Standing Alone

The simple fact of the matter is, I’m alone. All of these people around me now, hovering, helping, talking doesn’t do anything to change that fact. I am alone. I know I don’t seem alone, or look alone, but I am. Alone in my thoughts. The only problem is, my thoughts, well, they aren’t really my thoughts. Not all of them. I can try to turn them down, try to suppress my nature, but it doesn’t work. And it leaves me alone. Always alone.

As a child, I didn’t know what was going on. One day, I had friends, people I trusted. The next, those same friends were laughing at me, mocking me. And no one, no students, no parents, no teachers, did anything about it. And so, rather than engage, I isolated myself. Threw myself into my studies. Eventually, I realized what I should have known all along. No one had been reacting to the mockery, because no one but me and them could hear it. I was listening in on their thoughts. That realization only served to hurt more, because that meant those people had intended on remaining my false friends for as long as they could, feigning niceties while insulting me behind my back. My only friend fast became myself, my work, my studies.

I skipped two grades and graduated early. I had the help of my teacher’s thoughts when I was stuck, but for the most part, I had my own intense focus to drive me to success. I was also finding that the harder I worked my brain, the further away I could eavesdrop on people’s thoughts. It was like a game. I had yet to realize the repercussions of my actions. Once in college, I met my first true friend. Leo Richardson. An ass, true, but an honest one. I heard his judgement of me from the moment he entered my molecular biology class. ‘I hate it when I get stuck with idiots and children in my class. Come on, don’t make me work with any of them.’ When he was seated with me, I expected him to be like all the others, belittling the child in their head while speaking kindness. Instead, he sat down and with a pleasant smile plastered on his face, he stated, “Alright kid, if you screw this up for me, I’m gonna kill you.”

I laughed. He looked confused at my laugh, so I explained, “Sorry, it’s just nice that someone here finally is telling me what they actually think.”

“I don’t have time for niceties. I need this class to graduate early. Now, let’s get to work. When you undoubtedly realize you’re out of your league, stay out of my way.” And together we set to work. Gradually throughout the semester, he became less and less irritated by my general existence. And he always spoke his mind to me. By the end of the semester, when we got our final project grade, he even admitted that I got us thirty percent of our ninety-nine point five. When I gave him a slightly judgmental look, he said, “Maybe the point five, too.”

Afterwards, I actually started hanging out with him. He was going into biotech, and I was studying to figure out what was going on in my brain. We took a lot of similar courses. Fall semester our junior year was the first time that we did not have any of the same classes. Despite that fact, we still talked. I told him my dream, to study genetic mutation on a massive scale. He supported my dream. He even told me that, if I ever needed him to work with me, he’d gladly accept, just as I told him that if he ever needed a geneticist, I’d gladly lend a hand.

He graduated at the end of Junior year and was off working for some pharmaceutical company. I graduated, got a job at a genetics lab. It was there that I quietly sequenced my own DNA and found massive irregularities. Genetically speaking, I wasn’t actually human, or anything like what we knew. My genetic code included errors that as I studied, I realized were because my nucleobases were not all of the four canonical DNA bases. I had ten different bases, somehow. Realizing the issues this might pose for the lab’s research, and for my life, I destroyed all evidence of the test. I even, for the first time ever, used my ability to eavesdrop aggressively, putting more thoughts in those who helped test the DNA’s heads, until they didn’t remember what exactly happened over the course of testing. To them, it was just a contaminated sample, and they didn’t think more of it. After my contract was up, I took my money and left for the stock market. Investing wisely is really easy if you know how everyone is planning on buying and selling. Two years later, I was twenty-five and a billionaire. That is when I started my company in earnest.

I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea how to do it. So, I went to someone who might. Leo had done well enough for himself over his six years in the industry. I came to him and told him everything. About what I could do. About what I found out. About what I wanted to do. I could hear his thoughts churning. It was pure, unbridled curiosity. Questions kept popping up with every word I spoke, like, ‘Were your parents like you?’ and ‘What about your hypothetical children?’, as well as more problematic questions like, ‘Is that how you made your money?’, ‘Do you want to fix it?’, and ‘I wonder if we could artificially produce that effect.’ As I finished, I asked him honestly, “So, are you going to help me?”

‘No shit,’ was his thought. He smiled and stated, “Evidently, you know the answer to that. What do you want me to do?”

I bit my lip. “Do you think you could figure out a way to genetically find people with these additional nucleotides and help keep others from finding or exploiting them?”

“Well,” he said, “We’re going to need your DNA to figure out everything we can about them, but it should be possible. And you may need to stay in the markets, keep us flush with cash to fund it all.”

“Until we’ve got the system up and running, that sounds like a plan,” I replied, and put forth my hand, “Partners?”

“Partners,” he answered, shaking my hand. And for the first time in my life, I was not alone. I went back to the markets, working to make our company overly-well funded. He put out several pieces of medical technology for ostensibly the same purpose, and soon enough we were ready. Any time anyone went to a hospital, there was a good chance they’d be hooked up to one of our readout machines. Those machines automatically sent all of the information to our servers. Because without genetic testing it would be impossible to track us, Leo explained to me that our best bet was having employees scour local news for suspicious events, flag them, cross-reference it with related injuries in time and location. That would significantly save time and money, limiting the number of genetic tests we ran.

Once we had the outreach centers all up and running, and the business was paying for itself, I actually toured Leo’s research center. What I found truly disturbed me. Leo was designing a way to eliminate the genetic mutations, as well as technology to draw out the sequences from the blood and into data storage. Theoretically, it could give anyone our gifts. I knew, however, that in the wrong hands, this would destroy the world. And, when I confronted Leo about it, I realized his hands were the wrong hands. The infinite curiosity had kept his thoughts hidden, as like my own mind, his mind was always churning. I demanded, “What are you doing?”

He looked at me, question after question about my condition shielding his thoughts. Slowly he answered me, and I suspect he was answering honestly. “I joined you to help the world. Helping the world move forward is all I ever do. Everything in the name of progress. You of all people know that, Alden.”

“Trying to destroy us? Trying to artificially control nature? You call that progress?” I blurted out. Anger was getting the best of me.

“I destroy no one, I’m trying to offer a solution for those who think they have a problem. And as far as controlling nature, is that not all progress? The wheel, the airplane, even the internet were created to fight against nature’s forced isolation between peoples. Vaccines were invented to fight back against death itself. How am I any worse than the Wright Brothers, or Jonas Salk?”

It was then that I was truly betrayed. For I tried to examine his purpose, see what was in his heart, but something blocked me from his mind. No, I blocked me from his mind. He’d used my own blood, that which I’d given him freely to help us, to fight me. In anger, I lashed out, threw him out of the company and sent my left hand to kill him. When Ricardo returned, I knew it was done from his thoughts. It was that moment that I realized what I needed to do. My flock would always be in danger if this information went public. So, I needed to take my flock in from the open field, protect them, and teach them to protect themselves. So, Ricardo became my head of Corporate Acquisitions, and together we started to help our people stay safe.

The only problem is, I am not like the rest of my people. I am once again alone. Ricardo is a loyal soldier, and my right hand, Alice, is a brilliant mind, but neither is comfortable with me. Neither are actually my friend. They are still members of my flock. There will always be a distance between us, like the distance between a shepherd and his guardian dogs. And, after my only friend betrayed me so brutally, perhaps this is for the best. After all, if I let people in, how can I expect anything but disappointment and betrayal. That may well be all friends are for. Which is why I am alone. And I am fine with that.

As I stared out the window, musing, Helen walked in. She wasn’t just nervous, she was scared. It was as though she couldn’t help but come. “Sir,” she said, as though forced, “The girl told me to tell you that if you try to abduct or recruit her again, she’ll find you and make you forget yourself, your cause, and everything. She added that the last guy she did her thing to is recovering from his suicide attempt well enough, but he did go from four-star general to cab driver in one day flat. Oh, and she said that essentially she was planning on buying popcorn and watching the war from the gallery.” After struggling to get all of that out, she suddenly started hyperventilating, and said quickly, “Sorry, so sorry, sir. I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t help it. She broke free. I don’t remember. I don’t remember.” She was in a panic. Her thoughts were racing even harder than her voice.

I placed a hand on her shoulder, and told her, “Peace, child. You did what you could.”

She was still panicking. I began to flood her mind with the idea of weariness. She slowly became more and more tired. “I think I’m gonna go back to my room, boss. I’m tired.”

“It’s been a long day,” I told her, “Go, get some sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” And with a pat on her back, I sent her out of my office. Once I knew I was alone, that no one was watching, I walked back over to my office’s large window and quietly murmured, “How would you solve this problem, Leo?” The more I thought about it, the more the answers to that question scared me. I hoped the girl would stay out of the way, wouldn’t hinder the cause. I feared what I might have to do if she started to be a problem.