Welcome to

The first thing you register is the smell—ozone and something faintly sweet, like burnt sugar. Your head throbs, a deep, insistent ache right behind your eyes. You groan, forcing your eyelids open.

You’re not in your bed. You’re not in your apartment at all. The room is all smooth, curving silver metal and softly pulsing blue light strips set into the walls. You’re lying on some kind of padded platform, not a bed, more like an examination table. You’re still in your pizza delivery uniform, a red polo shirt with a stain from yesterday’s shift and a pair of faded jeans.

Panic tries to claw its way up your throat. You sit up, swinging your legs over the side of the table. The room is circular, about the size of your entire studio apartment, and there are no doors you can see. A low hum vibrates through the floor.

Okay, Mike. Breathe. You fell asleep watching weird stuff online again. This is a dream. A very, very vivid, smelly, headache-inducing dream.

A section of the wall to your right shimmers and dissolves without a sound, revealing an opening. A woman steps through, and your dream theory gets a serious boost.

She’s stunning. A brunette with a sharp, stylish pixie cut that frames an intelligent, curious face. She’s wearing what looks like a form-fitting black jumpsuit, unzipped just enough to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage from what are, unmistakably, spectacular breasts. The suit clings to every curve, accentuating a narrow waist that flares out into a pair of generous, perfectly round hips that sway with a hypnotic rhythm as she walks. A few silver piercings glint at her eyebrow and lower lip.

“My Lord,” she says, her voice a smooth, confident alto. She stops a few feet from you and gives a slight, respectful bow of her head. “The transfer is complete. The crew awaits your commands.”

You blink. “My… what?”

“Your commands, Lord Zegnu,” she says, a flicker of something—amusement? concern?—in her hazel eyes. “The fleet is on standby. The infiltration of this planet’s major power structures can begin at your leisure.”

Lord Zegnu. The name rings a distant, terrifying bell. That was the voice in your head, right before the green light. A rasping, cruel voice talking about a suitable host, about conquest. You look down at your hands—your own hands, calloused from steering wheel and pizza boxes. You feel like… you.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” you say, your voice cracking. “I’m Mike. Mike Allan. I deliver pizzas for ‘Slice of Heaven’ on 5th. I’m not a lord of anything.”

The woman’s eyes widen fractionally. She takes a quick step closer, her gaze intense, scanning your face. “The neural patterns… they’re not aligning.” She mutters something under her breath in a language that sounds like clicking glass. “The Overlord’s consciousness was damaged during the transfer. A catastrophic failure of the bio-support systems in his original form.” She looks you up and down, her expression shifting from professional deference to calculating assessment. “He’s dead. And you… you’re just the shell he chose.”

A cold dread settles in your stomach. “Dead? What does that mean for me?”

“It means,” she says, a slow, genuine smile spreading across her lips, “that as far as anyone on this ship is concerned, you are Lord Zegnu. The psychic signature is bound to the host body, not the consciousness. The scanners read you as him. The crew will obey you without question.”

“And you?” you ask, suspicion cutting through your fear.

“My name is Va’lor,” she says, tapping her temple. “I am… was… the First Mate. This body,” she gestures to herself, “is named Audrey. A doctoral candidate in xenobiology. Quite useful. And I am not blind, nor am I stupid. I know a panicking human male when I see one.” She leans in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. The scent of her—something clean and exotic—washes over you. “The previous Overlord was a cruel, paranoid tyrant. I have no desire to see him return, even if it were possible. And you… you seem… manageable.”

“Manageable?” You almost laugh.

“Harmless,” she clarifies, not unkindly. “Which is a significant improvement. So here is the situation, Mike Allan. You pretend to be the Overlord. I will help you. In return, you do not have me spaced for knowing the truth. And you get access to…” she gestures broadly at the room, “…all of this.”

“All of what? A shiny room?”

“The Aethelstan is a possession-class command ship,” Va’lor says, walking over to a seemingly blank wall. She presses her palm against it, and a complex holographic control panel erupts into life, showing schematics of Earth, scrolling data in alien script, and a list of what look like personnel files with human faces. “Lord Zegnu’s technology allows for the complete subjugation of organic lifeforms. Primary method: direct neural possession via polymorphic biogel.”

A small, transparent cylinder rises from a slot in the floor. Inside, a shimmering, viscous silver liquid undulates slowly, like living mercury.

“The biogel,” Va’lor continues, her voice taking on a lecturer’s tone. “In its passive state, it is merely a conduit. But when activated by the command chair—the one you were just on—it can be guided by your conscious will. You can project your awareness into it, become it. Then, to possess a target, you must… interface.”

The hologram shifts, showing a schematic of a human body. Animated silver fluid flows towards it, highlighting entry points: the mouth, the nostrils, the ears, the navel, the nipples, the urethra, the anus, the vagina.

“The gel must enter the host’s body through an orifice,” Va’lor says, her tone completely matter-of-fact, though you notice a faint pink tinge on Audrey’s cheeks. “The more… intimate the entry, the deeper and faster the neural link establishes. Once inside, you displace the host’s consciousness, storing it in a buffer here on the ship. You then have full motor and sensory control of their body. They become a puppet. A drone. You can see through their eyes, feel what they feel, though their higher thoughts are silenced.”

She looks back at you, her gaze steady. “Secondary method: direct neural impulse control. For less permanent subversion. We can beam compliance protocols into a subject’s brain, making them suggestible, obedient, though they retain their personality. Useful for creating agents.”

Your mind reels. This is insane. This is the kind of power you’d dream about during boring shifts. The power to be anyone, to make anyone do anything… and it’s just been dropped in your lap because some alien warlord had a cosmic heart attack.

“And I can just… do this?” you ask, your voice hushed.

“The systems respond to the host body’s bio-signature,” Va’lor nods. “Which is now yours. You are the key. The crew’s loyalty is to the key, not the mind that turns it. So, Lord Zegnu,” she says, the title now sounding like a private joke between the two of you, “what is your first command?”

You stand there, in your pizza uniform, in the heart of an alien starship, with a devastatingly beautiful alien in a stolen woman’s body offering you the keys to a kingdom of mind control. Your headache is fading, replaced by a giddy, terrifying sense of possibility.

Quick Actions:
1. Ask Va’lor for a tour of the ship and its capabilities.
2. Try out the possession gel on a test subject (Va’lor might have a suggestion).
3. Head to the bridge and address the crew, playing the part of the Overlord.
4. Ask more about Audrey, the body Va’lor is possessing.