I am suspended above a vat of some translucent blue fluid. Electrodes are attached to my skin and my bald head. I am naked, strapped down to a steel scaffolding.

The door opens, sliding upwards. A man walks in. I instantly recoil as far as my containment lets me. I know it. It’s him.

“You know,” he gloats, “next time, try sticking with a microwave frequency modulation that we haven’t already cracked.”

Instantly, it dawns on me—why my shot passed through the ghost. They must have used a drone using the same frequency as I was. The computer interpreted it as an operative in a suit and acted accordingly. Perhaps it was made out of alumina, nano-fabricated to make it transparent…

“We are studying your suits now,” he continues. “We knew you had something big, but we did not exactly know what to expect. We honestly did not know you were holding out on us on the refinement of metamaterial application!” He turns walks out. In a singsong voice, he taunts: “Good for us, bad for you…” Then, normally: “Do it.”