For Ashton, this was shaping up to be a very good day. His buddy Matt had recently been praising the new job he had gotten a few weeks ago. Good money, no dress code, totally work from home, not customer facing but not that hard either. It had sounded like a dream, especially with Ashton’s own job being just soul-sucking. Matt had told him that if an opening came up, he’d be first of his friends he’d recommend. So when Matt had texted him that he needed to head over to Matt’s place to apply, Ashton had rushed out the door.
Stepping out the elevator, Ashton quickly strode to Matt’s apartment. He hadn’t been there since Matt had started the new job, but he knew the way. He knocked on the door, and Matt opened it.
“Hey buddy! C'mon in!” Matt exclaimed, going in for a hug. Ashton was a bit uncomfortable, as Matt had also changed a bit sine he had gotten the new job. He still showed up to get-togethers, but usually not for all that long and before he left. He said it wasn’t job related, and because he had started to hug and be more hands on, people guessed he had found a girl.
Ashton accepted the hug as best he could and stepped into the apartment, Matt closing the door behind him. “Hey man. I hope this isn’t too informal for the interview, I kinda rushed here.”
Matt laughed. “Naa dude, I would have told you if you needed to dress up. You’re not even going to talk to anyone today, this is just an aptitude test. They just want to have it done on a company laptop so they know you’re not looking up the answers while you respond.”
“Oh, they started this last week after one guy was caught faking who he was on the online site.” Matt scoffed. “Why he would I have no idea, this stuff isn’t that hard, but who knows. Come into the… I guess you’d call it work room”
Ashton and Matt walked into another room, and Ashton was shocked. It was completely empty but for a desk with a laptop on it, but that wasn’t the oddest thing. The walls had been covered in sheer black fabric, almost like a photo studio but black rather than the mottled grey. Matt saw the quizzical look on Ashton’s face and shook his head. “This is the way they want it for video call meetings, no messy rooms or anything like that. The job is nice enough I put up with it. Anyway, lets get you settled.”
Ashton sat at the desk as Matt logged in and pulled up the test on the laptop, then handed Ashton some headphones. “Mind if you use these, man? I’d rather not have to listen to the boring orientation videos again.”
“Leave you to it, man. You’ll ace it, no problem.”
As Matt walked out of the room, Ashton hit play on the first video, like the site said to do. As he watched, he agreed with Matt that the videos were pretty bad. They looked and sounded like bad transfers from something else, with flickering and terrible audio. But it was boilerplate corporate stuff for some outfit called Compu-Tist, and even the guys making the video kinda looked bored. Ashton tuned most of it out, wondering what kind of questions the test would have. He was starting to feel a bit drained, and worried that he would need to cheat.
But when the video finally finished and it moved on to the test, the questions were dead easy. He smirked as he realized that this was middle school stuff, and he went back to wondering who would need help with this. Though he didn’t notice that the mind numbing hum that had played throughout the video was still sounding in the headphones. All he did notice was that he started to stare at some questions, trying to think of the answers for longer than it should have taken. His brain seemed to be fuzzy, and he didn’t know why. But he wanted this job, so he tried to push through.
The program running in the background noted his slower responses, and started to step up the brainwashing effects. Ashton started to wonder if he was too tired even for this. He’d be looking at a question about some famous person, but for a second he could swear it had asked if he was relaxed or if he could hear the hum or if he was ready to obey. He shook his head weakly, trying to focus on the test. He needed to answer all the questions if he wanted to be a part of the team. He desperately needed to be part of the team. So he needed to relax and just answer the questions. Yes, he was relaxed. Yes, he was empty. Yes, he was ready to obey.
Now that he was answering the subliminal rather than the actual questions, the program moved to more overt control. The questions ended and a new video started to play, a whirling red and blue spiral. Ashton’s arms drooped away from the keybord as his mind fell easily to the spinning colors. Around and around, he just needed to watch the spiral and let him teach him about his new job. No, it was not a new job, it was a new life. A new way to live and be and just become an obedient slave. He wouldn’t have to think or worry or do anything but follow instructions. It would be so much easier. He just had to fall into the centerrrrr…
For the next few hours, Ashton stared at the spiral. Even though his face was locked into a faint smirk, his mind was a empty void that the headphones and the spiral filled with knowledge about how he was a slave to the Computist, and all of his future responsibilities. Slave Matt, properly naked now that his prey had been captured, walked in when his master messaged him to. He pulled the headphones off Ashton’s head and closed the laptop. “State your identity.”
Unlocked from his brainwashing, Ashton’s face slipped into a blank expression. “Slave Ashton personality active. Ashton permanently asleep.”
“Excellent. Master will be pleased. Strip naked. We will send pictures of you to Master of his new acquisition, and see if you are to be added to the harem. If accepted, we will be responsible for recruiting the rest of our friends before being taken to live with Master.”
“Acknowledged.” Ashton stood from the chair and began to strip down, starting his new life of obeying orders…
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