SCORPIUS NEURAL CLONE (a.k.a. "HARVEY")
When Scorpius couldn't steal the secrets of wormhole travel from my mind with his Aurora Chair, he put a neurochip in my brain to poke around in all the dark corners. The chip contained an artificial-intelligence program modeled on the personality of Scorpius himself; this Neural Clone would sit in my psyche and heckle me while keeping me out of trouble so I could live to tell the real Scorpius my secrets. Long story short, Scorpius removed the chip and got his precious info, and, lucky me, a Diagnosan stitched my brain back together.
Want to hear something funny?
Even with the chip long gone, I've still got a mental copy of Scorpius stuck in my mind, an unwelcome guest who has tried to kill me and my friends on more than one occasion. I named him Harvey.
Because Harvey was abandoned by the real Scorpius, and because I kicked his leather-clad butt into a Dumpster to show him who's boss, my uninvited psychic guest has been much easier to live with than you might think. He's almost been useful a few times.
He'll never be nice enough to ride the Trolley to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, but he's got my back, psychically speaking. Why? Because, if I die so does he, and he stopped fantasizing about suicide a while ago. Recently, he's even given me some great behind-the-scenes info on his real-life counterpart. I have to admit, surviving the Command Carrier would've been a lot harder without Harvey helping me peek at the other team's playbook. And I — hold on, Harvey's chattering at me....
Harvey's now arguing that I would have died on the Command Carrier if it hadn't been for him. Wrong! Shut up, Harvey — you helped out in the trenches, but you didn't go over the top to charge the enemy bunkers.... What'd you say?
Excuse me; now he's arguing that, without him, I never woulda realized what the Old Lady was hiding from me. You're getting warmer, Harv, except that —
Why do I bother? He's proving my point for me. Fundamentally, Harvey's a headache. A chronic, throbbing, S-and-M-fashion-error of a headache. What's that? Shut up, Harvey. Don't make me come in there....
Postscript: Like all annoying pests, Harvey finally got swatted once and for all. But are you ready for the irony? The only way I was able to give him the fate he deserved was by letting the real Scorpius jab another metal spike into my brain stem. Now, I know what you're saying: "Um, John...? Wasn't that kind of, well, you know... really frelling stupid?" Yes, yes it was. But it worked, and my mind is once again private property. Now, if only Scorpy could do something about my athlete's foot....
Post-Postscript: That frelling sonuva—! Scorpius did it to me again! He told me Harvey was gone, toast, kaput. Well, gee, here's a shocker: Scorpius lied. He didn't delete the neural clone, he upgraded it! Now I've got Harvey 2.0 knocking around in my subconscious, digging up wormhole knowledge and beaming it straight into Scorpy's leather-wrapped noggin. This frelling thing's harder to uninstall than Windows 98. ... Have I mentioned how much I absolutely loathe Scorpius?
JOURNEY LOG REFERENCES
The Hidden Memory
Won't Get Fooled Again
Liars, Guns and Money, Part 1: A Not So Simple Plan
Liars, Guns and Money, Part 2: With Friends Like These
Liars, Guns and Money, Part 3: Plan B
Die Me, Dichotomy
Season of Death
Incubator
Infinite Possibilities, Part 1: Daedalus Demands
Infinite Possibilities, Part 2: Icarus Abides
Revenging Angel
Dog With Two Bones
Promises
We're So Screwed, Part 2: Hot to Katratzi
STARBURST TO ANY NOTE
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