Humans are such violent creatures. We act with our fists and our bodies, we allow our emotions to dictate outcomes before we even know what we want the outcome to be.
This behavior has always been something I've despised, loathed even. It's really just gross and honestly well below my own standards. I was taught to use my brain, how to use other people like pawns on a chessboard.
However, I was born to be a pawn.
After Jeffrey and I parted ways, there were questions I needed answering, and in this world, there is only one person I can trust.
That person, is myself.
Just like playing a video game, I got to work unlocking things, hacking into databases I wasn't supposed to have access to, pulling strings just right.
No one would ever be able to trace anything back to me.
I was methodical, everything I did, everything I do, for a reason.
One small mistake is what I was waiting for.
It had been about a month since I left Jeffrey to fend for himself, of course, I still had tabs on him.
Fredrick and Jeffrey are such amazing and brilliant human beings. It's their intelligence and own egos that drive them. They want to prove how much smarter they are than the other, and it's so funny. It really doesn't matter what happens, in the end, I'll always be smarter than both of them, of course, neither would dare believe it.
But, Fredrick, my brother, he's shaping into something scary. I really want to see what he can become. There's something more to him that even I don't quite have an idea where to place my finger, but man, that's fascinating. I'm spewing nonsense over here like I always do, but wow, just wow.
Fredrick is a work of art, truly worth being the perfect enforcer as the boss calls him.
Of course, the boss still believes that I'm dead, but he's never really been all that big on being in the know, most of his plan was my doing anyway. I manipulated that plan as much as I could before he figured out what I was doing and pulled me away.
He's very sharp, don't get me wrong, from the beginning there was something he was keeping hidden from me, and I knew of course, but I tried to stay in his good graces. He saw through that act after I suggested something that didn't perfectly align with his views, that was me letting my ego get in the way since I planned a better contingency than him.
A lot of things are starting to fall into place, and of course, this giddy feeling that was starting to arise made me smile with joy. Nothing gets me going more than seeing a plan like this come to fruition.
But, enough is enough. Jeffrey and Fredrick have a place in my final plan, they just have to prove they deserve it. That will come into play later.
Right after this, in fact.
In front of me, a computer screen. A screen that contains answers that I'm not quite sure I want.
Nonsense, I know I want them, I'm not sure if they're going to be what I want, however.
Whatever, I need to push these feelings aside and venture forth, the unknown hasn't stopped me before and it will not stop me now.
I clicked on the file, and immediately threw up into the trash can by my desk.
What the actual fuck did I just read?
This was a case file, but not anything like I've ever seen before.
I've never had access to the Syndicate files, but now I'm glad that's been the case.
I was not actually a project child, meaning Fredrick, ironically enough, is the only real genetically bred human from the latest generation of the Helix Project.
Here's the story:
My vile piece of shit excuse of a human-being father was having an affair with a 19-year-old. Fucking disgusting.
As the rain raged on behind me, and the wind howled out, I forced myself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale.
The dots pieced themselves together so well that it made me mad. Mad that I was this smart, mad that I didn't have to wonder, mad that my fucking father couldn't keep his dick in his pants, and mad that I even existed in the first place.
Why me?
Wait…
Why me?
That's a question I do have an answer for. I understand it now. The reason for my existence.
Revenge.
A plan formulated in my mind, but it would take a while to execute, but it'd be worth it.
I pressed a button on my keyboard.
"Garrett, I'm going to reclaim that favor you owe me. Have no fear, I'll drop all charges. You just have to do one thing for me."
I turned and looked out the window. Across the street, was the mansion that my vile beast of a father had purchased as a result of my existence.
Subject: Viktor M. Hale
Father: Alexander D. Hale
Status: Alive
Occupation: Head of Staff at Beijing Corn Inc.
Mother: Patricia H. Hampton
Status: Deceased
Case Status: Closed
Verdict: Unknown
My poor… well… mother-in-law, but to me, she's my real mom.
My father was already a wealthy man and his work attracted young employees all the time. Turns out, one of them just couldn't resist him, and he couldn't resist her. His wife caught them all the time, but let him get away with it since she loved him so much.
It really is a shame what he did to her.
While my dad and this new girl were fooling around, he up and got her pregnant.
That's where I come in.
I leaned back in my chair and turned to gaze out across the street at the mansion. It will be mine, soon enough.
Garrett's voice crackled across the speakers.
"All charges? What do you need?"
I smirked.
"Jeffrey Thompson. Fredrick Stevenson. Follow them. Get more people if you need them, and I'll fund it. If either one of them so much as farts, I need to know, am I clear?"
"On it."
I will become a vengeful spirit from the grave, I just know that my mom is smiling down at me from the heavens.
"I will make you proud."
Unfortunately, the only way I would ever meet her would be by death, and after what I'm going to do here, God isn't going to let me into heaven.
But, it'll be alright. Just like in chess, sometimes you have to sacrifice a piece to turn a losing position into a winning position.
The dots I connected, they are important too. Since I was the child of my father's mistress, it means I was a mistake. To hide this mistake from his wife, my father sold me off to the Syndicate. Of course, they paid him a large sum of money. With this money, he no longer had any reason for my mother.
She died the night I was born.
I closed the file, my fingers tightening against the desk as I forced myself to breathe. The rain continued its violent symphony outside, streaking down the window like the blood I would soon spill… metaphorically, of course.
Or, perhaps not.
Nonetheless, it was time to act.
Of course, the first step in any operation of this magnitude is information gathering.
I launched a remote access trojan, logging into Beijing Corn Inc.'s internal database. The security of Corporate entities like these nowadays is laughable, they have no interest in spending more money than they need to.
Within minutes, I had full access to Alexander Hale's life work. His emails, his financial transactions, even his private server activity, it was all mine.
Let's see what skeletons you've been hiding, Father.
…
Oh, God up in heaven above, spare my soul. I hope that my actions and their reasons are enough to make you at least hesitate before dispensing me into the darkest depths of the underworld.
My dying wish may only be to see my father's wife just once.
I had put so much into this plan, and everything was starting to add up.
The things I was hearing from Garrett about Fredrick and Jeffrey made me yearn to get back into the action, but that has its place and time. That's okay, it can wait. Good things happen to those who wait.
Maybe I am an exception to this rule, but I'll keep saying it until I am proven wrong.
In order to ruin my father, there were a lot of things I had to uncover.
He has a secret bank account with the majority of his wealth stashed away, it would take final priority, due to how hard this would be to crack.
I know how to crumple a giant, this was no different.
I secretly leaked misinformation to a popular news agency that would slowly bring down Beijing Corn Inc.'s reputation. Like the others, I sold off information from a "trusted source" that the chemicals they were using to grow their corn had been proven to cause cancer.
Stuff like this won't change the public's opinion overnight, but it's things like these that will keep on stacking. Just over the past couple of months, I've been doing this, general profits have plummeted and their competitors have been seeing a huge increase in sales.
It's not just his business I've been after, it's his mentality, too. People like him, with things to hide, are very easy to manipulate.
I've been sending emails every day saying things like "I know." and "You can't hide from the truth." and "A storm is brewing. Keep looking over your shoulder, it won't stop the inevitable."
Among other things, but that's the main message. I've been observing him, too. From afar. It's a psychological effect, people can tell when they're being watched. It's been working, he's poured a ton of money into upgrading his home security system and he constantly spends time in the basement, which must hold the final secret I need to unlock the truth.
I just know he killed his wife.
Now, he lives in luxury with his mistress.
Today is the first day I'm going to execute something a little risky.
I snuck up behind the manor, right beneath the camera's blind spot. The company he invested in is actually a really bad company that overcharges customers for shitty surveillance, but the several different alternate accounts I made giving glowing 5 stars reviews had something different to say. I knew he'd check these guys first as well since he's been trained to believe that spending lots of money fixes all of your problems.
Then, I used the master key to all their locks you can buy on their website for $25, and walked right into his house.
The timing was short, I had to find what I could that would incriminate Alex for the murder of my mom, and finally put an end to phase one. His mistress would be out shopping right now, and he had work to do, so there's time, but not a lot.
I have to be careful.
First stop, the basement.
I quickly snuck down to the basement, which had a surprising lack of security, and started digging. I guessed he simply just didn't want to be bothered with all that for his safe space, lazy fuck.
Anyway, I quickly searched the basement, and at first, I didn't find anything, but I wasn't about to give up that easily. After moving all the boxes and stuff that cluttered the damp and cramped basement, I found something. There was a part of the floor that was more dense than the rest. I removed the floorboard and there it was. A box, containing a knife stained with blood. With modern-day forensic technology, it'd be easy to trace this back to my mother.
I had done it.
Taking the knife, I quickly scurried back to the house I was staying in. The owners were gracious enough to give me a place to stay while I investigated my father, in exchange for tutoring their son, which I happily agreed to. That son is not Garrett, there is a different story to that, but now is not the time for that one.
Now, there is something else to take note of. There's a room in that basement. I cannot access it right now, the key is something else entirely, a different thing from the current security system. Very likely that my father keeps it on him at all times, and I know exactly what is there. Something far worse than just the knife.
A list of crimes that have been carried out by other billionaires, commonly referred to as "Mr. Clod's List" since the list was rumored to exist by a person going by the alias "Mr. Clod". It's crucial for the next stage of my plan, and it'll come into my grasp once I'm done with phase one.
I'm not fully done with everything yet, it's time to finish what I started.
It's time to completely break my father.
For my daily email today, I will send a message saying: "That pretty little side piece of yours isn't safe either." She will also get a message saying something similar.
When my father got the message, you could really tell the panic was setting in. He must've told her about it, since she started crying. Then, armed guards appeared at all doors to the mansion. I figured he'd do something like that, but didn't take any counter measures, since I didn't need to.
These guards are simply no match for me.
Next, I'm going to anonymously leak information to the police that my father has been engaging in counterfeit printing, as well as illegal trades in stock.
They were already on his doorstep.
Finally, the message.
Before I left my father's mansion, I dropped a letter on one of his tables, right in sight of the police. They ripped it open and showed it to him.
It was his own confession.
Obviously, my father denied it, but I predicted that response. So, on the back of that letter, I wrote down a location.
"My spirit has decided to unearth what happened to me. Come find my grave to learn the truth."
And there they were. The police, my dad, his mistress, and me. All of us, at my mother's grave. I, of course, had to stay hidden.
Actually, I don't.
I stepped out into the light.
When my father saw me, he turned ghostly pale, immediately recognizing me. His mistress did the same.
"Viktor!?" My father spat out, like my name was some curse.
"How are you alive?" His mistress cried, dropping to her knees. "You aren't supposed to exist!"
I smirked.
"Yes, I am the product of both of your own mistakes. Now sit here and relish in the guilt."
Clearly, my father's mistress hadn't ever suspected having to live in such high-stress environments, not after getting pregnant at 19. She took the knife I left on the foot of my mother's grave and plunged it into herself.
She took her last breath, staring into my eyes.
"Even if you weren't supposed to exist, I would've loved you if he let me."
His mistress muttered, lying in my arms.
Unfortunately, I couldn't allow myself to believe her words, no matter how desperately I wanted them to be true.
My eyes softened.
"How I wish that was true."
She smiled then opened her mouth to say something, but fell limp in my arms before saying it.
"Since I thought something like this would happen," I said while gently placing the corpse of my father's mistress down, wiping tears that had formed in my eyes, and pulling the real knife out of my coat pocket. "I must inform everyone that the knife is, in fact, not the real one that killed Mr. Hale's wife. Here it is. That other one is stained with pig's blood."
The forensics expert took my knife and ran some scans now that the ambulance had arrived.
"Yup. He's not lying. That's O- blood. Same blood type as Patricia's."
The police placed my father in cuffs.
"You're going away for a long time."
He stood there, staring at me with a face of a man who had lost everything he strove to protect.
"Why? What's your game, Viktor?"
I turned and stared back at him, my gaze consuming every bit of emotion he had left in him.
"I am here to take what you took from me.
You took away my life.
And I took away yours.
Now pray to God that he's feeling generous the day you die since that's the only thing stopping you from having to deal with me in Hell."
My father broke down, sobbing. Telling me how sorry he was, how scared he was when I was born and how we wished things would've been different.
"Lying to me is useless, save it for the judge."
In court, it took no convincing whatsoever. I got all his assets.
Everything was mine.
Unfortunately, father never told me what the key for the hidden room was, but I didn't need it.
That key was something he had in his eyes. Something I inherited from him.
After some surgery, my eyes were the same as his.
I walked down to the room and cast my gaze at the empty camera.
ACCESS GRANTED.
I smiled widely, and strode inside.
Phase two has finally begun.