This story was written using a random word prompt:
I wrote it in 6 five minute freewrites.
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It was now almost a week since the BrainMeldtm had been fitted.
Brian wasn't sure if he was imagining it but he as he lay in bed watching the minutes change on the clock projected onto the ceiling above him, he fancied he could feel wires pushing through his brain.
Almost as if his synapse connections were being replaced by electronics.
Perhaps I am going mad, he thought. It was one of the side effects.
"Rare," the BrainMeldtm technician had assured him. "I have to warn you. But it is very, very rare."
Jenny, fast asleep next to him, would kill him if she found out.
"I don't know why anyone would want to get fitted with one of those things," she had said the other night when an advert came on StreamMe. "It's bad enough that all our devices track us. Imagine volunteering to have on placed inside your brain!"
But Brian needed to keep up.
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Everyone at work was getting one fitted.
Well, almost everyone. Jim refused, but he was due to retire next year, and no one took any notice of him anymore.
Jane, Brian's rival, had initially said she wasn't getting one fitted, but two days later he had noticed the small scar in her hairline.
"I decided to go for it," she said, when he challenged her. "You have to move with the times."
Brian was feeling left behind.
The others, as their BrainMeldtms came on line, began to hold conversations using their devices.
It started at the coffee machine.
Kevin blurted out laughing and when Brian asked him what was so funny, he pointed at Jane and said she'd BrainMeldtmed him.
And then, last week, the Managing Director had held a BrainMeldtm Meeting. Brian had to try to keep up using a Tablet fitted with a BrainMeldtm Interpreter.
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But it was impossible.
They BrainMeldtmed so quickly he couldn't follow the conversation.
He was being shut out.
He had a stark choice: get a BrainMeldtm fitted or lose his job.
So he made the appointment. The Company was paying fifty percent of the costs of the BrainMeldtm (for the first adopters the Company had paid 100%), but even so Brian had to add a chunk of borrowing to his mortgage.
Another thing that Jenny would be furious about if - when - she found out.
Brian could feel his heart beating fast as he thought about it, listening to her gently snore next to him.
I am going to be in such big trouble, he thought.
He had one hope: to win the monthly Bonus the company awarded its most productive employees.
He was behind Jane, of course. She had a head start - literally, Brian chuckled - with the BrainMeldtm.
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The BrainMeldtm Technician had told him it would take between a few days and two weeks for the BrainMeldtm to become operational.
And another month before all its features came online.
He just hoped he could catch Jane up. He needed that bonus.
If he could show Jenny the benefits of the BrainMeldtm when she eventually discovered his deception then it might calm her down.
A bit.
Perhaps.
Hell, who was he kidding!
He moved his head sideways and looked at the face of his sleeping wife. She was going to kill him.
Perhaps you should kill her first, a voice said.
It sounded as if it was coming from deep inside his head.
Was it the BrainMeldtm?
The voice sounded familiar. He lay in bed and waited.
Nothing.
Are you there? he thought.
Why don't you kill her, the voice said again. Then you won't get in trouble. She's been holding you back all these years. Just think of what you could achieve without her.
Brian blinked.
The voice - it did sound very familiar - was compelling.
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Go to the kitchen, the voice whispered. Get a big knife.
Brian blinked.
It couldn't hurt to stretch his legs, could it?
He wasn't sleeping anyway.
He pulled back the sheets and got out of bed. He quietly tiptoed over to the door and pulled it open.
That's right, the voice was very reassuring. You are doing, great, Brian.
He walked down the stairs, avoiding the one that creaked and took the biggest knife he could find from the rack above the stove. It felt cold in his hands.
You are doing great Brian, the voice said. He walked back up to the bedroom, following the instructions and guidance the voice gave him.
After he had finished the voice suggested he might want to take a shower.
What a good idea! he thought. As he stood in the shower, the red-tinged water flowing down the plug hole, he felt something in his brain, almost as if something had been wiped and then an emptiness as if something had disconnected.
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Jane's heart was thumping hard.
She carefully wiped as much trace as she could of the encrypted BrainMeldtm messages before disconnecting from Brian.
She felt a bit sorry for Jenny.
Not so much for her death, but more for marrying Brian in the first place.
He was such a loser.
She wiped the records from her own BrainMeldtm. If there was an investigation and an expert examined her BrainMeldtm there would, no doubt, be traces.
But it was almost impossible to trace messages, if you didn't know what you were looking for.
And she was fairly certain that Brian hadn't recognised her voice.
She waited for a moment and then called the police, making an anonymous report, claiming to be a neighbour of Brian's.
"I heard screaming," she said. "And I thought I saw the husband at the window with a knife."
Jane smiled as she ended the call.
The Company was better off without the likes of Brian.
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