I frowned, struggling to follow, and she sighed.
“We’ve been working on something for the past few years. Highly confidential. But science has shown a link, acorrelation,between brain function and someone’s capacity for certain behaviors or tendencies. The criminal mind has been studied forcenturies. We finally have the science to back it up, and the tech tochangeit.”
“—to turn Villains into Heroes?” I gaped, finally realizing what she was saying.
They’d done it to me, in a way. I was born bad. Burning everything I touched, always angry, with no real moral code aside from ‘try not to hurt people I care about’. The VIA didn’talterme, but it shaped me. If they hadn’t taken me in, put in restrictions and forced me into socialization I never wanted, I could have been a Villain, too. If they could change someone’s brain? Set up our chips to guide usawayfrom crime, or negativity?
It was intrusive, invasive, and unethical. At the same time, it could create peace like humanity had never seen before.
“We’re nowhere near close enough to actually creating a prototype; we’re still researching, testing. But Villains, these organizations, don't have guidelines or ethics to follow. If they could do the same, but in reverse… it would be devastating.”
I shifted. “This Glitch guy, could he be…”
“I don’t know. We need him and his chip. We have to study it, see what’s been changed, and how it’s affected him. For all we know, they just found an easier way to disable it. But… removal would be easier. There’s a reason why he still has it, and why he’s made an appearance. Splinter settled down after the Crowns Club; fewer reports and arrests were being made until they attacked. It wasn’t a warning. It was atest.”
Dahlia and I stared at each other, and my palms started to sweat. I wasn’t overheating—I was fucking terrified. Things had finally started to go right. I finally feltsafe.But a world where Heroes disappeared, and VIA tech was being messed with? A war was brewing.
“Have you discussed with Daydream… about Hopper?” She finally broke our silence.
My veins turned to ice as I swallowed hard. “… No.”
She glanced between the monitor and me, her lips pursing. “I don’t like to make things personal.”
“Clearly.”
Dahlia rolled her eyes before she slipped off her glasses and folded her hands on her lap. She leaned back, and she looked older. All those late nights, all the emergencies and dumpster fires that the VIA put on her shoulders, were finally wearing her down. Dahlia had always been cold, and truthfully, I didn’t mind. I never felt like there was a mystery with her; only hard truths.
“I’ve been checking your data too, you know. With all this suspicion around chips and Villains…”
My neck tensed. “You think they’ll want me next?”
She shrugged. “I think you’d be a goldmine to them, but you’re a bigger fish to catch. They wouldn’t risk it so soon, but the thought crossed my mind, yes. For three years, your data has skewed in June. It’s no surprise after what happened. Your power output spikes, your percentage increases closer to a burnout, before dipping down to your normal levels.”
“But June is almost over, and your data… it changed, Leo. You did tip the scalesmassivelyin that fight. You shouldn’t have been able to come back from that, and yet you did. Before that moment, you’d been down trending. And after?”
Dahlia’s lips pulled, and it was the closest thing I’d ever seen her come to a smile. It made me almost uncomfortable; this was her way of ‘getting personal’ — that slight slip of emotion.
“This is the most stable you’ve ever been,” she said. “Your chip hasn’t shown a trend like this since you werethree. It’s a massive step forward, even if it’s only been a short time.”
I’d felt it, but the confirmation was the greatest relief I’d ever felt. There wasproofnow. I was changing; my ability was regulating, and it was no secret why.
“I was only a grunt when the VIA took you into custody, you know,” she sighed, eyes glazing over. “We all heard the whispers; we all watched thatroomof yours get built. I can’t tell you how many meetings there’s been, trying to decide what to do with you, re-evaluating the risks and reward.”
Like I was a damn stock trade.
“What I’m trying to say,” Dahlia cleared her throat, “… is that we did you a disservice. All of that research we’ve done, all of the psychology that has been studied before, andproven. It was ignored, when it came to you. There is a reason why prisons aren’t meant for rehabilitation—they don’t work. We took achildand put him in conditions that were equivalent to aprison. I don’t know what they expected, to be honest.”
My knee started to bounce, and I wasn’t sure how to feel. It was all kind of obvious, wasn’t it? But at the same time, Ihadbeen dangerous. There was no way they could have put me in some foster home after what happened to my mom, after what I did to her. I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if they’d placed me in a public school. Even the Variant ones, wheredifficultchildren were sent, ended up in disaster.
By the time I was fourteen, they had given up, and the isolation set in. My education was within the VIA, taught by Heroes that excelled in defense instead of knowledge. The ‘school’ was a room that was durable, loaded with sprinklers, and not a ‘Kindness Matters’ poster in sight. Boxes of pencils were the only decoration, because I charred at least five of them a day out of frustration. My peers were agents who guarded the doors, my recess was training, and my curriculum was on hownotto piss off the government.
I didn’t have a fucking chance, did I?
I hadn’t cared before; it was what it was. But now? It made me angry. Not enough to set the room on fire, or send Dahliarunning for the hills. Just enough to simmer, and fixated on the resentment that had always been there.
“Well, I’m glad someone finally admits it, I guess,” I forced out a laugh, as if it would wash everything away.
Dahlia had flipped the script, creating a strange connection that I couldn’t understand. Alex had friends, she had family; she had people who cared. I didn’t think I had that before. But now I hadher,and because of it, more people were beginning to show up. Doors were being opened. The isolation… it was over. All because Alex saw me as a person, instead of a weapon.
