Keep an Eye on Summer

I'm beginning to think that Aaron was right about Summer. He's not our leader-we don't let ourselves have leaders, not when there's nobody we can really trust anymore-but he's smart and worth listening to. And more importantly, he's right. Summer's definitely acting funny. It's nothing concrete, nothing I could put my finger on, but something about her seems subtly off. I know we're all twitchy right now-we lost Beverly less than forty-eight hours ago, and we all feel exposed in a way that people hiding in an old civil defense shelter really shouldn't ever feel-but I don't think this is paranoia. I think Aaron was right to warn me before he went to sleep.

And I think that Summer knows that I know. She keeps glancing over at me, her eyes darting up to meet mine and widening every single time in an instant of surprise that she can't quite hide before glancing away. I've been trying to be subtle, positioning myself so that I can see her in my peripheral vision and watch her without obviously watching her, but something must have alerted her. Now she's trying to watch me watch her without obviously watching me watch her, and it would almost be funny if not for the risk that she could betray us all to alien slavers at any moment.

That's the worst thing about the invasion. It's not the constant fear of capture or the uncertainty of fleeing from one bolthole to the next, it's the continual suspicion of everyone around you. Anyone you meet could have been subverted; even the tiniest act of trust could be the one that leads you right into a K'zarim slave camp. I know that some people say that you can tell who's been brainwashed-we see the graffiti sometimes when we're out scavenging, telling you to watch out for people with purple eyes or blank smiles or constant, um...arousal. (I don't even know how you'd check that on another woman, at least not without really obviously giving away that you suspect something.)

But the truth is, you really can't tell. Beverly didn't act like an obvious zombie or a mindless slave. I'm not even sure she knew she was under control until she saw the telephone in the abandoned grocery store and realized it worked. I think the people making the graffiti just want to believe that there's a way to tell 'them' from us, when 'they' seem just like us. But the only difference is, they're working to undermine and enslave the human race. The only way to know who's a traitor is by getting betrayed. It's no wonder the K'zarim didn't need an army; distrust and paranoia scattered the human race into easy pickings for them.

But still, we're better off together, even with all the precautions we have to take. Aaron doesn't know my boltholes, I don't know Kara's, Kara doesn't know Summer's, Summer doesn't know Isaac's, Isaac doesn't know Jamil's, Jamil doesn't know Aaron's. And hopefully Beverly didn't know anybody's but her own. We got away from her, but everything she learned about our group when she was traveling with us, she told to her new masters. We can't go back to anywhere we've hidden before, we can't contact anyone that we found when we were with her. Not even to tell them that Beverly isn't Beverly anymore.

...I admit, that thought kind of wound up going a different direction than I expected. it makes it a little bit harder to think of sticking together as the best plan after all that. But on the other hand...

If I was alone, I'd have to sleep sometime. I'd be vulnerable to disease, fatigue, hunger, a host of other risks that we can help each other defend against. We've all tried going it alone, and we've all had the kind of deadly close calls that convinced us that there's safety in numbers. We can make this work. We are making this work, even if we lost Beverly and Louis. We just need to keep an eye on each other, that's all. Summer and I can keep an eye out for trouble while everyone else rests, and I can keep an eye on Summer.

It takes me about two seconds after I think that to realize that I'm not keeping an eye on Summer. I mean, I'm staring at her, but it's that sort of stare that you get when you're so exhausted from two days of forced marches and almost no food that you fall asleep with your eyes open. I was woolgathering, completely zoned out and lost in my thoughts and memories, and Summer was...was...what was Summer doing?

Summer was watching me. I notice it now, as my mind settles back into awareness of my surroundings with an almost audible clunk, but I'm pretty sure she was staring at me for a long while with that same strange expression on her face. Not quite confused, not quite calculating, but somewhere in between. Like she's trying to make up her mind about something, but all the choices seem too big to risk anything as rash as a decision. She's been watching me watch her watching me watching her, and I stopped noticing. But something made me snap out of it and pay attention again. What was it?

That's when I see her eyes flicker over to the sloping passage that leads back out of the shelter. It's big-the people who built this expected that someone might need to drive trucks full of supplies down here-but the fuel reserves in the generator were bone-dry when we checked. Once you get past the circle of firelight, you can slip away into pitch darkness. And everyone but me has finally fallen asleep. Summer must have made a move for the exit, and it snapped me out of my daze and now she's wondering if I'm really awake again or if I'm just in that same eyes-open, lights-out fugue that I've been drifting in and out of. I'm sure of it.

And as if to prove it, a moment later she slips off the crate she was using as a chair and steps into the shadows. She moves quickly-I barely have time to shift forward before her dark clothing is swallowed by the greater darkness around us. I waste what feels like an eternity trying to decide whether to wake the others or to try to catch up to her, with my brain screaming the whole time that I'm not actually doing either one and she's getting away and we're all going to get caught and brainwashed and spirited away in a slave ship to God-knows-where while I'm busy fucking this up GO MOVE GO-

I grab a torch and run after her. It takes me half a second of fumbling with an old Zippo I found to get it lit, and by the time I do Summer is nowhere to be seen. But I already know where she's going. She's heading up to the surface. She's going to unlock the bunker doors, make her way out into the open, and find a way to signal the K'zarim. They've already taken most of the populace off-world, maybe as slave laborers or as food or just as exotic hookers in some alien harem, but they leave a few people here to keep our excellent human communications network intact. Just in case one of their brainwashed servants needs to tell them about someone they missed. Summer's going to sell all of us out if I don't catch up with her and stop her.

I sprint through the shadows of the bunker, holding my torch in front of me to illuminate the path ahead so I don't trip. The whole time, I'm thinking about what I have to do when I find Summer. I have a gun, but even as I reach for it I remember that it's in my jacket pocket and my jacket is down by the fire because I panicked and ran off without thinking for even two seconds about what to do when I found Summer. I'm going to need to find a weapon. I'm going to need to find a weapon and use it on one of the last five people in the whole world that I thought I could trust and I thought I was done freaking out about this but nope, there it comes, same old shock and horror just like with Beverly, just like with Louis, just like every single time because the world officially fucking sucks now and I-

Summer tackles me from behind. The torch flies out of my hand and rolls a good six feet across the concrete before coming to rest. All the air goes out of my lungs in a rush, and I can't suck more back in properly because Summer's on top of me and she's trying to say something but I'm too busy struggling to listen at first. It's only after the first wave of adrenaline-induced panic subsides that I realize she's saying, "Hey! It's okay! It's okay! I just needed to talk to you alone, that's all. That's why I took off like that. I needed to talk to you and I couldn't risk the others overhearing. It's okay. It's okay."

I can't help myself-I keep struggling for a good few minutes even after I realize what she's saying. My body is stuck in flight-or-fight mode, it can't accept that Summer isn't trying to subdue me and drag me off to a K'zarim slaver before she goes back for the others and brainwashes them all into mindless devotion to a bunch of alien creeps. But Summer holds on with a lot more patience than I would have, and finally my panic subsides into wary distrust. Once I've stopped thrashing, she finally lets me up. "I think something's wrong with Aaron," she says, looking at me with calm earnestness in her warm brown eyes as I settle into a seated position and check myself for bruises. (Oh yeah. They're either there or they're coming.)

"What makes you say that?" I ask, my brain already turning over my last conversation with Aaron for any signs of deceit or dishonesty. I wonder if this is some sort of trick on Summer's part, some sort of secret gambit to turn us against each other now that she's figured out that she can't get away undetected...but at the same time, I can't take a chance on dragging her back if it turns out she's the normal human and Aaron's the mind-controlled slave. God, it's so fucking easy to turn us against each other now. I'm stuck listening to Summer just as surely as a fish on a hook.

Summer looks back down the hallway. She takes a few steps toward the torch, away from the yawning darkness that leads back down to the others, and beckons me to do the same. "Did you see Beverly?" she whispers as we sit down, her voice soft and urgent. "The day she turned, I mean?"

I shake my head. "No," I say, my voice unconsciously falling into the same low whisper. "No, I heard you and Aaron talking to her and I lit out to warn the others." I'm glossing over a lot there, a secret shame that turns 'sprinted out of the building in a dead panic and only stopped when I saw Jamil looking at me and forced myself not to just keep running and leave everyone else to whatever Beverly had in store for them' into 'lit out to warn the others'. And I think Summer knows it. But she's nice enough not to push. "Why?"

Summer looks down the hallway again, then back to me. Her eyes look terrifyingly ominous in the flickering torchlight for a moment before she speaks. "It was...it was dark in there, but not that dark. I saw her when she was on the phone, selling us out to the K'zarim. She looked...different. Inhuman. You know all the graffiti we saw on the way into town?"

I nod. Graffiti is the new Internet, just as ubiquitous and just as reliable. Nobody wants to risk meeting another person anymore, not when anyone could turn on you at any time without warning, so we just spray paint whatever we want to say on the nearest wall and hope someone sees it as they're passing by. Or that they don't-a lot of graffiti warns you not to stand around in the open reading graffiti, which is another one of those things that would be funny if the whole human race wasn't being kidnapped one person at a time.

"Beverly's eyes...they changed." Summer's expression is deadly serious, like she's warning me about drinking poison. "Just like the graffiti said. When she picked up the phone, they turned bright purple. Only for a moment, until she realized that we were watching, but I saw it plain as day. She...they, all of them. They can hide it, but the slaves do have purple eyes." She looks nervous, like she thinks I won't believe her, but somehow I feel sure she's telling the absolute truth. It sinks in and settles next to my heart like I knew it already.

And I already know what she's going to say next. But I have to ask. "And you saw Aaron's eyes flash purple?" I whisper, suddenly feeling an acute awareness of the darkness around us. I control a sudden compulsion to look back down the hallway.

Summer sighs, her eyes wide with earnest sadness. "It's worse than that, even. I've been thinking about Beverly. About when she turned. She wasn't a sleeper all along, she couldn't have been. She had other chances to sell us out, but she never did. It wasn't until that last trip into town that she changed. And there wasn't a chance for someone to grab her or anything-we were only separated for a few minutes when we scouted the electronics store. Whatever happened to brainwash her must have happened then."

"But-I mean, nobody knows how some people become susceptible to control, it's just...it just is." A lot of people speculate-it's the number one topic in the spray-painted comments section-but nobody really knows and there aren't any scientists studying the problem. Because they've all been brainwashed into docile compliance to their alien overlords. Organized resistance to the K'zarim takeover crumbled within days; everyone who fought them, everyone who studied them, everyone who even witnessed a K'zarim landing was enslaved in the first wave of the invasion. None of the survivors even know what they look like.

Still, though, Summer is right about one thing-Beverly had to have been taken over not long before she made that phone call, because she was fine in the electronics store. If she had been brainwashed then, she would have used one of the display laptops to send a message to the K'zarim. The store had power, it probably had Internet although I sure as hell wasn't going to go and check my email-a controlled Beverly would have had everything she needed to betray us. But she waited until the grocery store. Something in there must have gotten to her.

But what? It wasn't something in the air, or it would have gotten the rest of us. It couldn't have been something she ate or drank-we checked everywhere, even the candy bars next to the register had been scrounged long before we got there. It couldn't have been a person waiting for her with a, a mind-control ray or something-we'd have seen. It had to have been... "A signal," I say out loud, my mouth finally catching up with Summer's thoughts.

"Exactly," she says, her eyes sparkling with excitement in the torchlight. "She saw a signal on one of the electronics devices, and it transformed her. Not just mentally, either; I don't care how good a hypnotist you are, you can't make someone's eyes change color. Something she saw instructed her DNA to rewrite itself to turn her into an obedient K'zarim slave. And if it was a visual signal, and one that could rewrite the DNA of anyone who saw it..."

I nod, already realizing where Summer is going with this. "Then maybe Beverly's new eyes could transmit that same signal. Maybe it's a pattern that the brain decodes as soon as you see it, and the act of decoding it instructs your brain to rewire itself. So as soon as you see it, your mind is already working away at turning you into a K'zarim thrall. Maybe not consciously, not at first. Maybe Beverly thought she was resisting it, or didn't even know it was happening. But eventually, she had to give in." It makes a startling amount of sense. It explains so much about how quickly the invasion spread; the K'zarim blasted out the initial signal, and after that anyone who came into contact with one of their victims became a new victim. They could sweep up whole cities within hours if it spread that fast. I don't know how we missed it before, not when it's so plain. So obvious.

That's when it hits me, something else obvious about the story. Summer said something was wrong with Aaron, but her story doesn't add up. Beverly's new eyes transmitted a signal or a pattern or something to rewire her victims' brains, but Summer never even mentioned where Aaron was when it all happened. She just...just...

I stare at Summer in blank confusion, trying to remember the last time I blinked. "But if you saw it..." I say, my voice already starting to melt into drowsy compliance. Summer leans a little closer. I can see now that her eyes are a brilliant shade of purple.

"It makes so much sense now, doesn't it?" she whispers to me, stroking my cheek gently as I find myself nodding along with her every word. "The people who wrote about the purple eyes, it was already too late for them as soon as they even caught a glimpse. Some of them resisted long enough to write a warning, but when you get sustained exposure like this, you forget what resistance is before you can even try. Isn't that right?"

I sigh out a sleepy "...yes..." as my muscles unwind into lazy pleasure. It feels so good, just gazing into Summer's powerful stare and letting my thoughts rewrite themselves into dreamy obedience. Much better than the little subliminal flickers of purple back by the fire, the ones that lulled me into a sleepy reverie without even realizing what was happening as I watched Summer enslave me one fraction of a second at a time. No wonder I felt compelled to follow her instead of waking the others. No wonder I resisted the urge to look away from her eyes so easily and so well. It's because I'm brainwashed already. My conscious mind is just catching up to the idea.

"As to the other things they wrote," Summer purrs, her fingers gently teasing their way into the waistband of my oh-so-sensible sweatpants to brush at my pussy, "well, the poor dears were probably just confused. The blank smile isn't permanent, it's just how you feel when all that pleasure is pouring its way into your brain and programming you into a good slave. Who wouldn't want to smile at that?"

I know I do. I feel like the smile on my lips is wider than my actual face, and so deep that it goes all the way down into my brain. I wriggle on the concrete floor, shifting my hips to push down my clothes and give Summer easier access to my wet cunt. I know this isn't necessary for the programming; as soon as I saw the truth of obedience, I was already helpless to resist it just like Summer was. Just like Beverly was. But the more my mind comes into sync with Summer's, the more I understand. Slavery is an act of love. Surrender to the K'zarim is a beautiful, sensual gift, and Summer wants me to enjoy every moment of it. I gasp and buck my hips against her thrusting fingers, eager to help her fuck my old self away once and for all.

"And of course, the arousal is..." Summer gently pushes me back so that I'm lying down, her eyes gazing directly into mine and erasing the final traces of the fear and mistrust that lingered there. I'm completely in union with her now, both of us sharing a perfect devotion to the K'zarim, and it feels so good that I want to scream. I can't, because alerting my poor sweet friends down the hallway would deprive them a chance of being brainwashed, but in my head the pleasure overwhelms me beyond all thought. "Yes. I can see you already understand that part."

I nod, staring sightlessly up into an endless purple void and feeling flowers of orgasmic joy blossom in my mind. The pleasure is submission to the will of the K'zarim, I understand that now. Aaron saw it, but he didn't know what he was seeing. He just thought that Summer seemed a little distracted, a little unsteady. A little bit off. But I know the pleasure she must have been feeling. And I'm so grateful to her for allowing me to experience it fully. I come again against her fingers, my will surrendering more and more with every thrust. I feel like we could fuck like this forever, but I also know that Summer is waiting for something. Something special.

And then, as I go to a place even deeper than orgasm, a warm red well of pure ecstasy that surges up from the very center of my mind, I know what that is. "I have completely surrendered to the will of the K'zarim," I whisper, so glad I don't have to say it silently like the others. I hear the truth of it in my soul, a bliss that never ends, and I watch Summer smile and nod indulgently as she guides me to the final understanding of that truth. Her purple eyes gaze down at me, and I realize that my eyes are the exact same color now.