Inheritance (From the Desk of Col. Garrett Ross)

My name's Gideon Ross, and just about ten years ago somebody killed my father. I've lived every day of my life since then in wonder, in perpetual freeze. I moved on, sure, but that look on the face of my dad's friend has remained with me.  

"Mr. Ross?" 

I was fifteen years old. 

The friends with me turned and found the headmaster of the school, smoking in the hallway. I can't even remember some of their names. Still, I can see the way Jennings had his hands in the pockets of his slacks, probably balled into tight fists, and the cigarette drooping from his lower lip like even it wasn't ready to give me the news. He never smoked in the dorm buildings. 

William Jennings (Mr. J to me then) stopped me in the hallway, asked me to have a word. He usually called me Gideon, or son, because he knew my father so well. I can still see the overwhelming sadness on his face as he put a hand on my shoulder and told me he had some bad news for me. Every other time I'd called him Mr. J a fat smile came over his face, and broke all the responsibility out of it, shattered it really. This time he didn't even register the nickname. 

"Why don't we take a walk over to the administration building and talk?" He put his free hand on my shoulder and started to steer me. We were halfway in the door when he said the words: 

"Your father passed away yesterday. It looks like it was a heart attack. I'm so sorry." 

It looked like it was a heart attack. Back then, I was somewhere into my fifth year of Clements, and the shock of it meant nothing made the slightest bit of difference to me. I didn't know about coroners' reports, and I didn't know about toxicology reports. If I'd had the know-how to request them, I'm not sure I would've known what to do with them. There were plenty of scores I was ignorant on. Plenty of growing up to do, plenty of visits to dad's grave and a whole heap of silence to wallow in while the emotions overwhelmed the questions being tossed around in the hurricane that was my mind. 

I needed this time. I didn't realize it then. Back at Clements, during those last three years of school, killing targets and shredding kids on the paintball field, that was the stuff I needed. Firing blank rounds with laser mounted guidance and tracking systems, essentially killing my fellow students bloodlessly, all of it was my way of mourning my father. Beating my best friend's ass and nearly killing him was one of those ways, of dealing with the hurt.  

Up until I watched Wally die. 

Everybody else had an orphanage. Everybody else had stories about how their parents had run off or been killed in an accident, or contracted rare forms of cancer or something. I was the only one who could say I'd never been to an orphanage, and I didn't have a sad story about how my mom and dad kicked the bucket when I was still in diapers. I also didn't have one of those stories about how the parents would come to the orphanage and overlook them, for whatever reason. Missing were those stories of how the parents never came to my orphanage. Once Colonel Garrett Ross had his massive coronary, Clements became my home. 

Three years I grew up in the Academy, goaded by my father's praise or failure to acknowledge my successes. Three years afterwards, I destroyed everything I could: my friendships, my targets, my rivals and classmates, my relationship with a beautiful girl. 

Now I'm staring into the void, my pupils are wildly dilating and focusing behind my fluttery eyelids. Every once in a while, if there were anybody here to watch me, I have a petit mal seizure from being in the Matrix too long. 

There is a notice board on my Matrix house (which is, by the way, nothing but a small black shack with various e-mail accounts attached) with messages pinned. I don't like the Matrix, don't like computers all that much, and make it a point to stay off them as much as I possibly can. Add to this that people don't pin shit on my board, so I know who it is pretty instantly. Only I've got the password, so only I have the ability to see what Galen's left for me.