Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #22 January 2016 | Page 15

injection. I would recommend taking it thirty minutes
before your dinner with Senator Richards. That
will give the nano-transmitters time to bond to your
neurons.”

Making
Sausage

“Right.”
Willard handed Hargrove an auto-injector pen.
The general stared at it. He experienced a moment
of panic. He was about to inject millions of tiny
machines into his body. They would worm their way
into his brain and form a fullerene antenna. He would
then be able to project thoughts into another person’s
mind. Hargrove knew it worked; his operators had
been using the technology for years. Most of them
hadn’t suffered brain damage or long-term audiovisual hallucinations.

Jeff Durkin
“This meeting is critical to the project.”

What were the odds he’d have a problem?

General Gordon Hargrove nodded. “I realise
that. I just don’t like fucking around in someone else’s
brain.”

“Hey, is this shit going to fry my brain?”
Willard shrugged…of course. “Fry? No, that’s
a possible side-effect of our psychokinetic implants.
Would you like one of those? It would mean surgery,
but I could probably work on you right here.”

Doctor Simon Willard shrugged. “You’re
the only person who is going to get close enough to
Senator Richards before the hearing. If you don’t do
this, funding is going to get pulled and…”
“And we lose our best deterrent against the
Black Dragon Society’s Gestalt Net, the Crypto-Soviet
Psychotronic Satellites, the Fourth Reich brain worms
and the rest of the threats to the nation’s psychic
integrity. I know what the stakes are, Doctor.”

Hargrove stared into Willard’s blank,
emotionless eyes. “Are you joking?”
“I don’t know.”
The two men stood in silence for an
uncomfortable seventy-one seconds.

“Sorry, I enjoy exposition.”
“Don’t we all?”
Doctor Willard shrugged again. Hargrove had
long ago come to the conclusion that this was the only
physical expression that Willard made, regardless
of the context. Hargrove didn’t care; Willard was
a genius and had no concept of morals, except as
something that held other people back.
“Yes. Well, I’ve already prepared a psi-web

“I’m going to go now,” Hargrove said.
“Okay. I have some genetic resequencing I
need to perform anyway 8