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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