That Song in My Head

I finally come back to myself when I see the woman in gray. The lilting tune on my lips that I didn't even realize I was humming trails off into silence the moment my eyes fixate on the badge on her lapel, a picture of a smiling white woman that perfectly matches its wearer over a logo that I know all too terrifyingly well. She smiles at me with gleaming white teeth-a smile that never touches her cornflower blue eyes-and says, "Hello, Ming! It's so good to have you back at the Institute again."

I look around. The vast foyer of the Ballantyne Institute is almost as soulless as the woman standing in front of me with her hand extended in bland, patient greeting... but the back wall is dominated by a massive mirror behind the visitor's desk. In it, I see a woman with untidy black hair that sticks out in all directions from her loose ponytail, and wild, staring eyes that look back at me in bewildered horror. She's wearing a pair of sweatpants and a sports bra, showing far too much of her tawny skin. She looks like she doesn't know how she got here. She looks like not knowing terrifies her. The perplexed, haunted expression on her face makes her seem like a different woman... but of course I know she's me.

"I, I'm afraid I can't stay," I stammer, trying to sound light and casual. Like it makes perfect sense to go sixteen miles out of my way on my morning run to visit a private research facility nine months after my one and only inspection, only to immediately turn and leave again. "I've got a, a prior commitment. If I could just...?" I gesture to the revolving doors behind me, trying to arrange my features into an expression of polite apology while I desperately try to come up with something to say if the woman from the Institute asks me what my prior commitment actually is.

She doesn't. Instead, she takes out her phone and says, "I'm afraid your taxi just left, Ms Fong." I don't remember a taxi ride. I don't remember hailing a cab. I don't even remember most of my morning run. "If you'd like, I can call you a replacement once we've finished our discussion. Do you want me to handle that for you, Ming?" She's still smiling. It doesn't make her look happy, though. It makes her look like she's forgotten how to stop.

"I..." I start to tell her that I don't want her to handle that for me at all. That I want her to cut the bullshit, stop stonewalling, and admit that they cultivated improper ties with government officials in order to forestall investigations into serious irregularities in their compliance with local laws. And failing that, I want her to shove her immaculately-manicured hand up her ass while I call a taxi myself and get the hell out of here and never come back. But then... I start to hear it in my head. The earworm that's been haunting me for months now, drifting into my brain and driving me to distraction.

I can never quite place the tune. It's maddeningly inchoate, a snatch of song so brief that I can't connect it to any kind of memory. It loops inside my brain, so smooth and bland and devoid of character that I don't even know when it starts and stops, but at the same time so infernally catchy that I can't shake it no matter how hard I try. It seems to push everything else out of my head, smothering my thoughts one by one in its saccharine cheer, until I find myself unable to do anything but rummage through my mind to try to figure out where I heard it the first time.

As always, I try to put lyrics to it, gradually paying less and less attention to the woman from the Institute while I concentrate on the music in my head. But the infuriating tunelessness of the tune frustrates my every effort. The snatch of song seemingly has no beginning and no proper end, and so any verse can be stretched to fit any meter until it seems like every answer that pops into my head is the right answer. Once I set the words 'shake the woman's hand' to the constantly repeating earworm, my mind seamlessly incorporates it until I can't think anything else. 'Shake the woman's hand, shake the woman's hand, shake the woman's hand, shake the woman's hand...'

"That's all settled then," the woman says, her voice a silky, condescending murmur as she clasps my hand in her own. I blink heavily, trying to pierce the fog of my brief lapse of attention, but the last few moments are gone. Thoroughly, surgically excised by my temporary distraction. Neatly clipped out of existence as if they happened to someone else instead of me. It's totally normal, I tell myself, the kind of automatic action that happens all the time to all sorts of people, but... I can't help wondering whether she reached for my hand, or I reached for hers. The same way I can't help wondering exactly when I decided to come back to the Institute again.

But then the woman from the Institute-'Erin', according to her badge-taps her phone and says, "The cab is scheduled," and the disquieting feeling passes. They wouldn't call me a cab if they intended to... do anything to me, would they? It sounds absurdly paranoid in my head, even with all of the potential outcomes neatly elided behind the vague wording of 'do anything', but... I suddenly realize that my entire body is absolutely awash with adrenaline. It's as if my autonomic nervous system is responding to some sort of perceived threat, as if I'm genuinely convinced on a deep and unthinking level that I'm in mortal danger... but that's absurd. I've been here dozens of times. It's perfectly safe.

Hmm. That fits the meter of the song in my head, actually. 'It's perfectly safe, it's perfectly safe, it's perfectly safe, it's perfectly safe...' I smile and nod, following briskly behind Erin as she walks me back through the security doors into the institute's private research labs. I'm not entirely sure what I'm nodding at-Erin must have said something, but I didn't catch it. Probably because my subconscious decided to play that same infuriating earworm at top volume again, and my brain has clearly decided that teasing out the identity of a tuneless loop of bland instrumental music is more important than paying attention to a conversation or keeping track of where I'm going or wondering why I'm even here again after my report was swept under the rug.

I try to drown it out, forcing myself to hum the entirety of "If I Were Young" so loudly that I expect Erin to turn and glare at me at any moment. But she doesn't seem to care what I do so long as I follow her deeper into the warren of offices and laboratories, and all my best efforts are doomed to failure-it's as if the earworm is elastic, snapping back into my head the second my concentration slides away from Li Ronghao and taking over right where it left off with new lyrics. 'Sit down and be patient,' it sings in my head, as we finally stop at one door among hundreds and Erin ushers me inside. 'Sit down and be patient, sit down and be patient...'

I know that 'it' isn't really singing anything; this is just a quirk of neurology, my own brain glitching in some way that science doesn't properly understand yet and repeating a synaptic pattern without point or purpose. Nobody's making me think, 'sit down and be patient', over and over and over even after Erin has left the room and there's nothing to occupy my attention but that endless, maddening sonic sludge in my head. That's just not possible. I don't even know who I'm arguing the point with-I'm certain that I'm acting in accordance with my own free will, and that's final.

I stare at the blank white wall of my own free will, sitting in the chair for what seems like hours until Erin returns with an older Caucasian man I don't recognize. Another badge-this one clipped to the pocket of his lab coat-lists his name as 'Derek', and he waves his hand in front of my face a few times before nodding approvingly to himself at my lack of reaction. I don't really care. All I need to do is sit down and be patient until they give up on their latest petty exercise in frustrating me. It's not like I can get my superiors to listen to me anyway, so why bother trying to find out what they've got to hide?

Derek nods to Erin, who taps something into her phone again. I sigh in irritation as the earworm in my head spontaneously develops new lyrics, just as tuneless and droning and pointless as the last. 'Answer without thinking,' the new song goes. 'Answer without thinking, answer without thinking...' I know that can't be the real words that fit the music, but I don't know how to make my brain stop repeating it. Fighting it is like pushing back against fog. As soon as I stop concentrating for even a moment, the endless repetition simply flows back in to fill the space in my mind. I've already given up struggling with it.

"Now, Ming," Derek says, sounding every bit as condescending as Erin as he pats my knee familiarly, "do you know what's happening to you?" He watches my face carefully while he speaks, shining a painfully bright flashlight into my eyes and looking carefully to observe my reaction. There isn't any. I don't need to react at all. It's perfectly safe, I'm very patient, and there's no point in giving any consideration to their childish questions. They probably just want to see if I know what they're up to or something, and if I've gotten any further with my suspicions since my uneventful visit nine months ago.

Wait. Nine months ago... "yes," I hear myself saying, the words devoid of inflection. "the implant is hijacking my temporal lobe through the use of repetitive signals perceived in the brain as music, using my language processing facilities to create new neural pathways not integrated with my conscious thoughts. this separate neural network operates on the level of unconscious thought, bypassing critical thinking faculties to ingrain new beliefs that i accept without question."

I push aside the distracting babble coming out of my mouth so I can focus on the important part. I know I was only here once, an uneventful visit nine months ago that ended with a frustratingly noncommittal report delivered to uncaring superiors. But I also know that I've been here dozens of times, and each time has been perfectly safe and every bit as uneventful as the first. I know that I wasn't detained against my will, I know that I wasn't operated on, and I know that my mind is completely free of outside influence or control How... how can I...?

"Have you experienced any difficulty accepting your suggestions?" Derek asks, his words slipping past my train of thought without even leaving a ripple behind them. His hand rests on my knee, the warmth of his palm the only thing I notice even a little, and I've already decided that there's no point in caring about it. I'm perfectly safe.

My head nods loosely on my shoulders. I can't remember why, I'm too busy trying to untangle the web of contradictions inside my brain. "subconsciously, i am aware that i was detained against my will during my initial visit and operated on to implant the device. the discrepancies between the version of subsequent events that my conscious mind has been allowed to remember and the truth that i am required to know in order to carry out my instructions has caused a number of unexpected emotional responses. i kept experiencing profound terror every time I found myself back at the Institute again."

Derek nods back at me. There seems to be an epidemic of unprompted nodding going around, but I've got more important things on my mind at the moment. Like how I can be here only once and dozens of times at the same time. "And can you think of a suggestion that will resolve these emotional responses and remove your resistance to further brainwashing?" he asks, his voice warm and soothing and entirely unimportant.

"it's already in place," I hear myself say. "when i arrived, erin noted my emotional distress and implanted a suggestion that i was perfectly safe." I can still hear it in my head, a faint echo inside the music like a memory of a memory. I can still hear all the lyrics I've invented to the song in my head over the last nine months, I realize; every single one of them whispers to me constantly, reminding me of all of the things I need to remember. And all the things I need to forget.

"the suggestion overwrote my emotional responses," I hear myself continue, "preventing me from feeling any anxiety or concern about my programming. i can still understand the contradictions inherent in my instructions, but they no longer matter. i only need to think about them when it helps me fulfill another directive from the implant. once i no longer need to notice them, they will fade away from my conscious mind." It almost sounds important... but I need to focus on the discrepancies in my memories right now. Nothing else matters. I don't need to think about what I'm saying at all.

"That's a good girl," Derek says warmly, squeezing my knee. I feel a tiny surge of pleasure, and for the briefest moment I remember an older set of lyrics to the music reminding me how good it feels to be responsive and obedient. Then it's gone again, as I turn my mind to the important task of not listening to Derek ask me, "And your superiors? They still have no suspicions about us?"

I shake my head. It's a welcome change from nodding, but still not worth paying attention to. "not since i assisted you in abducting and implanting guo fang-dong. he was the only person who found my behavior since my visit suspicious. now that he has dropped the investigation, you are no longer under official scrutiny."

Derek smiled. "Very, very good!" he said, his face breaking into a cheerful grin. "You've done excellently, my dear." He takes out his own phone, and presses a button. I watch as Erin's jaw goes slack and her eyes glaze over. She begins to hum a strangely familiar tune under her breath. "Now, if you don't mind me asking something a little bit more personal... would the two of you like to suck my cock for a while?"

"Yes, Master," we say in perfect unison. "We would love to suck your cock now." We both sink to our knees, converging on Derek just as he pulls his cock out of his trousers and strokes it to its full length. He spreads his legs wide, giving us each room to kneel on either side of him and run our lips up and down his shaft. I stare into Erin's cornflower blue eyes, marveling at their utter, captivated vacancy. I wonder if she realizes that she's nothing but a slave to the Institute. I wonder if she knows that a single press of a button can turn her into a mindless, obedient cocksucker, or if the poor woman is so deeply brainwashed that she doesn't even know how deeply brainwashed she is. Surely she would realize it, even if she couldn't resist?

I give up wondering. My eyes to slip shut, and I stop thinking about anything for a while except the source of that silly, distracting tune that plays in my ears. It's got the oddest lyrics this time, but I find myself humming eagerly along. 'Don't think, just suck. Don't think, just suck. Don't think, just suck...'

THE END