Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

Thursday, April 28

"You're Noah, right?" the girl behind the counter asks.

I look up at her. She's beautiful, like they all are. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. Even with her black hair pulled away from the bronze skin of her face with that ugly hairnet, she's still gorgeous. I wonder for a second why she's asking, usually the cafeteria ladies keep their conversations with us students limited to asking what they can dish out for us.

"Yeah, that's me," I tell her.

"Happy birthday," she says, stepping back to grab a small cake with white icing from one of the shelves behind her. Is it my birthday already? I guess it is. I've been so distracted thinking about Father that I didn't even think of it all morning. She pops the cake on my tray along with my chicken fingers and fruit cup. The words Happy Birthday Noah are written out across the top in blue icing.

I thank her and she gives me a smile and a nod before serving one of my little sisters who's next in line. I head over to my regular table with Evan and Louise. They take a look at the cake on my tray. Evan gets a big grin across his face.

"So you're eighteen now?" he asks.

I nod. Louise shakes her head and turns to him. "Fine, you win. Three hours of help on your project. But you have let me watch when you tell Chad."

"Was there some bet on this? And why would Chad care?" I ask,

"We weren't sure how old you were. Father never said and it seemed rude to ask. You're the oldest," Evan says. "Chad's been holding that position like it gives him the keys to the kingdom since we were born."

"Huh," I say, not sure what to make of that. I guess anything that gets under Chad's skin is OK. "Want some cake? I'm not really in the mood."

"Sure," Evan says, stabbing his fork into it and pulling out a bite. Under the icing, the cake is chocolate with a layer of cherries in the middle. My favorite. Mom used to make a cake like that for me. Somewhere in those emails to him, she must have told Father about it. Damn him, using what she told him after he killed her.

"I'll see you guys later," I say, and get up from the table.

"But you didn't eat anything," Louise protests. "And you didn't eat this morning either. Come on, what's going on with you?"

"Nothing," I say as I walk away.

Evan calls out after me, but I ignore him and keep going. I make my way across the commons, ignoring the toddlers playing tag on the grass and their nannies chatting with each other on the steps of the Residence. I blow through the doors to the dorms and almost crash into Marc on my way through the common room.

"Hey, Noah! I wanted to talk to you. I have a question about..."

His voice trails off behind me as I dodge past him and keep on going down the hall to my room. As soon as I've shut the world out, I collapse to the floor. My back presses against the door as if it could keep out the rage that keeps silently building inside me.

I still have no idea what to do about Father. From what I've been able to find out, that suited gorilla and his goons that came to my grandparent's house were just the tip of the iceberg. Father keeps a small army of lawyers on his payroll, and everyone who's ever tried to take him on in the legal arena has ended up ruined. I can't imagine I'd do any better with my scraps of ill-gotten evidence putting him in the same city as a woman who died in a car crash.

I've even thought of trying to kill him, but from what I've read, other people have tried and his tech makes him damn hard to kill. He's been shot at on multiple occasions when he was in warzones brokering peace deals, one time by machine-gun fire. Every time, not a single bullet touched him. Not that I even have a gun. But if others with actual combat training have tried and failed that way, I don't expect that any weapon that I could get my hands on would do any good either.