Augmented Agent, The-Jack Vance, novelette

Augmented Agent, The-Jack Vance, novelette (author’s preferred title)

AKA: I-C-a-BeM

The Augmented Agent is a 32/42 page novelette that was written in 1956 and first published in October, 1961 in Amazing Stories magazine under the title "I-C-a-BeM."  This is another story that is pure enjoyment.  James Keith is in a special branch of the CIA where agents are surgically altered (augmented).  Keith's hair consists of, "multi-laminated accumulators."  His dentures are "scrambled, condensed, transmitted, received, expanded and unscrambled radio waves of energies almost too low to be detected."  Fingernails are "copper-silver alloy, internally connected to the accumulators in his hair" and allow Keith to electrically kill or stun others by touching them with his fingers. Keith has been altered to look identical to an African politician whom he is supposed to dispose of and impersonate.  It is James Bond, Monty Python and Jack Vance all tumbled into one story.  I’ve read it multiple times and rate it a 4 “Really liked it”

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled The Augmented Agent (1989)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Wild Thyme, Green Magic (2009)

Included in Chateau d'If and Other Stories (2017, Spatterlight): CD (pb)