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NEUROCHIP
Anyone looking for a really painful way to make their life miserable should check out Scorpius' neuro-bio tracer technology. First, there's the installation of the black-and-red neurochip
into your brain, the agonizing memory of which you'll probably repress
until it's forced to the surface. Next come the hallucinations;
eventually, the neurochip grows a full-fledged neural clone — a psychic duplicate of your arch-nemesis, right there in your gray matter.
A special bonus feature is that, while you've got this gizmo in your
head, you can't kill or even hurt the guy who put it there — because
the damned neural clone won't let you.
Meanwhile, the neural clone seeks out whatever data it wants in your
brain and records it. Once the clone has what it wants, it takes
control of your body and tries to force you to return, at all costs, to
the bad guy who put it there.
Even if you're lucky enough to short-circuit this process and get rid
of the chip, the neural clone remains your free gift, yours to keep
forever. With effort and luck, you might learn to control it, but
mostly it's just an unwanted guest in your mind.
I'm still not completely clear on how the chip worked. I'm guessing it involved nanotechnology
— microscopic robotic machines that can talk to and mimic parts of a
living brain. But I have no idea how it managed to grow; the chip went
into my brain small and came out with tendrils twined all through my
head. Where did it get that extra material? It sickens me to speculate
that it was converting substances from my brain or blood into the parts
it needed.
I can guess how the chip contained the personality of Scorpius; it was likely encoded with an advanced artificial intelligence program. As for how the personality could have stayed behind once the chip was gone....
The more frequently a mind has a certain thought, the more established
that particular bioelectrical pathway through the brain's biochemical
matrix becomes. It's part of the theory behind medication for
obsessive-compulsives — their brains have formed neural interstate
highways, crowded with speeding, repetitive, seemingly unstoppable
mental traffic; the medication puts roadblocks across all four lanes. I
suspect the neurochip formed a network of Scorpy pathways in my brain.
Then, once it was gone, the pathways and their attendant electrical
impulses remained.
I'm not sure that makes sense; I'm not sure it's right. But I'm pretty sure Prozac's not gonna help me.
JOURNEY LOG REFERENCES
The Hidden Memory
Liars, Guns and Money, Part 3: Plan B
Die Me, Dichotomy
Season of Death
STARBURST TO ANY NOTE
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