The boys from Grindhouse Wetwares both sucked down Parliament menthols the whole time we talked. There was no irony for them in dreaming of the possibilities for one’s body and willfully destroying it. "For me, the end game is my brain and spinal column in a jar, and a robot body out in the world doing my bidding," said Sarver. "I would really prefer not to have to rely on an inefficient four-valve pump that sends liquid through these fragile hoses. Fuck cheetahs. I want to punch through walls."

Flesh and blood are easily shed in grinder circles, at least theoretically speaking. "People recoil from the idea of tampering inside the body," said Tim. "I am lost when it comes to people’s unhealthy connections to your body. This is just a decaying lump of flesh that gets old, it’s leaking fluid all the time, it’s obscene to think this is me. I am my ideas and the sum of my experiences." As far as the biohackers are concerned, we are the best argument against intelligent design.

Neither man has any illusions about how fringe biohacking is now. But technology marches on. "People say nobody is going to want to get surgery for this stuff," admits Cannon. But he believes that will change. "They will or they will be left behind. They have no choice. It’s going to be weird and uncomfortable and scary. But you can do that, or you can become obsolete."

We came back into the kitchen for dinner. As I wolfed down steak and potatoes, Cannon broke into a nervous grin. "I want to show you something. It's not quite ready, but this is what we're working on." He disappeared down into the basement lab and returned with a small device the size of a cigarette lighter, a simple circuit board with a display attached. This was the HELEDD, the next step in the Grindhouse Wetwares plan to unite man and machine. "This is just a prototype, but when we get it small enough, the idea is to have this beneath my skin," he said, holding it up against his inner forearm.

The smartphone in your pocket would act as the brain for this implant, communicating via bluetooth with the HELEDD, which would use a series of LED lights to display the time, a text message, or the user’s heart rate. "We’re looking to get sensors in there for the big three," said Tim. "Heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. Because then you are looking at this incredible data. Most people don’t know the effect on a man’s heart when he finds out his wife is cheating on him."

Cannon hopes to have the operation in the next few months. A big part of what drives the duo to move so fast is the idea that there is no hierarchy established in this space. "We want to be doing this before the FDA gets involved and starts telling us what we can and cannot do. Someday this will be commercially feasible and Apple will design an implant which will sync with your phone, but that is not going to be for us. We like to open things up and break them."

I point out that Steve Jobs may have died in large part because he was reluctant to get surgery, afraid that if doctors opened him up, they might not be able to put him back together good as new. "We’re grinders," said Cannon. "I view it as kind of taking the pain for the people who are going to come after me. We’re paying now so that it will become socially acceptable later."

3rdi, 2010-2011. Photographed by Wafaa Bilal, Copyright: Wafaa Bilal

Image of Prof. Kevin Warwick courtesty of Prof. Kevin Warick

Portrait of Prof. Kevin Warwick originally shot for Time Magazine by Jim Naughten