Subroutine Ch. 06

Instinctively, Harper's hand went for the mouse. She moved the cursor to the video icon, and then froze for a long moment. Then, with a wordless, frustrated cry, Harper stood up and started pacing the room. What the hell was she doing? She knew how dangerous this was, and yet she'd been just one click away from potentially dooming herself. Harper cursed herself for being so stupid. She was letting her fantasies get the better of her. As absurd as everything that had happened with Lori and her was, this was real. It wasn't a fantasy. She couldn't forget that just because her head was stuck in a weird place. She had to be more careful. She had to do better.

Given that, she should just walk away. Shouldn't she? She should walk out the door and do her best to forget about all the dumb ideas running through her head. Somehow, Harper couldn't bring herself to do that. The thing she wanted, the thing she was craving, was right there in front of her. Knowing that, and knowing it was too dangerous to take, was pure torture. But what if it wasn't too dangerous? Harper wracked her brains for a way to make it safe. It felt like the only way to get out of this dilemma.

After a couple of a torturous minutes, she came up with something. All she wanted was a taste of the feeling the spiral could give her. Just a taste, she promised herself. Something to take the edge off, maybe even something that would give her a better idea of what they were dealing with. The problem was, there was no way she would be able to snap herself out of trance after "just a taste". The spiral would have its teeth in her mind, and it would be able to do whatever it wanted with her. But what if she had a way of waking herself up? A sharp enough shock was clearly enough to snap her out of it. It was just like waking up each morning. So, maybe an alarm would work. One, normal alarm might not be enough, but Harper could easily set three or four if she needed to: one on Lori's PC, one on her phone, one on her watch, and one on the alarm clock she had beside her bed. Surely that would be enough.

Once she had that plan in mind, Harper didn't wait to weigh the pros and cons. She ran back to her own room, grabbed her alarm clock, and returned to sit in front of Lori's computer. She set the alarms. How long was too long? How long wouldn't be enough? Harper initially set the alarms for three minutes. That seemed safe enough. Clearly, it was smarter to start short and then slowly work her way up to longer and longer periods, if she needed. Not that she was going to do this again. That was the whole point: to get it out of her system once and for all. But if she was only going to do this once, she needed to make sure it worked. So, she re-set the alarms for five minutes. But when she thought about it a little more, five minutes seemed like hardly anything. Five minutes could pass in the blink of an eye. So, she re-set the alarms again, this time for seven minutes. Then, guiltily, she turned them up to eight.

With her alarms in place, she was ready. Harper realized there was now nothing stopping her. There was no reason to hold back. Even so, she hesitated. Was she really about to subject herself to brainwashing video voluntarily, just because she couldn't stop thinking about it? It seemed insane. Still, though, there was something urging her onward. Something she didn't understand, but couldn't deny. For what felt like forever, Harper was paralyzed by indecision, a painful knot of anxiety and anticipation growing and tightening inside her stomach. In the end, her body made the decision for her. With a slight twitch, she clicked the mouse and opened the video.

Blackness filled her screen, and Harper's breath caught in her throat as she experienced the most agonizing moment of anticipation yet, as she waited for the spiral to appear on the screen. When it did, an instant, soporific wave washed over her. It was quicker and more powerful than Harper had expected. All the tension she'd been holding in her body vanished, and her face relaxed into a vacant, happy smile. This was exactly what she'd needed. Why had she hesitated so much? Harper couldn't really remember. With her alarms, she was perfectly safe. This was perfectly safe. The spiral was perfectly safe. Armed with that knowledge, Harper happily slumped into her chair, and as the flashing numbers started to blink in and out of existence along the arms of the hypnotic spiral, she allowed her mind to slip away into blackness.

***

The next thing Harper knew, she was on her knees. She felt unsteady, like she'd just been suddenly thrown back into her own body. Her head was throbbing uncomfortably, keeping time with the buzzing and beeping of several different devices. Two of them were loud - her phone and her watch, Harper realized. The other two were more muted. They must be Lori's computer and Harper's alarm clock, which she'd left on Lori's desk. Why did they suddenly sound so muted and distant? Where the hell was she? Harper looked around. The room was spinning, almost as if the ghost of the spiral she'd been looking at was still hanging in the air in front of her. That thought made her shiver.

When the spinning faded and she was able to get her bearings, Harper realized she was in her own room again. She frowned. That was strange. She'd expected to wake up in the exact same spot she last remembered being in: sitting in Lori's chair in front of her computer. Had something happened? Had something gone wrong? The more Harper thought about it, the more she realized it must have been the brainwashing video that had made her do this. If anything had gone wrong, if there had been any kind of interruption, wouldn't she have simple woken up? But then, what was she doing on her knees? Harper thought about it for a moment before realizing that she was kneeling directly facing her bed, and that the comforter which usually draped over the sides of her bed had been tucked up a little. It looked like someone had been searching underneath her bed. It must have been her, while in trance.

But why would the brainwashing video have made her look under her bed? Harper had no idea. There was only one way to find out. Filled with trepidation, she stretched out one of her arms, reaching to explore the space under her bed. Her fingers touched something. It felt like a box. That was strange. Harper never stored anything underneath her bed. She managed to get a grip on it and start pulling it out. It wasn't too heavy. But when she saw it, her whole body went cold. She'd seen a box like this before. Awful, terrifying possibilities filled her mind. She wanted to throw it across the room, to scream, to run away, but she couldn't. She had to know for sure. Her hands trembling, she opened the box to reveal its contents. She froze. It was exactly what she'd expected, and exactly what she'd feared.

It was a latex bodysuit.