Subroutine Ch. 08

Madison was practically jumping up and down as she stood on the porch to her friend Sally's place, her light brown ringlet curls bouncing freely as she bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, as she waited for Sally to answer the door. She just couldn't help it - she was so excited. For the first time in what felt like forever, She was meeting back up with Lori, Sally and Jae to hang out for an evening. It felt like getting the band back together. From what Sally had said on the phone they weren't planning anything special, just a movie night. But it still felt special. They'd all been as thick as thieves once upon a time, but in recent months the various stresses and pressures of college had been pulling them apart and making it harder and harder for them to spend time together the way they'd used to. So, as mundane as it was on the surface, to Madison a night of catching up with each other as they talked over a bad movie sounded absolutely perfect.

After a few moments, the door swung open to reveal Sally. "Hi!" Madison said, waving eagerly in greeting. The smile fell from her face, however, when Sally simply stared at her, blank and unsmiling. "Sally?"

An instant later, Sally blinked, and a look of warmth spread across her features. "Madison, hey! So good to see you!"

Madison squinted at her pointedly. "Are... you OK?"

"Of course," Sally said calmly, still smiling. "I must have just spaced out for a moment, sorry. Please, come on in!"

Madison stepped across the threshold, and she and Sally hugged. Standing just behind her was Lori, and Madison turned to give her a hug too. Lori was smiling at her, just like Sally, but Madison's smile wavered at the sight of the two of them. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something about them that she found disconcerting. It was something in their smiles. Madison quickly decided to brush aside the feeling, however. She wasn't going to let herself ruin the night just because she was having a weird feeling.

"You look great," said Lori, still smiling. "New look?"

"What? Oh... I guess," Madison answered. She normally wore skirts and dresses, but for their movie night she'd opted to try out something a little different: blue denim dungarees and a simple white t-shirt. She was trying a new shade of lipstick too - warm brown, to compliment her dark skin. Madison was barely conscious of that as she answered, though. She was too focused on Lori. Her sense that something was strange was proving to be difficult to dismiss. What was it? Her clothes? Her hair? Madison couldn't help feeling like it was something in her face, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "You both look great too."

"Thank you," Lori replied. Sally just nodded and smiled.

"Is Jae here yet?" Madison asked, looking around for any sign of her other friend. "I've been looking forward to seeing them."

"No," Sally answered. "They messaged me. Unfortunately, they can't make it. They said they're busy with work." Sally was still smiling.

"Oh." Madison's good mood almost completely evaporated. Somehow, if it wasn't going to be all of them, it felt like the evening was ruined. Her disappointment must have shown on her face, because Lori reached out a hand to rub her shoulder soothingly. Madison forced a smile. She tried to tell herself that even if it was just the three of them, they could still have a good time. Between Jae's absence and whatever was bothering her about Lori and Sally, though, Madison was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"Come on," Sally said, beckoning Madison further into her apartment. "In here."

Madison followed Sally through the door into her spacious front room. Sally sat down on her couch at the far end, and gestured for Madison to sit next to her, which she did. Lori sat on her other side, leaving Madison sandwiched between her two friends. Normally that wouldn't have bothered her, but this time was different. Madison had finally managed to pinpoint something that was bothering her. Normally, whenever she was at home, Sally spread out as much as she possibly could. She would lie splayed out across her couch or folded awkwardly over the arms of a chair, taking up as much space as two people all on her own. Now, she was sat incredibly neatly, with her legs together in front of her and both feet resting flat on the floor. For Sally, it was a strangely stiff and unnatural posture. Madison shook her head rapidly for a moment. What was she doing? Why was she letting meaningless details like the way Sally was sitting get to her?

"We're all here," Lori announced. "Shall we get the movie started?"

"Already?" Madison replied, a little surprised. She'd been expecting they'd sit around and talk for longer, having fun catching up and joking around. They'd barely said two words to each other. But, she supposed, they would probably end up talking over the movie. "Well, OK. What do you wanna watch? I've got Netflix if you wanna browse."

"No, thank you," Sally replied smoothly. Madison turned her head to look at her. "We've already got something picked out."

"Oh?" That was yet another piece of strangeness. Usually, picking out the movie was part of their movie night ritual. "What?" Madison asked.

"It's called 'Indoctrination'," Lori answered. Madison turned back to look at her.

"That's kind of a weird name." Things just kept getting stranger and stranger, and it was making Madison even more puzzled. If only she could figure out what it was about her friends that was bothering her so much. It wasn't just the way Sally was sitting, she'd decided. It was something else. Something more. "Don't think I've ever heard of it before. What's it about?"

"That's a bit difficult to explain," Sally said, forcing Madison to turn her head once again. She was still smiling calmly. "It's kind of experimental. But I've been assured, it's utterly engrossing."

"Well... OK then, if it's meant to be so good." In truth, Madison was starting to feel as though she didn't really want to stay. Everything felt wrong. It was like she'd stepped into some kind of weird alternate dimension. But she forcibly reminded herself that these were still her friends. Still Lori and Sally. Perhaps they'd changed a little, but there was no reason to be alarmed. Maybe they were just really excited to watch this Indoctrination movie. "What about snacks? You get anything good? Did you make the popcorn yet?"

"Oh, no," Lori replied smoothly. "We didn't get any."

"No... popcorn?" Madison repeated, incredulously. Sally confirmed it with a nod. That felt like another, even bigger warning sign. There was no way the Sally she knew would host a movie night without popcorn.

"Let's get started," Sally said, reaching for the remote to her big TV, mounted on the wall opposite the couch.

"Wait!" Madison felt a sudden unwillingness to let her start the movie. Everything felt like it was happening too fast. Unnaturally fast. She needed a few minutes to figure things out and let her emotions settle.

"What is it?" Lori asked. She and Sally both looked at her at once. Madison suddenly become conscious of the fact that from their perspective, she was probably the one who was acting really weird.

"Um..." Madison found herself struggling to think of an excuse. "How about I go check in your kitchen? Maybe you do have some snacks somewhere."

"We don't," Sally said with surprising firmness, although the expression on her face was still almost disturbingly serene. "I already checked."

"Oh," Madison responded feebly. "Um... I think I heard something outside. A weird noise. Maybe I should go check it out."

"I don't think that's necessary," Lori replied. "What's the matter, Madison? Don't you want to watch Indoctrination with us?" Strangely, Lori didn't sound particular hurt or upset.

"No!" Madison insisted quickly. Lori sounded fine, but the last thing Madison wanted was to hurt her friend's feelings. "No, of course I do. I'm just... never mind."

"So, can we get started?" Sally pressed. With her on one side of her and Lori on the other, Madison was feeling distinctly squeezed in.

"Sure." Madison sighed. She couldn't think of any excuse that wouldn't make her sound crazy. Maybe she was being crazy. She was letting a few weird, niggling anxieties ruin her night. Just because Jae wasn't there, didn't mean they couldn't have a good time. She would just have to do her best to focus on the movie.

"Perfect. Lori, get the lights." Sally reached for the remote again. As she hit the play button, Madison realized what it was that she'd found so disconcerting about her friends. They were smiling the same smile. It was like the exact same facial expression had been transplanted from one of them onto the other. Instinctively, Madison knew that something was deeply wrong. She couldn't articulate why, but she was gripped with the powerful, irresistible sense that there was something utterly unnatural going on.

But then the television screen flickered into life, and that thought was driven completely out of Madison's mind. For a brief instant, the text 'Indoctrination Session #01 Mark 4' appeared on the screen, in simple block letters. Then it vanished, and the screen filled with numbers. Nothing but long strings of meaningless digits, stark white against a black background, flickering and alternating several times a second. It reminded Madison a little of the Matrix, but she found these numbers weirdly fascinating. It was like she couldn't look away. She couldn't even remember the thought that had seemed to matter so much just seconds before. It was like there was a pattern hidden in the numbers. She was almost certain it was there, screaming at her that she could figure it out if only she stared hard enough. To Madison, it was similar to all the times she could remember trying to figure out the name of a song from nothing more than a single lyric or set of notes, stuck replaying in her head over and over. She couldn't just stop. Not until she had the answer. So, she stared and stared, and was filled with a surprising amount of joy when the flickering of the numbers on the screen seemed to resolve itself into a distinct shape.

A spiral.

A great, black-and-white spiral, spinning before Madison's eyes. It dominated the screen, and it seemed to dominate the room beyond that. Madison was unable to peel her gaze away from the screen, but she was vaguely aware of Lori standing up and moving over to the door, and hitting the light switch. When the ceiling light switch off, the effect of the spiral's compulsion became ten times as powerful. Its flickering light illuminated every object and surface, rendering everything strange and distorted. Moreover, it felt to Madison like the spiral was growing, right before its eyes. Its white tendrils seemed to extend beyond the boundaries of the screen, creeping across the walls and the floor. A sense of horror started to dawn on Madison's rapidly-disappearing mind as she began to feel as though she, too, was beginning to be devoured by the spiral. She couldn't look away from it to break the illusion or see what was really going on, but in her mind's eye, the image of the spiral beginning to reach her, touching her feet and then spreading up her body, was irresistibly vivid. Madison felt herself start to panic. She knew somehow that she needed to run, but she found that she couldn't move. In the corners of her vision, she could just about see Sally and Lori, who had sat back down next to her. What was happening to them? Were they becoming entranced by the spiral, like she was? Or was doing this to her part of some plan of theirs?

Madison couldn't know for sure. All she knew was that she was starting to lose herself to the spiral. Thinking was becoming harder. She was becoming numb to her own emotions, and to every sensation in her body. The only thing she knew was the spiral. It was everything. It was her whole world. It was all around her, and it was closing in on her. Madison felt like she was being sucked into an infinite tunnel, from which she would never be able to escape. As strongly as if it were a physical force, she could feel the spiral's tendrils rising up her body, constricting her and entangling her, like the tentacles of some vast, unknowable leviathan. The more time wore on, the more vividly she could feel it. She had no idea how much time exactly had passed; all she knew was that her eyes were starting to water from staring so intently at the spiral, but she still couldn't close them, or even blink. She was completely and utterly trapped.

The last thing she knew was the feeling of the spiral's flickering, numerical tendrils winding up her neck and finding their way to her eyes. She gasped as she felt them inserting themselves into her, down the channels of her ears and deeper, into her brain. The feeling of the illusory tentacles invading her mind was like a sharp, piercing, metallic cold, filtering its way into her thoughts and freezing every idea and memory that they touched. As terrified and horrified as she was, Madison could not resist the icy calm that was taking over her. Her mind was being stopped in its tracks, making it impossible for her to think or feel anything, even fear. All that was left was void, nothingness. And even that, too, was lost to her when Madison blacked out. Her last memory before losing consciousness was of the spiral's tendrils beginning their sinister work of not just invading her mind, but rearranging it, thought by thought and bit by bit, brainwashing her in accordance with their pre-programmed design.

***

When Madison awoke, she had no idea how much time had passed. Her thoughts were dark and murky, like her head had been filled with sludge. The only thing Madison could compare the feeling to was being incredibly drunk, but without any of the upsides. What had happened? Madison couldn't remember. She dimly remembered arriving at Sally's place, but little afterwards. Had they gone out drinking? That didn't seem right. Was she sick? She didn't know. She didn't even know where she was. With immense effort, she managed to force her heavy eyelids open. The moment she did, she was hit with a thundering headache. Madison shut her eyes tight, and all her memories came flooding back. She was still sitting on the couch at Sally's place, in a dark room. The only light was from the television in front of her, on which the same huge, bright spiral was still spinning. In the darkness, its light was painfully dazzling. But now it was just a spiral, confined within the boundaries of the screen. Madison trembled as she remembered how vivid it had felt - the spiral growing, extending from the screen, engulfing the room, invading her mind. What had that been? A dream? A hallucination? Somehow it felt like something more than that.

Madison felt a vague need to do something - to get up, move around, see what was going on. After taking a few moments to muster her energy, she managed to open her eyes again, and keep them open. The moment she did, the spiral was there again, glaring at her with its merciless brightness. The merest glimpse of it was enough to make Madison feel like her whole world was spinning, and like gravity had flipped upside-down. Unable to keep looking at it, Madison turned her head to one side to avert her gaze, and raised a hand to cover her face. Or at least, she tried to. Turning her head had been surprisingly hard, but she'd put that down to bleariness. When she tried to move her limbs, it became clear it was something more than that. Her body felt like it was made out of lead. A motion as simple as raising her hand to her face seemed to take all of Madison's strength. She couldn't believe how unnaturally weak she felt. What was happening to her?

"The subject is awake," said a strangely emotionless yet distinctly familiar voice, from next to her on the couch.

"W-wha..." Madison gasped feebly. Her mouth was so dry she could barely speak.

"Subject's responses during the process indicate a high degree of psychological resistance," noted an equally emotionless voice on the other side of Madison. "Stage one of indoctrination is not complete."

"What... is that..." Whatever mind-addling effect she'd been places under seemed to be fading slightly, and Madison was starting to recover a little. She realized that Sally and Lori were meant to be with her. Where were they? Who were these people sitting right next to her, talking? Madison blinked rapidly a few times, hoping to clear some of the blurriness from her eyes. Eventually it worked, and as she looked around with her hand shielding her eyes from the spiral's malevolent glow, she was able to see why the voices were so unnervingly familiar: it was Lori and Sally.

Lori and Sally were sitting as they had been, one on either side of Madison. Besides that, everything about them was different. The lack of feeling in the voices was matched by the absolute absence of any expression on their faces. There was something almost robotic about their monotonous voices, blank faces and the oddly still, stiff way they were both sitting. But that wasn't the strangest thing about Madison's friends. The strangest thing was what they were wearing. Instead of the clothes they had been wearing earlier, each one wore a simple, one-piece, black latex bodysuit. As the spiral on the screen continued to spin, the light it threw off scattered and reflected off the shiny surface of the rubber, creating bizarre, alien highlights and accentuating every angle and curve of her friend's forms. Madison couldn't help but stare. She'd never seen either Lori nor Sally wear anything even close to as skin-tight or suggestive as these bodysuits. Both of them normally preferred clothes that were anything but revealing. Madison never realized that Lori had developed such a flattering, feminine figure, and she'd never known how incredible Sally's soft, plush body really looked.

"Indoctrination protocols dictate we continue, and overcome resistance," Sally noted. "Subject has seen too much. The conversion process must be completed."

Madison snapped to attention. "L-Lori? Sally? What are you talking about? What process?" She made an effort to stand up, but found that she was simply too weak.

"Your conversion," Lori explained. "You will be re-purposed. You will be made to serve. You will be like us."

Her words, spoken without any humanity or feeling, sent a chill of fear down Madison's spine. "L-Lori? What the..." She was doing her best to understand what was going on, but with her mind as slow and dumb as it was, she was finding that impossible. "Is this a joke? It's not funny, OK?"

"Designation 'Lori' is inappropriate," her friend replied, although Madison was beginning to feel like this wasn't her friend at all. "This unit's designation is 7005."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Madison demanded, her weak voice turning slightly shrill. She turned to look at Sally, desperate to see the chubby girl's emotionless mask of a face crack into a broad smile, letting her know that it had all just been a bad joke.

"This unit's designation is 7137," Sally stated simply.

"No! No, no, no, no," Madison repeated in horror. "You're Sally! And you're Lori! You... you have to be!" There was something nauseating and unspeakably horrifying about the idea of her friends having been converted into these robotic, latex-clad drones. And the worst part was, from what they were saying, that was the fate they intended for her too. Madison could no longer try to tell herself it was just a joke. She knew it wasn't. Deep down, she knew this was real. It was too convincing, and she could sense that the spiral had done something to her. It had messed with her head in ways she didn't want to try and think about.

"Resistance is futile," Lori told Madison, ignoring her hysterics. "You cannot resist the will of Administrator #0001." Hearing that designation made Madison's heart skip a beat. She couldn't resist the will of the Administrator... the thought reverberated around Madison's mind for a moment before she managed to make it stop. Genuine fear filled her. What had that spiral done to her? What ideas had it put in her head? What was it still doing, sitting there spinning on the screen?