FIC: Instinct - PG13, chapter 5 of 6
TITLE: Instinct
AUTHOR: Roseveare, t.l.green@talk21.com
RATING: PG-13
LENGTH: 20,000 words approx
SUMMARY: When Jake screws up badly on a mission, other factions at the NSA take the opportunity to push forward modifications to the Nanite Program.
NOTES: Set after 'Arms and the Girl'. Thanks to kattahj for the beta!
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Kyle had him sitting bundled up in a blanket in the back of the truck within ten minutes of his arrival. In defiance of all improbability, apparently hot chocolate was counted an emergency NSA field ration, because someone had scrounged a cup from somewhere and pressed it into his hands. Crouched to avoid the truck's low canvas roof, a field medic poked at Jake's bruises and burns.
The superficial cuts and the marks left on his wrists by the ropes were already fading like three-day-old scrapes. He tucked his wrists under the blanket, wrapping its edges over his fingers to save them from the full heat of the tin mug in his hands.
The medic paused midway through his examination of the extensive bruising on Jake's neck. "Shrapnel?"
Kyle's eyes darted to Jake and back, and he nodded minimally. "Leave it. Is he okay?"
"Physically, he'll be fine. As for the total personality change... you'd know more about that than I would."
Kyle waved a hand that sent the grimly smiling agent packing.
"You called me the robot," Jake said, as the truck slowly rocked from the disembarkation of the medic. "I heard." He frowned at the closed flap of the truck. "That's what they call me, too?"
"The past few weeks, you've developed a reputation for a certain machine-like quality... in the field." He could see Kyle try to smile, then his partner looked down at the floor. It hadn't escaped him how the end of that remark had been so belatedly tagged on.
"I... don't think it was me," Jake admitted. "And I don't remember any of it. You know, whatever it was those guys hit me with, I have a bad feeling I am so, so incredibly lucky that they did. And considering how bad my head hurts right now, that is really saying something."
Kyle looked grim and guilty and, most of all, away from him. "You changed, Jake. We didn't know what to make of it. I knew you had always wanted to be an agent, but it was frightening how much you latched onto the job after you got that chip. Like people didn't matter any more, like... normal things didn't matter any more. Even NSA agents have to have lives. Friends. Diane's been... well, she's pretty upset."
"That wasn't me," Jake said. "It was - I don't know, the chip they put in my neck, or... Kyle, I haven't been at home since they turned that thing on." He tapped the side of his skull. "Boom! The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a cell with a bunch of guys with an electric shock fetish."
Slowly, Kyle nodded. "I'm getting that. You think Sleet's people switched the program on us?"
"Hell, yes. I don't know what that thing did to me, but that was not the test chip, Kyle." He leaned back, gulped at the hot chocolate and tried to stop shivering while Kyle's eyebrows did thinking-contortions. He almost spilled the tin cup as he was hit by a flash of maybe-memory, of Kyle staring at him stony-faced in this same truck, like they had never been friends, like he hated his guts. He remembered the tone of Kyle's voice outside when he said, "The robot's back?" And he blinked and stared across the narrow confines of the truck at his partner. "You didn't come in for me." They had satellites, Diane's monitoring device... the NSA could pinpoint just exactly where he was. They had been camped out within a few miles of him.
Kyle flinched, and the flicker across his face wasn't good. "I didn't know it was you, so to speak. Jake, you should have seen this guy you turned into. It was unreal. In more ways than one."
Jake looked down at his fingers. "He was good, then, as well as a creep? Guess the Agent Program worked, and when we get home, they'll want him - Evil Robot Jake - they'll want him right back." He raised his hand to where the chip lurked under his skin. Broken as it was, he didn't like the thought of it still inside him.
"No." Kyle spoke the word with vehemence. "Jake, I left him to get out of that place. I thought he could, and... I wasn't going to risk these men's lives in a rescue operation if he didn't. But you got out of there. Not him. I don't need any more proof of what you're capable of - you just have to learn and grow into it, without leaving human behind to get there. And that's what I'm going to tell Lou, and anyone else that asks. We gave this thing a chance. Now it's their turn to give you a chance and stop pushing. No more shortcuts."
Jake pulled a smile from somewhere. "Thanks."
There was some commotion around them, and Kyle disembarked from the truck briefly, exchanged some hushed words with the rest of the team that Jake couldn't muster the energy to listen to, then clambered back inside. The vehicle jolted into motion before he'd gotten sat down again. "We're clearing out. We got the word from Lou that an aerial retrieval team is on the way, but we can't land choppers here. This mission's a bust, and Diane wants you back in the lab for a diagnostic. Says she wants to check out some odd readings she's been getting." His eyebrows sketched irony.
"The mission - did I--?" Jake stopped, feeling a lump in his throat.
"Sometimes things just do go wrong," said Kyle. "And even if you did screw up, it would have been with the best Sleet's team could come up with plugged into your brain." He gave Jake an assessing once-over. "You should try to get some sleep, if you can. Diane isn't going to let you rest much once we get back to Fort Meade."
"What?" His eyelids had been drooping, but he hauled them open in protest at the suggestion. "And miss the choppers?"
He winced at the enthusiasm that rang in the words, half expecting Kyle to say something impatient and archly condescending that would make him feel about ten years old. Instead, a slow grin spread over Kyle's face, and he gave a bark of laughter, and relaxed back with that little smile still playing at the edges of his expression. And Jake had another flash of almost-memory, of Kyle floating a rare joke, and he... the eyes he viewed the memory out of moved past his mentor, uncaring, uninterested, as though he wasn't even there.
Drifting, he jerked himself awake again. Mumbled, "Hey, Kyle?"
"What is it?"
"That electric shock thing. That thing? That thing sucks."
Kyle raised an eyebrow, and said with surprise, but nonetheless very, very feelingly, "It does."
***
Apparently Kyle hadn't sent any word back ahead of them that the 'Robot' was dead, only that there had been a problem with the chip the extent of which he'd not defined. So when Kyle shepherded him into the lab dressed in someone-or-other's spare civvies that bagged on his frame - needless to say, they hadn't considered a stop at his apartment first a priority - Diane was pottering around inside looking hassled and fed up.
"Hey." Jake gave her a tired smile. "Looks like I didn't do so good with the not-getting-hurt thing."
She stopped short, frowning, and pulled up her glasses to peer narrowly at him from underneath them. Then she yanked them firmly back down her nose, pointed a finger, and said with a marked lack of goodwill, "Exam table."
"Nice to see you as well," he choked, voice rising to a squeak as she seized his oversized shirt and gave him a yank in her stated direction. "Okay, okay..." He cast a bewildered look at Kyle, who was watching the proceedings pensively. He focused it into a rather more annoyed look as Kyle continued to stand there and watch.
"Diane..." The agent cleared his throat awkwardly. "Perhaps you should let Jake explain what happened while we were out there."
Diane wagged her head side-to-side, unimpressed and not paying a vast amount of attention. Whatever Evil Robot Jake had said or not said to her, she had clearly exhausted her patience and washed her hands of him. It stung. She'd been his best friend in this place. Now she was all business, divesting Jake of his oversized shirt with a critical eye for the healing flesh underneath. "Ooh, burns. Was there torture? Tell me there was torture."
Jake gaped at her. "Yes, there was torture!" He snatched for her hand as she looked like she was about to reach up and punch the air. "You... really hold a grudge. Wow. Remind me never to get on your bad side."
Kyle looked like he was struggling manfully with the decision whether to laugh or wince.
"You." Diane backed away from him abruptly, waving her palms toward him. "Wait, wait, wait. This is not part of the script. This is... smalltalk. With people. And... joking, sorta. You want to tell me what's going on, Mister Data?" But she evidently rethought the attempt at direct contact, because she swung around to Kyle before Jake had chance to say anything.
"I did try," Kyle said, more heavily sarcastic than Kyle was generally prone to, but then it'd been a strange day. "You should probably ask Jake." He uncrossed his arms to point. "And by the way, the emphasis on that name? Was a big clue."
"Hi." Jake limply waved to her from his perch on the examination table. "Remember me?"
"He--" She turned to Kyle again, who re-crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head, cutting her short. "You," she finally addressed him reluctantly. "Jake... thing. You're acting normal. Why are you acting normal -- oh, my goodness." She gave a little gasp as she took in the bruising around his neck. "Oh." She reached out, and a tentative touch quickly transformed into a doctor's thorough and practical examination. Which actually kinda hurt.
"Ow!"
"Don't be such a baby." She paused to take in what she'd said, but only briefly. Jake grimaced as her hands pressed down. At least the nanites had gotten their act in gear sufficiently that direct pressure on the injury no longer made him want to pass out. After a few minutes, she stood back. Jake looked at her expectantly.
"The chip... the chip was broken." As denouements went, it was a bit disappointing. "You - you're not acting normal, you are normal. Well, as normal as nanite enhanced and, um, you ever can get. Ohhh..." She fanned her face with her hands as though she suspected she might pass out. "Okay... total personality reversion, you and Kyle are talking again..." She scrunched up her face, stepped forward, and punched him in the arm.
"What was that for?" Jake yelped.
"That's for being such a, what's the word - oh yeah, asshole - under the influence of far too much knowledge for your swollen nanite-crammed head!"
"Yeah, operative word being 'influence'! Thanks to that damn chip, for three weeks, I got nothing but a blank in here." He waved a hand in the vicinity of his earlobe.
"No argument from me," she said sulkily.
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Diane, he doesn't remember anything."
"That is such a lame excuse!"
"It's true." Jake moved to slide off the exam table, and quickly backtracked when Diane brandished a fist at him. "Look, this is crazy. It's like I left my... my damn brother to house-sit - except for the part where I'd never do that because I'm not insane - and I come back three weeks later and the apartment's trashed, there's cans everywhere and somebody didn't even clean up the vomit on the floor. Except it's worse, because it's not my apartment, it's my body! Do you have any clue how much that blows?"
She winced and frowned at him severely. After a moment, a trace of conflicted sympathy seemed to creep into her eyes. "Vomit?"
"Metaphorical vomit, okay? Can we... can we work on the assumption now that I'm me, and... I don't know what he was, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't me?"
"Wait." Diane held both sides of her head like she was trying to keep her ears from falling off. "The chip took over your brain? That's what we're talking about here, isn't it? And I mean - " She laughed unevenly " - as excuses for acting like an overstuffed butthead go, that's a little... science fiction."
Jake pointed to his chest. "Guy full of nanites."
"Right, but the nanites are real science. Although... all right, we still don't really know everything about how the nanites work in a human subject, how they interact with the brain, the consciousness... The neurological impact is more the purview of Sleet's team than mine, I'll admit. But mind control? Using the nanites as a method by which to hijack actual human synapses and..." She frowned. "I-I-I suppose it's theoretically possible."
"Reprogramming," Jake said. "By any other name. Not just possible, either, it happened. And for the record, when we've finished telling me how much of an asshole I've been the last few weeks, I'm not too happy about it myself."
Diane looked like she was still struggling, but after a minute of her lips moving silently she rallied to the point of, "Um, in that case I really think I ought to run that diagnostic - like, right now. I should check how the nanites have taken to the malfunction - well, more like semi-pulverisation from the looks of things - of the chip. 'Cause that would tie in with the weird readings I've been getting." She cautiously reached out past Jake for the PDA where it lay on the table, and equally cautiously brought it close to him. She smiled nervously, still evidently unsure how to take the transformation.
"Earlier," Jake began, a bit choked. She was his friend, was the trust between them gone? "In the prison, the nanites weren't working. They've been, uh, perking up, though. I think they're almost back to normal now."
"That's probably just a cognitive pattern recognition issue," Diane said absently. "Like before... except you won't know about before. The other--"
"Evil Robot Jake."
"--ahaha, well he said the nanites were slow, the first day or so. Of course, he - you - whoever - wasn't out running around on missions getting locked up and tortured and - oh! Jake, I am so--" She broke off with her arms still outstretched toward him. "Are you sure you're really you again?" she demanded. "I can't exactly suspect a joke, but if this is some kind of a trick--"
"Diane," Kyle intoned warningly.
Diane nodded slowly to herself before resuming her forward lunge as though she hadn't stalled. "Jake, I am so sorry about that comment about the torture. I'm really glad you got back in one piece."
Jake grimaced slightly in the grip of her apology-slash-welcome-home. Having Diane mad at him had been less painful.
***
"What is it?" Lou asked, unimpressed, as they filed into her office without invitation and arranged themselves in front of her desk. Kyle shut the door quietly behind them. "I'm still not reassigning any of you from this team."
Diane gave a little jump and looked guiltily at Jake.
"You asked to be reassigned?"
"Can we stick to the topic?" Kyle suggested.
Lou sat back in her chair slowly and travelled an unhurried, assessing gaze over them all. Jake knew it well; it was the one that made Kyle stand to attention and even made he and Diane dig deep to find some rigidity of stance in their naturally slouchy souls. Lou's eyes returned to him last of all. "What happened?"
It was Diane who spoke up, even as her straight stance broke down. "Lou, Jake's last mission killed the Agent Program. Look--" she gestured wih both hands at Jake's neck "--okay, the nanites have been at work, but I think you can still see the extent of the original soft tissue trauma. As far as the Agent Chip was concerned, it looks like they - unknowing, I'm sure - scored a perfect hit. The chip's kaput." She beamed. "Ding, dong, the chip is dead." She bobbled her head happily.
"That's the boring part," Jake put it, while Lou was still sourly regarding Diane. "We haven't got to the fun stuff yet."
"Am I to take it that we have Agent Foley back to his usual self?" Lou asked, inclining her head and one hand, and causing Diane to snap her mouth closed on another overexcited tirade. Lou nodded to herself at their reactions, then to Jake. "Welcome back. While that was an interesting experiment, I don't think it's one we'll be repeating. I'll pass along our sentiments about that to Deputy Director Sleet. Does that conclude this irregular audience? I have a meeting I need to be at."
"No, uh..." Jake struggled to resume his thread. "There's more that--" He gave in. "You expected this?"
"No," Lou said coolly, "But I can say I'm neither surprised nor sorry. Field hardware gets broken. Kyle, was there something else?"
Kyle soberly looked down at his clasped hands. "We think that Sleet may have switched the chip from the test program," he said, and met Lou's eyes directly. "But then you already knew that."
"What?" Diane squeaked.
"Kyle." Lou sighed, and turned to Jake. Still with a rather businesslike dismissal, she said, "I didn't know he was going to do it. I suspected afterwards, and confronted him with it. Sleet admitted the deception and convinced me to allow a three month trial before disabling the chip."
Jake knew his mouth was hanging open, but the muscles in his jaw had thrown off all voluntary control. Fortunately, Diane got there for him. "I - I can't believe this. You knew what that chip was doing to him? You knew and let the whole thing proceed? I don't understand it. I know you're dedicated to this agency, but I thought you were against the Agent Program."
"I am dedicated to this agency - and my people in it - and against the Agent Program. But the program was already in place and Jake had consented. Sleet and I came to an arrangement. Three months, and he'd push for no more tryouts of any further experimental additions to Jake's nanites."
"I didn't consent," Jake said thickly, "to be brainwiped. Sleet conned us. He conned you. Are we just going to accept that?"
"Frankly, yes," Lou rapped, "because we're all of us practical people who don't want to involve ourselves in an argument with huge potential to backfire. I was against this program from the beginning, but my hands were tied. The NSA spends money on research, it expects its people to be open to the implementation of that research. Blocking it dead would have achieved nothing but to undermine my own position. You grey the moral ground here, Jake - you're a human subject. An accidental one, maybe, but the fact you exist gives people ideas. The best way to protect you for the future was to let this run its course."
"But - but it didn't," Diane said. "The chip was broken, and he didn't get his three months. Will Sleet even honour that deal?"
"Don't worry," Lou said grimly. "He will." She inclined her head towards the door. After a pause, deflated, they began to shuffle out.
"As far as I'm concerned," Lou added, head bowed to her paperwork as Kyle's fingers touched the handle, "The Agent Program was a failure. It created a trained super-agent, perhaps - but one that caused an unacceptable amount of disruption among my team, and in doing so placed my people at risk in the field. Further to that, the breakdown of the Agent Program and the situation into which Agent Foley was placed indicates an unreliability in its field application that I just can't condone. I will not be recommending further development or testing of the complete program."
"Thank you." Kyle gave her a soft nod, pushing Jake and Diane out of the room ahead of him while they remained too stunned to respond.
Just one more chapter to go!
AUTHOR: Roseveare, t.l.green@talk21.com
RATING: PG-13
LENGTH: 20,000 words approx
SUMMARY: When Jake screws up badly on a mission, other factions at the NSA take the opportunity to push forward modifications to the Nanite Program.
NOTES: Set after 'Arms and the Girl'. Thanks to kattahj for the beta!
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Kyle had him sitting bundled up in a blanket in the back of the truck within ten minutes of his arrival. In defiance of all improbability, apparently hot chocolate was counted an emergency NSA field ration, because someone had scrounged a cup from somewhere and pressed it into his hands. Crouched to avoid the truck's low canvas roof, a field medic poked at Jake's bruises and burns.
The superficial cuts and the marks left on his wrists by the ropes were already fading like three-day-old scrapes. He tucked his wrists under the blanket, wrapping its edges over his fingers to save them from the full heat of the tin mug in his hands.
The medic paused midway through his examination of the extensive bruising on Jake's neck. "Shrapnel?"
Kyle's eyes darted to Jake and back, and he nodded minimally. "Leave it. Is he okay?"
"Physically, he'll be fine. As for the total personality change... you'd know more about that than I would."
Kyle waved a hand that sent the grimly smiling agent packing.
"You called me the robot," Jake said, as the truck slowly rocked from the disembarkation of the medic. "I heard." He frowned at the closed flap of the truck. "That's what they call me, too?"
"The past few weeks, you've developed a reputation for a certain machine-like quality... in the field." He could see Kyle try to smile, then his partner looked down at the floor. It hadn't escaped him how the end of that remark had been so belatedly tagged on.
"I... don't think it was me," Jake admitted. "And I don't remember any of it. You know, whatever it was those guys hit me with, I have a bad feeling I am so, so incredibly lucky that they did. And considering how bad my head hurts right now, that is really saying something."
Kyle looked grim and guilty and, most of all, away from him. "You changed, Jake. We didn't know what to make of it. I knew you had always wanted to be an agent, but it was frightening how much you latched onto the job after you got that chip. Like people didn't matter any more, like... normal things didn't matter any more. Even NSA agents have to have lives. Friends. Diane's been... well, she's pretty upset."
"That wasn't me," Jake said. "It was - I don't know, the chip they put in my neck, or... Kyle, I haven't been at home since they turned that thing on." He tapped the side of his skull. "Boom! The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a cell with a bunch of guys with an electric shock fetish."
Slowly, Kyle nodded. "I'm getting that. You think Sleet's people switched the program on us?"
"Hell, yes. I don't know what that thing did to me, but that was not the test chip, Kyle." He leaned back, gulped at the hot chocolate and tried to stop shivering while Kyle's eyebrows did thinking-contortions. He almost spilled the tin cup as he was hit by a flash of maybe-memory, of Kyle staring at him stony-faced in this same truck, like they had never been friends, like he hated his guts. He remembered the tone of Kyle's voice outside when he said, "The robot's back?" And he blinked and stared across the narrow confines of the truck at his partner. "You didn't come in for me." They had satellites, Diane's monitoring device... the NSA could pinpoint just exactly where he was. They had been camped out within a few miles of him.
Kyle flinched, and the flicker across his face wasn't good. "I didn't know it was you, so to speak. Jake, you should have seen this guy you turned into. It was unreal. In more ways than one."
Jake looked down at his fingers. "He was good, then, as well as a creep? Guess the Agent Program worked, and when we get home, they'll want him - Evil Robot Jake - they'll want him right back." He raised his hand to where the chip lurked under his skin. Broken as it was, he didn't like the thought of it still inside him.
"No." Kyle spoke the word with vehemence. "Jake, I left him to get out of that place. I thought he could, and... I wasn't going to risk these men's lives in a rescue operation if he didn't. But you got out of there. Not him. I don't need any more proof of what you're capable of - you just have to learn and grow into it, without leaving human behind to get there. And that's what I'm going to tell Lou, and anyone else that asks. We gave this thing a chance. Now it's their turn to give you a chance and stop pushing. No more shortcuts."
Jake pulled a smile from somewhere. "Thanks."
There was some commotion around them, and Kyle disembarked from the truck briefly, exchanged some hushed words with the rest of the team that Jake couldn't muster the energy to listen to, then clambered back inside. The vehicle jolted into motion before he'd gotten sat down again. "We're clearing out. We got the word from Lou that an aerial retrieval team is on the way, but we can't land choppers here. This mission's a bust, and Diane wants you back in the lab for a diagnostic. Says she wants to check out some odd readings she's been getting." His eyebrows sketched irony.
"The mission - did I--?" Jake stopped, feeling a lump in his throat.
"Sometimes things just do go wrong," said Kyle. "And even if you did screw up, it would have been with the best Sleet's team could come up with plugged into your brain." He gave Jake an assessing once-over. "You should try to get some sleep, if you can. Diane isn't going to let you rest much once we get back to Fort Meade."
"What?" His eyelids had been drooping, but he hauled them open in protest at the suggestion. "And miss the choppers?"
He winced at the enthusiasm that rang in the words, half expecting Kyle to say something impatient and archly condescending that would make him feel about ten years old. Instead, a slow grin spread over Kyle's face, and he gave a bark of laughter, and relaxed back with that little smile still playing at the edges of his expression. And Jake had another flash of almost-memory, of Kyle floating a rare joke, and he... the eyes he viewed the memory out of moved past his mentor, uncaring, uninterested, as though he wasn't even there.
Drifting, he jerked himself awake again. Mumbled, "Hey, Kyle?"
"What is it?"
"That electric shock thing. That thing? That thing sucks."
Kyle raised an eyebrow, and said with surprise, but nonetheless very, very feelingly, "It does."
***
Apparently Kyle hadn't sent any word back ahead of them that the 'Robot' was dead, only that there had been a problem with the chip the extent of which he'd not defined. So when Kyle shepherded him into the lab dressed in someone-or-other's spare civvies that bagged on his frame - needless to say, they hadn't considered a stop at his apartment first a priority - Diane was pottering around inside looking hassled and fed up.
"Hey." Jake gave her a tired smile. "Looks like I didn't do so good with the not-getting-hurt thing."
She stopped short, frowning, and pulled up her glasses to peer narrowly at him from underneath them. Then she yanked them firmly back down her nose, pointed a finger, and said with a marked lack of goodwill, "Exam table."
"Nice to see you as well," he choked, voice rising to a squeak as she seized his oversized shirt and gave him a yank in her stated direction. "Okay, okay..." He cast a bewildered look at Kyle, who was watching the proceedings pensively. He focused it into a rather more annoyed look as Kyle continued to stand there and watch.
"Diane..." The agent cleared his throat awkwardly. "Perhaps you should let Jake explain what happened while we were out there."
Diane wagged her head side-to-side, unimpressed and not paying a vast amount of attention. Whatever Evil Robot Jake had said or not said to her, she had clearly exhausted her patience and washed her hands of him. It stung. She'd been his best friend in this place. Now she was all business, divesting Jake of his oversized shirt with a critical eye for the healing flesh underneath. "Ooh, burns. Was there torture? Tell me there was torture."
Jake gaped at her. "Yes, there was torture!" He snatched for her hand as she looked like she was about to reach up and punch the air. "You... really hold a grudge. Wow. Remind me never to get on your bad side."
Kyle looked like he was struggling manfully with the decision whether to laugh or wince.
"You." Diane backed away from him abruptly, waving her palms toward him. "Wait, wait, wait. This is not part of the script. This is... smalltalk. With people. And... joking, sorta. You want to tell me what's going on, Mister Data?" But she evidently rethought the attempt at direct contact, because she swung around to Kyle before Jake had chance to say anything.
"I did try," Kyle said, more heavily sarcastic than Kyle was generally prone to, but then it'd been a strange day. "You should probably ask Jake." He uncrossed his arms to point. "And by the way, the emphasis on that name? Was a big clue."
"Hi." Jake limply waved to her from his perch on the examination table. "Remember me?"
"He--" She turned to Kyle again, who re-crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head, cutting her short. "You," she finally addressed him reluctantly. "Jake... thing. You're acting normal. Why are you acting normal -- oh, my goodness." She gave a little gasp as she took in the bruising around his neck. "Oh." She reached out, and a tentative touch quickly transformed into a doctor's thorough and practical examination. Which actually kinda hurt.
"Ow!"
"Don't be such a baby." She paused to take in what she'd said, but only briefly. Jake grimaced as her hands pressed down. At least the nanites had gotten their act in gear sufficiently that direct pressure on the injury no longer made him want to pass out. After a few minutes, she stood back. Jake looked at her expectantly.
"The chip... the chip was broken." As denouements went, it was a bit disappointing. "You - you're not acting normal, you are normal. Well, as normal as nanite enhanced and, um, you ever can get. Ohhh..." She fanned her face with her hands as though she suspected she might pass out. "Okay... total personality reversion, you and Kyle are talking again..." She scrunched up her face, stepped forward, and punched him in the arm.
"What was that for?" Jake yelped.
"That's for being such a, what's the word - oh yeah, asshole - under the influence of far too much knowledge for your swollen nanite-crammed head!"
"Yeah, operative word being 'influence'! Thanks to that damn chip, for three weeks, I got nothing but a blank in here." He waved a hand in the vicinity of his earlobe.
"No argument from me," she said sulkily.
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Diane, he doesn't remember anything."
"That is such a lame excuse!"
"It's true." Jake moved to slide off the exam table, and quickly backtracked when Diane brandished a fist at him. "Look, this is crazy. It's like I left my... my damn brother to house-sit - except for the part where I'd never do that because I'm not insane - and I come back three weeks later and the apartment's trashed, there's cans everywhere and somebody didn't even clean up the vomit on the floor. Except it's worse, because it's not my apartment, it's my body! Do you have any clue how much that blows?"
She winced and frowned at him severely. After a moment, a trace of conflicted sympathy seemed to creep into her eyes. "Vomit?"
"Metaphorical vomit, okay? Can we... can we work on the assumption now that I'm me, and... I don't know what he was, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't me?"
"Wait." Diane held both sides of her head like she was trying to keep her ears from falling off. "The chip took over your brain? That's what we're talking about here, isn't it? And I mean - " She laughed unevenly " - as excuses for acting like an overstuffed butthead go, that's a little... science fiction."
Jake pointed to his chest. "Guy full of nanites."
"Right, but the nanites are real science. Although... all right, we still don't really know everything about how the nanites work in a human subject, how they interact with the brain, the consciousness... The neurological impact is more the purview of Sleet's team than mine, I'll admit. But mind control? Using the nanites as a method by which to hijack actual human synapses and..." She frowned. "I-I-I suppose it's theoretically possible."
"Reprogramming," Jake said. "By any other name. Not just possible, either, it happened. And for the record, when we've finished telling me how much of an asshole I've been the last few weeks, I'm not too happy about it myself."
Diane looked like she was still struggling, but after a minute of her lips moving silently she rallied to the point of, "Um, in that case I really think I ought to run that diagnostic - like, right now. I should check how the nanites have taken to the malfunction - well, more like semi-pulverisation from the looks of things - of the chip. 'Cause that would tie in with the weird readings I've been getting." She cautiously reached out past Jake for the PDA where it lay on the table, and equally cautiously brought it close to him. She smiled nervously, still evidently unsure how to take the transformation.
"Earlier," Jake began, a bit choked. She was his friend, was the trust between them gone? "In the prison, the nanites weren't working. They've been, uh, perking up, though. I think they're almost back to normal now."
"That's probably just a cognitive pattern recognition issue," Diane said absently. "Like before... except you won't know about before. The other--"
"Evil Robot Jake."
"--ahaha, well he said the nanites were slow, the first day or so. Of course, he - you - whoever - wasn't out running around on missions getting locked up and tortured and - oh! Jake, I am so--" She broke off with her arms still outstretched toward him. "Are you sure you're really you again?" she demanded. "I can't exactly suspect a joke, but if this is some kind of a trick--"
"Diane," Kyle intoned warningly.
Diane nodded slowly to herself before resuming her forward lunge as though she hadn't stalled. "Jake, I am so sorry about that comment about the torture. I'm really glad you got back in one piece."
Jake grimaced slightly in the grip of her apology-slash-welcome-home. Having Diane mad at him had been less painful.
***
"What is it?" Lou asked, unimpressed, as they filed into her office without invitation and arranged themselves in front of her desk. Kyle shut the door quietly behind them. "I'm still not reassigning any of you from this team."
Diane gave a little jump and looked guiltily at Jake.
"You asked to be reassigned?"
"Can we stick to the topic?" Kyle suggested.
Lou sat back in her chair slowly and travelled an unhurried, assessing gaze over them all. Jake knew it well; it was the one that made Kyle stand to attention and even made he and Diane dig deep to find some rigidity of stance in their naturally slouchy souls. Lou's eyes returned to him last of all. "What happened?"
It was Diane who spoke up, even as her straight stance broke down. "Lou, Jake's last mission killed the Agent Program. Look--" she gestured wih both hands at Jake's neck "--okay, the nanites have been at work, but I think you can still see the extent of the original soft tissue trauma. As far as the Agent Chip was concerned, it looks like they - unknowing, I'm sure - scored a perfect hit. The chip's kaput." She beamed. "Ding, dong, the chip is dead." She bobbled her head happily.
"That's the boring part," Jake put it, while Lou was still sourly regarding Diane. "We haven't got to the fun stuff yet."
"Am I to take it that we have Agent Foley back to his usual self?" Lou asked, inclining her head and one hand, and causing Diane to snap her mouth closed on another overexcited tirade. Lou nodded to herself at their reactions, then to Jake. "Welcome back. While that was an interesting experiment, I don't think it's one we'll be repeating. I'll pass along our sentiments about that to Deputy Director Sleet. Does that conclude this irregular audience? I have a meeting I need to be at."
"No, uh..." Jake struggled to resume his thread. "There's more that--" He gave in. "You expected this?"
"No," Lou said coolly, "But I can say I'm neither surprised nor sorry. Field hardware gets broken. Kyle, was there something else?"
Kyle soberly looked down at his clasped hands. "We think that Sleet may have switched the chip from the test program," he said, and met Lou's eyes directly. "But then you already knew that."
"What?" Diane squeaked.
"Kyle." Lou sighed, and turned to Jake. Still with a rather businesslike dismissal, she said, "I didn't know he was going to do it. I suspected afterwards, and confronted him with it. Sleet admitted the deception and convinced me to allow a three month trial before disabling the chip."
Jake knew his mouth was hanging open, but the muscles in his jaw had thrown off all voluntary control. Fortunately, Diane got there for him. "I - I can't believe this. You knew what that chip was doing to him? You knew and let the whole thing proceed? I don't understand it. I know you're dedicated to this agency, but I thought you were against the Agent Program."
"I am dedicated to this agency - and my people in it - and against the Agent Program. But the program was already in place and Jake had consented. Sleet and I came to an arrangement. Three months, and he'd push for no more tryouts of any further experimental additions to Jake's nanites."
"I didn't consent," Jake said thickly, "to be brainwiped. Sleet conned us. He conned you. Are we just going to accept that?"
"Frankly, yes," Lou rapped, "because we're all of us practical people who don't want to involve ourselves in an argument with huge potential to backfire. I was against this program from the beginning, but my hands were tied. The NSA spends money on research, it expects its people to be open to the implementation of that research. Blocking it dead would have achieved nothing but to undermine my own position. You grey the moral ground here, Jake - you're a human subject. An accidental one, maybe, but the fact you exist gives people ideas. The best way to protect you for the future was to let this run its course."
"But - but it didn't," Diane said. "The chip was broken, and he didn't get his three months. Will Sleet even honour that deal?"
"Don't worry," Lou said grimly. "He will." She inclined her head towards the door. After a pause, deflated, they began to shuffle out.
"As far as I'm concerned," Lou added, head bowed to her paperwork as Kyle's fingers touched the handle, "The Agent Program was a failure. It created a trained super-agent, perhaps - but one that caused an unacceptable amount of disruption among my team, and in doing so placed my people at risk in the field. Further to that, the breakdown of the Agent Program and the situation into which Agent Foley was placed indicates an unreliability in its field application that I just can't condone. I will not be recommending further development or testing of the complete program."
"Thank you." Kyle gave her a soft nod, pushing Jake and Diane out of the room ahead of him while they remained too stunned to respond.
Just one more chapter to go!