Part 2

Over the next couple of days Alex was extremely cautious with Jake and his implant, restricting his command and control over Jake to simple “Simon says” orders. Nothing too drastic though. Basically, making him take his clothes off as soon as he gets home, or making Jake sleep naked with him.

But there were two additional applications installed onto Jake’s implant when it was jailbroken. Memory Manipulator Pro, and God Mode.

It didn’t take much searching for him to find out some more information about both the Memory Manipulator Pro app as well as God Mode:

::: warn Memory Manipulator Pro is a user-friendly and intuitive app to add, edit, and delete a target’s long-term memory engrams. It has no effect on a target’s short-term, or working memory.

:::

::: info God Mode provides a near total control over a target’s biological, emotional, psychological, and cognitive processes; as well as a target’s physiological and behavioral states, and more.

:::

«Nobody should have that power, » he thought to himself.

Indeed. With Memory Manipulator Pro Alex could very easily implant false memories into Jake’s mind or erase entire events from his past.

The dangers for misuse were truly astounding. People could be framed into committing crimes or believing that they did, or perhaps if they saw a crime to have the entire event wiped from their mind.

On the positive side, someone who experiences a truly horrific and traumatic event could have the event erased from their consciousness aiding in their recovery or enhancing their enjoyment of life.

It is mind control in its most fundamental form. After all everything that we — that makes us what we are — is a sum of our experiences and memories.

But if that weren’t bad enough, God Mode promised to be fucking insane.

With the push of a button an attacker could make their target instantly unconscious or even induce a coma.

Think of how devastating this would be if one were to say ... target someone doing something inherently dangerous that needed their full attention and concentration?

You could stop someone from breathing ... override their apnea reflex and suffocate them. Or use Simon Says to force someone to dive into a pool and use God Mode to force them to breathe-in the water and drown.

Murder? Suicide? Does it matter?

⁂

Alex was alone on the couch watching a movie when the door to the apartment suddenly flew open.

“Alex!” Jake screamed as he stormed into the apartment. “What the fuck did you do to me?” he demanded.

He stammered to his feet. “Jake? What’s wrong?” Partly knowing probably what Jake was referring to.

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Jake screamed at him. “You’ve done something to me!”

He stepped back and retreated a few steps from Jake’s towering figure quickly approaching him. “Honestly I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he pleaded. “What’s going on?”

“How about the fact that whenever somebody tells me ‘Simon says... ‘ that I have to do whatever the fuck they say!”

“Oh that,” he said with a sigh.

“Goddamnit Alex, I want you to fix—”

“Simon says freeze, Jake. You’re now a mannequin.” Just like that Jake immediately froze in-place and completely stopped moving. His mouth still agape, and his arms still outstretched in anger.

Alex carefully approached him, still not 100% trusting Jake’s implant to wield so much control over him and his body, but as he approached, he could see Jake truly was not moving.

He was still breathing. So at least he hadn’t killed his friend and his roommate, but as he poked, pinched, prodded, and even copped a feel inside his pants but got no reaction from him whatsoever.

Finally, he activated the flashlight on his phone and shone it in his eyes. Jake’s pupils were clearly fixed and dilated. He wasn’t even blinking.

“What the fuck am I going to do now?” he said out loud to himself.

⁂

With Jake immobilized for the time being, Alex pulled out his laptop and connected it up to his roommate’s implant.

“Fuck, ” he said apprehensively, launching the Memory Manipulator application. This will be the first time using the utility on Jake.

When the program launched a warning message was displayed cautioning him not to delete or alter too many memories, and to be careful of which memories were removed or changed. He also discovered that the newer memories were the easiest ones to purge.

“Excellent,” he thought to himself. Jake had only been gone several hours, so he figured the easiest thing would be to delete all of Jake’s memories since he left the house. “Hopefully that’ll be enough.”

When he clicked Apply, a progress bar crept across the screen, purging any new memory engrams Jake’s mind had created within the last five hours. He figured this was the absolute safest measure since it basically rolled-back the clock in Jake’s mind and reset it to right before he left.

Now, with Jake’s recent memories wiped from his mind, Alex took on the next task, configuring the Simon Says application to only respond to him which was something he should have done as soon as he gained access to Jake’s implant.

⁂

Unlike the Memory Manipulator application, the Simon Says application was much more basic and utilitarian. Just a simple config file to edit, followed by a reboot of Jake’s implant:

{ "application": { "name": "Simon Says", "version": "1.0.0" }, “parameters”: { "strengthofsuggestibility”: { "level": 1.0 }, “blacklist”: [ “self-harm” ], “activesettings”: { "date": { "start": NULL, "end": NULL }, “time”: { "start": NULL, "end": NULL }, “geographiclocation”: { "enabled": false, "allowedareas”: [ { "type": "any", "name": "any" }], “restrictedareas”: [ { "type": NULL, "name": NULL }] } }, “usersettings”: { "allowedusers”: [ { "name": "Alex Danvers", "relationship": [ "roommate", "friend" ], "authorizationlevel”: 10 }], “maxusers”: 5, “userrecognition”: { "facialrecognition”: true, “voice_recognition”: true }} } }

With that out of the way Jake will no longer be susceptible to anyone else accidentally (or intentionally) giving him a Simon Says order and making Alex the only one who can.

“Alright Jake, let’s see if this isn’t a little better,” he said. “Jake, Simon says you are human again.”

And just like that Jake came back to life. Albeit slightly worse for wear.

“W-what happened?” he asked, moving his jaw around and blinking rapidly to lubricate his very dry eyes.