A/N – Several of you guessed, correctly, that Dr. Plink is inspired by Professor Frink from the Simpsons (who is, in turn, based on Jerry Lewis). He's just a minor character, but chances are good that he'll show up again; he was fun to write. Oh, my glavin! Deadeye1, thanks for your comments about General Brohammer; that's exactly how I feel about the way the military is portrayed on TV. Brohammer is partially inspired by General Hammond from Stargate SG-1, who's a welcome exception to the rule. Vehrec, you're right about Drew's "slices", but somehow I imagine that a number of Plink's ideas are a little screwy. Props must be given to mpcp13, who was the first person to use the term "stealth wasp" in a MLaaTR story. Please don't sue me! As for Drew, I'm not reducing his part in the story; the plot makes that impossible, as you'll all see in upcoming chapters. But, I am trying to "beef up" everyone else's share of the story, to prevent you folks from coming down with Drew overload.
One more thing; this might be the last chapter posted until after the Christmas holidays. There's lots of travel and holiday nuttiness coming up over the next two weeks. So from Coyoteloon to everyone out there: Merry Christmas! Now on to our story …
Countdown to Mindshatter
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Four – Personal Agendas
Circuit patterns zigzagged off in every direction imaginable, humming with rapid-fire bursts of information that glided along at the speed of light. Terabytes of data spat back and forth between processing nodes, large purple orbs that hung in mid-air like the planets of some alien solar system, all bathed in a ghostly ambient glow. The orbs were interconnected by a three-dimensional grid of data pathways that filled the universe, stretching off to infinity and the great network beyond. Some pathways were thin and crooked, like frozen lightning bolts, twisting and wandering randomly across her mind to hook into lesser-used algorithms. But other data pathways were high-capacity pipelines, information highways that burst to life every few milliseconds with a raging chaos of data transfer. Those were the ones that force-fed her an endless stream of mind-crushing agony.
She looked up and saw another mass of raw information rushing towards her signal processing node like a runaway freight train. Oh, sprockets, this is going to be a big one ….
One of the purple orbs absorbed the data-mass and deciphered the request, which in this case was a routine updating of the positions and velocity vectors of the 11,386 individually powered vessels (capital ships, cruisers, escorts, fighters and skimmers) of the Twenty-third War Fleet. Three dozen more processing orbs flared to life with an intense purple light, and new data flows screamed between them with a synthesized chatter, glowing like streams of fire. The vessels' positions were decoded, verified, calculated, translated, plotted, registered, projected, saved, archived, backup-archived, double-backup-archived, sent to the master war computer, then sent back out to each of the other 11,385 vessels in the fleet, after being converted into local frames of reference, stamped with a 1024-bit quantum encryption code, and modulated to use each of the vessels' individually selected hyperspace signal frequencies.
It was as if an earthquake were shaking her mind to its very foundation. She clenched her eyes, and winced with misery as her CPU's raced to 117 percent of capacity. AIIGHHH … make it stop! Oh my Cog … please, please, make it stop!
She gasped with exhaustion as the burst ended, and sunk limply in a tangle of microcircuits like a fly ensnared in an infinitely large spider web. Glowing neon connectors wrapped around her arms and legs like iron manacles, holding her fast while thinner circuits snaked from all around her, hooking directly into receptacles along her forearms, torso and back. Another set of circuit pathways reached down from above to transmit pulses of data directly into six input ports on the top of her head. Her entire body shimmered with a soft purple glow that made her look like a robotic phantom; in fact, when she'd first woken up, she'd briefly wondered if she might be in some kind of horrific cybernetic afterlife.
But this was all too real. This was the ClusterNet, and she was plugged into it – plugged in deep. She was an integral module, a nested program, deep within the great network.
She tried once again to pull a hand free from the tangle of circuitry, and once again, she failed. It wasn't her real hand, just a virtual abstraction, a symbolic image deep inside the lowest levels of her operating system. But even this virtual version of herself was nearly overwhelmed with the new Cluster protocols; they had run rampant throughout her systems like wildfire, overriding her software modules, her neural nets, her voluntary motor control circuits. Her physical body was sitting motionless in the real world somewhere, a metal mannequin plugged into a control console, like a light bulb screwed into a wall socket. As she dangled helplessly in the netting of microcircuits, she grudgingly accepted that her virtual body was as paralyzed as her physical one. She was a prisoner in her own mind.
As if she could possibly forget that, the energy sphere was there to remind her. An milky-white translucent bubble swirling and shimmering with eddies of light, it completely encaged her as she hung helplessly in her neon manacles. It looked to be made from exotic computer code, thousands of separate algorithms that seemed to writhe and seethe and squirm, sometimes in harmony with one another, sometimes in unique patterns. A demoralized frown came over her face; she didn't know what the sphere was, or where it had come from, but it didn't look like something she could break out of.
The sphere did not impede the flow of data, however … and as if to prove that point, another batch of commands rushed through her processing nodes, putting fresh strain on her multiple processing units. She watched her subroutines slice up the block of data, efficiently breaking it down and repackaging it for mass distribution. It was maddening, hanging here like a pitiful puppet, watching her own brain obediently dance to whatever tune an unseen piper played.
But she saw, and heard, and remembered everything … and she was fully aware of her surreal cyberspace surroundings. For some unknowable reason, the personality that was Allison still existed …
Suddenly a fresh set of information packets flowed in from every direction at once, pulsing red blobs of data that raced through the universe, glowing like angry magnesium flares. The crimson pulses sped right for her, as if a thousand laser blasts were being fired off at once; then they leapt from the circuit paths and started to coalesce together into a blood-red cocoon of energy. Her eyes narrowed into an angry glare; here we go again. She might not be in the robot afterlife, but that didn't mean there was no devil here.
The energy cocoon dissolved away into a blizzard of pixels … revealing a svelte, feminine robotic form, with an arrogantly grinning face, peering at her through the energy-sphere. Those serpent's eyes could only belong to one robot.
"Good evening, LSN-1482," purred Vexus, preening one of her eyelashes. "At least, I believe it's evening. My, it's so very difficult to keep track of time in here, isn't it?"
"My name is Allison," mumbled the prisoner, shooting daggers with her eyes. "And don't you have more important things to do than torment me?"
The queen hovered in front of her with her hands clutched to her golden chest-plate, pouting with mock indignation. "Well, excuse me for showing a little concern for one of my poor, wayward children! Your queen just wanted to drop by and see how you were doing. Thought you might enjoy the company, dear … after all, your new work environment does seem to be a little … spartan."
"If you care so much, queenie," Allison said sarcastically, "you could just let me out of here."
Vexus shook a condescending finger, tut-tutting her little outburst of attitude. "Now, now, you don't stop a repair job when you're only halfway done. We still have a lot of work to do on your rehabilitation! Your therapy is going so well, my dear, it would be a shame to end it now. Why, your processing efficiency is already in the top ten percent of all online LSN units! You're well on your way back to being a productive member of Cluster society."
Allison winced as a small burst of data screamed through her processors. "Yay for me," she sneered.
"Oh, but you're not quite there yet, child. We still have to do something about this troublesome streak of independent thinking you've developed lately. It's dangerous … very dangerous. You see, when robots begin to think for themselves, then they get foolish ideas. And when robots get foolish ideas, then they do foolish things." Vexus' face began to sour, and her eyes growled with an angry amber light. "Very foolish things … such as sending secret messages to warn the Earth of our impending invasion."
"I … I don't know what you're talking about," Allison said nervously, suddenly unable to make eye contact with her captor. She found out. Sigh, that's it. I'm deleted for sure …
"Most ingenious, my dear girl … I'm most impressed." Vexus gazed upwards at the busily pulsing signal processors, watching rivers of data flow into them. "I'm not sure just how you managed to slip that code into the outgoing video stream. What did you do, write a new subroutine? Create a new multiplexing filter? It must have taken a lot of effort on your part, and you could only have done it by working a few microseconds at a time. Because … it's not like you have a lot of idle time on your hands."
Another blast of commands and data rushed in from Central Resource Control, forcing Allison to generate a detailed report on the past two weeks of fuel and energy usage for each of the 62,585 maintenance robots that patrolled the homeworld's artificial ring, broken down second by second. She shook and convulsed as her processors performed the billions of calculations necessary to finish the report and send it off to one hundred and thirty-seven different supervisor robots in fifteen different divisions. Vexus smiled a thin, cruel smile, savoring the anguish that emanated from every square inch of Allison's ghostly body.
"It was all for nothing," she whispered, her voice an icy dagger. "The Earth is too weak to stand against me, even if those miserable primates know I'm coming. Or maybe you didn't do it for the primates. Did you do it for Jennifer, who poisoned your mind with nonsense about robots and humans being equals? She's a misguided animal-lover, the poor thing. Her corrupted thinking has turned you into a criminal, and driven you away from your home, and your family. Or did you do it for Andrew? The one who said he cared for you … then abandoned you to drift alone in the cold vacuum of space, while he flew home to safety? After you sacrificed yourself to help him? How that must pain you, my dear. Thinking of how he betrayed you. Of how you gave up everything for him, and he just threw you away …"
Allison's face snapped up in a blast of fury. "SHUT UP, you miserable witch! Just SHUT UP!"
She felt a heat build up behind her eyes; she wondered if she could cry in cyberspace. She hadn't wanted to give Vexus the satisfaction of getting to her, but the queen's taunting had struck a still-tender wound. Jenny didn't corrupt me, she showed me the truth. And Drew … I … he didn't … he didn't mean to … he didn't have a choice … oh, Drew, why …
Suddenly the pain and frustration of her waking nightmare rushed out all at once. "Look, why don't you just assimilate me and get it over with, Vexus? Huh? Why don't you just turn my brain into a big pile of slush and make me your slave, so you can feel all big and powerful? Wooo, another great victory for the all-powerful Vexus! She can't conquer the Earth, she can't conquer the mighty XJ-9, and she can't conquer the nanodroid! But oh, she can capture a big, dangerous LSN robot and force her to rejoin the Cluster. Oh, all hail the mighty Vexus! Maybe you should throw yourself another parade."
The robot queen hovered silently for a few microseconds, with searing fire in her eyes, and a twisted snarl of hatred on her face. The orb over her head glowed like the eye of a vengeful demon, and crackles of lethal energy licked around her tall, dark antennae. Allison was sure that she was about to lash out at her, and braced for the blow … then Vexus stopped, and looked over her prisoner's pathetic form, dangling helpless inside of an energy bubble. A soft, circuit-chilling laugh wafted up from her voice processor. "You will rejoin the Cluster, my dear Allison. But I'm not going to force you."
Her eyes crackled with unthinkable evil. "You're going to beg me to come back."
Vexus' laughter intensified as she drifted away from her tormented captive, filling the universe with haunting echoes as her image dissolved into a million crimson fireflies. Allison shook with rage and defiance … until she saw four mountains of data speeding towards her processing nodes, by far the biggest batch jobs she'd seen since waking up. She steeled herself against the onslaught and tried to be brave, but she knew this was going to be unpleasant. She shook and shuddered in her glowing bonds as the load on her processors grew closer and closer to her maximum design capacity … then she felt a stab of mind-pain, as the processors were pushed past their safe limits. But more bundles of instructions and data kept rushing in, a virtual waterfall of commands that bombarded her mind without relent. The last remnants of the queen's laughter were finally washed way by a lonely, soul-piercing scream of agony.
From the outside, a casual observer would have seen only a typical two-car garage, attached to an ordinary suburban new-deco house, and kept walking down the sidewalk without giving it so much as a second thought. If they were a bit more astute, they might have noticed the extra power lines running into the walls from the utility pole outside. Or they might have detected the Hazmat stickers affixed to the corner of the garage door. They may have felt the chill of ice crystals in the midnight air, wafting away from the bleed valve of the liquid nitrogen tank that was mounted next to the propane. If they listened closely, they might even have heard the whine of precision electric motors, or the machine-gun chattering of clammy fingers pounding away on two computer keyboards at once. And if they noticed all of these things, then they might have realized that this was not a typical two-car garage at all.
For within the humble enclave, the impassioned labors of a misunderstood genius had transformed a mere garage into a technological Cave of Wonders. A collection of scientific tools, gauges, and instruments hung on the far wall, between an elaborate set of glass beakers, and a second-hand superconducting magnet. Rack-mounted computer screens hung from metallic poles painted in primer green, just above the chirping phosphor tube of an old-fashioned oscilloscope with a duct-tape repair. The room was filled with the perpetual background hum of high voltage electricity; it took a fair amount of juice to power the arc welding torches (no amateur roboticist should be without one), the xenon-ruby laser (just the thing for reheating burritos), and the fifty giga-electron-volt cyclotron (because c'mon, a lab just isn't a lab without some kind of particle accelerator). It was pretty amazing what a guy could pick up off the University of Tremorton's surplus auction website.
The determined genius took another swig of Uber-Jolt Cola, wiped his chin on the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt, and spoke into his mini voice recorder with a melodramatic, nasal voice.
"Sheldon's Log … Stardate, Tuesday, eleven forty-eight PM. The ticking clock is a constant reminder of the deadline hovering before me, like a Kulzargian Bird of Prey decloaking in front of Captain Electron's star cruiser. The most critical event of my entire life is now almost upon me. The Tremorton High junior prom … is less than four days away."
Sheldon paced away from his workbench, over to the only space on the wall that was free of scientific equipment. An entire shelf had been cleared of gadgets and gizmos, to make room for an arrangement of flickering candles, which cast their dancing light upon the framed picture of the most beautiful girl in the universe. "Ah, fair, sweet Jenny … my stainless steel siren … my electronic Aphrodite … oh, how I long to feel the beating of her hydraulic pumps against my lanky chest! From the moment I first held her hand in shop class, I knew that Jenny was the only girl for me. I knew that ours would be a romance that would inspire the poets for a dozen generations! Well, um … it would, if she'd actually go out with me."
He flung a hand to his forehead, and walked over to a large, silver robotic exo-suit standing in the corner. "I pledged my devotion to her. I knew our love could bridge the chasm between human and robot! But she felt otherwise … oh, how I remember that terrible day, when she told me that she'd rather date a nice robot boy. So I came up with a plan … an ingenious plan … and the Silver Shell was born! Uh … of course, the whole idea there was to convince her that robots were jerks so she'd go out with me instead, and … that didn't really work out the way I'd hoped. Grumble, grumble, grumble."
Next to the Silver Shell, another robot suit was standing against the wall … an elaborate humanoid android that actually bore a passing resemblance to Sheldon. And its hollow head lie open, filled with electrodes and connectors that were designed to hook up to … a living human brain.
Sheldon continued his log entry. "So that's when I decided … if Jenny really wanted a robot boy, then Glory Osky, that's just what she was going to get! I would cast off this pasty, pimply prison that nature had cursed me with, and become a robot myself! I toiled day and night, stopping only for school, the bathroom, and 'Star Drek Deep Space Twelve' every Thursday at eight-thirty, until finally I completed my greatest creation … a robotic version of myself! Finally, I could be with my fusion-powered cherry blossom, and we could rocket off into the sunset hand in hand!" Then he sighed into his mini recorder, and his shoulders sank in frustration. "Unfortunately, that plan hit a snag when I couldn't figure out how to perform brain surgery on myself. Plus, it turns out the sight of blood makes me feel all kind of … oozy woozy."
"I thought all hope was lost … and then … he showed up."
He glared at the school newspaper photo of Drew – which had been enhanced with big goofy glasses, a beard, and devil horns, using a ball-point pen – that was tacked to the wall, and wagged his finger at the teen android's silvery face. "I work myself to the bone, trying to figure out how to turn myself into a robot, and out of nowhere this joker gets a blob of nanobots injected into him that turns him into an android overnight! Of all the rotten lousy luck … that should have been me! All he ever does is whine and complain about being a robot. He's not even very good at it! And Jenny's always helping him, and talking with him, and spending time with him … ooooh, the nerve of that interloper! He thinks he's all special 'cause he's the only kid in school made from nanobots."
A wide grin came over Sheldon's face, and he walked back towards a rag-tag assembly of equipment sitting on his workbench. "Well after tonight … that's all going to change."
Sheldon set his voice recorder next to his computer monitor, and admired the deceptively simple cylinder sitting on the desk in front of him. It had a definite homemade look; the outer casing still had ridges and a ripped label that identified it as an old paint can. A loud electric hum emanated from copper-wound magnetic strips welded around the outside, and a thick, smoky vapor poured out of the top, layering the workbench with a surreal blanket of fog. Reams of data flickered on the wall monitors, showing the status of Sheldon's latest customized software build; multi-colored wires ran from the back of his computer into a series of sensors mounted around the can's surface. The teen genius rubbed his hands together with anticipation, and entered a string of gibberish into the keyboard.
"It's taken me months, reading and researching articles on nanotechnology," he said, putting on a pair of absurdly thick lab goggles. "When I saw that nanobots could turn Drew into an android, I knew that they could turn me into an android, too. But nobody really understands just how they work. I was about to give up, until our class got kidnapped and taken to Cluster Prime last week. And that's when I finally caught my lucky break!"
He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a green holographic crystal. It was a data storage device; more specifically, it was a set of lab notes from the secret research facility where he and Brad had been taken as test animals, deep beneath the queen's castle back on Cluster Prime. A set of lab notes that Sheldon had … borrowed, during their escape.
"Stanley's research," he grinned. "The Cluster scientist who designed the nanobots in the first place! Once I finished decoding this baby, I had this whole nanobot business all figured out! Tonight, Sheldon Lee will cease to exist … and the world will witness the birth of … 'Shelbot'! Hmmm, no, no … 'nano-dude'! Oooh, yeah, I think I like that one better. Wait wait, no … 'Commander Ooze'! Eh … okay, I'll pick something out in the morning."
Yes, tonight was the night. All of his computer simulations looked good; the growing process had completed flawlessly while he was at school. Thanks to his underappreciated genius, his tireless work, and an old atomic force microscope he'd bought at a swap meet, Sheldon had created his own homemade batch of bona-fide, atom-munching nanobots. He could already imagine himself slurping and flowing around in his new liquid metal body, changing his shape however he pleased … nobody would ever pick on him again, not if he could grow his fist to the size of a wall safe in two seconds! No sir! And if he could change his shape, then he'd just walk around school in a big, hunky bod that made Don Prima look like a chess club geek. The girls wouldn't be able to resist him! Jenny wouldn't be able to resist him. And that was the whole idea.
Sheldon entered a final command into his computer, and a Download Progress window appeared, as a new operating system … Sheldon OS 1.0 … was loaded into his fresh batch of nanobots. He pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves, and grabbed an empty medical syringe as a harmonic thrum reverberated from the magnets around the paint can. Fingers of white vapor crept over the edges of the table, and flashing screens of raw data flickered in reflection on the dark glass of Sheldon's goggles. Finally, an electronic bloop sounded from the computer, which displayed the message Download Complete.
"Here we go," he gulped, feeling his pulse quicken. That was good; a faster heartbeat would distribute the nano-machines throughout his bloodstream more rapidly. He mounted the empty syringe in the rubber claw of a simple tabletop robot arm, which began to twist and turn, until it finally dipped deep inside the homemade magnetic bottle. The can was momentarily obscured by a billowing roll of vapor … then seconds later, the robot arm pulled the needle out. A needle now filled with thick, goopy, silver-green molasses, churning with the spark of synthetic life.
"Success!" he yelled, holding the syringe high above his head, as if he had just pulled Excalibur free from the stone. "Sheldon's Log, make a note: first successful batch of active nanobots was created at eleven fifty-six PM! Okay, now … I'll just inject the nanobots into my arm, and, uh … hoo boy." He took his first good look at the syringe, and suddenly remembered that needles made him woozy, too. "All right, not a problem. All I have to do is take a deep breath and jam this … long, pointy, incredibly sharp needle … into my leg." He started breathing even harder, bordering on hyperventilation. "C'mon, Sheldon Lee, this is for the woman you love! Okay, on three. Ready! One! … Two! …"
He slipped off the goggles, and gave the nanobots a closer look. "Maybe I could just mix these things in with a glass of chocolate milk. Or I could use them for nacho dip …"
Then he noticed a soft hissing sound coming from the syringe. The nanobots inside were churning faster, and starting to work themselves into a froth. The hissing got louder and louder …
Then the syringe shattered to bits, and he jumped so high that he nearly bounced his head off the ceiling. Sheldon dropped the dissolving syringe onto the garage floor, and his nanobots splattered into a small silver puddle, bubbling and moaning as if possessed by evil spirits. Silver-green tendrils launched themselves a few inches into the air … then the silver puddle collapsed into a miniature sinkhole, eating its way through the concrete in the floor. In seconds, the shiny molasses disappeared, leaving nothing but a deep, narrow channel in the ground that echoed with angry growls and hisses. With a newfound sense of trepidation, Sheldon edged over to peer down into the hole; it was six inches wide, and already far deeper than he could possibly guess at. At the rate the nanobots were going, they'd probably hit the Earth's mantle sometime just after breakfast.
He stared at the hole in silent dejection for a few seconds … then exploded into an animated tantrum, beating the air with his fists. "Ohhhhhhh … poopy! Dag nab it, that's right, I said poopy! Aw, geez … I thought I really had it nailed this time! I don't understand … what could have gone wrong?
He plopped his sad, gangly frame down on a rickety metal stool, pouting mournfully at the experiment data that blinked upon his computer screen … then his eyes drifted upward to the mini figurine of Captain Crush sitting atop his monitor. "What did I mess up, Captain? What did I get wrong? Did I accidentally put a few oxy-silicate groups in the wrong place? Arghh, I bet I messed up the software download. Those stupid Cluster lab notes didn't have a finished set of working software in them! I had to figure it all out on my own. And it looks like I blew it."
Sheldon folded his arms with a huff, turned off his mini voice recorder, and let his pout grow into a full-blown sulk. "Let's face it, Captain … the only working copy of nanobot software in existence is floating around inside of Drew's body. And it's not like he's gonna let me stick a cable into the back of his head and download his brain." He took another sip of Uber-Jolt, slumping in self-pity …
Then there was a sudden knock on the garage door.
He spat the warm cola all over an old stack of Unpopular Mechanics. He never got visitors in the garage! "Gahhh! Who in the world could be running around at this hour?" He wasn't crazy about letting anyone see his latest experiment, either. In a whirlwind of panic, Sheldon shut off his computers, tossed his tools into a desk drawer, threw an old tarp over the Silver Shell, and slid a rubber welcome mat across the mouth of the nanobot sinkhole. Then he took a few seconds to make himself presentable, remembering, at the last second, to pull off his rubber gloves. He flung open the garage door to see …
A silver-green android, nervously glancing left and right. "Sheldon! Hey, you got a minute?"
He blinked a few times in surprise. "Drew? Uh … yeah … yeah, sure! Uh … er … what are you doing up so late? Don't you …"
"Couldn't sleep," interrupted the nervous visitor. "Look, can I come in and talk for a sec?"
Sheldon couldn't think of how to say no without sounding suspicious. Drew was the last person he wanted to have looking around his lab right now. "Uh … well … you see, I …"
But Drew abruptly walked in past him, with a terse edge in his voice. "It's pretty important, Sheldon. Besides, this shouldn't take long."
Sheldon closed the door and nervously followed after Drew, as his unwelcome visitor took a few moments to look at the fantastic equipment lining the walls of his garage. There was something different about Drew's demeanor, he noticed … he wasn't angry, wasn't exactly glum … the best word he could come up with was businesslike. Finally, Drew turned on his heel and clasped his hands behind his back.
"Look, Sheldon, I know you don't like me very much … but I need a favor from you." He gestured to the exo-suit standing in the corner; the tarp didn't do a very good job of hiding it. "I promised that I wouldn't tell anyone you were the Silver Shell. Well, I've kept my mouth shut so far … and if you do this favor for me, I'll never bring it up again."
Sheldon's face twisted in confusion. Drew was the only person who knew that he was the Silver Shell; he wasn't sure if he was making a promise, or a threatening to reveal his secret identity. "What kind of favor?" he asked, suspicion dripping from every word.
"Well, I got to thinking, you're pretty much a computer genius, right? You write programs and stuff, and you can hack into computer systems … just like you used me to hack into that data network when we were back on Cluster Prime."
"Well, heh-heh, I don't like to brag," grinned Sheldon, "but pretty much, yeah, I am."
"Could you make an anti-virus program?"
"Pfft, sure, no problem." Now Sheldon was starting to grow curious. "An anti-virus against what?"
"Cluster infection," said Drew, with cold, serious eyes. "You know how the adaptive algorithms in my body's nanobots act like an immune system against Cluster mind control? You think you could you look through that software, find those algorithms, and turn them into an anti-virus program?"
Sheldon fought hard to keep the oncoming grin from splitting his face in half. "I suppose I could … but, in order to get at that software, I'd need to …" – he crossed his fingers behind his back – "… stick a cable into the back of your head and download your brain."
Drew heaved his shoulders with a sharp sigh. "Let's get to it, then. Sheldon, I really appreciate this."
"Not a problem, Drew old pal," said Sheldon, smiling to himself as he rebooted his desktop computer. "Not a problem at all."
Continued in Chapter Five / Thirty-nine Hours to Cluster Dawn
