I sat there as Gus reset the chip installed in the back of my neck, tweezers in his small hand and a pair of large, magnified glasses settled over his slender, boyish nose before he wiped at the blood, stitching it back closed.
I opened my eyes, blinking them, feeling a light twinge in my head, somewhat like a small migraine as Ethan passed me a plastic cup of water which I gratefully took.
The chip was another one of my dad's inventions to help our brains think certain things, believe certain ideas and scenarios that weren't true to help us with our latest scams, ever since that one rich boy from Cleveland who almost caught me when I was put under a lie detector test.
His name was Richie or something, he was always skeptical about me, even as he began to slowly fall for me, he questioned whether Gus was my son or not.
The lie detector caught my lie of course.
Gus wasn't my son, he was my father.
The chip helped our brains to be trained to believe in the made up scenarios we would create to trick wealthy, privileged snobs to hand over their money, and if anyone questioned us, there would be no way for any lie detectors to catch us on any slips since our minds would be programmed to genuinely believe in these lies.
The whole act was fairly simple.
Gus would give us two rich, overly spoiled young adults as targets for us to get close to, my half brother Ethan with a rich girl, me with a rich boy.
We would get close enough to these people, keep our humble, down-to-Earth, hard-working personas going.
We've been doing this for so long that we ourselves were wealthy, wealthy enough to splurge some money on some fellow actors to help us out, to buy our own building and burn it as a part of our usual plan.
I would tell the poor sucker I was with that I had a son -maybe if he saw a picture of my dad or happened to bump in to him somehow- and tell my sad sad sob story of how I had him with Ethan, then give him up to my sister to take care of.
That's where my dad's birth defect comes in.
Gus was 52 years old, but due to some type of disorder where his pituitary gland couldn't make any hormones, he looks like a 12 year old boy.
Ethan and I shared the same father but were birthed from different mothers who were probably in jail as we speak.
Our dad Gus had always been a scammer, he used the fact that he was a pedophile's wet dream -looking like a kid but actually being old enough to have sex- really caught the attention of sick men and women who preyed on children.
Both Ethan's mom and mine were probably pedophiles and right after my dad fucked them and they gave birth to us, he threw their asses into jail, using his appearance to plead as a frightened, scarred 12 year old claiming he was "raped."
He then took Ethan and I and ran away, he was 29 back then and me and my brother were no more than three weeks old.
With the thought of a past with Ethan and a kid instilled in my target's head they'll typically sympathize or feel some type of possession over me, not knowing whether to focus more on the fact that I had a child or that there was a potential threat of me and Ethan getting back together again.
There were little phases we went through in our plan.
One night Ethan would be "drunk" at my place when we both knew my target and his would hear us right outside, or somewhere near.
We would have the repetitive "I might still love you" argument, loud enough for the person to hear and that's when we find out whatever rich boy we're tricking truly loves me or not.
