“You’re an exceptional human being, Doc,” he said. “I not only admit that—it’s the very reason you’re here. But I have an exceptional mind, and there’s no way you’re breaking out.
“Now, if you’ll just hold still a bit, these tests I’m about to run will help us shape and mold our controller to the precise, Platonically ideal standards of your unusually large hands, while calibrating the response ratio of our AI input-output fields to the precise biometrics of your nervous system. It should only take three or four weeks.”
I shrugged. “Your funeral, bro.”
Never taking his eyes off me, Paul the Scientist picked up some kind of control panel and started turning dials and pushing buttons. The machines around me began to buzz and beep even louder, and I could feel waves of electricity coursing through my body.
My muscles spasmed, my eyelids started fluttering faster and faster, and every hair on my body stood on end. Slick Daddy took on a life of his own, doing this crazy-ass caterpillar dance right under my nose. Pretty cool, actually.
I was pissed. I knew I shouldn’t be here—I was better than this. Yeah, I was broke. Yeah, my only TV was a black-and-white Sanyo. And yeah, I had been starving since breakfast.
But to make a deal with two nobodies off the street for nothing but a nontransferable 12 percent discount off a goddamn joystick? That wasn’t me. That wasn’t why I’d left home. I’d left the nest to become a warrior. To be the most dominant gamer in the history of the universe. And I knew it.
“My God!” Paul said excitedly, glancing at the readout. “I’ve never seen biometrics like this before! We can do so much with this information—so much! Screw joysticks. We can cure cancer… create the perfect sports-energy drink and launch it in Shanghai… clone an entire army of identical supersoldiers…”
That finally did it.
I mean, curing cancer would be cool. And who wouldn’t want the perfect sports-energy drink? But create more than one Doc? An entire army of Two-Times? What would that even be? Four Thousand and Thirty-Eight–Times?
Doesn’t matter, man. There can only be one Dr Disrespect.
Focusing all my energy, all my rage, I flexed every wildcat muscle in my six-foot-eight frame. The noise from the machines became deafening, lights started flashing, alarms blaring everywhere.
“Amazing!” Paul shouted. “You’re off the charts! I literally have to create a new chart right now!”
He turned toward a monitor and I saw my chance. I pulled against my bonds with everything I had, every ounce of strength, every molecule of my being.
CRACK!
The straps exploded, and like lightning streaking through the night sky, I jumped off the exam table, drew a hidden blade out of my secret ankle sheath—why do morons never check for a secret ankle sheath?—and whipped it at Paul’s head.
THWACK!
The blade point pierced the collar of his lab coat, missing his face by millimeters and pinning him to a wall of instruments with a burst of sparks and smoke.
Paul the Scientist gulped so loud I could hear it five feet away.
“Doc,” he said, trembling, “can I have your autograph?”
“You got it, Paul.” I laughed and punched him in the face, breaking his nose with a sickening snap, his blood spurting everywhere.
I used his blood to sign my name on the wall and then I walked out.
The lab exit door opened, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.
This top secret lab was right in the middle of Stanford’s campus! I should’ve known—goddamn entitled college kids. Nice campus, though. Lots of trees.
And walking right out from behind a couple of those trees were my old friends Larry and Sergey.
“Hey, fellas,” I said as I pulled out my second ankle blade—seriously, why does no one ever check for those?
They froze.
“Oh shit,” Sergey said. “I knew we shouldn’t have let Paul handle such a big project.”
The light of the afternoon sun flashed across my blade. “Sorry, boys,” I said. “But I’m done fucking around.” I took a step toward them, blood in my eyes and violence in my heart. Surprising literally no one, Larry pissed himself again.
“You really gotta see someone about that, Lare,” I said.
“Please, Doc,” Sergey said. “Please don’t hurt us. We just wanted to bless the gaming world with a superior controller, that’s all!”
“We had no intention of being evil!” Larry said. “We swear!”
I sighed and lowered my weapon. They were lucky that I wasn’t in a killing mood. This time.
“Here’s what really pisses me off, guys,” I said. “You didn’t even have to drug me with a poisonous pen and lock me up in your lab to steal the secrets of my superhuman speed and reflexes. You could’ve just asked! I mean, it’s kind of flattering, when you think about it. I woulda said yes just for the fun of it, you know?”
“Well,” Sergey said, “we were thinking of just asking. But then you kept being like, ‘Oh, you’re here to steal my blah blah blah, right?’ So we were like, ‘Huh, stealing—sounds like a good idea blah blah.’ ”
“And let’s be honest,” Larry said. “Taking people’s data in a sneaky underhanded way is a lot more fun than just, like, asking for it openly and transparently—even if they would give it to you willingly in order to improve service.”
“And,” Sergey said, “you did sign away the rights to your physiological essence. Even if it was buried in the middle of a long and complicated contract.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “You got me on that one.”
“But look,” Sergey said. “No hard feelings, all right? As our apology, we’ll give you a full twenty percent off the controller we’ll base on your own personal biometrics. And a .015 percent ownership stake in Oogle.”
I threw back my head and laughed long and hard. “Are you kidding me?” I said. “You may have tricked the Doc once—a total ridiculous miracle, by the way—but you won’t get him twice. Your stupid start-up won’t amount to jack. Especially with a dumb-ass name like
