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"Does that have to do hy you hacked into the Department of Defense and disappeared? Were they the ones you lost to?" She’d heard the stories, but just like Google, those ru that had really happened My life had never been easy Most kids were born and their parents told theh When I was born, it was obvious I would change the world andfor the moment when I was special, both Savina and I were, but that alsoift, treasured and cherished We were never treated like typical kids and we only had each other She was the only one who understood how hard it hen all eyes were on you before you’d even lost all your baby teeth She was the only one who got it when I wanted to play baseball instead of work on Millennium Prize Problems
I lifted a hand and rubbed it overand I hoped she couldn’t see the tremor I wanted her to trust me I wanted her to believe in me I wanted to pretend like I was invincible and unbreakable, just like she was
"I hacked into the DoD because they killedfor proof" That was before I could controlinside ofat the hands of the men who made me I wanted to make them pay I wanted to clear my father’s name I wanted to save ht in the crosshairs of soined I heard my voice break and felt the way all of ht, and when I’d fallen into the wrong hands, the only choice I’d been given was fight That conditioning was hard to shake even after all these years
"That’s what your father said He blaovernment for her death and thinks they fraet their hands on you" It sounded outrageous, fictitious, and paranoid
I believed with every fiber ofthat all of it was true
I peeled my eyes open and blinked in surprise when I realized she was standing directly in front ofeyes of hers stripped away all the layers I’d spent years wrapping raht that would be the end of it I thought they would use it to make the world a safer place, that they would utilize it to bring peace to places in the world that have been war-torn since before either of us were born It was solid code that was adaptive The prograovernment used it to take theorithm predicted where it was ets They called it preemptive measures They wanted to stop the people behind the attacks rather than the attacks the victi their dicks around My program made it possible for them to make sure they always had the most inches They sent drones in and wiped out entire faes, without proper research They didn’t have enough evidence to prove if the program was accurate or not, but they used it anyway I have no idea how many innocent people died because ofthe actual nu
"Last I heard, they were still using it Hit or uys or not" They wanted to take out the offenders, not save the innocent Our goals had never been the sa, what I had intended was bastardized and tainted As a result, new terror groups got their legs under theht More people have died for no reason, people si coffee with friends, people gathering in a crowd on a street ram would have pinpointed those exact locations, that it would have stopped those needless slaughters, but ould never know, because the powers that be instead used it to justify dropping bombs on undisclosed locations in the desert All of it left a bitter, nasty taste in my mouth
"They wanted you to write ainst anyone they considered a threat to A The reason I never talked about my past was because it hurt The pain was always ato believe it
"That’s the probleence is an unending commodity, that the well never runs dry They wanted to pick my brain clean, but ive back to society She was convinced ere going to be part of a new Renaissance She honestly thought e the world She refused to let theovernh, and if they wanted hteen She kneas too scattered, too adventurous to tieI wasn’t interested in warfare or y" I jolted when her hand landed on the center ofover the cotton ofto soothe the erratic beat of my heart I leaned into her like her small frame could keep ret "If I had given the that would have taken no time and almost no effort on my part, maybe my mom would still be alive She told the men who came for me no and her lab blew up the next week My dad was arrested a month later, and they picked me up for the hack a month after that My sister was left on her own, unprotected and vulnerable The DoD told me if I did what they asked, if I let them completely own my body and mind, they wouldn’t lock me up next to ive me the tools I needed to excel physically andSavina safe They knew she was all that I had left I was obsessed with her safety and they used it to gain my co as no one touched her" My jaw clenched and there was a familiar burn at the back of my eyes My hands curled into fists andto close in on itself It hurt Talking about the past, re my sister I never let that pain out I kept it locked doith everything else, contained it and controlled it She was the only person I’d ever shared it with, and that hurt in a different way, one that leftelse
"What they wanted was for me to be a y that would wipe out entire countries in the blink of an eye They wanted e the world in an entirely different way than what my mother envisioned for her children, and they wanted s and fiercely controlled enuity They swore up one side and down the other it was for the best If I fell into the wrong hands, enemy hands, then I would be declared an enemy of the state, and the honey pot that was my mind would be considered a weapon of overn me, would have no choice but to end ut to adrind together and ht about how ht into their hands I’d lost the ga They set a trap and I walked right in like the na&iu child I was
"They wanted you to be Captain America? A super soldier?" Noe sounded both horrified and a else, I would have laughed There was aeapons that I wondered the sa I could do PT with the best of the, if I had to There wasn’t overnment made it so the same was true with h to protect myself if someone else came after the unbelievable asset that was my mind They wanted to keep their prized possession safe and out of ene sure I could kick ass and thron if anyone they deemed a threat came after me They wanted me to be able to take care of er than I liked to think about
"I’ to save the world anymore I just wanted to save my sister" And I failed Hard
"They did a shit job of keeping her safe She hadto the articles I read She was constantly in the news and the public eye," Noe sounded angry, and I reer was the only thing keeping ers around her tiny wrist and felt her pulse flutter rapidly against the touch The frantic beatonly she and I could hear My frozen heart struggled to keep up with the powerful rhythm