The place looked even more chaotic from the inside. Pizza cartons were everywhere, some had pieces left in them on which a colorful pelt had begun to grow.

It smelled like citric air freshener mixed with mold, mixed with pizza and not enough ventilation. The shelves were filled with common household appliances in various states of disrepair. One of them had been broken and its parts were strewn all over the ground.

There were boxes labled 'spare stuff', crammed full with all kinds of mechanical and electrical parts. The wooden table did not manage to give the room a rustic feel, as it was crammed with pizza cartons.

"I'll need a bit to clean the table up. If you help me, you can get your implants faster.", Robert pointed at the wooden table.

"You can just throw them onto this pile over there.", he pointed at a pile of trash in the corner of the room.

Bobby had not expected to be doing this on his birthday, but he figured that Robert knew what he was doing and started relocating the trash.

Meanwhile Robert had gone upstairs to his lab, leaving the boy alone in his living room.

His lab was filled with electronics, empty husks of the things he had removed the electronics from and an old computer that was connected to his neural implant wirelessly.

On the screen tiny white, green and red words wrote themselves on their own on a black background, sometimes the computer beeped once or twice.

There were also the two neural devices connected to the computer via two cables using a dubious looking old standard to modern standard jury rigged adapter and four cables.

Robert would explain to any onlookers that software was just ones and zeroes and thus it did not matter what kind of computer he used to program the software - but nobody beside Robert was present.

The neural devices looked distinct from each other. One of them was round and had the size of a coin which connected to the adapter with tiny fibers meant to connect to neurons in the brain. This device had not been built by Robert, he had gotten it from a customer (with a strangely elonged face) as payment - Robert liked being paid in electronics.

The other device had been at some time the same as the former device, that much could be seen. It was the (untested) pride of Robers Experimental Science and Repair Service, the MicroSon. It contained chemical receptors that could sense hormones, it contained a filter and micropump system to capture and release hormones and other psychoactive substances over a microinjection system and could all do this in a controlled way, making it much more versatile than the good old electrical stimulus to the nerves.

He had collected a cocktail of drugs from his own brain utilizing this self invented technology, synthesizing his very own anaesthesia- among other things. Insofar it had already been tested, so Robert was quite confident in his creation. He had felt a lot of pain from removing the naturally occuring anaesthesia from his brain during the experiment and quite a while after it, but that had been worth it as the brain had noted the extreme lack of anaesthesia and adapted by ramping up production, making him high for at least as long as he had been in pain. The fact was, he still was slightly high ever since that incident.

Robert theorized that he was experiencing the opposite of addiction, in which the brain reduces the production of anaesthesia due to the sudden artificial abundance of them.

Robert had been very content with many things he wouldn't have been content with before, like for example the inexplicable worsening relations to his customers, rationing one pizza per week, learning complicated math, physics, electronics and biology on the internet all the time and many more things, all thanks to one singular use of one of the functions of the MicroSon.

'That kid could become a god among men, all thanks to myself, for only 25 bucks', Robert told himself, guilt numbed by unnaturally high anaesthesia concentration in his brain - Robert was from a biochemical point of view the most consistently brave man in the entire world.

It was time to pick the method of cutting through the bone of the childs skull.

Robert knew that a childs skull had more naturally ocurring fractures as it was still growing. This would allow him to forego the usage of a bonesaw, bonepliers or a regular hammer (it worked quite well).

A medicinical scalpel heated by a gas powered lighter would be sterile (if a bit blackened from regular use). After shaving and cutting open the place (applying some anti-bacterial cheap vodka), he'd grab between the the fractures (wearing heat resistant rubber gloves meant to protect the hands against soap when doing dishes, sterilized with boiling water from his water boiler) and pull until it came apart enough for him to sew the technology in (using another blackened and hence sterile sewing needle).

He knew where to puncture the brain and where to not puncture it, everything should work out in theory.

After the surgery he would press the head together again (using his hands), sew the wound shut (using the needle) and then do the same for the other implant at the other brain half.

Was this a possibly dangerous procedure? Of course, Robert knew about biology and the brain was a very important organ, as was the skull.

Did Robert care that it was a dangerous procedure? Yes, Robert knew about law and if he killed the child by accident during this procedure, he would get executed by the local government.

Why did Robert still intend to continue? 75 bucks, that would be at least a couple more pizzas (minus the coupons still a plus), with his current needs he could survive a week per pizza and was in the dire need for money - die from execution or hunger? Robert intended to survive and do none of both.

So Robert started preparing all things needed, went down to clean the table with some water and then some vodka, and told Bobby to lay down on the table.

He then gave Bobby a valium to swallow and started to operate after the drugged child fell asleep. Everything went well until he had cut the skin and blood came out.

That should not be good as the body needed blood. On the positive side, the drugged Bobby did not awaken from his slumber and his heartbeat was slowed - not too much blood was lost, but it stained the clothes and hair surrounding the shaved part, running down freely.

Robert kept his calm, like always, and heated his scalpel utilizing the lighter with one hand and pressing the bleeding part with his other hand so that it could not flow out of the body as well. The attempt at cauterization had not worked, his lighter could just not turn the scalpel into a red glowing scalpel - seems like he had forgotten something.

Using his teeth Robert removed one of his gloves, still holding the wound, and then started assembling a high voltage transformer from the remains of the shattered mixer.

Robert connected it to a battery that hopefully had enough power left in it and shorted the device at the bleeding part.

A blue arc of electricity cauterized the bleeding and molten plastic could be smelled from the isolating plastic pieces Robert was holding. Robert picked up two other pieces and another battery in case he would need to cauterize again.

After resterilizing the equipment, the rest of the procedure went well, even though the cracking that the skull made when being pulled and pushed was in fact an indication that something wasn't quite right, or was it?

This was his first operating experience using this procedure, so he did not know.

Minimal visible brain bleeding as well. The other neural implant got in in a similar way, but this time better because of the improvised cauterizing equipment.

Robert wiped the blood off his table, got some glue and glued the hair back onto the head, got the blood stained clothes of Bobby, washed the stains off and put them back onto the boy. He was very content with his work.