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CHAPTER ONE
GIA
That's another name of this mission called life. One minute, you are for the people, and the other minute, you are against the people. One minute, you are with the government, and before you know it, you are behind bars, rebelling with the outlaws. One minute you are in love, the next minute you are mourning. One moment, you are absolved from all your sins, and the next, you are staring down the barrel of a gun.
Don't planes blow up in the sky, don't people die every day? Which all happens just within the twinkle of an eye. The world would tell you that you cannot always be right. You have to be wrong at some point in time, you cannot know it all. Or, at least you cannot know too much. You can ask questions, it is allowed, but when your inquisitiveness gets the better part of you, when you begin to know more than you are supposed to, you become a threat.
You become the dangerous guy who can turn on anyone at any time. That's why the smart ones are hired, you do not want them on the other side of the government. The guy who hacked into the NSA database was given a job to make it better, the people who knew too much were asked to wear suits and ties, to work in offices with doors to keep the peering eyes out.
But the rise of inquisitive minds will keep happening, and new laws will be enacted to shut them down. This causes the fear of being the bad guy to set in. Everyone wants to look good in the public eye so the questioning minds who are scared to stand up pour their lives into activism and helping others living lives of anonymity, blending in with the crowd.
The government is always the good guy, for the people. And when you are against what the good guy believes in, you become the bad guy. The bad guys get shot, the bad guys get executed, the bad guys get incarcerated.
What was my crime again?
Oh, I remember...
I knew it all. Or so I thought.
You see, I was always transferred from one home to another all my life, from a lab to an orphanage, to a mad house, to a rehabilitation center, or was it a correction facility they called it? Then, finally the bunk.
When they got tired of raising people like us, they packed us up like baggage, loaded us into a truck, and dumped us in the middle of nowhere to find our own way. So, we found our space on the streets, under bridges choosing to become either a good guy, or a bad guy.
They said I was wrong in the head, dumb. I spoke to walls and picked my hair. They said I was crazy. Not until they realized how much of a threat I could become. Not until I knew too much, enough to drag everyone down and turn the world on its head. I could start World War III and not even know it. Just imagine, a fucking idiot becoming the one kill switch to an apocalypse.
***
"Get up!" Morla's voice echoed all the way into dreamland to rescue me from falling off a cliff.
My head ached and my stomach threatened to send me running to the bathroom. I blamed my illness on my freezing two-bedroom apartment I shared with the old engineer and her cat that never seemed to disappear.
She had found me on the streets, gave me a hot meal, and took me in. She found me one fateful night while I was drowning in a pool of my own blood after some transient had stolen my meagerly dinner. Crazy right? They were just some food scraps I found. See, on the streets, people steal everything, even your breath.
I was lucky, Morla found me, loved me, clothed me. I knew this because she never stopped reminding me. I was her companion, her friend. She said I was her 'godsend' after twenty-seven years of living alone. She thought she was going to die alone, but then, she found me. I would be with her when she took her final breaths. Her voice rang in my head again as I rolled sluggishly out of bed.
"Morning Morla," I yawned.
"I am going to be late for work. I want to get you taken care of before I go. I’ve made you breakfast and prepared a warm bath..."
"You are the best Morla," I snuggled my blanket to my chest tightly. “But I don’t feel well. I’ll come when I’m ready.”
"Guess what? I am in pain too. I have been trying to get you to wake up for the past ten minutes. I thought you were dead."
"Jesus! I didn’t go to bed early like some old woman I know.”
"Not my fault. I told you to turn off the TV, but you never listen to me. What did I tell you about binge watching TV shows like that? It lowers your IQ."
She helped me out of bed into the bathroom, peeled my clothes off my skin, then stood back as I dipped a toe into the steaming water. God, it felt soothing. I sank to the bottom of the tub letting the water marinate my skin and seep into my bones. After twenty seconds I came up. Morla handed me a washcloth and soap to scrub myself and left the bathroom with a sigh.
"I love you Morla," I called out.
I knew the daily routine. By nine, I’d take the cat out for a walk in the alley (I know, I know), I’d help Mr. Benjamin at his butcher shop by eleven, lunch was at two, and then I headed back upstairs and waited for Morla to come home.
My life revolved around Morla’s house and Mr. Benjamin's butcher shop downstairs. By six thirty Morla and I watched the return of our favorite TV show while eating dinner. Then, we would go to bed. It was the same routine every day and I had to stick to it. If I was not careful, I would die.
The world was a dangerous place, and I had every agent that worked for a secret group called Orion looking for me. Morla kept me safe.
Three years ago, when the facility they kept me at was dispatching lab rats like me into the bunk, they made a mistake and put me on that list. I wasn't supposed to be sent off, not until after a couple of years later after my abilities had been studied and documented.
