The Quantum Connection

found it odd that the computer would be giving me such detailed information.

Can anybody speak to you? 

Anybody equipped properly. Yes. 

And do you give anybody equipped to speak to you any information they ask for? 

Yes. 

Can you be kept from others? 

If programmed thus. 

Okay. For now on, only let me talk to you. 

Okay. 

What stupid aliens! Don't they have hackers on their world? I thought this without realizing it and forgetting I was still talking to the machine.

No, they do not. 

The answer shocked me a bit. After a few more minutes of this discourse, or whatever you would call it, I began to understand that the entire species of these Grays must be communal and work toward one common goal, with no straying from each Gray individual's purpose. A hive. Or at least this was the feeling that I got from the SuperAgent's explanation of things.

I had been quiet for so long that I had forgotten about the naked Russian girl in the corner. She said something unintelligible to me, which brought my attention to her nudity and mine.

I wish I had my clothes, I thought. A small spot on the wall nearest me began to ripple like dropping a pebble in a pond and then a small table floated through it. On the table were my clothes in the exact same state which they were in when I drove away from Lazarus's gravesite. The clothes were soiled with the sand and dust from the rubble-strewn valley that I had buried my buddy in. There were a few stains of blood on my shirt. This made me sad, very sad, to remember poor Lazarus, my only remaining family. Everybody I had ever really known was dead. Oh God, poor Laz. I missed him so much already.

If my clothes had not been dirty I wouldn't have thought of Lazarus. I began to cry. Why couldn't they have been clean? I wish they were clean. I was starting on the downward manic spiral again and the tears began to flow. Now I was deeply, deeply depressed. I was out of happy pills so I would be in trouble if my depression started running away unchecked by the medication.

The little tray got fuzzy and my clothes looked as though I was looking at them through a zoom lens out of focus, and then they were normal again. Now they were clean and even the bloodstains were gone. I stopped thinking of Lazarus for a microsecond to notice that somehow the clothes became clean and then I realized I had wished that they be cleaned. Then it dawned on me that I should have been surprised by my clothes suddenly appearing, dirty or not.

But that fleeting instant of rationality didn't last long, because the avalanche of depression had started. 'Oh God, Lazarus!' I bawled. If only I wouldn't have seen my dirty clothes, if only I wouldn't have thought of Lazarus, why do I have to cry and be so depressed?

The SuperAgent responded in my mind. The tracking device implanted in the limbic system region of your brain is interacting improperly with your hormone production and is causing you to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. Your hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials.

As I cried I mouthed the thought out and repeated it three times. 'The tracking device implanted in the limbic system region of your brain is interacting improperly with your hormone production and is causing you to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. Your hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials. . . .

' . . . The tracking device implanted in the limbic system region of your brain is interacting improperly with your hormone production and is causing you to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. Your hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials. . . .'

The third time it pierced the manic haze, 'The tracking device IMPLANTED in the limbic system region of MY brain is interacting improperly with MY hormone production and is causing ME to have rapid emotional swings with great amplitude. MY hippocampus cannot compensate swiftly enough for the chemical differentials!' I paused long enough to wipe the tears from my face and start crying again. Now however, the manic state swung violently to rage as it had when I had killed the two aliens.

'I HAVE AN ALIEN IMPLANT IN MY BRAIN! MY GOD I'M NOT CRAZY!! I HAVE AN ALIEN IMPLANT IN MY BRAIN! YOU BASTARDS! GET IT THE FUCK OUT OF ME RIGHT NOW! GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT!' I beat the floor with my fists and pitched a tantrum to beat all tantrums. I knew what needed to be done and that flying off in a tantrum wouldn't help, but I couldn't stop myself.

'Can it be taken out now!?' I asked and the SuperAgent didn't respond.

'Can it be taken out now, I asked!?' still no response.

'CAN IT BE TAKEN OUT NOW?!' Then I felt a slap across my face and the naked Russian girl shook me and screamed at me.

This was enough to snap me closer to sanity and I realized I was speaking out loud and not thinking to the computer.

Can my implant be removed now without harming me? 

Yes. 

Do it now! 

I waited for some sign, a pain in my head, a bloody nose, anything like I had seen in bad UFO science fiction movies, but nothing happened. I was beginning to get disappointed.

I said remove the implant now.