The Paladin: A Teenage Superhero Story

Chapter 13

Thursday

December 23rd

To say the files I found on the computer were disturbing would be putting it mildly. While about ninety-nine percent of them were of no particular interest, business documents, projected figures, and the like. The rest enough to make my skin crawl. On top of the blueprints, I found videos of tests. Tests that were being performed on human subjects. From what I could see most of them were shot at Weiss Storage, though the location of the videos didn't matter. The content was always the same. In the videos, there were a slew of human test subjects, young and old, male and female alike. Some simply sat down, some of them dragged, in front of one of the new SyncWare products. Some sat in front of laptops, some smartphones, a few tablets. Some of them wore headphones, some did not. The video would start off slow, then a sharp noise would start to hum, and it would elevate in pitch to such a point in which the camera couldn't pick it up. Soon after the test subjects would inevitably begin to show signs of stroke; facial muscle numbness, hand-eye coordination loss, eventually seizing up, losing complete control of their body. The video would end, Doctors in white lab coats would check on their subject and then if it was confirmed they were alive they were dragged off to the left by security and if they weren't they were dragged off to the right for disposal.

I didn't know how to process the information. I now knew who was buying off of Byron. But why would Alex want to turn his technology into sonic weapons? It just didn't make any sense. Why do people do anything? Money? Power? He was flush with both. Standing to launch himself into billionaire status with the success of SyncWare three. What did he stand to gain? Maybe he had finally lost his mind? Maybe he was just cracking up? I didn't know, it all seemed so irrational, even by his standards. I needed to find out what the hell was going on. So that day I made a plan, Alex was out doing promotional work for the ICE 2, leading up to the big release, and insisted everyone leave early and enjoy there night. This meant the office was going to be empty until morning. If ever there was a time to dig up some evidence, that would be the time. My Uber pulled up to the front steps of the Tech-Sync tower as Suzy was walking out the front door.

"Hey Booker, didn't you hear? Alex said everyone's got the night off? Most of us are going to the club down in the West end. I know you're kinda young, but I know the guy who runs it and you're still one of us right? So as long as you promise to stick to water you can come," she informed. I sighed, having second thoughts about what I was going to do. Look what you're going to ruin. Look at the lives you're going destroy. There's no way this company is coming back from this scandal.

"Really? Thanks, that's really nice of you guys. You know before I go I think I left my laptop upstairs in Mr. Romero's office. You think you can swipe me in so I can grab it? My keycard doesn't let me in after six," I asked. She gave me a skeptical look at first, dismissed the warning in the back of her mind and nodded.

"Sure thing, just be quick, the night security comes in ten and they do not mess around and will hassle you if you don't have a keycard," she warned, swiping me in the front door.

"Thanks, Suzy. I'll be fast," I assured.

"Okay, good night Booker, see you tomorrow," she waved off. I slipped in the lobby, giving Maurice the daytime security guard a nod and hailed the elevator. I got in, hitting the penthouse button, then tapping the door close button anxiously. The elevator shot up, revealing the beautiful backdrop of Tar City, with a lite drift of snowflakes falling down from the clouds. The elevator dinged and I stepped out into the dark, quickly navigating my way to his office that adjoined the family suite. The door was locked but that was only a minor inconvenience. A couple of moments with a bobby pin later and I was in. Like before the room was nearly immaculate, with his laptop charging dead smack in the center of his desk. I signed into the computer and noticed that Alex had left a couple of console windows and a program file list open for coding. I started scrolling through the windows, trying to find out what Alex was doing, when I stopped dead in my tracks. Pink-baby exe. What are you doing here? Double click. Would you like to run Pink-Baby exe? Yes or No. Click. The same shrill noise I had heard on the video rang in my ear, getting louder and shriller. My head started pounding, my vision blurred, and dizziness started to set in. Suddenly the right side of my body went numb and I collapsed to the ground. Crawling using my arm that had maintained feeling I yanked the laptop down from the desk using the power chord. Thud! I crawled on top and snapped the screen from the base, instantly cutting the power to the computer. I laid on the ground, my heart pumping, the right side of my body starting to gain sensation again after a couple of seconds.