Carol took a large bite of her burger and began her story.
"It all started 6 years ago when I went to summercamp. It was supposed to be a camp for teaching 'Independent' skills in young girls, make them more valuable in the eyes of the powers that be. More on that later, but it hardly started out normal. I noticed from the start that all the other girls there were really really weird. They were all either super kooky or kind of shy like me, but they were no doubt talented! They had skills like you wouldn't believe, and their knack for analyzing and figuring out things was like none other. A lot of the games and activities we did revolved around strange things, from intense games of laser tag to mind games with each other."
She shuffled her hands around nervously.
"Than after the first week things got REALLY strange. For one, all the staff just, disappeared overnight. Gone, poof. So for 3 days we were left to ourselves, which I guess was okay. We got some downtime. When they came back 3 days later they were much much different. They all spoke robotically and acted the same. Rather than giving us games and activities based on our skillsets, the games were based on even stranger things, like obedience' and our ability to lure in and trick others. There were a few other odd hobbies we were given, like cooking, sewing, very matronly things. I swear they were trying to train us to be mothers or old grandmas or something, but wouldn't you know it got weirder."
"As the weeks passed by, the same behavior started to show up in all the campmates. They started acting much like each other, that is to say zombie like. Some began liking the activities they were given, and when anyone questioned them or tried to use the critical thinking that was exemplary of us at the beginning, they were looked down upon, and would later disappear only to be found again in the same stupid-ified state. Over time this got so extreme that we were rounded into parades and big squares, like some kind of cult. They got us new uniforms, made of garnish 70's stretchy material and tinfoil from some 50's future getup, it was so bizarre. Some of us resisted, well we tried to resist. Almost all of the camp was converted right away. But I stuck in there, I managed to get away."
"That's when they came."
John looked onwards, waiting for Carol to finish. She swallowed her burger and drank it down with a wash of soda.
"Yeah that's when the Agency arrived to settle things. Not before I'd kind of helped though."
