He returns home still believing the memories are fake but discovers a box of fauna smuggled from Mars in his desk.
Two armed men suddenly enter and reveal that Quail has a telepathic transmitter in his head that allows them to read his thoughts.
Quail suggests going through another mind-wipe, but this time replacing his current awareness of being an assassin with the pleasant memory of an exciting life.
When he was young, Quail used to fantasize that as a child he came across minuscule rodent-like aliens that were going to launch a full invasion of Earth with their superior technology.
It has been republished in the following collections: The plot was loosely adapted into the 1990 film Total Recall, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.