“I added some organic tomatoes and delightful sherry to the mix.”

“That’s very nice,” said Hysteria.

“I also threw in some herbs from my garden,” continued Aurora.

“You definitely don’t have garden.” Hysteria cocked her head slightly.

“Oh, did I say my garden? Hah, easy mistake. No, I definitely meant a garden.”

Hysteria paused for a second, then quickly forgot and continued to wolf down the meal. Couldn’t be too bad if Aurora made it.

The two were a vibrant spot on the paddock. Aurora’s bright blue hair was practically glowing against the hillside. She sat cross-legged, letting her baggy graphic t-shirt hang down over an “authentically distressed” pair of jeans. Hysteria, meanwhile, didn’t have a single inch that wasn’t bright and unusual - purple hair, orange eyes, horns, pale skin, and a schoolgirl’s outfit that would have looked normal in a 90s anime.

“It’s pretty good.”

“I made it,” said Aurora, “So you’re damn right it’s good.”

“That’s what I said,” said Hysteria with a chuckle. “Would you rather I hold off on the praise? I could give you a long and lusty moan if you want.”

Aurora stared at the meal she had prepared. Tortellini in homemade sauce was good and filling. It was also absolutely, positively, the least sexy thing she had ever eaten. The only thing less sensual and erotic would have been a big buffet of American food.

“No,” said Aurora. “We’re just enjoying a luncheon. No need for sexy stuff right now.” She pulled in close, whispering in her demoness’s ear. “That’s for later.”

Hysteria resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the cliche and finished her meal. “You’re just the absolute worst.”

“No, I’m the best.”

“Right. You’re the best worst villain I could ever hang out with.”

Aurora laughed this time. “That’s what I like to hear. I haven’t any shits to give about what other people think. But I’d be awful sad if I didn’t have the respect of my demoness.”

Hysteria had finished her meal and moved on to finish the last of Aurora’s, taking her container in hand as Aurora pontificated on a long train metaphor. She was the serious one… but she also wasn’t going to let a fine picnic go unfinished. They’d parked pretty far away to enjoy a cloudy and cool afternoon, far away from the bustle of the city or the roar of locomotives. A few hundred meters away, an old track segmented the field from the bush.

Aurora kept going. She started explaining her plans for corporate domination. Her eyes went wide. Hysteria normally liked to watch her speeches for posterity, but she couldn’t help but overhear the sound of something odd. First, the demoness noticed gentle ringing and low vibration that rattled the base of her spine. Then, she found it harder and harder to hear Aurora. Finally, she felt goose-flesh along her skin as her hair stood on end. The last thing she felt was Aurora’s hand on her wrist, clutching tighter and tighter as she dove on top of her. The buzzing reached a crescendo and her vision faded to white.

The first thing Aurora felt was a tremendous force that pressed down from above. It wasn’t a physical thing she could touch. It was like being swaddled in a heavy comforter - good on a chilly night, but unexpected when there were ten of them. And then a heavy person on top of all of those.

She could breathe, but it was work. The air had the ionized scent of an executive office, but lacked the aromas of her own workspace. The pressure that came from above was oppressive, constant, and quiet. It wasn’t quite like a windstorm. If anything, it was like waking up from a bender. It lacked the chemical affectation of a long night of partying, and Aurora was fairly sure that she’d only brought a single bottle of wine for their picnic. And maybe one in the car.

The executive finally managed to open her eyes. She didn’t believe them when she did, so she shut them tight, waited a few seconds, took a belabored and deep breath, then opened them again.

There was one thing that confirmed that she wasn’t dreaming. Hysteria, asleep or unconscious, was next to her. They were somewhat tangled together; the comfortable pose of two lovers. Or more accurately, of two lovers that tripped and now fell on top of each other.

Other elements had made her skeptical. For example, she and Hysteria were defying gravity.

Both women were, by their perspective, “lying down” on a slightly squishy slab of industrial material. They were completely nude, with no sign of any of the clothing they’d worn on their day out. They were intimate in a way that wasn’t sexual, but the sensual element couldn’t be ignored.

However, the small cubic room had things on all four sides. It was as though each side of the room - the floors, the ceiling , the walls - all had their own localized gravity.

“Below” them, a shadowy figure stood next to a huge machine. Aurora wondered how it was standing still. Was it walking on the ceiling with boots, or was there something more at work? She wanted to ask Hysteria, but she felt too tired to even move her lips. Thinking itself was difficult, although the surreality of the situation was sparking a few questions and neurons were firing.

Something on another side of the “room” began to move. A beam of light traced their forms. Aurora knew that she and her companion had been “scanned,” though she didn’t know to what end.

Images suddenly began to flash. The humanoid figure across from her made a motion that seemed like a head-tilt. Aurora squinted, trying to make them out.

There were no words, but the exclamation point and symbology made it clear that there was something in error. There was another sound; the forceful typing of keys on an industrial keypad. Springy switches triggered, and another scan lit her and her purple-haired friend.

Another error sound. She was able to make out the image. Two shapes with a size differential; presumably, something to do with size. “Too much mass,” she imagined it saying. “Remove an item from the scanning area, put it back in your shopping cart, then try again.”

The figure approached, jumping from the “wall” to the “floor.” Or maybe from one surface to another. She couldn’t really tell. She was, however, starting to make some guesses about the pressure that kept her down. It felt like G-forces; it had the same unusual sensations that one had when driving too fast, turning too quickly, or being in a plane during a dive-bomb.

She was able to glimpse the figure. She noticed Aurora’s eyes creaking open as well, though she was too tired and too heavy to do more than make a quiet grunt.

The figure was recognizably human, yet completely covered in inhuman accoutrements. She was tall; almost two meters, with long legs and a slender frame. Her entire body drew in light and reflected it, casting off an oily glow in the dim golden light. Her figure was clad in nothing less than the perfection of shining latex, or at least something like it. It was polished like a trophy, and alternated between black and gold. A beaten purple-pink accentuated her wrists and knees; places that needed extra protection without ever sacrificing movement or the lovely, lustrous shine.

It was an exquisite suit. The lovely seams and alternating colors segmented her form. It made it a breeze to ogle and stare; she could see the way that it caressed her rear, stretched skintight around the woman’s buttocks and thighs. She lingered on the utilitarian bands around her thigh and waist. A harness with contact points ran along several other spots, including her shoulders and chest. It had an industrial feel that was not terribly far off the gorgeous, shining latex body. This strange creature seemed more like a doll than a person. Her movements were slow and rehearsed. Her breathing was meticulous and consistent, and had the audible sound of a filter. A low buzzing sound of a subcutaneous microphone picking up chatter made Aurora’s inner villain try to pay as much attention as possible. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that a rubber-clad woman was standing in front of them, with a glistening-shiny body just out of arm’s reach.

Aurora had time to glimpse the woman’s strange gas mask before she walked away. Sure in her assessment, she slammed the same key one more time. The tri-tone sound and single warning klaxon made Aurora think to her own designs. If she were designing a system, that would have meant “override”.

The pressure that forced her against the floor (or wall, or ceiling) subsided, and then reversed. Suddenly, she and Hysteria were spinning in the air. The scan resumed, with reddish light pouring over them two times more.

The third time came from the bottom and went up. They weren’t coated in red light, but a golden, honey-like encasement.

Hysteria’s eyes went wide. She started to strain in the artificial gravity, working against the laws of physics in a futile attempt to escape. Aurora looked down to see her toes disappearing in a soft amber glow. She also realized her ability to move them disappeared. Her body, starting at her toes and very, VERY rapidly moving up, was a blissful golden warmth that coated her skin and hugged it in the same way that the drone-like woman was so dressed.

“Hey!” shouted Hysteria. “H-hey!”

The two companions were drawn together. Their bodies were being bathed in a rich, soft, and completely inescapable coating of ultra-high-density latex, laced with unknown materials and machines. It stuck to their skin, bonding and tightening and cleaning and prodding and analyzing all at once. A deep sepia tone covered their human (and demon) skin with the gentleness of a physician and the unflinching mechanical desires of a beehive. Everywhere it touched, it broadcast messages of warmth, relaxation, and pleasure to their nervous system.

Hysteria’s legs wobbled. It was the same strange sensation that only came when she had seen something she really liked, really hated, or was about to orgasm. She wasn’t sure if any of those three were true, but it happened nonetheless. Her straining body couldn’t keep it up and she rapidly weakened. Aurora’s did much the same.

As their resolve faded, so did the space between them. They were, after all, supposed to be a single humanoid. The override wasn’t going to change that. Their honey-like coating was going to be twice as tight - it was only distributing as much as a single person would normally experience. They were drawn together. After all, if they were only one single human, they would only need so much space. Their glistening golden coating squeaked and stretched and strained, making sure that they were as close as possible and in perfect shape.

That efficiency meant that Aurora felt her body pressed against Hysteria’s form. Breasts against breasts, their legs intertwined, stomach grinding against their partner’s shapely abdomen. Aurora’s hands slipped to Hysteria’s rear. The purple-haired encasee felt her own arms being trapped behind her back. The rubber tightened. Aurora exhaled, and Hysteria felt her companions’ breath.

The encasement reached their chest. Latex-coated breasts rubbed against one another in futile gestures of resistance. They felt the others’ teats grow rigid with arousal and warm with growing desire. Erogenous zones touched in new and unpredictable ways as Aurora found her womanhood quite close to her companion’s.

The squeaking, squirming duo felt their heads pressed together. Lip met lip and they kissed as passionately as they could before being fully and truly sealed. Twenty breathless seconds passed. Lungs ached for air, and they shared what little they had in passionate bursts of enforced touching. The machine finished its second and final coat before slipping microfilament tubes into their noses, providing a life-sustaining aroma.

Rubbing and grinding and looking utterly inhuman, the golden mass of honey and curves was raised into the air and into a waiting hexagonal cell. The door closed and the timer began.

Neither Hysteria nor Aurora could see the numbers that appeared on the exterior of their cell. They were, after all, blind, deaf, and experience a complete and intense overload of the senses. The two were mummies in tombs or victims in a spider’s web. Their only recourse was to move, and that meant - for worse and for better - touching the other.

Minutes passed.

Numbers flashed on the exterior. Time elapsed, time still necessary, consistency and effects of their intimations. If they could have seen it, they couldn’t have read it. If they could have read it, they would have known that despite their seclusion and isolation, they were being molded and upgraded. Yet this was irrelevant to the rubber-encased and shine-ensconced pair. Their couplings in glossy laminate and shining, alien latex were all they had. Their partner became their world.

Hours passed.

They didn’t think in the traditional sense. Neither Aurora nor Hysteria had any real sense of time. They were webbed up and rubberized together. Their bodies were being assaulted with potent cocktails of drugs and unfathomable, sacred medichines. Waking moments of arousal - of rubbing and grinding and moaning and coming - became islands of awareness in a sea of dreamy slumber.

Days passed.

Drones would examine them rather often. After all, their cell was unusual. Each hex was filled with a glistening, golden aether of life-sustaining fluid that the drones referred to as “honey.” However, each cell was also made for just one humanoid. That this cell contained a mass equal to two was unusual. They went about their business, making notes of it and deleting errant notes about it. The two cocooned humans would soon be ready.

Weeks passed. They were ready.

They didn’t remember being decanted from their cell. They had vague recollections of being removed and moved. Aurora distinctly felt someone’s smooth, gloved hands looking her over. Hysteria had memories of being placed on a moving conveyor belt. Together, they both possessed the strange sleepytime notions of waking up on a slow Sunday morning. In her blissed-out haze, Aurora briefly thought it might have been a dream.

---

Aurora stared at herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw, and took her time running her hands across her figure.

It was the blissful, glossy look of a goddess. She was born again through a baptism of strange insectoid aesthetics. Her form was the intensely attractive body of a woman coated in the sensual gloss of rubber; her vision clouded by the strange effects of unknowable substances and the soulless panes of her new mask.

The Aurora-drone had been laminated and sealed into a rubber suit that had been carefully measured and created for her body. That meant that it was comfortable, if stiff, to move in. It meant that it cradled her generous breasts rather nicely, providing enough support and just enough pressure to prevent discomfort. Beautiful, glossy coating traced from head to toe, segmented by mesh and rigid plastic and her helmet.

She very carefully ran a finger up her thigh. Where it wasn’t the beautiful ebony-black, it was a lustrous yellow-gold. The sunset color made her grin. It traced soft and vulnerable bits of her flesh – her inner thighs and her gloves – and inspired her to devious thoughts that were hardly appropriate at a critical moment like this.

Trim of a bright blue and yellow tone made her body a treat to observe. The contrasts meant that her buxom breasts, curvaceous thighs, and pleasantly plump rump were all quite visible. Nobody would get lost navigating her body. She had been suited up to be seen for purposes as ornamental as they were practical.

The only accoutrements that didn’t explicitly scream fetishism was a silver belt around her waist and her gas mask. Like the rest of her suit, she saw no way to remove either one. They had been glued or cemented in place. Drones, she understood, didn’t need to remove their suits unless they were upgrading or being downgraded. A uniform signified rank and purpose. Neither of those were completely malleable.

She crossed her arms and provided a self-hug. She almost shuddered, tongue trembling slightly at the sensations. There was a sense of peace brought on by whatever they had been feeding her lungs and body. That, combined with her endless tendencies towards forbidden, kinky heights meant that this was a sensual experience like no other. She reached her fingers between her legs, and was frustrated to find a thick plastic plate preventing her from pleasuring herself. Her arousal was building, and she had no obvious outlet.

Drones eventually arrived. They took her from the mirrored room through the hive. It was a strange place. Drones of various shapes and sizes fulfilled unique roles. She saw creatures that operated with a perfect unity. They spoke through mental commands and radiowaves. Her captors explained that in time, if she accepts her role, she too would evolve beyond human and join the Exhuman Hive as a functioning member of its eusociality.

If not, they implied that she would become livestock – a creature to be used and abused, endlessly traded for favors and pleasure. Such was an unusual fate for new arrivals; the drones assured her that the workers of the hive all came around eventually. She would join them and be a happy part of their hive mind. There was simply no alternative.

Aurora didn’t know entirely what to make of it. The strange bio-organic substances throughout the hive had a semi-sacred geometry that dizzied and disoriented her when she tried to stare too long. Her eyes flitted left and right, looking around strange honeycomb corridors and hexagonal hallways for any sign of Hysteria.  When it was clear that she wasn’t providing them with the attentiveness they expected, Aurora’s soldier-drone captors simply picked her up and dragged her the rest of the way.

A single massive glass tube was to be her fate. The blue-haired executive was going to be put through a bevy of final simulations and tests. After weeks in her growth chamber, she was now prepared to be ‘activated’ ; she’d been flooded with medichines and nanotechnology and primed for conversion into a member of the hive. Aurora resisted, which was to be expected. Her curses and kicks and yelps of disapproval were standard by now. To be certain that she wouldn’t escape, her conversion-captors provided a bevy of restraints for her final conversion.

They folded her arms behind her back, sealing them in place with a sticky foam that quickly molded with the suit. She arched backwards and jutted her chest out; she wasn’t used to anyone forcing her to stand up straight. They slipped her booted legs together, locking them flat against the floor of the conversion chamber, and extended a wide rubbery sheath from the bottom to her waist. One drone let it snap tight, snapping against her waist and thighs like a doctor donning gloves. The sound of yet another layer against her suit was heavenly. Aurora wasn’t sure if she had been trained to love it, or if she had always loved that delightful squeaky noise.

Tubes snaked down to her mask. For ten long seconds, she was forced to hold her breath. For another ten after that, she tried not to breathe in whatever mind-altering substances faced her. Eventually, she relented.

Poor Aurora was trapped within two layers of tight, alien rubber; teased beyond belief, and unsure whether or not she was absolutely loving her situation. White noise filled her ears and the screen began a psychedelic display. She wiggled in her glass tube. Readouts on the exterior lit up, displaying an exhaustive explanation of her eventual fate.

She expected some sort of apotheosis. Maybe this would be it – she’d lose herself completely and join with this rubber-clad hive. It wouldn’t be so bad. She was, however, disappointed that she couldn’t share it with Hysteria. She felt her mind touch the rest of the drones, nipping at her consciousness.

“Guess it’s time to call it a day. Goodbye Hysteria, I hope you join me here soon,” she thought.

The tube slid open. Was it already done? She didn’t feel much different at all.

Her companion stood in front of her. She wore the same suit, with the only difference being that it fit Hysteria’s tall figure, and that it had a space for her tiny horns. Aurora felt something between love, lust, and transcendental desire welling up within her. It was mostly the first two, though.

“G’day,” thought Aurora at her companion. Somehow, through all the surreal sci-fi, she knew and understood that it was her.

“Hey you,” thought back Hysteria.

“You escaped?”

“Nope,” thought Hysteria. “I’m on duty. They took me out and trained me. Said that I wasn’t fit for command or anything. Said that I was going to do some manual labor, gave me some shot and assumed that I’d be their mindless slave.”

“But you’re not,” thought Aurora.

“Nope,” said hysteria. “Beats me as to why. I think I heard them discussing us as one unit. We didn’t get a full dose of whatever the mind-control what-have-you.”

“Why not?”

“Probably because we were two to a cell, and they only gave us half.”

Aurora nodded, still squirming in her tube. “I reckon that’s never happened before.”

Hysteria ran a hand down her companion’s body. “Don’t think so. We’re anomalies here. We’ve got all the enhancements and all the free will. The obvious stuff – like the fact that we’re communicating psychically right now, for one. There’s probably other stuff, like not producing waste and not needing sustenance in the same way.”

“You figure all that out yourself?” Aurora squirmed again.

“Nope,” said Hysteria. “I ordered a drone to explain what was going on, and he just obeyed. Said that there was no reason not to. Doesn’t understand that he can’t command me. Seems like their lower ranks are just absolute followers. They seem happy enough, though they’re not much one for conversation… unless you’re asking for a plot dump.”

“So, we get to write our own ending.” Aurora stopped squirming. She focused, reaching out through the air and contacting other nodes. Electronic waves bounced through the ship; flashes of impulses pinged through her brain. She reached out to a drone who was idly making note of other conversion chambers and spoke to him.

“Let me out of here.”

He didn’t even respond, doing so with efficiency and gusto. Aurora was free, and she fell to her knees for a moment before Hysteria helped her up.

The male drone stood there , awaiting more orders.

“What was going to happen to me in there?” asked Aurora.

“You were going to be given a cocktail of technologies so that we might determine if you would make a good Queen.”

Aurora cocked an eyebrow, even he couldn’t see it. She tried to mentally broadcast cocking an eyebrow.

“That sounds a bit dodgy. After all, I’m total queen material. I’m a total boss, you hear?”

“You…” said the drone in a monotone that almost sounded confused, “…are a … total boss.”

“Damn right.”

Aurora felt Hysteria grab her from behind. She moaned. She knew that Hysteria heard it and felt it. There was a coupling like they’d never experienced; her companion gently took her from behind, moving her arms at first around her chest to clasp her close. The powerful eroticism of their outfits and the situation suddenly reared its head again. The casual discussion of control fell away, as did the peril in which they’d been up until recently been exposed.

The demoness took the executive to a secluded room lined with soft pillows. They cuddled at first, enjoying each others’ presence before moving to more intimate explorations. They tested out the snug rubber of the outfits, learning how they could control it and inquiring others about the features when necessary. When they felt a modicum of mastery, Aurora tackled Hysteria with the impetuous glee of a woman who’d been waiting for too long to take out her passions. Both of them squealed with glee, experiencing each other in new connected ways which they didn’t know possible.

The squeaking and rocking and moaning practically shook the ship. When they exhausted each other, they spent a long while relaxing in each others arms. It didn’t matter that they were on some strange alien structure. They had each other… and possibly a small army of obedient rubberclad servitors. All was well.

---

“Buy me out!? I’ll buy you out! I’ll buy you out tenfold! Some dodgy company with a weirdo ghost CEO isn’t going to intimidate me, you hear? You hear me!?”

Aurora hung up her smartphone by mashing the ‘End Call’ button as hard as she could, then carefully dropping it onto her desk. She didn’t want to crack it. She wished she could slam an old-time phone against her desk, ending with a satisfying 'clack' and ringing sound. 

It really didn’t have the panache as an old-timey phone.

“Hysteria!”

“I’m not your secretary.” The demoness was sitting in a comfortable chair. Aurora’s office was a pristine white; white walls with off-white trim, a shining gray-and-white tile that gave it a Renaissance look, and elegant chairs that were kept in a pristine state at all times. It was a professional office for a professional evildoer; suitable for managing her rail line and world domination alike. 

“I - I wasn’t going to ask you to do secretary stuff.”

“No, you were going to ask me if I could go find a really sturdy 1990s phone and get it set up as a land-line… so that when you’re angry you can slam it to end calls.”

Aurora ran a finger through her hair. “That’s right,” she thought. “You can still read my mind.”

“All that and more,” thought Hysteria. It was so nice to look at her eyes. The unusual lizard-like quality and bright amber color made it easy to get lost staring at her. The demoness let a grin creep across her face.

She didn’t even need to think her proposal. Aurora knew what she was going to say. This mind-reading thing didn’t always work, and a lot of the time they forgot they had it. But when it worked, it was impressive. It meant that they were synchronized in ways they couldn’t put to words.

“Tonight would be a good night,” said Aurora.

“Then let’s make it a date.”

Aurora left her company early that night. It was just for fun. Everyone, even executives and evildoers and their demonic partners-in-crime, needed to blow off some steam sometimes.

The fact that they had brought their suits home with them and very, painstakingly found ways to remove them for later was just because they were nice. Both of the women knew that it was rare to find such a scintillating example of shiny. A thick, flexible black rubber catsuit - even if it had the associations with a bizarre race of alien abductors - was too good to waste. They proudly kept their gear - masks, suits, boots, gloves, belts, and wings - in a private room that only the two of them had access to. It made for an exciting little game they played.

Besides, they surmised, the outfits were so anatomizing that nobody would know it was them even if they were spotted. Signal-dampening rubber would scramble tracking equipment, sexy and shiny faceplates would disrupt facial tracking software. Even if someone spotted the protrusions of Hysteria's horns, they were two drones among many. 

Tonight, they were going to mimic some of the fun they’d had with the hive when they first found their powers. That meant going down their list of enemies and picking one that they thought could disappear for a few days. They ran it through the massive hexagonal computer they’d recently built themselves and found the ideal candidate - a reporter with a thing for being told what to do and dressed up, and also a little leverage on Aurora. That wouldn’t do.

Aurora-Drone and Hysteria-Drone were clad in the blissful, shining suits that they both so enjoyed and spirited off into the night. They chuckled, speaking in low tones and using their mental communication. They tested out their suits’ features, stealthily making their way through the city until they found their target.

Subduing her was child’s play. After all, it was all just for fun. Nothing was quite so lovely as seeing someone’s eyes turn from surprise to arousal… and then not seeing them at all as they coated her face in a thick layer of black rubber.

Just five minutes later, and their mission was successful. They’d snuck into the target’s home and encased her in a nice thin layer of webbing. She was ready to be brought back to their playroom. Aurora had the idea to toy with their victims by giving them the same treatment they’d be subjected to - encased in a glistening golden tomb to be hypnotized and brainwashed to their will. Hysteria loved the idea. Nothing quite so fun as bringing back a rubber mummy, mewling and moaning against her will, to their playroom for a kinky evening.

Their evening of revelry concluded as they cocooned their captive within their homemade playroom. They’d decorated it to look just like the Exhuman Hive. They didn’t really discuss it; it just felt right. It felt very appropriate.

Aurora and Hysteria watched their victim moan and mewl and wriggle and come her brains out. It was quite the show. They spent time with each other in the privacy of their own hive - erm, their own home - watching as their little game played out. They were intimate and safe in their own private escape. Things were good. They never bothered to ask themselves if they’d ever really escaped the Hive at all. Soon, more victims and drones joined them in their escape.