Author's Note: The result of an idea-slash-challenge between LadyJaye1 and I. The idea grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go; I wound up writing the initial draft in about thirty minutes. (Don't worry, I edited and rewrote it later.)

Note that this is a one-shot. I was thinking of going further with it, but the more I played with the scenario, the more I realized that anything I forced out of it was a lot less interesting than something the reader could imagine.

Please accept this as my apology for my long absence. Yes, "Order Up" is still being worked on, but I spent most of 2014 so far editing, pitching and selling two books, and I'm beyond exhausted. It'll be updated before the end of September, though. Hint: spiders and whiskey are involved.

Disclaimer: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

A Certain Point of View

by Totenkinder Madchen

"It's an interesting technique," the Lab-Viper said, adjusting his goggles. He was justifiably nervous: in addition to being the very first of the Lab-Viper corps, he was suddenly in the position of explaining the brainwave scanner's new function to an easily-irritated Cobra Commander. Dr. Mindbender should have been doing it, but since Mindbender was currently in federal custody and the Lab-Viper was the actual developer of the new program, he had suddenly found himself in the hot seat.

The Lab-Viper knew he wasn't a bad person. He was a genius, no question of that, and had extensive training in both neurochemistry and computer programming. His original intention had been to create the first true virtual-reality game, an interactive experience beamed directly into the brain … but, well, that took time, and Cobra had been a big help in paying off his student loans. Eight years of grad school hadn't been cheap. And sure, Cobra's methods were extreme, but he'd read their internal documentation. They weren't terrorists—that was just scare talk. They were freedom fighters. The Lab-Viper was all for freedom. Freedom was what made him able to do his work, and now, to revolutionize the world of technology.

Cobra Commander was looking bored. It wasn't hard to discern, even through the mask; he had his arms crossed and was tapping one booted foot impatiently. Beside him, the Baroness made a "get on with it" motion. Only Destro, impassive as ever with his beryllium steel mask, seemed interested.

"Yes. Ah. Well." The Lab-Viper cleared his throat. "According to Dr. Mindbender's records, previous uses of the Brainwave Scanner have been—well—intrusive. Destroying memories, severing neural connections, etcetera. That was one cause of the intense pain subjects felt during the procedure. Now obviously the brain itself can't, er, hurt, but the body recognized the destruction of neural pathways and induced pain as part of its fight-or-flight response …" The Commander gestured impatiently, and the Lab-Viper quickly changed tack. "I have, however, improved the Brainwave Scanner significantly. In short, I have eliminated free will."

Not really, of course, but that was the kind of thing guaranteed to get attention. The Commander's head jerked up, and for a moment, the Lab-Viper sensed a hidden stare strong enough to nail him to the wall. "What?" he said. "Mindbender swore it was impossible! That degenerate hack was lying to me?"

"Not precisely, Commander." The Lab-Viper smiled a little. Now that he had their attention firmly fixed on him, he felt much more assured. This was his territory. "You see, Dr. Mindbender was thinking in terms of removing someone's autonomy, that is, someone's ability to think for themselves. It's very difficult to get that without a full lobotomy, and that tends to, shall we say, reduce the person's capability—"

"Cryo-Viper," Destro murmured to the Baroness.

She nodded. "It took ages to get the smell out of my clothes."

"Shut up, both of you!" the Commander said impatiently. "Get on with it! What have you discovered?"

"It's not about rendering someone inautonomous," the Lab-Viper said. He placed one hand, reverently, on the sleek metal casing of the Brainwave Scanner. Even if he hadn't needed the money, he thought he might have gone to work for anyone who had access to a beauty like her. "It's about redirecting their will. It's about making people choose to do what you want.

"Previous experiments in creating sleeper agents—with, er, 'Clutch' and 'Rock'n'Roll,' I believe—ended because the sleeper programming ran contrary to their own set personalities and core values. My program is deeper and subtler. We don't destroy memories." That would be unethical, he told himself. None of that at all. "We just … tweak them."

"Mindbender did that before," Destro interjected. "Injecting images of Cobra into captives' formative memories. It still didn't work."

"Yes, but the nature of a sleeper agent is that he is until he isn't. So to speak." The Lab-Viper coughed nervously. He had the Commander's attention, all right, but now the Commander was getting very impatient indeed. "It had to maintain two sets of directives simultaneously, and the agents were more like automatons than people. This is much simpler."

He patted the Brainwave Scanner again, drawing some comfort from the cool shell of the machine. He was expanding the frontiers of science here, after all. There was nothing to be nervous about. "The truth is, Commander, most of your people don't wake up in the morning and say 'Hail Cobra—'"

"They should," the Commander muttered. "Hurry up! I have a meeting with the North Korean ambassador in twenty minutes!"

"They wake up and say 'I need the money,' or 'I'm sure this is the right thing to do,' or 'at least I'm not stuck in a dead-end job.' Most people don't just up and shoot other people, you know. They rationalize it. They think of themselves as good people doing bad things for good reasons, or even people doing good things for good reasons." The Scanner hummed under his fingertips. "That's what my program does. With it, I can take a person's whole personality—their moral underpinnings—and tweak it, carefully."

"Well, what good does that do?" snapped the Commander. But the Baroness and Destro were exchanging long, slow looks, and the Baroness's gaze was sharp and knowing. Destro seemed to have tensed.

"It gives them a reason to do what you want them to do," the Lab-Viper said simply. "Your will becomes their will, and they think it's their choice."

There was a long moment of silence in the laboratory. Behind the Lab-Viper, the Scanner's hum increased as its cycles wound up, nearing the end of its runtime. A soft whoosh of breath from within it might have been audible, but it was covered by the sound of the machine.

A display blinked to life on the side, displaying a series of brightly-colored icons. The Lab-Viper rather liked that: it was a touch he'd added himself. It added a bit of life and pop-art styling to the otherwise sterile facility.

"Let me demonstrate," he said. "This scenario is nearly finished compiling." He swiped a finger across the screen, sending the icons flying. "Each of these symbols corresponds to a memory or sensation located within the subject's brain, conscious or unconscious. The system detects well-traveled neural pathways and searches out repeated patterns within the memories to determine formative or deeply-held notions. This memory, for example—" He tapped a baby-blue icon with a teardrop shape on it "—has been coded Family Memory, Traumatizing or Unsatisfactory. The lighter the color, the more powerful the memory. This memory concerns an abusive parental figure. Repetitions of the scenario helped ingrain an attitude towards violence which informs the subject's worldview. If we tweak here and there …"

He tapped the icon, and it expanded into a wireframe image: two figures, one large and angry, one small and terrified. "Something as simple as the memory of one's pain, and the reaction to that pain, can change everything. Think of it as the crack in the foundation." With a flip of a finger, the Lab-Viper opened a new window with several sliding bars. "Increase the subject's anger response, decrease the fear just a little, and his formative memories are subtly altered. A small thing. But repeated hundreds of times?"

With a smile, the Lab-Viper turned back to the three freedom fighters. His nervousness was gone, his worry was gone. He was on top of the world. He was smashing scientific barriers, rewriting how people thought about the human brain and what it could accomplish. This wasn't just science, this was art.

Cobra Commander's face remained hidden, but the Lab-Viper knew those invisible eyes were fixed on him. Destro was stiff as a board, seemingly frozen in shock—or amazement, the Lab-Viper decided, since Destro had a scientific mind and must clearly be understanding the possibilities inherent in the Lab-Viper's breakthrough. The Baroness, however, was clutching Destro's arm with a white-knuckled grip. That didn't seem to make much sense. But then, the Baroness was an odd duck. The Lab-Viper didn't pretend to understand women.

"'Empires won by conquest,'" Destro said softly. He seemed to be quoting something, but the Lab-Viper didn't know it. Still, he understood what Destro meant. This device could change the world. No, it would change the world. Suddenly, everything was up in the air, and the dice could fall any which way. How could any man of science not be exulting at a moment like that? He felt like history was cracking and reshaping under his hands.

Cobra Commander, though, wasn't willing to glory in the moment. His eyes fixed hungrily on the Brainwave Scanner. "Loyal to me, and by choice!" he shouted. "That'll show that hack Mindbender and his Serpentor nonsense! What about their personality? Knowledge? Skills? Are we going to have more Vipers forgetting how to eat?"

"Absolutely not," the Lab-Viper said with what he considered a justifiable touch of triumph. "For the most part, the personality remains unchanged. If their core values conflict with the necessary adjustments, then there will be some noticeable alterations, but for the most part some decent acting can cover the changes."

"Finally," Cobra Commander breathed. "Finally, victory is within my grasp! It's so simple. Never mind that blasted publicity department, Destro—this is how you change peoples' hearts and minds! I can't wait until we have a Joe in it!"

The Lab-Viper smiled. "Then I have good news for you, Commander."

Cobra Commander's head whipped around. "What?"

"If you'll recall, Commander, a prisoner was remanded to Dr. Mindbender's custody for interrogation some time ago."

"The ninja?" The Commander's glee was obvious even through his mask. "We finally own Snake-Eyes?"

"Er, no, Commander." The Lab-Viper coughed. "That was last month's prisoner transfer, and the ninja escaped our facilities shortly afterwards." It was, in fact, why the first of the three Lab-Vipers was now the only Lab-Viper. "The most recent transfer, however, did produce some excellent results."

"What, really? That useless—?"

"Yes, Commander. No longer useless, I'm happy to say, and now very much brought around to your way of thinking." The Lab-Viper swiped a few icons across the screen and brought up a progress bar. It stood at 100%, and his smile returned in full force. "Cobra Commander, Laird Destro, Baroness. Allow me to introduce you to Cobra's newest, most loyal freedom fighter."

He tapped a few buttons, and the casing opened up.

The subject hung limply in his restraints. Fresh white bandaging stood out brightly against the tattered remnants of his colorful clothes, and his eyes were slightly glazed. As the Scanner's headpiece lifted away, though, he blinked and straightened up as best he could, alertness returning to his gaze.

"Hello," he said. His voice was hoarse, but otherwise normal. His eyes focused on Cobra Commander. "Sir."

"Do you know who I am?" the Commander demanded, speaking as slowly and clearly as he ever could. "Are you loyal to me?"

"I don't believe in loyalty," said the subject. "It's just … it's just a word people use to control others. I believe in doing what's right, no matter how much it hurts."

"Are you prepared to kill my enemies?" snapped the Commander.

"Yes," said Edwin Steen. "It's for their own good."