Chapter 151: Neuralyzer

Ten minutes later.Timothy sat behind his massive desk, fingers tapping lightly as he skimmed through the meeting notes Reyes had sent him the night before. SMRs, neutron flux, passive safety systems—Reyes claimed he developed something "game-changing."

Timothy believed him; the guy lived and breathed nuclear engineering. Still... his mind wasn’t in technical mode yet.

He leaned back.

Too early. Too busy. Too many things on his plate already.

And after everything that happened this morning—from the employee address to his mother and sister’s surprise visit—he needed a reset. Something simple, something that didn’t involve supply chain logistics or government negotiations or billion-peso budgets.

His stomach grumbled softly.

Right. Breakfast part two.

He pressed a small desk button.

"Hana?" the intercom chimed.

"Sir?" Hana replied.

"Have Pantry prepare something light. Maybe fish and chips, garlic aioli, the usual snacks. Deliver it here."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"Nothing for now."

"Understood."

The line clicked off.

Timothy let out a long breath and rolled his shoulders. He rarely allowed himself moments of downtime, but today felt... strange. The building was new, the atmosphere was new, and after years of grinding, maybe he could afford a few minutes of peace. Just ten. Or fifteen.

He turned toward the massive 120-inch transparent OLED screen embedded into the wall. Perfect for presentations. Also perfect for movies.

He tapped a control on his phone.

The screen lit up.

Scrolling, scrolling—

Men in Black.

A classic. Clean, fun, simple. And, weirdly, relevant.

He selected it.

Just as the Columbia logo shimmered into view, a knock sounded.

"Sir?" Hana opened the door slightly. "Your food."

She stepped inside carrying a tray cart—steaming fish and chips, buttered corn, a small bowl of nachos, cold lemon iced tea, and a cup of chocolate-covered almonds.

"You’re eating early," Hana noted, setting the cart beside his sofa.

"It’s not early," Timothy replied. "It’s stress management."

She gave him a brief, amused look. "Enjoy, sir. I’ll be in my office if you need me."

The door closed.

Timothy moved to the sofa, settling down with the ease of someone who deserved a five-minute vacation. The smell of hot fish and crisp batter filled the office, mingling with the subtle scent of fresh coffee from the pantry down the hall.

He dipped a piece into the aioli and took a bite.

Perfect.

The movie began, and he let himself sink into it—aliens, secret agents in black suits, Will Smith being Will Smith. A universe where advanced tech existed casually, where no one questioned the impossible because someone else was in charge of keeping the world orderly.

A universe where the crazy stuff stayed secret.

And then—

He saw it.

Small, silver, sleek.

Agent K lifted the device.

Agent J squinted in confusion.

A bright white flash filled the screen.

Neuralyzer.

Timothy paused the movie.

The room fell silent.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he chewed the last piece of fish.

Of all the tech in the movie—the alien weapons, the hovering cars, the transformation gadgets—it was that simple flash that caught his attention.

A device that erased memories.

A device that could plant new ones.

A device that could remove inconvenient questions.

His head tilted.

"Huh."

He set down his fork.

If such a device existed...

If such a thing could be engineered...

Wouldn’t that solve at least fifty percent of his recurring problems?

People asking how his technologies came out of nowhere.

People suspicious of breakthrough after breakthrough.

People trying to dig into things he couldn’t explain without exposing the Reconstruction System.

A neuralyzer would make all of that vanish in a literal flash.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"What if..." he muttered quietly.

—What if he could replicate the function using a different principle?

—What if he could reconstruct something similar?

—What if he could integrate it subtly into corporate protocol, public announcements, or security procedures?

Most importantly:

What if he never had to make an excuse again?

Instead of awkward lies like—

"It was years of research."

"My R&D team worked overtime."

"It was a joint project."

"We got foreign assistance."

He could simply say it... and then wipe the memory of whoever didn’t need to know the truth.

It was the perfect technology for a reconstruction system!

He unpaused the movie and watched the next scene closely, analyzing the concept rather than the story.

Light flash → target memory disrupted.

Immediate disorientation.

Cue for rewriting memory.

Group stun modes available.

Portable size.

He smirked.

Hollywood always dramatized things, but conceptually? It wasn’t impossible.

Not for someone like him.

Not for someone with a system that could reconstruct anything—from basic circuits to next-generation engines to weapons to entire industrial processes.

He took another sip of iced tea.

"Neuralyzer... or something like it," he mused, tapping his chin. "Memory disruption."

Timothy pushed his empty plate aside and opened a new tab. He typed the word.

Neuralyzer.

The top results were predictably pop-culture: clips, listicles, then, almost exactly where he expected it, a link to the Men in Black fandom page. He clicked.

The MIB entry wasn’t long, but it was dense with detail—exactly the sort of consolidated, paraphrased lore fans adored. Timothy read it line by line, not as trivia but as a datapoint to be mined.

The page described the Neuralyzer as a compact, handheld device used by MIB agents. Its primary, dramatized function: a blinding flash that temporarily wipes short-term memory, leaving no trace of whatever event had just occurred. Agents then spoke a standard, polished script to fill the memory gap—an innocuous alternate timeline, a fabricated explanation, an assigned "official" version of events. The fandom write-up emphasized a few practical constraints the films implied: the flash needed to be seen (line of sight mattered), multiple people could be affected at once if within range, and the device’s effect was time-limited and selective—agents could choose the breadth of the erasure and whether to seed replacement memories.

"This is it," Timothy said as something bubbled inside of him. This is what he was looking for. Though he wasn’t thinking about it, it did come across!