I really enjoyed the rationale behind the reason for the suicides, even if I did spot it coming ahead of time. It was solid and very clearly logical. I didn't enjoy the presentation quite so much. Lots of blood'n'guts without a lot of clarity. I was kind of disappointed that it ended pretty much exactly as I'd expected. I mean, you open up with a first-person POV and another character going "crazy" due to some pervasive threat, and it's pretty clear how the ending is going to come about. I most enjoyed the moments of self-doubt, when the protagonist wonders, "Is this my fear, or am I already being controlled?" That was very interesting to me; I'd have liked the end a lot better if he hadn't seemed to "know" he'd been mind-controlled. I am, perhaps, overly jaded, but reading the thoughts of a crazy person intent on murdering his best friend doesn't really scare me. Reading the thoughts of a person who doesn't know if he's crazy or if he should kill his best friend and is doing it anyway because of a chain of logic that seems to make sense, that scares me. I was more creeped out by "Connie, Maybe" than I was by this; that one had me laughing all the way to the last line, when I got quiet. This one was pretty much a done deal from the opening scene and I listened only to see if it turned out differently than it looked like it was going to.
I'm a titch confused by the fact that he "quietly drew [his] knife" after a previous thought that he should make sure, go and see if everyone else was as flawed as he. Going to be a sleeper agent would be somewhat interesting, but he's not going to get very far if they catch him slitting his buddy's throat right away. (And even so, the story OPENED with a sleeper agent "going off," so that's not even a new wrinkle in the fight against the Decharai.)