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at me as if am crazy. And from their perspective it can't be too far off, right? What they've seen with their normal, unaugmented, fleshy eyeballs has been me, and only me, boarding their dirigible for a regular flight from one city to another. Routine for them, until I knocked out their pilot, took over the airship, and reprogrammed the ship's destination to somewhere deep into the atmosphere of Riley .
"Nobody try to fly this ship, or call for help, or you'll all regret it," I'd announced. Then I'd stuffed a ball gag in my mouth, handcuffed myself, and slumped into the corner of the gondola.
The problem being, from my side, is that my Id is a total asshole. He hates my guts. We split up yesterday and he hijacks my skull today in retaliation.
So I'm not really me right now. And no one else can see Vince. He's just a computer-induced hallucination inside my own skull. I work up some spit to try and moisten the ball gag a bit. Drool runs down my lips, and one of the men across from me shakes his head in disgust.
#
Even though Vince is using my own body-wide neural network against me to induce hallucinations and control my motor movement, I can still access some basic functions. I dial out of the airship and make a call. As a spacer I'm totally cyborged, constantly seeing and interacting with information laid over every thing I see.
I manage to contact my ex-girlfriend's secretary persona. A virtual image pastes itself in the left corner of the inside of my artificial eyes.
The persona looks just like Suzie as I remember her sixty years ago: blond, brown eyes, but more digitized. It laughs when it sees me.
"You look exactly as we remember you," it says.
My hopes lift.
"I need help," I subvocalize. "Can I talk to Suzie?" The secretary mimics sitting back and folding her arms. Lifts an eyebrow.
"Why in hell would we want to talk to you?"
"I'm in trouble." My subvocal throat grunts get another disgusted look from the colonis