filled his mind, her dark goth aesthetic barely containing her wild exuberance. What would it be like to be her? His pulse quickened at …