CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
Athens Absconditus was the formal creator of an intensive educational program set to teach at the highest standards. Maximus Myer Absconditus. The hidden Latin meaning was that of a ‘hidden God’ as Deus Absconditus. Except he wasn’t any more concealed than the president of the United States. Deus revelatus- that was who he genuinely came across as.
William Myer Absconditus taught Maximus a rule of thumb regarding the intuitive acts of life and death. Death ruled shadows and sins. Sins that weren’t outlined correctly in a family with enough wealth to cover up stories like make-up caked a girl’s face. Covered the redness, the zits, the small strands of hair upon places we wished never to be biologically produced in the first place. It wasn’t the same urge women got to feel younger once they hit over 40. Not to inject plastic and Botox into their muscle layers just to enhance genetic engineering, and reverse ageing. As if it had never existed as a conceivable concept in the first place.
That botulinum toxin was created in the 1700s to the 1800s and transformed paralysis to parasitical toxin made people think women didn’t need makeup anymore. No—they just needed a WWII weapon, only failed when making the product into a stable form. All it did was ‘turn that frown upside down’ and ‘made a clown stand down forever’ basically. Keeping the same expression, with just a sliver of toxin. Thanks so much for approving it FDA.
You gave women the ability to alter artificial intelligence to generate faces that are classified as ‘Barbie-doll perfect’.
You gave men the same. And you gave them the opinion that one could always be prettier.
Too bad Botox couldn’t enhance intelligence on a neurological level.
Athens’ son, William, fathered Maximus using the same mantra, after a spat fell out about Maximus’s mother’s latest Botox treatment.
The very same motto my father taught me, not about Botox, but about something more severe. Something more damaging than removing frown lines or potential therapeutics for neurological disorders.
No, what he taught me was more about how computerised the planet could be if it wasn’t anyone else but our own who could alter genetic make-up in a more modern way. Algorithms in humans. How quaint would it be to select the most intelligent foetus?
I wished I’d never seen that experiment come to life, but unfortunately, life gave me lemons too sour for me to take.
Energy soared through my veins the longer I stood under the wintry air, leaves of brown muck and freckles of dirt dropped around my leather-bound boots. I studied the masses of the student body while the west corridor of the oldest school library erupted in a house of flames. Screams sounded like whistles and car horns when teachers scurried out, teenagers faster on wet, greasy grass after last night’s exasperated football game.
I worried the school would close.
Carter Anderson, a former friend of mine who became too big of an issue, strutted out behind the one and only Ivan Torres. The mischievous and dirtiest of pranksters pocketed a silver skull lighter and watched his artwork of an explosion turn the once beautiful library into ash.
Rosa-belle Tardy stepped in next to me, her eyes penetrating the problem at hand, and someone I knew she had better hopes for. Maximus wasn’t in sight until I followed Everdeen Clare De Lores and her witchy best friend, Diana Rangers, directly behind her. An arm slid around Diana’s shoulders, her gatekeeper and sex addict of a boyfriend, Trevor Gunner. I pursed my lips at the friends who once stood by Rosie and me.
Rosie’s gaze landed on Andrew Dean. A dark and handsome entrapment who dealt a bad hand and was left worse after his mother abandoned him, and his father landed life in prison after embezzlement and vehicular manslaughter was inked on his resume. Andrew didn’t exactly have a good reputation either; he was rumoured to have sold a few drugs in his time, and being the co-owner of a pharmaceutical company, rumours would arise. One of propaganda, but this one didn’t stray far from the truth.
Rosie squeezed my left arm, and I caught the scar on her right palm as the light hit it at that exact moment. She pulled her cotton sleeve down lower until it touched her silver rings, “Class was cancelled, I need to get to work soon.” She whispered to me.
I glanced behind at my car in the parking lot, “They’re still taking roll-call.”
She flinched and worried eyes snapped to my car, “Can we just email Mrs Perkins about leaving earlier than allowed, I can’t be late. The boss cut my salary the last time I was late. You remember?” She breathed out with a concerned purse of the lips, she shook her head, “Please, Poppy?” She pleaded, I relented, moving us to my common SV in the parking lot. My gaze snagged on a pair of blue eyes across the grass, leaning against a steel bench with her arms folded across her chest was Diana. Who chose money over friendship, and she never wanted me to forget it.
I met her gaze head-on.
She changed her look from before we enrolled here. Her hair, once a light brown, was now a pitch black, the colour of tar and frizzy with overused dye. Her eyes were coloured in eye shadow that paled her skin tone, before she seemed tan, now she was alabaster and almost as corpse-like as I. That happened one month after her sister killed herself. Deep blood red hair blew and caught my gaze. Everdeen ran her fingers over Ryan McLain’s shoulder, before he slid his hand up her short, checkered skirt like it was nothing new. It wasn’t hygienic or attractive to give her a release in public. Teachers who weren’t fucked up spoke to ambulance staff and firefighters trying to move people.
Other teachers watched.
Because, like most people, this world wasn’t made to keep us safe.
It was only built for us to destroy it.
Again and again, until the fittest survived the last round.
I got in the driver’s side and keyed the ignition. She leaned back in her seat, sighed, “All of that history, gone in less than an hour.”
I tightened my fingers against the wheel, hiding the fact that I donated a lot of money to get that library fixed from its hazardous variables before Carter Anderson screwed it up. I indicated to the left lane to get us past the buses and slow traffic. “All because a bastard was bored.” I muttered bitterly.
She swallowed a stiff gulp of air, “I don’t understand what happened to Carter. Why he left so suddenly?” She whispered with confusion and sadness. I knew why Carter had left. I pushed him out after what he’d done. Diana followed him. Trevor followed her. And only Rosa-belle was smart enough to stay with me; I just never told her he had left and that it was all my fault.
Well, I didn’t ask for what happened to happen. So, the blame couldn’t all be shifted onto me.
She opened a blog or perhaps even a BuzzFeed of some kind on her phone. The fire blasted all over it as if a news criminal report was enough to post it on as many news channels as possible. Nothing about any other devastating poison that oozed through the school. Especially with Carter lurking in the halls. The car ride felt too smooth for the shadows that crossed over my vision, I moved out of the car once parking between a red 2019 Mazda and a blue corvette, both spacious enough for my car to fit with room on board.
I stepped out after cutting the ignition and moved out the door, “I’ll meet you later, okay. I promise!” Rosie yelled over her shoulder as she ran out of the exit to the parking lot and down the street to a restaurant named Raven Caves. Even the name was enough of a dark sham.
I leaned against the trunk and emailed Mrs Perkins.
I sent it and received another email milliseconds after pressing that ‘send’ arrow. I studied the address on the sender, ‘Follow me and you’ll be free’ was in the title. At first, I thought it was meant to be a comical joke. But I ran a quantitative algorithm on the address. I narrowed my eyes at the estranged set of numbers, not in any particular order. Not chronological, letters mixed at random.
The algorithm came up empty. Which was odd.
I glanced to the left of me and found a black Lamborghini in the corner, tucked behind the pole. I eyed the license plate, I didn’t recognise it.
“Good guess, but inaccurate assumption.” I heard a deep voice behind me. Automated. Slowly, I turned around and raised my gaze up higher, higher and higher until a tinted view of a man’s biker helmet stood there.
I furrowed my eyebrows at him, “Who are you?”
He folded his thick arms. Biker gear in electric black from head to toe, “I doubt that matters right now. The algorithm isn’t working, huh?” He spoke in that computerised tone. I looked at the screen on my phone.
I looked at him questionably, “Do you need something?” I asked casually, snapping a quick picture of him, slyly pocketing the phone in.
“Yeah, in fact I do need something. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, now would I, Parker?” He said sarcastically. The tone sophisticated enough to exert the computerised automated touch.
“Have I offended you in some way or form?” I wondered, uncertain as to what was happening here. I glanced over his boots, slick biker gear pants and the jacket too. He clearly didn’t want to be identified.
“Yes, you haven’t run the right algorithm. I expected better from you.” He noted stoically.
I ran my eyes back up to his visor, “I don’t have incentive to play your game.”
“The incentive is $20 million.” He persuaded, stepping closer.
I didn’t even blink, frowning up at him. I leaned back against the boot of my SV, facing forward before I glanced back at him again. I pocketed the phone in my purse and shrugged at him, “Sounds like lottery money. I’m not a gambler, you clearly are. Man of early 20s, perhaps even younger since the Yamaha in the back left side of you is parked so that you can turn right, not left. You live in the upper east side of the city. The money would’ve been a fast indicator of your richness, but the number just seems a little too good to be true for a man your age. You know my name so you know I’m a profiler. You did this purposely, I assume? Lamborghini in the corner, guard or friend?” I asked him out of boredom.
He didn’t move, “I got no relation to the lambo in the corner, lady.” He changed the wording he usually used.
I nodded emptily, eyeing the concrete in front of me.
He stepped closer, I didn’t tense up, I scrutinised the cracks in front of the building, “Complete the task of I’ll knock off a million for each day you miss it.” He warned me.
“Duly noted.” I nodded up to him.
BANG!
His palms slammed against my car on either side of me. Strength-advanced gloves in the suit. Great. That definitely left a mark on either side of my body. The car squeaked by the tires, irritated by the sudden force. I pursed my lips, searching for the black visor, “Being sarcastic with me doesn’t earn you pointers, doll.” The nickname demeaning from his lips.
I scoffed, “Carter, this doesn’t earn you anything anyway. Enough with the games, I made it clear last time we’d never work, stop this. I don’t need to be stalked outside of the school grid too. Rosie doesn’t need anymore stress either, so just back off. It’s great for you and the others that you followed money, the elite seem super happy with greater numbers on their team, but scratching my car after everything you did to me is pathetic. I said ‘No’ so take it for an answer.” I pushed him off and stepped around because he froze above me.
Silence dispersed.
“What?” He questioned me, but the tone seemed stoic, the same. When he was found guilty of something, he always fisted his hands, but when I glanced at him again from the side of the car, his arms were tied behind his back. The stance too military-orientated for someone like Carter.
I looked up at him, “Carter?”
He didn’t move.
I frowned, “Wait, who are—Hey, wait a second! Hey!” I yelled, but he was already on his bike. The Lamborghini skidded down the ramp and the motorbike vastly slipped at its heels, speed tag an entirely new level. Cold dampness shuttered my bones, I glanced outside the parking lot where both vehicles were beeped at from the right side.
I pursed my lips and studied the view in which he’d run. Like a coward. Whoever he was. I leaned back and stepped away, ignoring the email. Rosie didn’t like living at the academy, so with a number of arguments leading up to the day we moved into a shared apartment complex, I knew she’d feel just as comfortable as I had. No longer in the exposed quarters of the school. Where every troubling fact came to life in the shadows.
That night, after I finished washing the dishes while she finished a calculus practice sheet for tomorrows test, I studied the news. A terrorist attack in Canada last Tuesday evening, at an opera, in the sheer middle of it. The target wasn’t those in theatre or even most of the guests, it was one guest. The chief of justice for the United States.
I swallowed a gulp of my tea as another message popped up on my phone. Encrypted by a blocked number, I ran an advanced algorithm on it, downloaded after a new firewall blocked me on it. I had once loved games like this, my father used to entice me with such things.
Coding.
Software.
Firewalls.
Knowledge of the digital frontier.
I’d lost interest in it long ago. Now I was simply a shareholder.
My phone vibrated, I let it ring. Silence besides a stuttering vibration. I figured it was someone from Parker Enterprises was attempting to play some sick joke. Like some parasite desperately begging for nutrients, desperately seeking attention to stay alive. To maintain its necessary function. I furrowed my eyebrows and opened my laptop, a detection software, I entered the number through it and swiped the messages through it. Instantly, it worked. The correct algorithm unlocked it.
′My name is not important, my sources are literal.
And my sources say that you’re critical.
What is critical anymore?
Because you seem more like a bore?
Answer me, I want to play.
Answer me or I call Mayday.′
The same message was repeated thrice before he called.
A new link popped up on screen. My software ran it for bugs before it opened a chess match online. It didn’t show my existence in the programme yet, but waiting there is BikerboyA.
I furrowed my eyebrows, before I logged in with the passcode he added to the link. I entered it into the website and typed in a code name. I didn’t smile at the nickname I directed inside ‘Mayday’.
I moved my knight first.
I only had to wait seconds before he moved his first pawn. Strategy was key in this game, not luck, not like poker or blackjack. I mindlessly recall every set of instructions my father gave me with this game.
I forcibly went against it and he had me in checkmate. Until I took his Queen, then his moves took longer. The Timelapse was notoriously bad for his choice of game. I forced his king into a corner and attacked. The game locked with ‘Mayday Wins’ in a bold font.
I smiled and switched my phone on to type in the message box, whispering the words under my breath, “You took the bait, now it’s too late. Goodbye, BikerboyA.” I sent the message, it was ‘read’ instants later.
“This is not ‘goodbye’—this is only the beginning.” I read his message in a dead whisper under my breath. I closed the laptop screen and switched my phone off.
*****
“...what is the pharmacological purpose of this maladaptive device? Why would humans want to target daydreams meant to make us all unique?” He was classifying maladaptive daydreaming to be in everyone, not just someone characterised under a ‘mental health disorder’ because of how common it was amongst the neurodivergent minds on this ever-loving planet.
Calculus branched between history and science for the test last period. Understanding not only infinitesimal reasoning and how it was a quantifiable concept that was changed across intervals of ‘almost zero’—originally because mathematicians struggled with understanding calculus on a base level. Instantaneous velocity and area of curvature objects, a number that is closest to 0 and yet not quite.
It seemed abysmally small to integrate history with calculus.
Yet the professor’s criteria accented the very definition of quantifiably possible, but identifiably abstract.
Calling it the ‘method of exhaustion’—her entire class held those words like we’d been classified into some sort of mathematical cult. A class of students known to touch base on abstract ideas and use them in real-world scenarios.
Too bad the only ‘real-world scenarios’ the professor could come up with was from ancient Greeks and 250 BCE, like that wouldn’t hypnotise the entire class into a sleep deeper than physiologically enacted.
“Class, please, wake up. Maladaptive dreaming, not just daydreaming in my class. Make me feel important so that I don’t drug myself to death tonight.” Professor Ridges called out, because her words gave wisdom where ears should have picked up on. I glanced down at her wrists, she claimed a catch scratch last Thursday. Her doctors believed her, because her husband showed evidence of a cat. He neglected to measure out the fact she was a drug addict. So, while her words landed on deaf ears, I watched her closely.
She’d find something to live for once she went home tonight.
Students at the front sat straighter than most robotic AI-generated figurines. Rosie slumped lower on her desk next to me, while I glanced back to the row where Diana was curling her pitch black hair around a manicured finger. The nail polish, smudged with iridescent choices of colouring.
Next to her was Trevor.
“Maladaptive dreaming doesn’t have any confirmed genetic biomarkers. Mentioned in the pre-2000s when autistic people classified a dissociative disorder to absorb just one thing at a time,” Maximus Absconditus leaned back in his seat while he spoke directly to the teacher, “Interesting choice of a metaphor relating to suicide.” He added.
She studied the board, “That is one form of maladaptive dreaming, Mr Absconditus.”
“You neglected to talk about the fact drugs would be your way to hit the bucket, am I accurate in asking which drug you’ve chosen to drown yourself in?” Maximus questioned next, eyeing the redness in her neck.
I stood up before I knew what I was doing, “I believe what Professor Ridge’s choice of words meant was to activate the stimulus or at least reenact the reaction and the very definition of someone with dissociative absorption as a trait. Excuse my interruption, Mr Absconditus, but if Professor Ridges allows it, I’d like to check in with everyone in this room to ensure the safety and efficiency of all your stimuli?” I asked the room whilst walking down, step-by-step.
Silence dispersed.
Professor Ridges eyed me softly, “Miss Parker, you are entirely correct. Please, if you wish.” She offered the floor.
I smiled at her and turned around, my eyes met piercing violet ones, “Maladaptive dreaming isn’t just in autistic people, it is a trait absorbed potentially through generations to open a world of imaginative thought. Dreaming ideas are in writers, but they are also in criminals. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or...modulation of dopamine receptors on drugs like amphetamines, used to block the dopamine transporter to increase dopamine in the synapses.”
“We know how dopamine fucking works, this isn’t elementary school, sweetheart. If you want to stand there and save the teacher from a world of destruction, don’t colour it like some dove in a doctorate coat. Tell us something we don’t know.” Maximus interrupted me, eyes swirling with adrenaline-spiked anger.
I studied him, “Something you don’t know...cyanide has been made to look like ecstasy. So when you need the drug to get hard, don’t be surprised if someone on the black market wanted you to go down the way Hitler’s wife, Eva Braun did. How’s that for new information?” I asked him.
Students started laughing.
Rosie’s jaw dropped.
Now the whole class believed he took ecstasy.
Plus, with the way he was looking at me right now, like I was the parasite of the century, I wouldn’t be surprised if he snuck cyanide in my locker and altered its formation to look like a rose, with gaseous fumes that opened the second I opened my locker. Happy Valentine’s Day.
He looked like walking deadness. Leaning back, eyeing me.
Shit.
******
Author’s Note:
1) Will you keep reading?
2) Did you like it? Hate it? Mixed feelings?
3) Maximus’s new persona?
Thank you so much for reading!
