Scott woke up in a pleasant hospital room that looked more like an expensive hotel suite in a tropical resort. It was a few seconds before he realized he was in the infamous Thailand facility where Melinda performed horrible experiments on human test subjects. He sat up in a panic, noticing he wasn’t in any pain.

A transparent human shape popped up in his vision with various areas highlighted. Scott rubbed his eyes hard, but the display had already disappeared. Noting that he could suppress his panic, Scott took a moment to process the idea that they had added some kind of computer to his brain, once again without his permission. While the old Scott would have freaked out, his new control of his fear and anger response allowed him to react calmly and rationally to the situation.

“MELINDA! GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD!” OK, maybe not so calm. Scott was seeing red, but he also gained a massive headache as he had quickly overwhelmed his emotional restraints. The human shape popped up again, then zoomed in on his head. A transparent 3D image of a brain rotated to show a section highlighted in red. Scott realized it was warning him he was in danger of causing damage to several systems he didn’t understand. There were small dots indicating devices embedded in various locations. He wasn’t familiar with names like Left Amygdala Anterior Narthex, but he was sure he didn’t like the idea of it getting fried.

A nurse entered the room. Scott did a double take because she had a strong resemblance to a famous singer, except with an unnatural shade of yellow hair. The woman reached for him with a syringe in one hand. Her movements seemed to slow down slightly as Scott’s had whipped out and caught her wrist.

“Scott, you are having a dangerous feedback effect. You need to let me give you this or there will be even more brain damage.”

Scott did not like the sound of that at all. Even more brain damage? How much did he already have? However, Scott suffered from a common male weakness of letting attractive women persuade him too easily. He released her arm and presented his own. “I’m still angry about all this, but I don’t want to fry my brain.”

“Please turn away and look at that picture on the wall.” The woman ordered.

Scott looked to where she was pointing. Why did she want him to look away? Then he felt a sharp pain in the base of his neck. At this point, he would have flung the woman through the window, but he realized he could no longer control his arms or feel anything below his neck.

Internally, he started to panic as his head drifted down to the pillow, the nurse seemed to be guiding him down with practiced ease.

“What are you doing…?” He started to ask but was asleep before he could finish.

----------------------------------------

Waking again, Scott felt a swaying motion and realized he was in a ship’s cabin. This cabin was plainly furnished, with no exterior windows. A quick thought pulled up the strange screen which had an overview of various systems in his body. This time he didn’t panic at the sight, but it was disturbing to see sections highlighted as he focused on them, with notes or sometimes various charts or graphs appearing nearby.

Instead of yelling and risking another attack from a pop star nurse, Scott decided to look for his phone. Another window popped up in his view with a list of contacts. So he had a phone in his head now. It wasn’t the worst feature. Scott realized he could send text messages, but not call people.

His first message, “Melinda, you’ve gone too far this time. I’m not sure how, but I will get you back for this.”

Second, he sent a message to his dad. Scott wasn’t sure which of his friends he could trust, so he would stick to family. “Dad, I’ve been kidnapped, and Melinda has done some kind of freakish experiment on me. I want to get away from this crazy company and maybe find somewhere to hide for a while.”

Melinda responded first, “Hey Scott, glad to hear you are awake again. We had some minor calibration issues, but we’re past the dangerous part. You might need a few weeks to get used to the changes, but the operation was a success. You’re angry with me, but that is good because I was worried we had damaged that part. Anyway, I promise no more upgrades to your brain without your consent. I worried I went too far that time, but we’re kind of in a bad situation now, so I made a hard decision. Hope you will forgive me someday. After this mission, I’ll do my best to make sure you can retire or take whatever vacation you need.”

That sounded like Professor or Socialite Melinda. Scott could almost forgive her, but he didn’t believe she could really speak for the more ruthless flavors.

Next came a text from his dad. “Burt”

Burt? Scott sometimes wondered about his dad’s inability to text. Melinda had replied with a whole paragraph, while his dad managed one nonsense word in twice the time. Melinda was older than his dad, so that wasn’t even an excuse.

The door opened, and his dad walked in.

“Stupid autocorrect. I meant to say BRT, ‘Be Right There’”. Scott realized they must be on his dad’s ship. Was this a rescue?

“Dad, did you rescue me from that awful place?” Scott’s irritation faded into a warm regard for his loyal father.

“Huh? Um no, I’m taking you to your mission. I wish we could have stayed in Thailand longer. That place is nicer than any hotel I ever stayed at, even better than the beach house at Proteus. Well, I guess that’s not saying much since the beach house is a smoking crater again.” Mr. Henderson looked uncomfortable remembering the recent destruction.

“I can’t believe you were just enjoying yourself while I was getting dissected!” Scott protested, the pleasant feelings boiling away.

His dad paused, looking away. “Yeah, well they didn’t tell me much, but I heard they were worried you wouldn’t pull through at one point. I tried to bust you out, but I’m not some over-muscled action hero like you. They let me see a monitor showing a surgery they were doing, and I fainted. I don’t ever want to see someone getting their head opened up again.”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Scott felt his anger drain away. Their organization was much more powerful than just one person. He couldn’t expect his dad to overpower genetically enhanced guards or robots, let alone force surgeons to undo a complex surgery. He sighed, “I guess I’m the one who partnered up with a certifiably crazy person. I even put her in charge, so maybe I shouldn’t blame anyone but myself. How long was I out, and what is going on now?”

“You were out for about three weeks. I heard that things went wrong, and it took longer than they intended, but the doctor told me you are healthy now and shouldn’t have much memory loss. Your friend Theofanis wasn’t getting much sleep for about a week, but when we left he looked relieved. I’m not sure what that was all about, but he was in charge of the software for that neuroprocessor thing in your head. It looked like a small box with a bunch of wires… ugh don’t want to really think about it.” Scott’s dad went a bit pale.

An image of a transparent brain floated up into his vision, with several parts matching his dad’s description. He skimmed over some of the notes.

“It has some basic internet and communication features. Visual interface attached to my optic nerves, and some other connections I’m not sure I understand. A newer version of the HR software we put in Carl, plus something called predictive kinetics. Also, there is a weird mass that looks like a tumor called a bioelectric power supply.” Scott skimmed over some high-level descriptions. He could drill in later or even pull up his own source code. That was weird and troubling. Reprogramming software in his own brain? He was not going to touch that any time soon.

“Yeah, you’ll have to talk to Theo or that programming guy Sebahat who works for Elsa. Anyway, your other question is harder to answer. The highlights of the past three weeks are that we launched our own satellite, and the United States declared war on Mexico. Russia and China have massed troops, and they seem to be negotiating instead of fighting for now. Oh yeah, we destroyed a bunch of internet hubs and cell phone towers across the Gulf coast, plus blew up a NASA facility in Florida. So yeah, a few things have happened while you were sleeping.”

It was a lot to take in, and Scott suspected his dad only knew a fraction of what was going on. They talked more, but his dad told him to get more rest and left after a while.

Scott contacted Nadia next. “Hey, this is Scott.” Scott wasn’t sure if caller ID worked when calling from a cybernetic brain.

“Hello Scott, it is a relief that you are recovering. For the record, I told Melinda it was too risky. I’m glad her gamble paid off because now we might have a chance to survive a bit longer.” Nadia said ominously. She continued by explaining their current situation.

“Our security forces are stretched thin. We have people training with the Texas resistance and now the Mexican armed forces. Mexico was a pleasant surprise. They agreed to defend us in exchange for help modernizing some units of their military. If they had stayed hostile, we would be in bad shape now. The United States unveiled a few secret projects that limited our naval superiority in the gulf. They now have two carrier groups, submarines and a new naval drone carrier that is pressing us hard. If Russia hadn’t already destroyed our surface structures, the US would have done it by now. They managed to get some amphibious cruise missiles, and various bombs through our defenses, though it cost them. We’ve wiped out dozens of their planes and smaller ships, but they destroyed some of our underwater facilities near the coast. We have to keep digging new tunnels and reconnecting our communications, but the equipment we used to build mining robots was destroyed. Basically, we’re losing. Matt is trying to build some new fabrication printers from scratch. He’s trying to repurpose equipment in one of Trinidad’s factories, plus a lot of hand assembly. The whole team is exhausted, and I have a bad feeling they are not going to get it working in time.”

“Sounds bad. What kind of casualties have we had?”

“A few dozen people died from various hits on our base and a bomb that managed to hit a few housing units at Proteus. Our allies have taken more damage. Several of the cells in Texas were hit. The Americans didn’t hesitate to carpet bomb civilians who they labeled as collaborators after the fact. We have footage of things like schools and neighborhoods getting destroyed, but we can’t get the news to show it. Even in Europe, Australia and Canada they seem to have increased editorial control limiting unfavorable news getting out. We’ve seen a large increase in the accidental deaths of journalists, and some emergency ‘media freedom’ bills have been passed around the world which do the exact opposite. Their playbook is to accuse us, Russia or China of everything they are doing. We are accused of killing journalists, hacking elections, and blanketing the internet with false stories, yet they are the ones doing it.

Then they passed a law claiming it would solve the problem, but really just provides a legal justification for what they are doing. It’s quite effective. Now they don’t actually need to kill journalists because they can veto anything critical. They can stop killing journalists and argue their laws were a success.”

“I wake up, and we’re losing at everything?” Scott asked, disappointed.

“Not everything. Our robot factories in Texas dug their way out and cleared out all the heavy artillery and tanks in the area. We control the roads and are patrolling hundreds of miles of East Texas border. We destroyed all the Texas based aircraft and have enough anti-air that they only bomb the less populated areas. Our carrier drones disabled internet and cell service on most of the Gulf Coast before the US Navy was able to sink our ship.”

“They sunk our carrier?” Scott asked, concerned.

“Yes. They heavily mined the shallow waters off Florida with popup torpedoes. We’re back to a stalemate in the Gulf. They can’t get near Proteus, and we can’t get near the US coast. Mexico and Texas waters are contested. Mexico’s Navy is staying close to their capital, but we’ve sent enough drones that the US has been afraid to attack directly. We’ve also destroyed several Homeland bases in Texas and a server farm near San Antonio. It was running about a quarter of SPAI’s processing power, but we haven’t seen the effects yet.” Nadia said, a bit more upbeat after listing their small victories.

“OK, please send me any reports you have, and I’ll read them when I have a chance to get caught up.” Scott ordered, a little surprised at his own assertiveness. “Last I heard, I was heading to Los Angeles. Can you tell me what I’m supposed to be doing, and why Melinda thought I needed all these upgrades first?”

“Right, I’ll send you the details. The short version is that you are going deep in enemy territory to start up or take over a media company outside SPAI’s control. We needed someone who is a public figure, but it will be dangerous. Your Security training and upgrades will help. You have full Glitch_HR capabilities, but without the risk of it falling into enemy hands. We decided the cybernetic version is nearly impossible to steal.”

“Who else is on my team?” Scott asked.

“We were going to send a couple of the new guys, but when your surgery went poorly, we reassigned them to help on a mission in New Mexico.”

“New Mexico? Are you hitting DARPA?” Scott asked, interested. He was disappointed they were sending him on a dangerous mission alone, but it would be worth it if they could hit the labs where SPAI was invented.

“Sort of. SPAI will see us coming, but we can pin down a lot of their forces in a remote location if we present a credible threat. Our chances of doing real damage are small, but Marcus recommended it. He believes that if we threaten a lot of locations, SPAI will waste resources overbuilding its defenses.” Nadia explained.

Scott wasn’t really convinced. SPAI building up defenses meant they would be harder to destroy later with a surprise attack. Out of curiosity, he flipped up Glitch_HR’s rating of military strategy and found himself ranked lower than roughly a billion people. Marcus and Nadia were both quite high on the list, so he kept his doubts to himself.

“Any advice for my mission?” Scott asked, deciding to focus where he could actually make a difference.

“Stick to what you’re good at. Hire other people to do the work and try not to get killed.”