[ Jay Jue, birth name Jay Pleng, came from an elite family of scholars in one of the northwestern megacities... ]
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The private plane landed an hour later, and Jay Pleng decided that she could show her superpower to her father. If he allowed her to work with him, then she can make a mistake and "accidentally" free the war machine from his cage.
War machine boy will obviously be angry for all the pain they inflicted on him, so he will attack Jay Pleng, and she will die because of "an accident at work" instead of suicide. Not only will she free herself from life, but she will also free the war machine from the scientists.
Wonderful. Great plan.
The first step was to book a appointment with both of her parents. With both of them along with her younger brother present in her mother's study, Jay Pleng demonstrated her abilities by throwing a cellphone on to the wooden floor, smashing it into a thousand pieces, only to put it back together piece by piece, atom by atom. A proud smile graced her father's face when she managed to get the cellphone up and running in less than twenty minutes.
Jacob, her younger brother, saw what she did, and he laughed. The boy make the chair that he's sitting on levitate, which earned him praises from both of their parents. She didn't care if her brother outshines her again. As long as her father let her work with the war machine.
Her wish came true a week later, when she was taken to her father's laboratory that's not far from Mr. Romanov's mansion. The war machine was transported here yesterday, and she could wait to meet him for all the wrong reasons.
As she walked down the white tiled hallway towards where they kept him, her heart was hammering in her chest as her hand clenched on a flashdrive inside her lab coat pocket. She spent days trying to perfect the sabotage device, and she only tested it once on her own laptop. She wished that it's going to work on the laboratory's system too. Just ten seconds was all she needed.
The woman escorting her unlocked the door by scanning her ID. It was at this moment when Jay Pleng realized that she was never given an ID, so she could only access this place with an escort, or how her mother call them, babysitter.
Deep red eyes met dark blue ones as soon as the double doors opened. The war machine boy was sitting on the floor, wearing nothing but a pair of white pants. His short jet black hair was sticking out in every direction, and his almond skin was ashier than the first time she saw him last week.
Getting closer to him, she noticed the little scars scattered all over his body. Is that why Mr. Romanov called his son imperfect? He doesn't heal like all the other war machines that Jay Pleng had seen. Most war machines heal quickly and without scar, so why is he different? The boy sitting in front of her was also a few shades darker than the usual war machines. Surely, skin color has nothing to do with this, right?
The young scientist moved her eyes from his scars to the little tablet on the two-inches-thick glass that separated them.
Jay Pleng.
Is that his name? The universe must be laughing at her right now. Sure, find a guy who has the same name as her to murder her. Perfect.
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[ Jay Romanov, birth name Jay Pleng, came from a military family in the southeastern coasts... ]
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Jay Pleng.
The tiny scientist's name tag read "Jay Pleng." Jay Pleng frowned when he saw that. Isn't she Dr. Jue's daughter? She must've taken her mother's surname.
His mother used to say that their last name was quite common back in her hometown, so Jay Pleng wasn't surprised to find another person with the same surname. But the same name? What the fuck?
Her dark blue eyes looked black from afar, but when she's closer, he could see the blue hue shining as she put her hand on the tablet. Even though the girl looked more professional since she's wearing a lab coat, Jay Pleng couldn't help but think that he's fucked because the scientists train their children young.
"Jay, I know you're excited, but try not to get too messy." The dark skinned lady, the only adult in this room, stood behind the girl. "Did you watch the anesthesia training video?"
"Yes!" The girl nodded with enthusiasm, sending chills down Jay Pleng's spine.
Fuck, are they gonna cut him open? That's not out of the possibility.
The lady scientist smiled lovingly and patted the girl's head. "Good, good. You're good here on your own, right?"
"Take your time texting your boyfriend. I won't tell my dad." The girl giggled, and it sounded more sinister than it should be. "The anesthesia will take a while to work anyway. I'll just stand here and torture him with animal facts."
"You're adorable." The scientist pitched the girl's cheeks before she turned around and left the room.
The door shutting on him sounded like a death sentence. Jay Pleng planned to run away from home, but his escape attempt failed when his brothers noticed that he wasn't there during their morning roll call.
He spent two hours outside of his father's territory, and it wasn't wasted. The boy managed to get in contact with the local villain gang, and he sent them the mansion's layout as bribe to let him into their gang. They said they would accept a Wonder Soldier, even a young one in training because he would bring more valuable insider information.
Even though he hid inside the trees, his brothers still managed to find him and dragged him back.
"There's a tracker in your nape. Same as the rest of us." Eugene, his fifth older brother, told him as he escorted Jay Pleng to the laboratory. Fredrick, his sixth older brother, later scolded Eugene for telling their younger brother that because "Jay needs to learn the hard way."
Thus, his plan now is to try not to breathe in the anesthesia in the air, somehow get away from being under the tiny scientist's knife, claw the damn tracker out of his back, and then run to the closest gang encampment. Totally not impossible at all.
His eyes glared at the tiny scientist while she's tapping on the enclosure's tablet. She tapped on the voice button which turned on the speakers inside Jay Pleng's enclosure so allowed the two of them to talk, but she hadn't turned on the anesthesia yet.
The girl's hand hovered over the tablet, not touching the anesthesia button. "What's your favorite animal?"
"If you're really gonna torture me with animals facts, just letting you know that it won't work 'cause I'm into that." He gritted his teeth. His teachers scolded him for watching animal documentaries when he should be taking guns apart and learn how to make bombs from scratch. "Giraffes have 6 feet-long necks, and they can grow up to 18 feet long, and weight around 3000 pounds."
"So you like giraffes, then?" She tilted her head just a little bit, making her long hair flutter around her. "Have you ever seen them with your own eyes? I heard there's a few left in a conservatory."
Jay Pleng shook his head. No, he had never seen a real giraffe before. He picked that animal to talk about because they look ridiculous. Why are they talking about this?
"Do you have an ID?" He changed the topic to something more useful. If she already has an ID, then he could steal that.
Blue eyes looked up at him, and he couldn't tell what she's thinking.
"Actually, no." A small smile came on her face, and he found that mysterious little smile a little too charming. "Are you planning to break out? Anything can happen, after all."
"Anything can happen, hah?" He leaned closer to the glass, and those blue eyes didn't even blink as she stared.
"I don't know... This laboratory is a lot older than the rest. Equipment can break easily, so the chances of you getting out of there isn't zero. The chances of this tablet breaking isn't zero, and the chance of all our footage of interaction in this room being corrupted because of a cyber attack isn't zero either."
"Are you mocking me?" He was rather baffled on what she meant. Why is she talking about probability all of a sudden?
Jay Pleng felt something stirring inside of him. He couldn't tell if it's anger or sadness or hope, probably all three at the same time. The little scientist could be right.
"I don't know." Her smirk came on for another minute, and she clicked on the tablet to open the door to his enclosure.
Before he could say anything more, she took something out of her lab coat, and she stabbed it into the tablet. Deep red eyes widened when he saw the tablet's screen began giving error messages.
The chances of this tablet breaking isn't zero.
His heart was beating out of his chest, but instead of stay still and watching it happened, his body moved to throw himself out the door, breaking parts of it in the process.
She is the escape plan. She's breaking him out. Why? He doesn't know, but he's in debt to her now.
As soon as he's out of the enclosure, he began seeing numbers. Zero and one is the pair that he's seeing most, and even though he didn't understand why he's seeing them or how, he somehow knew that those numbers were meant to be changed.
... The chances of all our interaction in this room being corrupted because of a cyber attack isn't zero either.
His eyes moved to the security camera at one corner of the room. The "0" changed to "1" very quickly, and the camera began sparkling with electricity before exploding. On instinct, he moved on to the next camera, which got him the same result. Adrenaline was pumping through his body, and he grinned.
He is a late bloomer. His power is finally awakened. All because of a young scientist who wanted to break him out.
Talking about the young scientist, she didn't move from her spot since she corrupted the tablet. Her blue eyes looked at him in wonder, and her smile didn't drop.
"Can you do me a favor?" She took two steps closer to him. "It'll take you a second to kill me. Make it quick."
What the fuck kinda favor is that?
"Ah, you have another body ready, right? You're one of those puppets superpowers." He was close enough to wrap his hands around her dainty neck, and he could feel the excitement and anxiety from the way she was shaking.
"No." Her voice was honest, and his eyes widened as she spoke. "I just want to break you out and die. There's no point of me staying alive if I'm just an agent of war, a pawn for my family to play with. At least I'm breaking you out! Live your life and go see giraffes!"
His jaw dropped a bit, and he quickly gathered his composure. His hands slipped from her neck, and he turned away from her to find the backdoor that they transported him. It'll lead him straight to the garage where he could steal a vehicl—
"Hey! Where are you going?!" A pair of warm hands grabbed a hold of Jay Pleng's wrist, and he snapped his head to look at the girl. Her blue eyes were trying to contain her tears. "At least kill me first! I have a knife with me! Make it quick before the others get here!"
"Are you fucking insane?" He yelled back. Even though he's indebted to the scientist, he's not gonna kill her just because she asked. He has killed people before, and he knows that he will have to kill again in the future, but he didn't want to end his savior's life.
"YES!" The girl yelled back, and tears began seeping down her round cheeks. "Come on!"
In that moment, the ceiling lights flickered from white to red. The ever annoying sound of an alarm rang throughout the entire building. There was a bang at the door, and both children's eyes widened. Someone outside was scanning their card to get in, but since the building was in a state of emergency, the doors wouldn't open from the outside of any room. The tiny scientist not having an ID meant that she couldn't get out either.
"JAY!!!" The lady scientist's scream could be heard through the alarm. "JAY! WE'RE COMING IN TO GET YOU!"
"Hurr—" Before the girl could hiss at him, Jay Pleng pulled her by her arm to the back door.
He saw the 0/1 pairs surrounding the mechanics that held the door in place, and without even thinking much, those 0/1 turned into 1/1. The boy kicked through the door easily enough; as expected, there was a few vehicles in the garage.
His legs took him to the nearest armoured car, not letting go to the girl's forearm. He opened the door of the driver seat and threw her inside. Before he got in, his eyes landed on his encounter in the other room where they just came out of.
What if that device she used on the tablet exploded?
After that line of thought passed through his mind, he found the 0/1 hovering over the tablet. Can he change that?
As soon as the 0 switched to 1, Jay Pleng jumped into the driver's seat with the girl. With his back facing the windshield, the scientist yelped when his chest hit her face. He covered her ears a second before a very loud bang echoed through the entire laboratory.
The shockwave was large enough that the armored cars inside the garage was flipped over, including the ones the two Jays were in.
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A search party was looking through the rubble of the explosion. The rescue team was talking to each other about how a Wonder Soldier escaped his containment, causing an explosion in the process.
Jay Pleng was listening to their conversation, chewing on his inner cheek as he's thinking about what to do. The girl was barely conscious, and her blue eyes was half opened. Sometimes, the boy forgot that not everyone is on Wonder drug, and normal humans have normal metabolism. The young scientist is taking a while long to recover from the shock, but Jay Pleng already fixed his ear drums that busted from the loud explosion.
As the search party got closer to their upside-down armored car, Jay Pleng let out a sigh as he released the girl's head from his hands. He remembered her talking about a knife, and he could see the outline of a pocket knife in her lab coat's pocket.
Without wasting any time, he quickly took the knife out, and he stabbed it into the back of his neck. He bit down on his lower lip when the pain hit, but he was glad that he hit something solid. His fingers immediately dug into the hole that the knife made, and he touched down on a metal object. The texture didn't feel like bones, so it must be the tracker.
His fingers pulled out the chip, thinking that he must be so lucky to find it on his first try. Maybe it's his superpower that allowed him to do it, and he doesn't even understand what his superpower does. Jay Pleng hissed a little in pain as he dropped the tracker chip next to the girl who's holding her own head now.
"I'll take this. Thanks again." The boy mumbled to the young scientist, showing off her bloody pocket knife.
Then, he made a run for the ruined garage door.