15 years later
I wake to a knock on my door followed by the sound of Justin calling out, "Alyssa, plans have changed. No break this morning, get ready." I swing my legs over the side of my bed.
"Yes, sir. I will be right out." I walk to my closet and grab a gray jumpsuit laying it out on my bed before sitting at my mirror. I brush out my black hair pulling it into a tight high ponytail. I stare into the reflection of my dull, emotionless blue eyes. I was born that way, emotionless, numb to the world around me, unable to access my emotions.
I pull my eyes away from my reflection and change into the jumpsuit. I open my door to find a familiar blonde, Professor Adam's assistant, "Justin, you didn't need to wait for me." He smiles at me.
"Your father, Adam, was given instructions by the president to keep a close eye on you today as it's your first day of high school." I nod and walk down the hall towards the training room.
I place my hand on the pad next to the metal door to enter. Upon entry, I see professor Adam sitting in front of a glass screen, still calibrating the machine. He looks up at the sound of the door opening, "Ah, Alyssa, there seems to have been a power outage overnight, so I have to calibrate everything. Go ahead and eat your breakfast first." I turn to the table in the corner of the room where a bowl of oatmeal, a plate of toast, a banana, and a glass of milk sits. I nod, walking towards the table. "Oh, and Alyssa?"
"Yes, professor?"
"Try to eat everything your nutritionist isn't the happiest with me that you aren't eating everything. You need all the energy you can get."
"Yes, sir. I'll try my best." Due to my petite stature, I've always had trouble finishing meals, but that is a design flaw on their part. They sacrificed a bigger build for higher agility. I watch Justin and Adam tap the screen out of the corner of my eye while I eat.
A hand is placed on my shoulder as I finish the last of my food. I look up to find Adam standing over me, "Are you ready to start?" I nod and stand.
I take my place in the center of the room where Adam locks me into a glass tube. A cap covered in wires lowers onto my head. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing as they monitor my brain activity before starting my training. After a few minutes, Justin's voice comes through the speaker, "Scan is completed, everything is normal. Go ahead and open your eyes. Today is knife throwing; I hope you did your reading."
I open my eyes to find a table full of different knives, some not even meant for throwing. I guess they do want to check my knowledge. Looking up, I find not targets but people, obviously not real as all my training is in virtual reality, again testing me.
I grab the magnum bailey, the metal cold to the touch, and toss it a few times to get a feel for how it's weighted. Once I know where most of the weight is, I calculate the best way to throw the knife to kill. I draw back my arm; the knife positioned just right in between my fingers. Careful not to move my wrist and let the knife leave my hand from the force of my arm moving forward. I watch the knife spin across the room only to land in the first person's neck, causing him to let out a blood-curdling scream as blood pours from the carotid artery. The man falls and bleeds out as I stand and watch, feeling nothing, just like I'm supposed to.
I make my way through all the different throwing knives, slowly killing the line of people across the room from me. When the last person drops, Justin's voice comes through the speaker again, "Perfect execution, Alyssa. Now we will change the setting. There will be military trained personnel trying to attack you, and all you will have is throwing knives, but you will only have enough to have one knife for one person. You do not have spares. You can not miss it. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir." Before I finish speaking, the scene around me changes to a pristine white room with three doors on each side of me—a belt with six knives forms around my waist. I take a stance that will allow me to move defensively or offensively easily. I go through every possible outcome for how the attack will start taking into account all six coming at me at once or one at a time in any possible order.
As I assume, all doors open at once, and six full-grown, fully trained adults walk out and lock their sights on me—one genetically enhanced fifteen-year-old vs. six military-trained adults.
By the time I'm pulled out of the simulation, I'm breathing heavily covered in sweat. The headset is removed as Adam opens the glass door and removes the restraints to allow me out of the tube. Justin reaches around and hands me a towel so I can wipe some of the sweat. Adam pats my head, "You did great today, kid. Go shower you have school in an hour and a thirty-minute ride." I nod and leave, heading to my room.
In my bathroom, I peel my sweaty jumpsuit off, tossing it into the laundry hamper. I take my hair down while I wait for the water to heat up. Stepping into the shower, I let out a sigh as the steaming hot water hits my skin, relaxing my muscles. My body is always stiff after being restrained in a tube for hours, but it's the safest way to perform my training.
After my shower, I change into my school uniform. I go to a government-run private school made for other children like me to interact with other children our age. Due to how to spread out the C.E.A.R.F children, we do not interact unless we are sold to the same military, so growing up going to these special schools, we only interact with spoiled rich kids.
I grab my bag and meet Adam at the entrance to the facility. "Professor? You usually don't see me off to school. Is there a problem?" Adam shakes his head.
"No problem Alyssa. The president wants me to remind you that you are to defend yourself against the bullies. They don't want permanent damage done before you reach eighteen."
"Of course, sir." He reaches out, tucking my hair behind my ear.
"And remember to keep your hair out of the way." I nod. Adam leaves, and I wait for my driver.
A black car with dark tinted bulletproof windows pulls up next to me. My driver, Mark, gets out and opens the back door for me, "Good morning Alyssa." I get in, and Mark closes my door and gets back into the driver seat again.
"Good morning to you as well, Mark." He glances at me in the review mirror before leaving for my school.
"Are you excited for your first day of high school?" I lower the back of the middle seat to access the hidden compartment.
"Mark?" I open the compartment exposing 'diamond earings.' "I want you to think about what you just asked me."
"Huh? Oh, damn. I haven't seen you all summer, so I forgot. Please pardon this old man. My daughter recently told my wife and me that she was expecting, so I have a normal child on the brain." Mark continues to ramble about his 'normal' family, but as he does, I tap the back of his headrest, so it reveals a mirror. I proceed to put in the earing, which is actually cameras and microphones, to monitor my behavior outside the futility.
Thirty minutes of Mark rambling later, and we are pulling up to my school. I get out of the car and head for the front door of my school. I walk through the door and immediately faceplant. Rolling onto my side, I look up to see Jessica, one of my many bullies, laughing with her group of friends. "Well, well well, if it's not the android freak. It looks like you sadly didn't die over the summer. Oh well, more fun for us. But if you don't want to get hurt too bad, stay out of everyone's way." She kicks the back of my head as she walks away, laughing, her friends following close behind.
I push myself on my knees and look around for my bag, but before I can locate it, it's forced into my face. I grab my bag and look up to find Dylan, a boy who has had a crush on me since kindergarten. "Alyssa, it's great to see you again. I'm glad we are in the same school. Sorry about not stopping Jessica; she scares me. Um, I think she scares everyone except her boyfriend, Ian, which I know he gives you a hard time as well. Well, uh, e-everyone seems to give you a hard time. Which I don't get, I mean yeah, you don't really show emotion, or that you feel pain, and you don't participate in gym, as well as have your own specialized tests, b-but your still human." As Dylan was stumbling over his own words, I stand and head towards the classroom. "Ah, Alyssa, where are you going?"
I tuck my hair behind my ear, "Class. The bell is about to ring." He looks to the clock.
"Oh shit. Hey, can I walk you to class?" I shake my head.
"No, thank you, Dylan. I can get to class myself."
I'm tripped, pushed into walls and lockers throughout the day, kicked, and had my hair pulled. By the time school was over, I was covered in new bruises but nothing major, causing me the need to defend myself.
While waiting for Mark, Dylan comes up to me, "Hey, Alyssa. It looks like you had a rough day, huh?"
"Nothing new." I don't even look away from the road when replying to him.
"Uh, right. But I was wondering since we are in high school now, do you want to go out? We could go out to eat and maybe see a movie?"
"Dylan, I have told you many times that my father will never allow me out."
"Yeah, I know, but I was hoping that today when you get picked up, I could talk to your dad and maybe convince him to trust me with you?"
"My father doesn't pick me up from school. Never has and never will."
"Right, most of our classmates have drivers. But uh, I could uh g-give you my number." I turn my head to look him in the eye.
"Dylan, walk away." He steps back, shaking.
"Y-yeah uh I-I think my dad just pulled up, so bye." He runs to his father's car.
I look back to the road and see that Mark has pulled up. I get into the back seat, and Mark looks me over, "You know you'll need to stop by the infirmary floor before checking in with your father, right?"
"Yes. This is not the first time I've been injured at school. No need to remind me every time."
"Yes, yes, I know. I don't know how Justin and Adam can treat you like you're not human when they are with you all the time. Every time I see you, I have to tell myself you don't have feelings and emotions. I can't help but treat you like you do."
"You have been my driver for ten years. I would have thought that was plenty of time to learn." Mark fell silent for the rest of the drive.
We pull up to the facility; I take out my earrings, placing them in the normal spot before I get out of the car. I enter the building and head to the second floor to be checked out by my personal doctor. I enter her office, "Good afternoon, dr. Coleman." She sighs.
"Weren't you told to defend yourself? Why are you injured?"
"I was, but no attacks today would have needed me to defend myself. These are only small bruises." Dr. Coleman pinches the bridge of her nose.
"But I still have to do a full-body exam. Do you know how long that will take me?"
"On average, it takes you fifteen minutes to check over my entire body for all injuries and ten minutes to write a report for HQ."
"Ugh, do you know how much I hate your emotionless ass? Alright, let's get this over with. Strip." I nod and take off my uniform. As I said, it takes her fifteen minutes to check over my entire body and write down every injury. "Alright, brat, get dressed and get going to Adam." I put my uniform back on and leave her office. I go to the top floor and knock on Adam's door.
"Come in." Comes through the door, so I enter, locking the door behind me. "There's my girl." I sigh before smiling.
"Hi, daddy." I run, giving him a big hug. If anyone knew I'm not emotionless, I would be dead.