Jenni,
I haven't written to express my praise for this story yet, but I have been enjoying it immensely. It has become something of a Saturday morning ritual to sit down and read the next part. I think the posters before me in this thread have expressed many of the qualities that I enjoy about this story, that hold me in suspense all week and keep me coming back for more each Saturday (or gnashing my teeth when I am prevented from doing so like I was this week).
I have one small nitpick that I have to make, as a brain doc in real life...
Stephan says (and I hope I get the quote thingies right):
“I'll do what I can. There are two chips; one was placed here, in the temporal lobe....” Stephan tapped the side of his own head, deciding to drop the medical terminology. “The other at the back of his skull. The theory was that the first would block his memory, while the second would change his personality... his sense of identity.”
I can let the temporal lobe one pass-- technically it is the right place for memory, but the kind of memory problem it would present is a Memento like amnesia-- inability to learn new info-- if and only if both sides were lesioned. (As a tangent, total loss of retrograde memory is a very difficult thing to achieve, and you really don't see it outside of psychogenic amnesia-- which is the way you're really gonna be going here, with the reprogramming-- b/c memories are distributed throughout the cortex.) But also near the temporal lobe is the limbic system, which would be ideal for messing with for the re-programming they did (i.e., it controls emotional experiences and is closely linked with memory and emotion). However, the one that got my brain geek going was the "back of the skull" implant. The only thing that would do is give him a blind spot. Back of the brain (occipital lobe) is used for the visual system almost exclusively. The frontal lobes, OTOH, are more what you're aiming for if you want personality change. It probably wouldn't create the kind of personality change you'd want (socially inappropriate or inert or really, really distractible are some possibilities), but it's fiction and it's a Kryptonian brain and you can play. :-) Plus, the frontal lobe gives you the added benefit of controlling in part the retrieval of memories, so that would work doubly so. Plus, removal (or implantation) of the device in the frontal lobe would be a delicate thing most likely, which is exactly what your story calls for.
Okay, I'll shut off the brain geek now. I really am enjoying this story in every way, and I look forward to reading more. I can't wait to see this family reunion...
Hutch
