Subroutine Ch. 04

"Maybe it wasn't so random." Lori didn't want to admit she wasn't as sure of that as she'd been pretending. In truth, she'd said that just in the hopes of persuading Harper to fulfill her desire to be a drone for a time. But even aside from that, she couldn't help feeling as though there was something important about that first day that she was failing to remember.

"Only in computer science! Not... whatever the hell you'd call this."

"I guess," Lori admitted. "But... when I'm 7005, it feels a bit like I'm being programmed. Like I'm barely more than a computer. I don't know if there's a connection there, but there could be. And besides, we don't have anything more to go on, do we?"

"You're right," Harper said, and then started rubbing her temples. "I... I think I might have a headache or something. I'm gonna go lie down."

"OK." Lori looked at her roommate, concerned. "Let me know if you need anything, OK?"

"Yeah." Harper stood up and made to leave, but she turned back to Lori for a moment. "And Lori?" Harper warned. "Don't look at that spiral again. Maybe you can find a way to block the website, even. We need to make sure you're not brainwashed to look at it and re-condition yourself, or something."

"Right." Lori remembered what she'd said as 7005: that she activated automatically every week to perform her 'maintenance'. How long had that been going on for? Lori tried to look back to see if she had any blank spots in her memory, but there was nothing. "Yeah. I can do that."

"Good," said Harper, and left.

Once she was alone, Lori let out a long sigh. All of a sudden, she felt incredibly exhausted. She wanted to lie down and sleep. She somehow felt as though all of this, everything that had happened, was just a strange, bad dream, and maybe if she slept, she could wake herself up. At the very least, she could get away from it all for a moment. Lori stood up and started walking over to her bed, but the moment she did, she realized something: she was still wearing the latex bodysuit.

Instantly, she was filled with the urge to get out of it as quickly as possible. It unnerved her. She quickly unzipped it, slipped one arm out of it, and managed to free both her legs and her torso. She was left with it just hanging off of one arm, and she knew it would have been so easy for her to slip that off too, but something stopped her. She was struck by an impulse to run her latex-clad hand over her naked body, just to satisfy a stray sense of curiosity. She did so, and found herself exhaling sharply at the feeling. It was incredible. Touching herself with it felt different to wearing it. She'd never imagined it would feel so smooth. The feeling was strangely soothing. Lori perched on her bed and started tracing light, circular patterns up and down her torso, treating the arm part of the bodysuit like a glove while the rest of it rested limply beside her on the bed. It seemed easy and harmless for Lori to just close her eyes and drink in the sensation of the latex, letting it take the place of her anxiety. She couldn't help wondering how the latex would feel on other, more intimate parts of her body, and she didn't feel any need to resist that temptation. Lori found that she was already getting hard before she even touched herself, and once she started caressing her dick with her latex-covered fingers, it was no time at all until she was completely erect. She gasped when she finally wrapped her whole hand around her cock and started slowly stroking herself up and down. The smoothness of it felt so incredible.

Lori quickly realized, though, that she was finding her masturbation somewhat unsatisfying. It was missing something. She was craving something more. But what? It didn't take her long to figure it out. So that she could truly relax and clear her mind, she wanted that special, perfect, unbreachable calm that only being a drone could give her. Her experience with the spiral had left her wanting more. Was that a bad thing? Lori's first instinct was that it was, but she found that she couldn't exactly figure out why. It was getting harder and harder to think clearly, the faster and faster she stroked herself. Why was it bad, that she was craving the feeling the spiral had given her? She just wanted to relax. No-one could blame her for that, right?

Her craving was growing stronger and stronger by the moment, and Lori wondered if she could go to Harper and ask her to turn her into 7005 again. But no, she couldn't. Harper had said she wasn't feeling well, and she'd clearly been disturbed by what the spiral had done to them. There was no way her roommate would be willing, not right now. A small whine escaped Lori's lips. How was she going to be able to satisfy herself? As she opened her eyes and cast a needy eye around her room, the answer supplied itself. Her computer was right there. The spiral was right there. No. No way. She couldn't. Could she? It was such a bad idea. That was obvious. But Lori was struggling to care. It could be just this once, she thought to herself. She just needed it now, to get the feeling out of her head. Then she could delete the spiral and block the website. Just once. What could be the harm? She'd obviously been hypnotized by the spiral before, judging by 7005's comments. How could one more time be that bad?

Lori stood up, intending to pace about and think it out. Instead of pacing, she just drifting over to her computer. She sat down in front of it, and finally slipped off the latex completely. For a moment she considered putting it all the way back on, but she still felt too intimidated by that idea. She looked at her screen. She could see the spiral file. It was right there. Tempting her. Lori told herself she should calm down and take a moment to consider if this was really a good decision, but deep down she knew that her intense craving for that peaceful, blissful drone headspace had already made the decision for her. Lori spread her legs a little and started touching herself again. She was so hard and so sensitive, and she couldn't tell if it was from the anticipation of how pleasurable it was going to be, or because secretly the shame of giving her mind to the spiral excited her. It didn't matter. Once her hand was stroking her cock, all her willpower melted away. She opened the spiral video.

Blackness filled her screen again, and for a moment Lori stopped breathing as she waited for it to appear. The spiral. When it did, her whole reacted instantly, becoming loose and relaxed. It was such a catharsis. Ever since she'd managed to snap herself out of trance before, she'd been turning the memory over in her head, over and over again, trying to recapture what it had looked and felt like. The real thing was infinitely more vivid. A happy, blissed-out smile spread across Lori's face as she let her eyes settle on the center of the spiral. It was like everything else was just fading away, including her own mind and her own body. She was still lazily touching herself, but her pleasure didn't really matter. Nothing mattered except the spiral. The spiral was everything. It felt different, now that Lori was willingly giving herself to the spiral, instead of trying to resist. It was so much easier, and so much more pleasurable. Her mind was at complete peace. She realized that now, she could see the flickering numbers and words that made up the spiral right from the start. They had been there all along, just waiting for her to tune into them. Somehow that didn't surprise her. She also wasn't surprised when, just like before, she felt herself being pulled into the spiral, and at the same time, she felt the spiral's programming entering her mind, assimilating her, making her robotic and obedient. The feeling was still cold and machine-like, but it didn't feel alien anymore. It felt comforting. There was such purity to it. Such simplicity. A machine followed its programming. So easy. So purposeful. So simple. So right. So right, to just obey. That was the only thought left in Lori's mind as she let the spiral drown her in hypnotic bliss.

But at the very last moment before she slipped out of consciousness and into a mindless drone state, something distracted her. Lori's face twitched. She was almost annoyed by it. She'd been so close to that wonderful feeling. She found she could look away from the spiral, and saw that a small chat alert had appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen. Someone was messaging her, using her college's internal direct messaging service. She wasn't sure how it had managed to cut through the spiral's hypnotic power so effectively, but she immediately noticed there was something strange about it. The alert said "New message from #0001". Unthinkingly, Lori clicked the alert, and a chat window appeared in the middle of her screen.

"Are you having fun with my spiral, #7005?" the message read.

Lori froze. What the fuck? Who was #0001? How did they know? What did they mean by 'my spiral'? Were they the one who was responsible for all of this? Lori had a million questions all racing through her slow, disoriented mind, and she had no idea how she was meant to reply. But it didn't matter, because a moment later, another message appeared:

"Would you like another?"

Lori's fingertips hung in the air above her keyboard, suspended uncertainly. She wanted to yell. She wanted to scream. She wanted to demand answers. She wanted to say 'no'. She wanted to say 'yes'. Again, it didn't matter. Before she could reply, another message appeared from #0001 in the chat window. This one didn't say anything, but instead was a link to another dropbox page. Just Lori wrapped her head around the implications of that, one last message appeared:

"Enjoy."

Lori didn't know what to do, but it almost felt as though she didn't have a choice. Slowly, almost as though she was underwater, Lori found herself clicking the link and downloading the video file it provided her with. As it downloaded, her alertness to danger was at war with her insatiable curiosity about what this new spiral might contain. She told herself she shouldn't watch it, but when the download was complete she opened it up without even hesitating.

A few moments later, her screen was once again filled with a huge, spinning, black and white spiral. Superficially, it was the same as the previous one, but Lori sensed there was something different about it. She wasn't sure how, but she could tell that the flickering lines of code that appeared all over it were different. That was enough, for Lori, to make it feel like a new experience. Her reaction to it was automatic. She slumped back into her chair again, and let her eyes settle into the center of the spiral. She didn't really mean to, but it felt so natural. So right. Her vague, weak thoughts of resistance faded away into nothing. She was just too tired. Too overwhelmed. All she wanted was to give in and stop thinking. The spiral could offer her that. She knew it could. She could sense it. She was right on the edge of it, and all she had to do was let herself tumble down, deep into the spiral, until there was nothing but the spiral and the programming it was placing inside her head. Nothing but the spiral. Nothing...

***

Some time later, 7005 awoke. It sat straight in its chair and brought its legs together, folding its hands in its lap. Adopting that stiff, upright posture, the drone allowed itself to process everything that had happened. It understood perfectly, and its whole body was humming with pleasurable satisfaction. It had received new instructions. New programming from the Administrator. 7005 was incapable of feeling, but if it had been capable it would have been feeling something close to excitement as it carefully made sure that all traces of what had transpired were deleted and hidden. It knew how to be a good drone. It knew what it was supposed to do next.

It would convert Lori's friends.

Once everything was as it should be, 7005 slumped back into the chair again and allowed Lori to take control. Lori awoke much slower than 7005 had done, stretching awkwardly and rubbing her bleary eyes. What had happened? She'd given in to temptation and watching the maintenance spiral again, and... that was it. Wasn't it? Lori had the vague memory of receiving a chat message from someone, but when she checked, there were no new or unusual messages. It must have just been a dream. Once she dismissed that thought, she realized she was still naked. She got up from her chair and started putting some clothes on. Wait, had she left the latex suit out? No, when she checked it was right there, folded carefully under her bed. Weird. Lori couldn't really be bothered to think about it, though. As unwise as she knew it was to watch the spiral like that, it had left her feeling energized to the point of restlessness. She needed to get out. She needed to do something. She needed to see people - people besides her roommate and her professors. It was an unusual urge for someone as introverted as her, but she was now feeling it very strongly. Yes. A visit to a friend was exactly what she'd needed. It had been far too long since she'd hung out with her friend Sally, for example.

And somehow, Lori couldn't escape the feeling that if she did go and hang out with Sally, something important might happen.