A decade and a half has passed, amazingly, since the shocking events that transmuted the world into a Twilight Zone. "911" has become one of those historical disasters that reshape the world; and it has, indeed, brought about novel security changes-some of which utilize technologies that are so encroaching they are beyond the understanding of the everyday person. No one is safe from the invasive use of electronic monitoring. Most people are now cognizant of the fact that they can be monitored via their mobile phones, in addition to other surveillance technologies previously unknown. Even in the virtual world of the internet, we leave identifying fingerprints through our search engines and other activities which point to who we are and our psychological makeup. Technology used in the correct way cannot be argued against. It saves lives. However, the technology that decodes the mind in order to understand an individual's thought processes employs torture to achieve its aim. It's a technology that destroys the mind, and when the mind is destroyed, more torture is inflicted upon the subject in order to introduce new thought processes that are alien to his or her genetic makeup. "The mind is like a musical instrument. It can be made to play any which way," the author heard one night as she slept alone in her room. "Birgitta, we want to understand the way you think and change what we don't like." Pernicious Wires is a summary of mind decoding and reprogramming-a system designed to change an individual's natural behavioral traits for some clandestine reasons. The system uses physical and mental torture in order to accomplish its goals. About the Author: Birgitta Abimbola Heikka was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1960-the year of independence for many African nations including her birth country. Her mother is a native-born Nigerian and her father was a Swedish expatriate who worked in pre-independent Nigeria as the regional manager for the African branch of the Swedish firm, Scan-African Trading Company. The author knew her father, who had left Nigeria when she was only a toddler, through letters and what others told her of him. She describes her childhood as one of "constant displacements" as her mother was always sick and could not take care of her. Birgitta attended numerous boarding schools and lived with several family members and friends. Notwithstanding, she remembers her childhood growing up in Nigeria with fondness. Birgitta moved to the United States in 1987. She attended Southeast Community College-a technical 2-year educational institution in the small, rural farming community of Milford, Nebraska-where she earned an Associate Degree in Computer Programming. This is Birgitta's second book. Her first book, Birgitta, a Life Wired, was self-published in 2011. Pernicious Wires, according to the author, was written in order to fill the holes created by the former. "Writing Birgitta was an education in progress," she had stated in the first book. "Writing Pernicious Wires has been the completion of the education."