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Velvet - A Calibeen Story (Complete!)


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6 hours ago, Wannatripbaby said:

Hmm... Do they really expect Velvet to just concede and hand over the codes if she "fails" this, quite frankly, ridiculous test?

Do you really expect her to fail? 

And I do expect that she has adequate "fail-safe" provisions programmed in as a fallback.

And I'm not going anywhere! I'm camping here for the next chapter!

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56.) Her Curtain Call

Though I was offered my own space, my own desk, my own everything, I still worked best in Colette's office on her laptop.  I had grown accustomed to it.

"They want something big, and I know just the thing!" Luckily for me, I'd been working on a few side-projects in the past couple months.  Just some simple programs to help with situational outcomes.  For example, Marci had a trauma history when she came in.  Her mom used to dress her up like a little girl in frilly dresses and stuff.  So when she saw this place for the first time, she went into a deep dissociative state.  Her defense mechanism.  A good therapist could handle it, but why should they need to?  I could write a program for that!  And I did, along with twenty-six other worst-case scenarios.

"You know that this is a trick, right? They're just giving you a chance to show them what you can do, but they'll turn you down either way and say that it was your own failing."

"So what?  I'm not giving them the codes either way." Actually, I couldn't.  It was a series of hyperbolic keywords from different anecdotes in my life, time-coded to phases of the moon and the second to last number on a digital clock.  In other words, I was really the only person that could activate it. "But why not show them what I can do?"

"I suppose you're right." I didn't like this. I had spent my entire time here trying to temper Velvet Duke, and here was my ruling council goading her on. This was going to be a disaster. "What are you planning, then?"

"Well, I was thinking.  We get a lot of people in here that have trauma, right?  Trauma begets trauma, violence begets violence.  So criminals usually have trauma.  And that interferes with treatment." Colette nodded in agreement. "So, what if they didn't have that trauma?  I can't create new memories, but I can probably get rid of the bad ones."

"You're planning to suppress their memories?"

Here I was, worried about the possibility of this going poorly.

"You know you can't do that, right? It's just not possible, if it were there would be a multi trillion dollar industry built on top of it."

"Impossibility is just a close-minded improbability." I turned the screen around to show Colette the model I'd been building. "Look, repression is a totally normal thing the brain does in crisis.  And stuff can trigger it, bringing it to the surface.  That's what therapy does sometimes, right?  So why not use hypnosis to do it in reverse?  Controlled repression.  I already have a script for it.  I have to figure out how to target trauma, but... I think I could have a demo ready in 24 hours."

"This is some Cold War Russian Sleeper Cell kind of deal, even if you could make it work, nobody is going to believe you."

I should have had more faith. But I was agitated, and more than that, I was disappointed - this was so far beyond ethics it made me feel sick.

Maybe I should have thought twice about Colette's skepticism, but I took it as a challenge.  No one would believe me?  Hmph!  

"We'll just see about that."

Colette left her office in a huff and I went back to work.  But it was a lot more work than I expected.  Hypnosis isn't magic; I can't make someone forget something.  I can just hide the memory deep down, so they can't see it anymore.  I had to do a lot of visualization techniques in the recording, and I had to redo it six or seven times.  By the end, it was twice as long as my usual files.  That would make for a rough demonstration...

Sometime later, Colette came in with a plate of garlic bread and set it down on my table.

"You missed dinner."

"Oh.  Thank you." I didn't know it was so late...

"You need to be rested for tomorrow - they gave you a day and they know your ambitions, they want you to come in there exhausted and unable to properly perform. They want you to see for yourself that you've failed, so they don't have to tell you no."

"Yeah... that's a good point." I took a bite of garlic bread and sunk into the couch. "I think I'm done anyway.  It's a rough draft, sort of, but I can definitely do a demonstration..."

I should have been paying more attention to Colette.  Her body language, her facial expressions.  But I was in my own head.

"Could I try it on you?" I asked curiously. "Don't worry - it won't erase anything important.  And then I can prove to you that it works."

"I don't think so, Velvet."

It sounded fair, on paper. I'd been inside her head; how else could we level the playing field? But with ambition like hers, masterful and creative and yet... potentially so very destructive, if left unchecked? No, I didn't think so.

"Besides, you could take one of my happy memories."

Which meant...

"And that is absolutely not okay, even as a punishment."

I blinked in surprise.  A happy memory? "No... it's just a demo, Colette.  I have it programmed to erase what you had for breakfast yesterday.  Unless you had a really good omelette or something?" I giggled, but she didn't.  She looked away in... irritation, maybe?  My tone soured. "What's your problem?"

"I think this is a bad thing for people to have access to, Velvet. I think it goes too far. You know what one more step from this is? Hey, you're a blank slate now, have fun in the world with no sense of self or who you are."

"Isn't that basically what you did to me anyway, in Phase Zero?" I snapped at her.  I watched the shock turn to anger on her face.

"I kept you safe in that place!  I watched over you and I made sure your intelligence was intact!"

"This whole program basically kills who we are anyway, so don't act like this is such a big deal.  And if they were blank slates at the start, they would be easier to fix."

"We rehabilitate! We create, we don't take away who you were, we give you a new sense of self and let you decide!"

Why was I so angry? Had she hit a nerve? Yeah. She did. Because maybe what we did was abhorrent and I just didn't want to see it.

"Decide?  When did I get to decide?  You dressed me up and put me in diapers and had me poop myself and then you put me in mindless baby state and now I can't even get the job I want unless I extort my bosses!" I balled my hands at my side and felt tears in my eyes.  Anger to crying.  I didn't even have the hypnosis - that was just normal stuff.

"You don't get it, Colette.  You aren't one of us.  You aren't me.  Maybe forgetting is easier.  Maybe just starting empty is better.  No memories of killing people or raping people or drugging people..." I shook my head and tears slid down my cheeks.

"I'm making this program.  Because they deserve it.  If we really are giving them a second chance, they deserve this choice..."

"If they hire you based on this, Velvet, they get you. But they don't get me. I'm not going to be a part of this. It’s a step too fucking far, and you know it is!"

I looked up at Colette with tears in my eyes, but she avoided my gaze.  I hadn't felt like this in so long... at odds with her.  She was my guiding force.  She told me what was right and wrong.  But she didn't understand this.  She didn't know what it was like to carry around the burden of such heavy mistakes.  She wasn't in prison or rehabilitation or whatever this was.  She was a normal woman, with normal memories, with normal mistakes.

She couldn't understand.  There was nothing I could say to help her.  And there was nothing she could say to me that could stop me.

"I'm sorry," I told her, and went back to working on the memory-erasing program.

"I'm sorry too," I said back, and left my office.

The next day, I was formally offered the job.  There was a single condition: that if I ever violate my agreement with the Calibeen Project, they had the right to discipline me with extreme measures.  The implication was Phase Zero again.  But I had no intention of breaking my allegiance.  This place helped people like me with experiences like mine.  As long as they fixed the broken people in the world, I would help them.

But that same day, Colette resigned without notice.  She just... left.  I didn't even get to say goodbye.

The transition from Fourth to Hypno Tech was... nominal.  I had a state ID now and I could leave the facility whenever I wanted.  But the outside world was a lot less interesting than I remembered.  I decided not to seek out Roger, or my family, or anyone I knew before.  A new life as Velvet Duke.  That's what I wanted.

I spent a lot of time at work.  No, I spent all my time at work.  I usually slept at work.  I created program after program, solution after solution.  That was my job after all.  But it was also my responsibility.  This place often had terrible means, and I had to ensure the ends were justified.

But every now and then, Colette would cross my mind.  My best friend.  Maybe Velvet Duke's only friend.  And every time I thought about her I had to wonder... did I do the right thing?

I hope so.

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One chapter left. :crybaby: Like & Comment, and check us out on Patreon! 

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3 hours ago, Sophie ♥ said:

Impossibility is just a close-minded improbability."

God I love Velvet's cocky, arrogant personality. Especially since most of the time she's right to be cocky! O_o

And for the record, I agree with Velvet. What he's doing, what he's proposing, is morally no different than Phase Zero. More dangerous? Abso-freakin-lutely. More evil? Not so much. And the fact that Colette reacted to it so strongly only means she's been lying to herself all this time about Calibean's methods. Which explains why she resigned.

Grammar Patrol

3 hours ago, Sophie ♥ said:

It’s a step to fucking far,

*too

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21 hours ago, Wannatripbaby said:

Grammar Patrol

Fixed!

21 hours ago, Wannatripbaby said:

And the fact that Colette reacted to it so strongly only means she's been lying to herself all this time about Calibean's methods. Which explains why she resigned.

Nailed it.

15 hours ago, Baby Billy said:

it's so sad, she gets what she gets wanted but it cost her everyone she ever cared for.  Such a lonely life to have to live.?

;_; So true!  If you read Audrey & Staycee (I'll get a link for that...) then you see a lot more of her future and how this choice impacts her.

14 hours ago, diaperpt said:

I'm hoping for some major resolution in the last chapter. There's been a lot already, I know, but there are some loose ends I think.

I think the final chapter has some good resolution, especially for A&S fans. ^_^  Though it was written to be stand-alone!

9 hours ago, littleTomás said:

Ok, where’s the unexpected twist S&P? I. Didn’t sense much of a setup in that penultimate chapter, so I’m slightly worried... :cute-baby-smiley-emoticon:

Hmmm I think we hit "unexpected twist" in the "turning eyeglasses into knives" part of the story.  A lot of Velvet's character development is in A&S tbh, and we didn't want to retread the same territory.  But I do think you'll find a lot of conclusive content in the final chapter. ^_^ 

Here's the link to A&S.  It's free to download in PDF and ePub: https://www.patreon.com/posts/audrey-staycee-11488290

Final chapter today!

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57.) Her Life Worth Living

Six Years Later

Maybe I had the wrong house.  I had done so much research, but it could still be the wrong house.  Maybe she moved and no one notified the post office.  Maybe this was the wrong Dr. Clement.

Or, what if it was the right house?  What if she took one look at me and slammed the door in my face?  What if she called the police on me or something?  But that was foolish - I hadn't done anything wrong.  At least... not in the past few months.  Not since I made that deal to get out of my contract.  No, I'd been trying so hard to do everything right.

Seeing her... this was part of that.  I had to.

When the door opened, I thought it would be her.  But it wasn't.  It was a man.  Smaller than Roger.  Normal brown eyes.  I always noticed people's eyes these days...

"Hi... um.  I might have the wrong house?" As I said this, I read the number on the mailbox for the tenth time.  It was the right house. "I was looking for Colette Clement...?"

"Colette, there's someone here to see you." The man called out over his shoulder, and then peered around to the left and right of the front door. The way he looked at Velvet, there was something of a recognition in his eyes. His eyes that looked right into hers, like the blue meant something to him.

"Who is—?”

I paused, drying the dish in my hand as I walked into view and saw Velvet standing there. Velvet Duke. I rubbed my very pregnant belly and pursed my lips.

"Hello Velvet."

Oh.

Oh, okay.  She... uh.  She had clearly gotten on with her life.  I don't know why that shocked me.  It shouldn't have.  I was happy for her!  I really was.  But at the same time, I was... jealous that her world went on without me.  I swallowed my anxiety and forced a telltale Velvet smile.

"Long time... I, uh.  I'm glad I found you.  I... I've been looking for a few months, since July.  But I..."

Maybe this was a bad idea...

"Who is this? A former patient?"

I shook my head and put my hand on my husbands arm, smiling a strained smile.

"Darling would you go make some tea? Velvet and I will be in the conservatory."

It was an uneasy silence between the two of us as we walked through the hallway, down the center of my house to the conservatory off the back of it. I had flowers in there, two comfortable chairs, and an array of bookcases filled with psychology volumes. Not that I had practiced in many years.

"Please, sit." I grimaced as I did the same. Just the two of us. What did she want, though?

I sat.  Nice house.  Nice life.  I noticed the ring on her finger and the ring on that man's finger too.  Married.  And a kid on the way.  Damn, why did that hurt so much...

"Seeing you in the real world is so weird," I laughed nervously. "Like... a dream or something." Like many dreams I'd had.

"What do you need, Velvet?" she asked me, but not with annoyance.  More curiosity.  Might as well get right to the point...

“I just wanted to say… I’m sorry.  I... I should have listened to you.  I thought I was helping.  I thought I was saving people.  I thought new was always better.  A new self, a new life.  But then I met this girl.  Audrey.  And she... she was an unusual case." Understatement of the decade.

"I wanted to wipe away all those people and start new, because it's so much easier to start over.  But Audrey helped me see that broken and damaged and dangerous people have value.  Maybe I didn't see value in them because I don't see any value in myself.  Or, I didn't.  I do now." I nodded, almost like I was trying to convince myself.

"I always thought my hypnosis was the best part of me.  That without it, I wasn't worth anything.  But I was wrong.  In all my years at Mt. Calibeen, I... I don't know if I've ever really helped anyone.  But Audrey and her girlfriend... I help them all the time.  Not with hypnosis, but just by being there and loving them and caring.  Like... like you did with me."

Ah, and here come the waterworks...

I watched her, and I listened to her, and I didn't frown or smile. How many people had been hurt due to her stubbornness? How many patients lives were adversely impacted because of her? The thing was.. I couldn't be mad at Velvet, and I figured that out years ago. So when she cried, I passed her a tissue box.

"I was the one who left, Velvet. I left you to your own devices, confused and lost, and wanting to make a difference. I was the one who happily used Marlow's techniques, his chemicals, and preached to you about the ends and the means. I can't fault you for what happened. I'm just glad you got out of there."

"I'm glad too," I laughed, dabbing my eyes with the tissue.  I had worked very hard on my makeup today - I wanted to look my best for Colette. "I guess we both didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into, huh?  But I'm glad I met you.  I'm glad I'm me."

"I'm happy to have met you, too, Velvet."

I had a lot of anger over the years, a lot of guilt, a lot of regret. But this moment right now, two functioning adults in the real world? I'd at least helped one person.

"Do you want to stay for dinner? I'm eating for two these days, I'm sure you noticed." I rubbed my tummy. "Me and Lil' Velvet here."

"You always were terrible at names," I laughed.  But I was flattered.  I thought maybe she had forgotten all about me, or that I was just another patient.  I never would have known I was so special to her, almost as special as she was to me.

"I can't stay though," I lamented. "The girls are expecting me home soon.  It took an hour just to work up the courage to knock on your door..." I smiled shyly. "But... maybe I could come back later this week?  I live only a few hours away.”

"That sounds nice. How about you bring them with you? Audrey and her girlfriend.  I could make mac and cheese, we could catch up?” I smiled.  She smiled too. It was a nice moment, a gentle reminder of how close we used to be.

"You're not in any trouble are you?"

"Nope.  For once, I think everything is as it should be.  No planning, no scheming, no elaborate hypno contrivance.  Honestly, life is almost too dull these days." Colette rolled her eyes and patted me on the top of the head.  The nostalgia nearly knocked me right off my feet.

"I'll... um.  I'll bring the girls.  And maybe Roger if he's not busy."

"Roger, huh?” I vaguely remembered that name; the man Velvet used to love.

I smiled shyly and rubbed the back of my head. “Yeah, it’s a long story.”

“You’ll have to tell it to me sometime.”

At the door, we said goodbyes.  Properly, this time.  And we hugged.  And I cried again, and I think even Colette cried a little.  At the very least, she was teary eyed.

On my way out of her house, I couldn't help but reflect on all the ways she had changed.  All the ways I had changed.  All my life, I'd been running from it.  I clung to a damaged, angry persona that disgusted me.  Then, I became someone else, someone so radically opposite that I couldn't see an ounce of myself within me.  I turned grown men into baby girls like darkness to light at the flick of a switch.

All my life I'd been too proud or too scared to change.  If it wasn't one way, it was the other.  But change is gradual.  It's little things.  It's growing and failing and learning.  It's freeing.  It's... fun.

For the first time, I wasn't scared or proud.  If anything, I was eager.  Tomorrow I'd be another Velvet, just as old and just as new, and I couldn't wait to get to know her.

[End.]

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Thank you so much for reading!!  Full PDF and ePub copies of Velvet (as well as our other stories) are available on our Patreon!   Please consider supporting us! ^_^ 

If you liked this story, check out 'Audrey & Staycee' and 'Lottie', the other two stories in the Calibeen saga, which are linked in the first post of this thread.

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36 minutes ago, Baby Billy said:

Thing I don't understand is I thought Audrey and Stacy came first than Lottie and the Velvet

Good question!  In release order, that is correct.  But that's not chronological order.

Lottie takes place around the middle of A&S (between Phase 1 and Reset). Though the final scene takes place AFTER the end of A&S.
Velvet is a prequel - it takes place a few years before A&S, except for the last chapter, which takes place AFTER A&S and Lottie.

If you want Velvet's experiences in order, you should read Velvet ch. 1-56, A&S Phase 1, Reset, Time Between, Phase 3, Phase 4, Redux (in that order), and finally Velvet ch.57.

Maybe I'll make a timeline?

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Well, that was quite the ride!

I'll be honest, I feel like this story lost a lot of steam in the 2nd half. Like, after Marlow was gone and we jumped to after phase zero, there wasn't any external conflict anymore. And without that the internal conflict just felt... like it had been dialed back about 4 notches. It's like an action movie where the villian is defeated in the middle of the movie and the remaining hour is just spent with the heroes tying up loose ends.

And I realize that you were at a bit of a disadvantage making a prequel story about an established character, since you don't have much freedom in determining how they end up. And perhaps I'd feel different if I had read A&S? But as it stands, that's my review.

1st half: 5/5 stars ☆☆☆☆☆

2nd half: 2/5 stars ☆☆

(Note that this scale is based around the average for YOUR stories. And even a sub-par S&P story is still leagues above almost everyone else. ♡) 

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57 minutes ago, Wannatripbaby said:

I'll be honest, I feel like this story lost a lot of steam in the 2nd half. Like, after Marlow was gone and we jumped to after phase zero, there wasn't any external conflict anymore.

To be perfectly honest, I never thought of Marlow as "conflict".  He was just sort of this... fly that buzzed around and annoyed people.  Velvet never even took him seriously until he did something insane, to which Velvet responded in kind.  He was nothing but a catalyst.

Though I agree the conflict was definitely different in the final third.  The fight was no longer Velvet's, but Colette's.  The true conflict of the Manhattan Project wasn't figuring out how to build a bomb; it was realizing afterward that they never should have.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it. ^_^ 

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2 hours ago, Sophie ♥ said:

Calibeen Timeline.png

There, I made one! ^_^ 

Great story and a satisfying ending. Not the sort of ambiguous conclusions that leave you sitting with your thoughts that I love, but I’ll be reading the others because I want to get down to business figuring out Velvet’s character.

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Good resolution. I disagree with WannaTrip; yes, Marlowe added tension to the story, but there was tension between Velvet and Colette and also within Velvet and within Colette.

As horrible, unethical and whatever else the Mt Calibeen experience was, there is a part of me that looks at the end results and thinks it wasn't so very bad after all. Instead of execution in some cases or life imprisonment, the 'graduates' of the program were free and productive individuals. Yes, this is a rather twisted and perverse view. I guess this view though is in part because as I read A&S I was going through my own gender struggle from which I've emerged as a woman who is happier in her life than ever before. But a perverse and sick way of achieving a goal that few if any except for the one mentioned as Velvet's 'first' wanted or would have selected if given the options knowing the details. 

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4 hours ago, Baby Billy said:

I went back to A&S and one question

The short answer to this question is that Lottie ends about 5 minutes after A&S.  If you want to talk more about it, feel free to PM me. ^_^ 

 

Thanks to everyone for reading and leaving comments! :D  This story was a huge project of ours for a long time and I'm just glad I can finally give you all a complete version.

 

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10 hours ago, Sophie ♥ said:

Though I agree the conflict was definitely different in the final third.  The fight was no longer Velvet's, but Colette's.  The true conflict of the Manhattan Project wasn't figuring out how to build a bomb; it was realizing afterward that they never should have.

Is this issue explored more in the other stories in this universe?

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1 hour ago, littleTomás said:

Is this issue explored more in the other stories in this universe?

Yes, absolutely.  A&S in particular is basically about the premise of "is this good or bad".  Without spoiling anything, it changes the narrative of "criminals get rehabilitated" to something a little more capitalistic, and really turns the whole trope on its head.  You get to see the things Calibeen does from a very different perspective.

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On 2/20/2020 at 9:11 PM, Wannatripbaby said:

I'll be honest, I feel like this story lost a lot of steam in the 2nd half. Like, after Marlow was gone and we jumped to after phase zero, there wasn't any external conflict anymore. And without that the internal conflict just felt... like it had been dialed back about 4 notches. It's like an action movie where the villian is defeated in the middle of the movie and the remaining hour is just spent with the heroes tying up loose ends.

I feel the same way about the second half, but for a different reason: it’s Velvet herself that stops to antagonise and just get driven by Colette. To me, Velvet ends up making a decision not in line with Colette just because also Colette goes through her own evolution and the first seeds she planted in Velvet were according to her old self.

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19 minutes ago, Bonsai said:

I feel the same way about the second half, but for a different reason: it’s Velvet herself that stops to antagonise and just get driven by Colette

I totally agree. I really should've focused more on that aspect with my comment than the Marlow thing. Because, as Sophie said, he wasn't *really* the antagonist. Just an obstacle. A nuisance. Velvet was her own Antagonist. But after Phase Zero, it was like all the fight had been taken out of her. She'd been completely reprogrammed, so there was no more dramatic tension regarding her transformation.

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