Being an orphan can be tough, people say it is because we have no mom and dad.  This is a fallacy.  Most orphans are left at the orphanage as infants who have no memory of their parents, in a proper orphanage you learn you most likely won't be adopted, and being an orphan just means you have to work harder.  This is not to say orphans do not want to have parents, but in a proper orphanage, the adults are quick to tell you to not keep your hopes up.  We are told to put our hopes in something bigger.

I spent my first five years in a small town in northeast Texas.  A small town orphanage is different than a large town.  There half the community treats you like trash, and the other gives you free shit.  My parents were killed in the terrorist attack.  My parents were spies, overseas in China.

Fortunately for me, I was born with hypercognition.  I was extremely smart.  Also fortunately, the person who was nice to me was the librarian, a kind man named Alex, he also tutored me had finished trigonometry by the time they came and got me.

Apparently as part of my parents last will and testament, their wages were to be spent to educate and train me.  On my sixth birthday, they came, the NSA.  For the next ten years I was taught the latest in science, history, math, and language.  I was also trained to be a spy.

At age fifteen I was approached by my handler Garth, I was given two options, one I could stay here, at this remote underground facility, till I was 18 and receive the last part of my parents will, or I could be placed as an asset on the ground within the US, and wait till I was 18.  It was a tempting choice, I liked the monotony, cut I did think that my parents would have wanted me to see the world, so I said I would Like to be an operative, working overseas.

This was a surprise to the higher ups, they did not think an orphan would care about what his parents whom he never met would think.  The compromised, once a month I would go on a mission otherwise I was an asset on US soil.

This leads me to the other kind of orphanage, a big city orphanage is more like a gang, in fact, they are respected by the other actual gangs.  Lets just say orphans with a lot of time on their hand can think of pretty creative ways to bring down criminal empires.  So they may operate in the same territory, but the gangs will stop all wars in the assistance of the Orphan Block.  It didn’t happen often and most of the times they gave eachother a wide berth, but sometimes, someone, like me, needs to get ahold of something that is not exactly legal.  Orphans can't do anything to legitimate businesses.

I was the new guy, so I was hazed, the problem was every attempt to haze me failed.  In an orphanage dominance used to be decided by fights, but now, it was decided by a game, chess.  The orphan leader of this section of manhattan was a ten year old kid.  He reminded me of myself, to bad I had five years on ten year old me.  He was “evaluating” me to determine my role, I said that if I won I would be left alone.  I beat him in seven moves.

This is where I miscalculated, apparently beating the leader instantly promoted me as the leader.  I did not want the position but I had it, so I spent my first month reorganising our Block.  We all  became spies, sort of.  I had every orphan above the age of five take Krav Maga, after enough experience, or they reached ten, they would take Wing Chun.  Everyone over eight learned how to pick locks, over ten learned how to crack dial safes, 12, electronic safes.  Afterwards was the optional biometric safecracking class I taught.  I spent most of my time training Ten year old me, who was actually seven year old me.  Any orphan above the age of fifteen was working.  I was left out of that bracket because I was working.

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I left for my mission at the end of the month, it was a simple snatch, grab an individual, not to hard, just wait till he is at home asleep.  Horse tranquiliser plus body bag plus evac team equals successful mission.

When I got back to Chelsea I learned that we were having some trouble, there was a ten story building that was owned by a private real estate company.  I checked into it and it was as shady as they come.  We were hired by an orphan whose adopted parents were getting kicked out of the building they lived in.  Not all of the orphans were actual orphans, but once an orphan always an orphan.

Every child, as soon as they could walk, practiced climbing, parkour, not the stuff you see on youtube, no, only in very specific moments were flips useful, normally they are just another way to kill yourself.  Kids learned how to move without being seen in an urban environment.

I talked with my contacts at the NSA, this was not their normal direction, at first they told me to tell the police, but then I told them my plan.  A ten story building full of children training as spies and soldiers, leading the underbelly of the community, hearing and seeing everything.  And when they become adults, a little push is all that will be needed to get them to join the military, CIA, NSA, FBI, or any other government organization.  True a lot of them will only want to be cops or lawyers for their community, but over six million orphans on manhattan island, that’s a lot of potential government bodies.

We still needed evidence, and that required breaking in, almost two months was a lot of time to learn, especially for children.  We already had hackers, safe crackers, and combatants with NSA level skill.  I was going to lead the team but, the kids wanted to prove themselves. A team of four eight year olds and a ten year old hacker were deployed.  The hacker was stayed on an adjacent rooftop, disabling security and alarms.  The other four ziplined to the building rooftop, entering through the roof, they were out in fifteen minutes, no alarms tripped, no security alerted, egressed the way they came leaving no evidence. Except for a little hole and scorch mark where the bolt that held the zipline was blown off.

After that mission, the building was listed as private property, the liquidized net worth of the real estate company went to outfitting the building, bedrooms, game rooms a cafeteria and several high tech conference rooms were built, nothing too sophisticated, no military grade hardware, we even had an armory on each floor.  The weapons in said armory were age appropriate, no guns till age thirteen, the fifth floor.  The last of the money was placed in various credit unions, giving us roughly thirty thousand dollars a month, eighty percent of which went to infant products and hiring caretakers.  Kids cannot take care of babies without a guide.

The last twenty percent went to food and kitchen staff.  The orphans had become a company, we only hired immigrants, and paid them, fairly, in cash.  It was put on paper, tax free, it was legal, barely.

After my second mission I came back to hearing the orphans out of the garment district and hell’s kitchen inside of midtown west were encroaching on our territory, so played their leaders in chess, and won.  I left said leaders in charge of their district, and reorganise their structure to match ours.

Over the next three years I systematically united the Orphan Blocks of manhattan, with a similar style, beat the leader in chess, find a corrupt private company take it down and set up shop.  The last law I made for the orphans, was that our system should be evaluated every fifteen years by the leaders of the district, times change, so we should change as well.

The time came for me to leave, it was an easy departure, people were sad to see me go, but they had strong leaders.  The district leaders each picked a representative from their district, they were evaluated and tested till one remained, he became the new Orphan President.  At the inauguration, I was asked to pass over the duster I wore, a black trench coat with “Orphan Block” written in white on the back.  The actual President of the United states attended.  The Orphan Block system was initiated all across America.

I was told, that the last gift for me was going to be a pistol, and official employment by the U.S. government.  My parents did not have enough pull to grant their real final request, but because of the enormous changes I instigated, that benefited the U.S. Government, I was to be given the real gift.  It was the chance to explore a new dimension, a german scientist had built a machine capable of transporting a single individual somewhere, it was unknown where I would end up, but I would be given aid,  A revised combat uniform, all a dark grey, reforming ceramic plates sewn into a cuben fiber uniform.  It came with a suppressed pistol, a matching trench coat, a backpack and assorted gear.  Only what was considered most essential, ammo, food, water.  I accepted this, the intrigue of a new dimension was enough to sell me

I only had to tell them what I discovered if I ever made it back.  Before I activated the machine, I considered all I left behind, especially the Orphan Block.  There was obviously a lot more to that story, but that is for another time, and follows a different person.  This is my story.  The adventures of a tradecraftsman.  My name is Nathan Daniels.