Subroutine Ch. 07

As Harper looked down in horror at the latex bodysuit she held in her hands, she couldn't move a muscle. She couldn't think. She couldn't even breath. Everything froze, and her mind raced uselessly as she tried and failed to grapple with the immense implications of what she'd discovered. It didn't feel real. It couldn't be real. Could it? Harper wished she could pinch herself and wake up, like it was just a bad dream. Maybe it was. Maybe there was some other totally innocent explanation. Maybe it was a bad joke. It had to be. It had to be anything except what it was. That hopelessly naive belief was the only thing keeping her from the edge.

Then time started moving again, and her heart started beating again, and all Harper felt was rage. The latex bodysuit could only mean one thing. Someone had done something to her, or was planning on doing it. Probably, the same thing they'd done to Lori. How dare they? Harper had never felt so violated. She found herself clenching the latex in a violently tight grip. They would pay. Whoever it was, they would pay. Harper would make sure of that. There was no way she was going to let them get away with this. Maybe if she got to them in time, she could stop them getting in to her head. That was what she needed to be afraid of, she knew. But what if they were already in her head? How long had the bodysuit been there, under her bed?

Harper had no idea. For all she knew, she'd already been dronified and just wasn't aware of it. The possibility was terrifying. It explained why the spiral she'd seen with Lori might have had such an effect on her. Perhaps her mind had already been conditioned to be susceptible. Maybe that was why she'd succumbed to temptation so easily, just a few minutes before. Harper cursed herself for being so weak. But if that was the case, wasn't her situation already hopeless? No, it couldn't be. Harper refused to give in despair. There had to be something she could do. There had to be. She could throw out the bodysuit. She could cut it to shreds. She could burn it. What else? Maybe she could figure out a way to de-program herself. If all else failed, she could run. Get away from this insane nightmare she and Lori had found themselves in. Anything, to keep herself safe.

But, Harper asked herself, was there really any point? There was no use pretending her mind was still fully her own. It wasn't like the bodysuit had made its way under her bed on its own. Sure, maybe someone had broken in and hid it there, but it seemed far more likely that someone had already been messing with Harper's head. And if that was the case, how could she possibly hope to escape from it? Whatever she tried, there could be some piece of brainwashing that stopped her doing it. Whatever she was thinking could be thoughts implanted by someone else. Maybe if she tried to run or fight or hide, something inside her would trigger and make sure it didn't work.

Harper wanted to cry. She couldn't even trust her own brain. Between the evidence of the bodysuit and what had happened to her with the spiral earlier, she no longer had any doubt about that. It was so unfair. All the adrenaline-fueled energy that had filled her mere moments ago was draining away, and was being replaced by a sense of utter vulnerability and hopelessness. In an act of petty protest, Harper threw the latex bodysuit she'd found as far across the room as she could. Then, when she looked up at it, crumpled in a heap on the floor, tears started to well up in her eyes.

"Harper?"

Harper abruptly looked up towards the door of her bedroom to see that it was open, and her roommate Lori was standing in the doorway. "H-hey Lori," she replied shakily.

"Oh!" Lori paled slightly. She looked embarrassed to have walked in on Harper like that. "I... I'm sorry, I should have knocked, I was just, um... I was gonna ask if you wanted to get food."

From the look on Lori's face, Harper figured she must look like a complete mess. That wasn't a surprise. She normally would have felt embarrassed to let Lori see her like that, but she was too overwhelmed to care. She did, though, feel a sudden need to hide what she'd discovered. She knew she should probably show Lori, but somehow she felt like doing that would make it real. Showing Lori would also probably mean admitting that she'd used Lori's computer to look at a brainwashing spiral. Harper certainly didn't relish that prospect. She'd been hoping she'd be through with everything before Lori returned home, although in retrospect she wondered if she'd just been fooling herself. The previous evening, Lori had gone to visit a friend of hers, Sally, and had ended up sleeping over. Harper hadn't been expecting her back until later, although she really had no idea how long she'd spent kneeling on the ground staring in disbelief at her horrifying discovery. She hadn't even heard Lori opening the front door, like she normally did. Harper had no idea if that was because she'd been hypnotized, or if it was because of the way finding the latex bodysuit had made her heart pound so hard she'd been unable to hear anything else.

"Um..." Lori moved a little way into the room. "Harper, are you OK?"

Harper swallowed her pride. "I... found something."

The look of concern on Lori's face deepened. "Yeah?"

"It's... uh..." Harper realized she couldn't bring herself to say it, so instead she just raised one hand and pointed at the latex bodysuit, still lying on the floor on the far side of the room.

"Huh?" Lori said, spotting it. "Why do you have my-" Her voice cut off suddenly and her eyes widened as she saw the small box, half-pulled out from under Harper's bed, and all the pieces snapped into place. Her hand went to her mouth. "Oh my god."

"Yeah," Harper said, after a long pause.

"B-but how?" Lori seemed equal parts bewildered and panicked. "Harper, how did you find this?"

"I... it's a long story." Harper couldn't quite bring herself to confess everything straight away.

"So, do you know... I mean... does this mean... do you think?" Lori stammered.

"What else could it mean?" Harper replied flatly.

"Oh my god," Lori repeated breathlessly. Then, to Harper's surprise, she rushed to her side, knelt on the floor, and threw her arms around her shoulders. Harper stiffened for a moment, before relaxing into the hug. "I'm so sorry, you must be terrified."

After a long pause, Harper nodded. "Little bit," she admitted.

"I get it," Lori soothed. "Probably no-one else in the whole world does, but I do."

Harper said nothing. She was shocked at how easy it was to lean in to Lori's embrace, and at how comforting her roommate's presence was. Earlier, when she'd been freaking out, she realized she'd forgotten something important: she wasn't alone. Lori holding her was the perfect reminder of that. It didn't come naturally to her, but Harper allowed herself to be held for a little while.

"It's going to be OK," Lori whispered.

"I just... I don't know how this could have happened," Harper said eventually.

"I don't know either," Lori replied. "But we'll deal with it."

"Yeah." Maybe Lori was right, Harper considered. Maybe they could deal with it. "Yeah!"

Lori pulled away from her. She sounded more upbeat, but she didn't look any less concerned. "You sound better."

"Lori." Harper gripped her roommate by the shoulders. "We have to do something."

"Do... what?" Lori seemed alarmed by Harper's sudden, intense enthusiasm for action, but Harper ignored her reaction.

"Don't you see? You were right all along. We can't keep sitting on this." Harper felt suddenly energized. She could barely sit still. "We can confront them. Expose them. Tell someone. Hell, tell everyone! Why not?"

"D-didn't we agree not to do that?" Lori asked, confused.

"Forget about that!" Harper didn't understand why Lori seemed to reluctant. "Look. We gotta do something, right? So far, we've been trying to be all discreet about it, and it's getting us nowhere. For all we know, things are getting worse! We need to change tactics. Go loud. Make some noise. We don't have time to wait around any longer!"

Lori just stared at her for a moment, her lips pursed. "Maybe we should talk about this later."

"No!" Irritation was creeping into Harper's voice. "Don't you see that's exactly our problem? We need to start doing something! I mean, I'm not saying we should just rush in without a plan, obviously. I'm just saying whatever we do, we need to start as soon as possible. Tonight, even. We should be talking about this right now."

Another pause followed, with Lori staring at Harper with a mixed, hard-to-read expression on her face. "I... don't really know how to say this. Um... don't you think you might be kinda... overreacting?"

Harper blinked. She couldn't believe what she'd just heard. "Overreacting?" she repeated incredulously.

"I don't mean it like that!" Lori clearly sensed that she'd said something wrong. "I just mean like... I mean, obviously you're scared. I understand that. I just think, yknow, maybe right now you're not quite... um... I mean, what you're saying is a pretty big d-"

"How can you say that?" Harper roared. She let more anger into her voice than she intended, but after everything that had happened she simply couldn't control herself.

"Harper, please, calm down," Lori pleaded.

"How the hell do you expect me to calm down?" Harper demanded. "How the fuck could I be calm about this? Someone's in my head, Lori!"

"Yeah. I know." There was a sudden edge to Lori's voice that made Harper pause. "I really, really know. Look, just answer me this: has anything bad happened to me, since we found out about... about 7005?"

Harper thought for a moment. "I guess not," she answered guardedly.

"Exactly." Lori took a deep breath. "I've been thinking that maybe all this just isn't such a big deal."

"What?" Harper's mouth hung open. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "How can you say that?"

"Well, if nothing bad's happened..."

"Yeah," Harper snorted. "Nothing except finding out you have a code-word that turns you into a mindless drone?" She could have sworn she saw Lori shiver momentarily at that. "Lori, just think what could happen if... if someone took advantage of that." Her voice faltered for a moment as her head filled with guilty memories of the times she'd done exactly that.

"I'm just saying!" Lori continued. Harper was surprised to see her normally-timid roommate being so firm about this, of all topics. "We still don't know what this really is, and all along we've been assuming it's something malicious, but maybe it's not. It's been weeks. Wouldn't you have expected something bad to happen at this point?"

Harper just shook her head, but Lori wasn't to be dissuaded.

"And... well... there's been some upsides too." Lori was starting to blush, but she was still looking Harper dead in the eyes. "Like... like when you helped me use it to relax and blow off steam. That really helped, to be honest."

"What the fuck?" Harper recoiled away from Lori, deeply alarmed. "You can't be serious. How can you say that someone violating your mind is a big deal just because it lets you relax a little bit sometimes?" Harper's eyes went wide as she hit upon a disturbing idea. "Lori, don't you see? Maybe that's exactly what they want? Maybe this their plan - to make it addictive. To make us crave it. Brainwash us into thinking it's 'no big deal'.

"Harper, stop!" Lori exclaimed. "We don't even know who 'they' are!"

Harper ignored her. She was too busy staring deep into Lori's eyes, searching desperately for any sign of that glazed, blank look she'd seen so many times, whenever she'd activated 7005. Maybe there was something. Maybe there wasn't. She couldn't be sure. She wasn't even sure what she was hoping for. If Lori was being brainwashed to make her want this, maybe the same thing was happening to her. The idea was terrifying, but it was also just a little bit of a relief. Maybe that was why Harper had done what she'd done to Lori. Maybe it wasn't her fault.

Lori took a deep breath, attempting to recover her composure. "Look. All I'm saying is, you're scared, and that's OK, but we really don't want to rush into doing anything reckless. Hopefully we can agree on that, at least? And maybe, once you're feeling a little calmer, you won't see this as such a big deal. Just give it a try. Take some deep breaths, maybe let me get you some tea. Who knows? Maybe you'll even start enjoying it a little bit too."

Harper's muscles tensed. She wasn't sure if it was the look in Lori's eyes or the slightly dreamy, tempting note in her voice, but her instincts were screaming at her that something was very, very wrong. "Stop! Lori, stop! Maybe you're somehow OK with all of this, but I'm not. I'm going to do something about it. You're either with me or you're not, but you can't stop me."

Lori's whole demeanor suddenly flipped, her eyes shining with anger. "Oh yeah? And where was all this determination when I was the one who wanted to take action, huh? I seem to recall you telling me to sit tight and not do anything crazy - exactly what I'm telling you now. But I guess it's different when it's happening to you, huh?"

"What?" Harper's heart skipped a beat. She felt completely disarmed. She hadn't expected Lori to throw that in her face like that. "N-no, it's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" Lori pressed insistently. "Do you really care about me so much less than you care about yourself? Are you that selfish? Or when it was me, was it just a fun little curiosity?"

"No, no!" Harper felt suddenly nauseous.

"Or maybe you were enjoying it?" Harper's nausea doubled at Lori's accusation. Did she know? She tried as hard as she could to keep her surprise off her face, and failed completely. At the same time, Lori was just growing bolder and bolder. "Was that really it? Wow. You liked getting to poke around in my head? You liked it when I asked you to help me relax? You liked getting to tell me what to do? No wonder you didn't want me doing anything to disrupt that. That's pretty fucking messed up, Harper."

"Beta-7005!" Harper cried out. The instant the command word left her lips, her hands flew to her mouth. She hadn't wanted to say that. She hadn't meant to. It had just slipped out. But that one, momentary lapse was all it took. Lori's mouth closed and she sat back, all the anger and emotion draining from her face. The sight of it made Harper shiver ominously. She clutched her head, nursing a burgeoning headache. She just needed a moment to think. That was all. Between the bodysuit and everything Lori had been saying to her, she'd quite simply been overwhelmed.

But what now? She knew the moment she woke Lori up, they'd go right back to arguing. In fact, after the way she'd just used Lori's trigger word, it was sure to be even worse than before. Harper wasn't sure she could handle that. Even though Lori was no longer yelling at her, Harper's heart was beating faster with each passing moment. What was she going to do? What was she going to do about Lori? What was she going to do about the bodysuit, and everything it implied? What was she going to do about everything? Even now that she was lost to a hypnotic trance, Lori's blank eyes seemed to stare accusingly at Harper, reminding her of everything she'd done to her innocent roommate. Harper was having to fight to suppress a scream. It was a struggle for her to force herself to take deep breaths, and even that was barely enough to keep her from panicking. What was she going to do? The question flashed ceaselessly through her mind.

"Should this unit prepare itself for service?"

The question, spoken in 7005's characteristically emotionless, robotic tone of voice, was enough to break Harper out of her anxious reverie. She looked at the drone, who had adopted a kneeling position. Its eyes, utterly without feeling, were still somehow expectant. Harper froze. What was she supposed? What could she say? Did it even matter? What was one more sin, at that point?

"Y-yes," Harper replied eventually. More than anything, it was to get 7005 out of the room for a few moments. She needed a moment alone, to catch her breath. At least, that was what she told herself.

"Command accepted," 7005 intoned. The brainwashed drone rose to its feet in a single, smooth movement, and turned to walk out of Harper's bedroom. Once she was out of sight, Harper sighed with relief. Maybe now she would finally have a chance to think.

But minutes passed in what felt like mere moments, and in no time at all Harper heard the sound of approaching footsteps. A few moments later, 7005 reappeared in the doorway. This time, the drone was clad head to foot in black, shiny latex, complete with its featureless, alien-looking mask. The sight of it always gave Harper chills, but this time they were stronger than ever as she was forcefully reminded that she, now, was in possession of one of those latex suits. What did she look like in it?

"This unit is ready for service," 7005 said as it knelt on the floor in just the same position it had been in before.

At that moment, Harper's threadbare willpower snapped. She lunged forward, throwing her whole weight against the latex-clad drone's body. 7005 rocked slightly on her knees, but otherwise registered no surprise. Harper buried her face in 7005's neck, and wrapped her arms around its body. She needed touch. Contact. She needed to feel someone's body against hers. Anything to distract herself. She knew what she was doing to Lori was wrong, but she couldn't bring herself to care. What did taking advantage of her one more time matter? She could just alter Lori's memory, like she'd done before. Deep in the back of her head she felt unbelievably guilty for violating Lori's free will the way someone had likely violated hers, but the voice of her conscience was drowned out by her need for some sort of comfort, however twisted. Sure enough, as her hands started to stray across 7005's body, enjoying its smooth latex skin and toying with its alluring curves, Harper's body started to fill with needy heat. She welcomed it. It was the only thing she'd felt except awful that entire day. The more aroused she became, the easier it was to stop caring about anything else. Harper kissed 7005's neck as her hands worked around the swell of the drones breasts. Even after all this time, her fascination with the smooth, shiny, alien quality of the latex hadn't diminished. She wanted nothing more than to sink her teeth and fingers into it, and to touch every square inch of it.

Yet, it wasn't enough. It wasn't what Harper needed. It was still too painful, and too anxious. Harper slumped backwards in despair. If even using 7005 wasn't enough to satisfy her and calm her, what was she supposed to do? She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep, but she wanted nothing more than to switch her brain off for a while. Suddenly, she was unpleasantly reminded of what Lori had said to her just few minutes earlier, about how being 7005 had helped her relax and about how she might learn to appreciate it too. What if she was right? As much as Harper hated that thought, it continued to grow and grow on her. She thought about the ways Lori had described her experiences. It sounded so blissful.

"Stand up," Harper ordered impulsively.

"Command accepted." 7005 rose effortlessly to its feet.

"I... I..." Harper's words caught in her throat, but she pushed through it. What did she really have to lose? "I need you to tell me what to do."

7005 said nothing, and just stood in front of her impassively.

"Um..." Harper realized she needed to give 7005 a command. As she tried to think of one, she found herself shivering with eager anticipation. She wanted this, and now that she had already taken the first steps to admitting it, it was so much easier to keep going. "T-tell me to kneel.