Page 91 of The Twins

Remo

OVERSEAS - 7 YEARS AGO

The smothering journeyup the chain of command shatters a person.

Not me.

I’m ready for this.

It’s been thirteen years in the making, this promotion of mine. I left Fort Mote when I turned twenty-one. Staying wasn’t an option after Andre died there, and my brother and I… We didn’t see eye to eye at the time.

Vegas and I still don’t see eye to eye these days, but who gives a fuck.

In my business, which is not a duty and an honor, situations escalate and deescalate rapidly depending on who you ask. My government’s foreign policy changed right on time for me to take my talents overseas.

I took the chance I was given, and I ran with it.

I don’t regret leaving my post in the office.

Fort Mote was never the place I was supposed to spend the rest of my life at—not even when Andre moved there for me.

The attacks on our networks and our databases were brutal, one for every breath that we took. There was no escape. I ate security breaches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And everything in between. I held strings in my hands that could derail an entire nation.

I salvaged it. I never lost control, but the seeds of doubt kept growing in the back of my mind.

One day, I would slip, and then, I’d be the one to blame. That day never came.

My level of success never satisfied me, and I felt like a failure while topping everyone in my team.

That’s the story of my life. Selfish. Self-centered. Self-absorbed.

In Fort Mote, my life was an existence in a tightly wrapped up bubble. When you’re locked in a bubble, a soft and squishy one, you don’t feel the firm limitations of life.

I was a spoiled piece of shit in Fort Mote, Georgia, and I didn’t see beyond the untouched and unsoiled bubble I existed in. I was supposed to trust in my nation and its foundations, its funding, and the thousands of other like-minded folks that kept the country safe.

I never did, and that broke a crucial piece of my promise to my parents.

Now that I’m overseas, I don’t have as many distractions as I did back home, but work is even tenser. I rarely leave the base, and when I do, it’s to do unpleasant things. There’s no time for me to grieve and sulk around. I’m on 24/7.

The lives that are at stake with my decisions? Well, now, I can visualize them.

It’s not a button anymore, a code I type in on my computer.

I see the faces I make decisions about, and it’s a bottomless pit I can’t climb out of.

My time is spent with my biggest passion, the skinny bitch drone. For ten years, I’ve been working on this secret project, tirelessly testing and experimenting.

Ten years have passed, and my predecessors can go and fuck off because my drone is at its peak. A miracle baby like me of sorts. It’s a state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicle that I’ve worked hard to make unique.

Have I lost my mind?

Quite possibly.

I remain in the shadows of my superiors because what I do isn’t physical. What I do makes old-fashioned people lose their jobs.

What I do gives men like me the power to spare and end lives.

Most of the people who give me commands don’t understand the sensitive data and programs I work with. They don’t understand how much of myself I’ve given up creating this monster. I’m not the only one who has his hands on weapons like my skinny bitch drone, and the thought makes me paranoid.

---