Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: So I just found out the majority of the people at my job watch iCarly. We are talking about people way out of the desired age demo. My boss was like "so how did the blond haired girl get a twin?" and I was like "dunno." Cool, but weird.
"Mysteries of the Mind"
by: the archduke
"Spencer! You promised never to tell him!" Mrs. Benson admonished. She turned to Freddie. "It was for your own good! I love you so much! I couldn't bare for anything to happen to you!" she pleaded as she clutched him to her bosom. Freddie stood there and let her words sink in.
"There's a chip in my head? And you put it in there?" He wrestled away from his mother and looked at her with increasing alarm. "What did you do, perform brain surgery in the kitchen? This is unbelievable! You've done some weird things, Mom, and I've mostly gone along with them, but this is - gaahhh!" By this point he was gesturing wildly with his arms, his body language and inability to form words an outward exhibition of his inner agitation.
"Freddie, please calm down," she began, but stopped at the look on Freddie's face. She sighed. That was his stubborn face. There was no reasoning with him when he got that look. "No, a very nice, morally flexible doctor in Venezuela implanted it. It's been working wonderfully for 15 years. That's how we found you when those unprincipled Japanese children kidnapped you. But the doctor did say that interference with other signals may occur."
"Fifteen years!" Freddie shouted. "That's practically my entire life! You turned me into some sort of, of, robot!" he stuttered.
"Cyborg," Spencer said without thinking. Freddie, Mrs. Benson and Carly turned to him. He decided to clarify. "Freddie's a cyborg. He's made of both organic and inorganic materials. A robot is only inorganic." He noticed their disbelieving stares and became defensive. "Just for clarification."
Carly shook her head at her older brother. "Thanks for the info, Mr. Wizard. But can you please try and stay on topic."
"But he started it," Spencer said while pointing a finger at Freddie. Carly glared.
"Fine," Spencer sighed as he slumped towards the kitchen. "I'll go make spaghetti tacos. I think we all could use some comfort food. Is that okay with you, Carly, or is that not 'on topic'?" Carly just stood there with her arms crossed and Spencer got the message. Carly meant business. He proceeded to the kitchen in silence.
Freddie started pacing around the living room, trying to mentally process his situation. He had a chip in his head. A tracking chip, if his mom was to be believed, but he had a very hard time trusting anything she said at the moment. Sam's ankle monitor made the chip go haywire, which in turn made his brain go haywire and go after Sam. He was lucky he still had all his limbs. In theory, anything could have set off the chip all these years, and he was just fortunate nothing like this had happened before. And it wasn't going to happen again.
He turned to his mother. "This chip is coming out of my head," he commanded. "I'm going to get a full body scan to make sure there aren't any other surprises embedded in me, and then the doctor will take out anything that shouldn't be in there. Are we clear?" There was no room for argument in his voice.
Carly and Mrs. Benson just stared at Freddie, a bit amazed at his forcefulness. Both were impressed by this little-seen side of him. Then Mrs. Benson winced, as if she were remembering something unpleasant.
She began wringing her hands, and gave Freddie an apologetic look. "Sweetie, I promise you there are no other chips in your body. Just that one in your head." Freddie's raised eyebrow displayed his doubts.
"And," Mrs. Benson continued, "well, certain federal regulations may have been . . . disregarded when I went to Venezuela for the chip, and the legality of it may be in question. So we might want to keep the authorities out of this."
Freddie raised his hands in exasperation. "Great! Not only do I have a chip in my head, but it's an illegal chip. What's next? Will some sketchy Venezuelan show up one day, trying to repossess this thing because the check you gave him bounced?" he said mockingly.
"Of course not, dear. I paid in cash." Freddie gave an inarticulate groan and Mrs. Benson quickly realized her method of payment was not the most important issue at the moment.
Carly chose then to clear her throat. When both Bensons ignored her she did it again, but louder. A third time, accompanied with a hacking cough, finally got their attention.
"I hate to interrupt, and I'm not just saying that, because I really don't want to get involved with this, but we have iCarly tonight. And I don't think we can do it if Freddie is going to act all weird around Sam. Though I guess we can call it a new segment: Random Groping?" Carly was hoping a joke would lighten the tense atmosphere in the loft. By the stone cold looks the Bensons were giving her, it didn't work.
After a moment of silence, they all heard a door open. A voice came from upstairs. "I smell deliciousness. Carly, bring me food. Nub, don't come anywhere near me if you want to keep all your teeth. That is all." The sound of a door slamming effectively ended the one-sided conversation.
Carly sighed. It seemed the situation had made Sam more difficult than usual. "Spencer," she called over to the kitchen, "did you hear that? Her Majesty is hungry," she said dryly.
"I hear everything," Spencer said mysteriously. "And I have a plan." He gave them an enigmatic smile. Which dropped when all he got back were confused faces. He clarified. "For tonight. I have a plan so you guys can do iCarly tonight. Just give me two hours." And with that he bounded to his room, leaving Carly to finish the spaghetti tacos.
"We could stick his head in the microwave. It killed his watch when I microwaved it that one time. It should take out that chip." Sam had been fed and was now in a much better mood than she had been in earlier. When Carly had told her the cause of Freddie's strange behavior, Sam had laughed and said she wasn't really surprised, considering his mother. The two girls had been up in Carly's room for over two hours, waiting for Spencer to unveil his answer to their iCarly problem while they thought of their own solutions. They had not yet had any success.
"Sure, it'll kill the chip. And him. Anyway, you can't turn the microwave on unless the door is closed. How are you going to get that to happen? Chop off his head?" Carly asked.
Sam shrugged. "It would solve our problem." Despite Sam's cavalier attitude about Freddie's death, Carly knew Sam wasn't serious. Probably.
The two girls continued to ponder the strange circumstances they had inadvertently found themselves in, when they heard a shout from downstairs. Spencer was ready with his top secret project.
Sam refused to go downstairs if Freddie was present, so Carly went by herself. As she made her way down the first flight of stairs, she stopped at the sound of Mrs. Benson.
"What have you done to my baby!" she shrilled.
Carly let out a long sigh. This was not going to be fun.
After steeling herself for what she was about to encounter, Carly continued down the stairs until she could see the living room. In the middle of the room stood Freddie, or someone who she supposed was Freddie. She couldn't exactly be sure due to the enormous metal bubble encapsulating his head.
Spencer was trying to calm a frantic Mrs. Benson. "Don't worry I made eye and air holes. So he can see and breathe. So really, you have no reason to worry, Mrs. Benson. Risk of suffocation is very minimal." Judging by Mrs. Benson's bulging eyes, Spencer's attempts were not going well.
"Spencer," Carly said. She pointed at Freddie. "What?" She didn't feel a need to elaborate.
Spencer rubbed his hands together, as if he had just been dying for someone to ask him that exact question. "You see, Carly," he began in a professorial tone, "I have constructed what I like to call a Chip-In-Head Disruptor. Patent pending. So don't get any ideas." He gave Carly and Mrs. Benson a distrustful look.
"Anyway," he continued, "I figured we've got to somehow block Sam's signal from interfering with Freddie's. So I took one of my old-timey diver's helmets-" Carly interrupted. "You have more than one?"
Spencer ignored her. "And covered it with various types of metals. Sheets of metal, different wires woven together, that sort of stuff. I figured one or more of them will block the signal, therefore enabling Freddie to do his tech producer thing tonight." Spencer rapped against the helmet, making Freddie jump.
"What!," Freddie shouted, his voice severely muffled. "What's going on? Who's there?" Freddie began to flail, blindly waving his arms around trying to get a bearing on his surroundings. As he continued to flail and shout, he bumped into one of the stools around the breakfast bar and fell with a thump. Mrs. Benson immediately rushed to his side.
Carly shook her head at Spencer. "He can't see or hear anything, can he?" she questioned.
"I put in eye holes," Spencer said defensively. "I just didn't want to make them too big, because otherwise some sneaky Sam signal could make its way to his brain. And the metal covering the helmet ended up being pretty thick, so it's possible his hearing is a bit impaired."
They could hear Mrs. Benson screaming at Freddie, asking him if he was okay and him responding that no, he did not want to watch any hockey.
"Just a bit impaired?" she asked. Spencer grinned bashfully and shrugged. His grin then turned excited. "Let's get Sam down here and try it out."
A/N: Mr. Wizard! Carly probably has no idea who that is, but I loved that show as a kid.
A/N 2: This chapter was originally going to be longer, but I decided this was a good place to stop. The next chapter will definitely have some Sam/Freddie interaction. Of the romantic kind.