Brainwashed

In the two years I had been adventuring with dad he made a point to teach me exactly how brainwashing worked. I couldn’t really come up with the words to write it write here but I understood enough that when Rain and I ran into the building I thought I could actually make a difference. The brainwashing is broken in steps. The first, breaking their worldview, would be hard to do foe everyone but from what he told me it’s always happening to older Armadillos.
Next, I needed to get them out of their suits.
Finally, I needed to destroy the transmitter. The transmitter made sure everyone stayed on target. It took a lot of power so thy only ran it once every few days to ensure no one ran off out of range.
If I could get to the transmitter I could command everyone to strip, and then destroy it. There were two problems in my way. I had no idea where it was or how to use it and we had no weapons.
Rain spoke up. “What are we going to do?” she whispered as she reached for the door. I sat dad up against the wall and promised to return to him soon.
I shrugged and entered the building as I had so many times before now. My heart was pumping so hard. I could sense this story coming to a close one way or another. I was ten steps in when I was met face to face with another uniformed armadillo. We stared at each other. She pointed at me and called out a command to her co-horts. “Get the rogues!” Rain and I split off in different directions. I rushed for the stairs and began running down. A transmitter uses power, and may get hot. Hot things in the desert stay cooler under ground. I clamored toward the basement and the familiar whirring of large machinery tipped me off to the correct direction. I was alone again, but I was prepared this time. I was calm.
I slowed to a walk and took a deep breath in, 1, 2, 3, 4… and out 1, 2, 3… then I opened the door and approached the machine. It was unmanned, and unguarded. A weird panel with buttons on it and letters was protruding from the side of the large glass and metal machine. I typed “Undress” into it and a feed popped up showing the responsive action of every armadillo in black text. It scrolled across the screen and I could read “stripped. Undressed. Removed clothing.” As responses to the command. Once everyone was undressed I removed my own suit. Then I added a final command and looked around for a power cable.
I found the cable and sunk my knife into it until the glass stopped glowing and the room went silent.
Then I made my way calmly up the stairs. I walked right to the office of the lead elite. He dropped a meat sandwich on his wooden desk. “How are you alive? I thought I shot you. Have you re-considered my offer?” I nodded. “I would like to discuss terms.” I sat at his desk across from him and picked up his meat sandwich. I flicked the meat off and picked at the bread. “We can discuss in a moment. I’m withing for my-“ Rain burst through the door. She had a wild look in her eyes. I calmly tried to warn her with my own eyes to keep quiet. I know you saw what you saw downstairs. Please don’t say it out loud. It's okay. She stepped to the side of the door.