The+Surprise


 * The Surprise **

Its a scary thing, not being in full possession of your own mind. The mind is the only thing a person really has, the one thing that is unconditionally yours. Possessions can be stolen, loved ones can betray you or die, even your body can get sick, but your mind is supposed to be sacrosanct. Discovering that that is not the case is not the betrayal. My name is Professor Haqim Almasi. I'm a mad scientist. I create advanced technology whose purpose is either to go boom or make someone else go boom. There are exactly three beings on this planet who are more more intelligent than me, one of whom is an Artificial Intelligence, and the other two are supernatural entities who personify the concept of intelligence. There is very little I cannot do if I put my mind to it. Unfortunately, I also happen to be insane. It started five years ago, when I first began selling my inventions. I was pushing my expertise to their limit, designing weaponry that made my competition's in comparison look Bronze age. Money and a rather unusual sort of fame began accumulating. Life was looking good for the first time in a long while. And then I started having blackouts. I'd be doing something, didn't matter what it was, and all of a sudden I'd lose consciousness. I'd wake up to find myself in my workshop with no memory of what I'd been doing. The only evidence of my activities would be some piece of technology that was beyond bleeding edge. During these fugue states, I would create weapons so advanced that not even I understood how they worked. I had run tests on them just to find out what they did. At first, this didn't really bother me. The fugue tech, as I referred to it, sold for enough that I could have bought a small country. It was only when I came out of one a blackout and discovered that I'd removed my right hand, replacing it with a cybernetic one. That's when I became concerned. This morning, I had another blackout, in spite of the anti-psychotic medication I've been taking to prevent them. And on my work desk was the latest piece of fugue tech. It was a metal sphere, the size of a basketball. Its outer surface was made out of a metal which I could not identify, and was covered in what I suspected was some kind of code. Maybe this time I'd been considerate enough to leave some instructions for myself. I ran the usual tests on the device. I made sure it wasn't radioactive, tested it against various stresses, little thing to establish a working knowledge of the sphere. Once I was sure it wasn't an immediate threat, I began working on the code. It took me longer than usual to crack the code. One hour later, I was able to read what the writing on the sphere. They were instructions, just as I had hoped. The directions suggested that the sphere was some sort of explosive device, and that it was activated by exposure to a combination of specific sounds. This wasn't the first time I'd made a bomb, so I had a bombing range that would satisfy my needs. It took fifteen minutes to set everything up. The sphere was a good distance away from the bunker I was situated in. I set up my recording equipment, and without any further delay, turned on my stereo. The sphere had been designed to go off when it heard the opening of the song I Want to Conquer the World by Bad Religion. It was one of my favorite songs, which explained why the bomb had been keyed to it. The sphere didn't explode though. Instead, a pole shot out of the top of the sphere, and a flag unfolded from it. From the bunker I could read the word on the flag. Gotcha, in nice big letters, like a toy gun that say bang. That was yesterday. I haven't done much since then, mostly just sit in my lab and drink. You see before that sphere, I thought I was just making things without either an purpose or guiding intelligence. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I'm not in full control of my mind. And whatever else is in here has a plan.