The storm shelter itself was little more than a fortified auditorium built to protect against hurricane force winds with supplies to last a week or two, and had several beds in the corner where I had first woke up. I walked over to one of the controlled faces. An older man in his 50s that was staring slack jawed at the wall. He didn’t notice I came up to him but did shift his eyes when I sat in front of him.

“All you have to do is-“ Cindybot started.

“I know. It’s been screaming at me to do it. It feels like when your starving and someone sets out a twelve course meal in front of you. It always wants to be used. It feels…wrong,” I told Cindybot.

“That’s weird. It’s uh, usually not like that per my records, but ok creep. You need an activation command for it, I’ll register it now,” Cindybot said while pulsing blue.

“This isn’t mine. I don’t plan on controlling them forever. I just want to borrow them for a bit until you can do something else with it. Umm, “Tap” would be a good word for it,” I said after some consideration. I am just going to tap some of their will, or whatever Cindybot needed for this next command.

The AI bot glowed green briefly and gave a chime afterwards.

“Use when ready,” it replied after a moment.

Then it was like I finally understood what the random "installation" earlier was for. They installed some type of insatiable parasite in my head and it was always wanting to feed on others. It felt like when you had too much sugar as a kid and the needed to release the demon before you made your mom drink or smoke more.

“Tap,” I whispered and slightly let go of the mind beast’s hunger. I could feel it leaving me and lunged at the man, like a wolf overtaking its prey, and the flimsy remaining control the alien had kept on him fell apart. The beast within greedily begged me for more, still insatiable. I realized that “Tap” was probably just the first step. This could go much further.

The man started to cry uncontrollably once he was free from the alien's will.

“It’s not enough to count. You need to go all in,” Cindybot told me quietly.

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“It feels wrong. You don’t get it,” I told it as I helped the crying man sit down.

“No you idiot. You don’t. He’s been through some shit. All of these people have. You have to commit to this and go all in,” Cindybot said.

“Here stop crying it’s ok. What’s your name?” I asked the man and sat next to him, ignoring Cindybot.

The man immediately stopped crying.

“I….i don’t get it I want to keep crying. What are you doing?” He asked me. The man was shaking in fear and backed away from me a bit.

“No no I’m not doing…well,” I tried to explain.

“You’re a monster too. You’re like the red one above,” he whispered frightened. He tried to run away but by this point he was too weak to resist the beast’s simple Tap command.

“Look stop just listen, I’m human just like you. It’s…impossible to explain right now,” I said while closing my eyes. "Some aliens fucked me up especially is all I can say."

The man did stop completely. It was like he would obey my every command. But involuntarily. This was just the first step of tap and he was horrified of me.

“You shouldn’t let him keep speaking,” Cindybot said softly.

“Just go to the bathroom in the back, and grab some of the chips and water from the vending machines. I already opened them up,” I told him.

The older man whimpered but walked away.

“Fuck what was that,” I whispered to myself.

“That was you half-assing your challenge. You think Tom is holding hands and playing dress up with his legion? I can’t believe you’re still like this,” Cindybot replied.

It went on but he wasn’t paying attention to the AI. For some reason he could somehow feel Hale as he moved toward the vending machines and opened the bag of lays chips. Hale? He knew the man’s name. This was all from the Tap skill? How much further could this skill go? What else could he glean from it?

“Ugh you’re making that one goofy ass face so I know you’re not even paying attention,” Cindybot said eventually.

I turned towards the red ball and sighed.

“Like you, real Cindy hated that I was nicer than I needed to be. I don’t think I’m that nice. Just cautious. I usually just want to be sure of what I’m doing, and so I like to step gingerly into any situation when it comes to affecting other people. I may fool around a lot but I’m a psychology major and have been a server since I was 16. If there is anything I know, it’s people, and I want to understand what I’m doing to them with this power” I told the AI.

“Let’s go to the next person, I’ll push a little further this time. You better go invisible so you don’t freak them out even more. I think the other AI scared them.”

“Oh Rijohe’s AI. Yeah, its technically like my parent in your terms. But I don’t think I like them very much,” Cindybot said and disappeared.

The next controlled was an older Hispanic woman with a stern look on her face. She looks a lot like my aunt I thought randomly.

“Tap,” I let the beast out a little more this time. It gleefully overtook the prior control over the woman and then some. It felt wrong to restrain it from completely overtaking her.

“Hi Sonia, can you join Hale and get something to eat and drink at the vending machines?” I asked her once I could tame the beast’s hunger. It felt like it wanted to take everything from her. This was a dangerous fucking power, no wonder Tom is going hog wild with it.