Someone's In My Head (WATTYS AWARD WINNER 2015)

Alternative Ending (Epilogue)

Author's Note:

Hey, Team SIMH! This chapter (along with the previous chapters) is a glimpse of the draft that I created (and discarded afterwards) when I first finished writing the ending for Someone's In My Head. The beginning of CHAPTER 29 and this Epilogue might be similar to the actual version, but the whole idea is drastically different, so read on!

As you read through the following parts you'll realize the reason why I discarded these chapters -- the impracticality and the impossibility of this alternative ending were so high that it seemed almost comical. So, to entertain you guys, I decided to post them (three BONUS chapters)! Don't judge, just enjoy laughing! xD

#teamSIMH

From: The Duke

Date: June 17, 2014

Timestamp: 09:31:21 PM

To: The Olympus Committee

Subject: RE: STATUS REPORT ON OPERATION ATHENA

Standing here, beside the subjects who are the first pair of humans to have successfully undergone the Interexchange, I am proud to report that Operation Athena is a complete success.

Of course, there were several unforeseen circumstances, but that did not deter the operation in one way or another. Wong's untimely accident and the indiscreet removal of Dr. Gordon were the sparks―they led to some serious police involvement, which not only caused our subject, Jarod to vanish off the grid, but also posed as a huge impediment to our efforts in tracking and monitoring him.

Fortunately, our subject was clever enough to track down the correct position of the Athena Lab, but this was when a new factor entered the equation and altered it completely―Agent Miranda Lisanthe.

Agent Lisanthe is a Junior Field Agent assigned to my division a six years ago by the Agency. Much to my annoyance, she was assigned to work under me, but I had to accept in order not to raise any suspicion. She was a bright girl, and I knew I had to be careful so as not to compromise the operation. Of course, I briefed her on the Malader Organization, along with a hundred other 'criminal' organizations on our primary watch-list, but didn't elaborate any further any one of them.

Unfortunately, a year later, Miranda managed to intercept an encrypted message incriminating Malader Organization of human experimentation and began her investigation after obtaining approval from our Supervisor. This was the same list Lenny had sent to Kristoff before killing himself―the Athena's Children list.

I had no choice. Inserting myself into the investigation, I tried my best to plant all kinds of false leads and fake information and fed them to Miranda. Then, when the 'cease and desist' letter came down from up high, I was more than grateful to tell her that we had to stop the investigation, although on the outside, I displayed otherwise.

So, when I finally realized that Miranda had established contact with our subject, it was too late. There was no way for me to dissuade her without sounding suspicious.

That was our first problem. But taking care of it was relatively easy; I had Wong lock her in the Holding Room back in LAMRAED while Kristoff and I worked on Jarod. She eventually got out by killing Wong and incapacitating the other captors, but that was the least of my problems then.

Some clarification here: I might've mentioned in the previous paragraph that it was Kristoff and I working on Jarod, but in the actual fact, it was just me. Kristoff was called to another room when I performed Phase Three of Operation Athena on Jarod―an effort to further conceal the true objective our operation. Our deception worked perfectly. Kristoff had no idea what we were doing.

The commencement of Phase Three was when our second problem surfaced. When I connected both Jarod and Mason (our secondary subject who was also injected with Phil's consciousness) with the modified EEG and initiated the Interexchange, the machine fried itself and wiped out all of Mason's consciousness in the process. It was a total mess. In the end, we had Mason's body and Jarod's nearly-electrocuted brain to take care of. We brought Kristoff back in afterward.

At this point, I was faced with a dilemma―to terminate Jarod or not. After the disastrous failure of Phase Three, he had become nothing but yet another unsuccessful subject, just like the previous ones over the past fifteen years. Hence, when I heard that Kristoff had allowed Jarod to visit Tanya (Phil's wife) at the Chambers' Mental Institute, I sent one of our agents to take care of him.

He failed, of course. After all, Jarod had Phil―an experienced combat guru―guiding him along the way.

Then, Kristoff, who was impersonating Lenny in order to get Jarod and Phil to trust him, turned traitor by trying to tell Jarod about Operation Athena. It was a shame that he had to be taken out, a man as bright and diligent as him.

The turning point came when I managed to dig out some of Lenny's personal effects hidden inside one of the tiles in the Athena Lab. Along with it, was a diary, and in the last entry, was the answer I was so desperately looking for:

Lenny had deliberately committed suicide to inject himself into the vials containing Phil's consciousness. In other words? He hitchhiked.

Now if you remember the 'Spencer's Theory of Commonality', I had clearly mentioned that in order for a successful Interexchange to take place, the similar foreign consciousness in the two subjects must be completely initiated through the Initiation Process. Therefore, without the initiation of Lenny's consciousness, Phase Three was doomed to fail.

Upon knowing that, I sent a group of agents to retrieve Jarod from the field, but they failed. I was still cursing them for their failure when luck came knocking on the door once more. Agent Lisanthe, who'd been nosing in on our operation for the last five years, had called in, and was telling us that she wanted to come in with the package.

My reaction to that piece of news? "Hell, yeah!"

When the two of them arrived, I put Jarod through a simulation while I worked on Miranda. After injecting both Phil and Lenny's consciousness into her head, I performed the quickest Initiation on her―almost 24 times as fast as it was on Jarod―by utilizing the crucial information (memory triggers; refer attachment) she'd told me during the debrief. In just under an hour, she was prepped and ready for the Interexchange.

The rest, I believe, is history.

As a final note, I hereby conclude that after a lengthy 17 years of research and experimentation, my part of the mission―Operation Athena―is complete. Next, it is up to the crew of Operation Hermes to pull off the second part of our mission. I send my sincerest wishes for their speedy success, for if we are to accomplish our mission within the 20-year limit we'd agreed on, then any more dilly-dallying is not an option.

Before I sign off, let me reiterate: Mission Olympus is a go.