Unreality

8. Familial Love

Three years had passed since the conclusion of the Dome War between Alpha and Omega, and the civilization of the Alpha Dome had done a decent job in rebuilding itself and overcoming the post-war stigma. However, as with every war before it, the conflict had left behind its share of relics, the most prized one being combat cyberization, a perversion of prosthetics — artificial body parts whose initial function was to assist the disabled — which turned them into tools of war.

With the rise of robot technology and artificial intelligence and their consequent military use, cyberization was thus seen as a means of countering the limitations of machines, by enhancing human beings with powerful artificial parts resembling theirs, while preserving the human capacity to adapt and improvise, as well as their ability to strengthen themselves through emotion and adrenaline.

But the results were a mixed bag, with most of the earlier test subjects succumbing to the likes of neurosis and dementia — if not unmitigated insanity — as a result of the trauma inflicted by the experiments, becoming effectively impossible to control and utilize. The later subjects, however, were far more successful, and had seen their use in the war, but when the latter came to an end, combat cyberization was deemed a grave war crime, and the use of combat-oriented prosthetics was declared illegal henceforth. And yet, since so many had been manufactured, it was impossible to purge them all. The natural result of this course of events was none other than prosthetic arms trafficking, which soon became one of the most profitable activities in the post-war black market of Alpha.

One of the many men reaping the benefits of this sort of business was Wilhelm Schwarz, a grizzly middle-aged man in his forties, whose standard of living had grown exponentially ever since he had become involved with such activities. There were now very few comforts he could not afford, and most of his or his family's problems could be solved with a correct application of money.

However, for the first time since he had come to enjoy such a status, there was now a significant problem which money alone might not be able to solve — his son. Having been diagnosed with a disorder which impaired his communication skills and ability to socialize from an early age, Adam Schwarz had always been a problematic boy to his parents, with a tendency to withdraw which only grew as he himself grew older.

Now a young boy deeply affected by bullying, Adam had become a shut-in, refusing to go to school or even leave the house, spending all of his time either in his room or inside the exorbitant private planetarium his father had had built for him on the family's estate.

Incapable of saying no to the young lad he had always spoiled, Wilhelm decided to leave the duty of trying to convince him to rethink his decision to give up on school to the boy's mother. However, to the father's dismay, the result of her attempts to do so had ended in tragedy, and she was now in the hospital.

Having been away during the occurrence, Wilhelm was now tasked with dealing with its aftermath, having to care for a visibly unsettled Adam, who gave off the impression he might lose his mind at any moment should his desperate needs be denied, however slightly.

It was with this preoccupation in mind that the middle-aged man now walked into his son's bedroom, alongside a servant carrying a tray with the boy's late breakfast.

'Adam...?' he called out softly, 'How about a nice breakfast, son?'

Visibly engrossed in a toy construction set which allowed him to form constellations — most of the room was themed around astronomy, with shiny images of planets and stars spread around the walls and ceiling —, Adam glanced apprehensively towards the two men stepping inside the room, his eyes reflecting nothing short of paranoia.