A cold northern wind traced the nape of my neck. I sat leisurely on the balcony, gazing out at the pier and the calming sunset-soaked waters. The seagulls were unusually quiet, and my coffee was quite bitter. Was Anna trying to keep me up all night? We’d do this sometimes, just quietly look out at the waters for a change of pace, but it looked like Marissa was nagging her to get home so she left earlier than usual. Bitter because she’s not here? I thought, eyeing the mug in my hand then laughed it off.
Afterwards, I’d decided to fly around the city little. What I thought was chilly temps before was paltry compared to these higher altitudes. Looking down, all there was to see were lights, so many lights, yet it felt like the darkness wasn’t cleared up. TK flew at my side, greatly slowing his speed to match my Grav-only speed. Really, the only change I made for myself was just a pair of goggles to block the wind. All my work… well, our work–Anna couldn’t bear to watch me work on my own–was focused toward TK.
After a few minutes of scouring the city, I retreated for the night and went home. In my light sleep, I was awoken by my door opening, not exactly in the subtlest of ways. It slammed against the wall in my room. Anna was running to me, her hair a mess, no make-up, still in her bed clothes. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?!” she yelled at me as the maidservants gathered by the doorway. Somniferous eyes couldn’t focus well, and it took a while for them to really notice how flustered she was. My mind was just idling in neutral until she shook my shoulders, “Wake up!” and finally forced me into first gear. I rolled to the edge of my bed and stood up, rubbing my eyes, “Calm down,” I told her. A servant offered her a glass of water and she finally sat on a nearby chair, trembling with her first sip.
“Jared,” she said, a lot more composed than she was, but brittle nonetheless, “something happened.
“Well, I can guess,” I said, a bit snide, “so tell me,” I leaned against the desk she was sitting at, “what made you leave from your bed to come straight to me?”
She placed the glass down and looked up at me. “Things, are going to change,” she spoke softly, meekly and gave her phone to me. Before I could play the video clip she had up, she motioned me to sit. The solemn air about her made me a little uneasy, but the early morning rendered most emotions nil.
The first couple seconds were pretty dark, until I heard the faint click of a switch and the lights came on. There were two people kneeling down, bags over their heads and hands supposedly bound behind them. A man leisurely strolled left and right behind them, “Oh great hero, Ban,” the man said, and I could tell immediately who he was despite his head being above the camera, “I have before me a decision I’ve made, one I thought long and hard about,” Cennet announced, “but I’ll spare you the theatrics.” I couldn’t believe he was doing this again, but what could I possibly expect after what he pulled? Nothing would be able to surprise me anymore. He pulled the bags off the hostages’ heads, revealing their faces for but a few seconds, then quickly sank a bullet in the back of both their heads. The two of them fell, and my mind began caving in on itself. “We’ll meet each other soon, won’t we, Ban? Oh, and in case it wasn’t yet obvious,” he walked toward the camera, and stooped in front of it, making it focus on his face, “I caused that car crash.” With those words, the video ended.
I knew the future was not something man could foresee, but mine was becoming clearer with every passing second, or more accurately, my many choices in life were dwindling with every passing second this anger ate through my restraint. “Is this real?” I asked. Anna stood up and embraced me, not saying a thing. “Anna, is, this, real?” I asked once more. She still refused to say it, only nodded. I felt her head move up and down beside mine. A farrago of emotions built up, bubbling right below the lid, but that lid didn’t know which one to let out so it just stifled them all underneath.
By the time I’d gotten wind of the news, the crime scene was already vacated. According to the authorities, dad’s phone went off the grid about midnight, and mom’s phone about one in the morning. The recording timestamp showed that they were killed just after two o’clock and UGO’s website was hacked an hour later, with the video literally on every page of the website. Marissa found it and woke up Anna to show her, and Anna came straight to me.
I looked at their pale bodies at the morgue, feeling even more dead than they actually were. My face was void of emotion, but my heartbeat was on a rollercoaster. Was it anxious or calm? I couldn’t tell what was going on inside me. It felt like the minute my feet graced the street outside the morgue, I was already in front of hundreds of people clad in black for dad’s funeral. This stuffy church, this dauntingly tall podium, the melancholic atmosphere joined with their suffocating eyes and unwavering attention made me more uncomfortable that I needed to be. Telling them the little I knew about Charlie Foster, my father, my dad, was bitingly acrimonious pain. Part of me felt like I didn’t deserve to stand there and talk like I knew the man, yet the other part felt like it was obligatory. About an hour later, his casket was lowered six feet under. He really did know a stupendous number of people. I couldn’t recall the how many of his friends extended their condolences. That night was a sleepless one.
The next day was mom’s turn. Nothing less than a cathedral would suffice to provide seating the multitudes I saw. So many suits gathered under this one roof. Today, my nervousness seemed to win me over little by little. I stood behind yet another podium, though this one was equipped with a step-up, giving the audience a better view of me; that didn’t help. Most of the faces I saw didn’t exactly show signs of distress. I knew whom I was addressing, which made it even harder to do. I looked at the paper and tried reading, my mouth only inching open and stopping midway. It felt like the world was capsizing. The priest patted my shoulder, “Take your time son, we understand.”
Do you? I asked him only in thought, then looked back to the crowd, do they? I inhaled, then breathed out slowly, then flipped the paper with my speech over to the blank side. Those words on it, the pretty flowery scene it painted took away something I thought it shouldn’t have.
“Good morning, everyone, thank you for coming. Diana Ugo, founder and CEO of the UGO conglomerate. Chief of the greatest team of engineers in the world. Pioneer of robotics that would lead this world to a bright future,” I paused and looked at them, noticing a few nodding their heads in agreement. “I hated that woman.”
The muffled sounds of whispers made their way to my ear. “I didn’t consider her my mother, I considered one of the maids she hired to take care of me my mother.” Their murmurs and gasps really showed that I had their attention now. “Really, I didn’t know what she was. I’m sure most–if not, all of you–have seen videos circulating the ‘net with me fighting those robots. So, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I didn’t love the CEO of UGO, but I absolutely adored her work. I was obsessed with it. Every time I saw the things she did I always thought on how it could improve and began doing experiments of my own. A few years of that and I began sending emails to her at work, but she didn’t know it was me. To her, I was just someone named Ban. That was my little secret. Those emails had ideas in them, ideas she loved. I thought that, if I couldn’t get the love and attention of my mom, then maybe Ban could get it from the head engineer of UGO.” I chuckled, “But of course, that wasn’t enough. Before the hostage situation you all know of, there was another situation in UGO headquarters. That day, mom found out that I’d taken the life of a boy when I was just five.”
There, was where I revealed everything, “So, I came to realise Diana Ugo, mom of Jared and CEO of UGO was the same person. I realised people don’t need to change for us to appreciate them. I realised I wanted her to do what she wanted to do, whatever made her happy. I realised I loved mom.” The priest offered me a napkin, and only then had I realised a long tear made skid marks on my cheek and dangled at my chin. “I talked way longer than I intended so I’ll just end here. But there’s one thing I want you all to take home. The family and friends you love, give them a second look, appreciate them for who they are. Thank you all for your time,” I ended and stepped down to a loud applause. Some weight was off my shoulders, and the media who covered the event certainly had a scoop.
Two burials in two days wasn’t easy, and the downpour that came along with mom’s was quite cold, yet, it took quite a while before I realised an umbrella sheltered me. Honestly, if it weren’t for Anna, I didn’t know what I’d have done. “I’m here,” she’d say, hugging me.
The chauffeur picked us up a while after. In the next few days, we went over to dad’s house with some movers to get his stuff. “Hey! You’re Jared, right?” one of the movers asked and I nodded with questioning eyes. “I guess this is for you then,” he gave me a small jewellery box with my name written onto it. There was a note atop a silver ankh necklace. ‘What you love is a direct reflection of who you are. Never forget who you are.’
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
A simple message, one I didn’t quite understand until I saw ‘Ban’ etched onto the back of the ankh. I held the pendant tight, so too my tears. It joined my headgear strip around my neck that day.
For further legalities, most of it was controlled heavily by mom’s will. Her lawyer, a seemingly sheepish but extremely stubborn man ensured things went the way they should. The cheques she wrote to him were no joke. Most of mom’s assets, UGO or not, went to me, a few to her team of coats – including Anna of course – and two proposals; one to me and one to Anna.
“What do you think?” Anna asked me, as she read her part of the proposal to me. Guardian, huh? I thought about it.
“I’d like that. I’d really like that. To be honest, I couldn’t be happier with anyone else,” I said, noticing the edge of her lips curling up, “but,” her head drooped a bit, “I don’t think you should, for your own safety. I can’t risk yo–”
“Not happening,” she placed her palm up, blurting out her counter without even giving a reason. “To be honest I wasn’t totally sure about it, but after hearing you say that, I’ll do it. Definitely. You need me after all.”
“Says the girl who can’t keep a normal conversation with people. Well, anyway, what’s the other one?”
She giggled, “Well, it’s hard to deny that. As for her other proposal,” Anna beamed a childish happiness, “she wants you to do her job.”
“Eh?”
“She wants you to lead the team, be the next head engineer. I understand why, too. They’re kind of old and out of ideas.” She wanted me to become her, at least that’s what I thought.
“Yeah, well, I’m underage so that can’t happen.”
“Since when did that stop you from doing anything?” she asked. A fair point, but I couldn’t accept that out of the blue, it was out of place. My state of mind was also focused on something else entirely.
Things calmed down in the weeks to come, except the interviews for mom’s position. The board decided to include me in them along with a couple of the older coats. The candidate just leaving was probably the eighth one in a series of back and forth meetings. “This is stupid,” I commented, slouched in my seat.
“You’ve always got something going on in that head of yours. Your silence on this matter was a little weird, for all of us. So how about you tell us what you think?”
“You’re asking questions, expecting another Diana Ugo. That can’t happen. You’re expecting the perfect balance of innovation and conservatism from candidates above forty.”
“What do you suggest we do, then?”
At that point I sighed a little, “Just pick Anna already. She’s the obvious choice. And yes, before you say it, I am biased towards her, but even with that, I still see no other clear alternative. She has more than enough creativity, and is plenty rational after dealing with the lot of my experiments. Other everyday CEO things can be learned from the secretary.”
One of the older heads turned in his seat, “She’s only twenty-five though,” he said, worried her age would bring lack of experience.
“Well, you guys have been doing this way longer than I have so I trust your judgment if you choose someone else. But, remember,” I sat up properly, “your most profitable years came from the inventions of a kid.”
I took an early leave from that meeting. A look at my schedule made me feel like there was no rest for the weary. I had a shrink visit early afternoon, the TEOs also contacted me and there was another meeting with Anna and mom’s lawyer. At particular times, my attentiveness would drop and my mind would blank out. A cold ruth would escalate and feed upon itself to snowball into a smothering haze I couldn’t breathe or see through. Anna often had to snap me out of that bog. I’d appear quite indifferent to those I conversated with. It was the second time it occurred whilst I talked to mom’s lawyer. “Sorry,” I said, standing up to retreat, “I’ll do this another time,” and simply walked out of his office. Anna tussled with some papers laid about on the desk and came out to meet me soon after.
“Don’t!” she yelled out the moment I was about to fly off. “I’ll give you a ride! Didn’t I tell you not to fly?!” She seemed a little angrier than needed. I wasn’t sure how to react. “Do you want to crash land again?” she asked and held my hand, pulling me downwards to her. Her keen eyes could see the pain swelling my face. “It’s alright. I’m here with you. You’re not alone,” she comfort me with those words, words I’d began depending on to calm myself. “Come on, let’s take you home.”
What’s she talkin’ about? I wondered, particularly on the crash-landing part. Did I ever crash land using Grav? That topic weighed on me the entire trip home. I fetched myself a glass of water and sat on the sofa in the living room, my legs crossed and my head leaned onto the backrest as I slouched. “Hey, um, uh, well,” I initiated but didn’t quite know how to ask what I wanted to so I breathed slowly, “how long has it been since, the funerals?”
Her brows showed her answer was going to be one of playful mockery like we usually answer each other, but she second-guessed herself and chose to reply seriously. “It’s, been three days, Jared.”
The cogs in my mind halted, to pay ample respect to this enigmatic delusion. Three? I pondered, how could it possibly be three days when I’ve spent the last two weeks in interviews, shrink visits, grave visits and legal consulting? What exactly was she telling me? I posed these questions to her, earning a look of honest concern. She showed me the date on her phone, its digits seemed to be jumping. With a squeeze of my eyelids, I focused my sight, truly discerning the correct date, and coming to believe Anna’s claims. How blind was I? Was I asleep the whole time?
“Did I, meet the board of directors today?”
“Yeah,” she replied in a questioning tone, “you had about seven or eight applicants to interview with the board, did you forget already, silly?”
I gave her a weak, almost forced chuckle, “I, I guess,” and downed the rest of the water. At that point, I honestly asked myself if my mind was that warped. The undying fire fervently searing my chest was such a horrid agony, yet I’d only just gotten through three days of it!
Later that sleepless night, into the wee hours of morning, I crept into the basement, a place of solace for me and screamed my chords into turmoil, shattering the vague delusion of stoical resistance against this heart-wrenching loss. I cried, like a baby, loud and unrestrained. It was so disheartening to force myself into realising time and time again that all this was real. It was real. My parents were, murdered. Mom and dad weren’t coming back, they wouldn’t magically reappear when I opened my eyes, no matter how I yearned it to be so. I clasped hopelessly onto the naïve notion that all this malice and bitterness derived from a mere phantasmal experience. I balled my little fists and wept for an eternity, slumping to my knees in weakness and curling up into a helpless child, dreaming of the warmth I felt whilst my parents had their arms around me. No one said it would be this hard, this bad. My ideas of good and bad were all mixing and swarming together into a convoluted black cauldron of selfishness. How I lingered on regret, wishing I had never met my father. Maybe then, he might’ve still been alive. What even was the point of bonding with my mother when she was going to die anyway? It only made her death harder to swallow. Those were my thoughts, for a while, until I realised how repulsive they were. How could I even think that? I wondered, feeling like with every passing second a new domain of obscurity would reveal itself, and the harder I looked at this undiscovered part of me, the more I noticed how unbelievably thick it was coated in stygian enmity.
Anna entered a few minutes after with a blanket and glass of water; she sat next to me. “Here you go.”
I took it and drank a bit, staring into space for a minute. “Why?” I asked, not giving any such context, but she understood.
She wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “I don’t know, Jared. No one knows. All we can do is grow stronger from our hardships. And, you won’t have to do that alone.” She hugged tighter and threw the blanket over us, “I’m here with you. You’re not alone.”
Every time Anna went to bed, I’d check the date to ensure my internal clock wasn’t going bonkers. This time, a few weeks actually did pass by with nothing noteworthy happening besides the board’s attempts at convincing Anna to take up even more of mom’s responsibilities. “Have you made a decision?” I asked her, zipping up my hoodie to combat the frigidity of the CEO's office.
“Yeah,” she grinned, a malignant aura emanating from her, “but I got a condition.” I raised my brow.
“It’s CEO of UGO, shouldn’t you be grabbing it up? What condition could you possibly have?”
Her smile grew even darker, “Accept the head engineer position, and I’ll be CEO.”
I moved my lips to the side in a disapproving but still indecisive gesture. “It's head engineer of UGO, shouldn’t you be grabbing it up?” she hit me back with my own line.
“Alright, I'll do it, boss,” I agreed nonchalantly, I wasn’t opposed to it nor was I for it, but I was interested. I thought for a minute – a pattern I was rather fond of – that this new venture would take my mind off things, but that’s not what I wanted, not this time.
Anna finally sat down in the boss’ seat. I lost a partner but gained a guardian and looked on at her in pride, genuinely happy for her. But, of course, there was one glaring issue. The clear, perfect weather outside lighted the beige room perfectly as I stood in front of that desk, my attention locked onto Anna. I touched dad’s ankh lightly, and made my way to the edge of the building to get a look at the city, leaving a long uneasy period of silence to go on, “I’m going to kill David Cennet.”
She too, took an unreasonably long time to reply, almost to ensure my words soaked into her mind properly. “And then what?” she inquired, “You’re going to stoop to his level? You’re willing to risk your life by going to kill again when you know, that you’re afraid of it?”
I didn’t answer; there was no need. Yeah, sure, I was afraid of it but there was something else I was even more frightened to see come to pass – her death. She knew there was nothing she could do to change my mind. “Fine,” her footsteps grew louder and she stood next to me, peering out at the city as well, “but at least tell me why you’re doing it. Is it vengeance?”
“It is, but not the only reason.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“You,” I replied and walked off, making sure to congratulate her on her new position before I exited the room.