[Coda]

I had a vaguely unsettling dream last night. I don't remember most of it, just the image right at the end, but I can piece together some of the context.

The scene I remember was a man slumped over the controls of a military-colored armored vehicle / light tank, with a pair of wires leading from the back of his head to be spliced into another pair of wires coming out of the vehicle's instrument panel. A voice (not sure if someone was talking, if it was my own thoughts, or if it was a movie-style narrator) said, in a compassionate tone, "he'll never have to yield to anyone ever again."

Of the context I do remember, I know the guy had the ability to interface with machines through a nervous system implant, some sort of possession type of effect. I know there had been some fighting, and someone dressed like a police officer (though I think it was someone just masquerading as one) had been chasing him down and attacking him and demanding that he yield.

I didn't see what happened specifically, but from the context I think he was already mortally injured and he used the last of his strength to crudely possess the tank. It was obvious that it wasn't done correctly (I got the feeling that the turret was the only part of it that he was able to control like that), and the emotional resonance I got from the scene told me that it would have killed him or at least left him a vegetable unable to detach even if he hadn't been in bad shape already. He didn't seem like the type to commit suicide out of spite, so the only sensible conclusion is that he was going to die anyway and he wanted to go down fighting.

But it was really unsettling to think about the fact that the last thing this guy would have experienced would be sacrificing everything about himself, turning into a blind, insensate vehicle for long enough to kill his attacker, and then helplessly waiting to finish dying in total isolation.