Chapter 163 - Caged Bird
Country X…
The town of Zemei that was the home of ten thousand individuals and was surrounded by mountains in all cardinal directions making this place perfectly isolated. It was a beautiful place and seemingly peaceful.
However, it was actually the secret headquarter of the renown underground organization called Blackleaf, and was actually backed by the government of Country X. The organization was known to be among the humanity"s biggest threat. They were known to be secretly creating dangerous chemical and nuclear weapons. The town was a safe haven for exiled and rogue scientist for creating all sort of illegal experiments. The government"s innerworkings along with Blackleaf made it nearly impossible for those they deemed unworthy to step foot in this place. So, the town was among the few mysterious places that continue to exist as "hidden in plain sight".
Sei and his mother were told they were to live in the town while Sei was to join the elite group of Blackleaf hackers that were trained as notorious cyber-criminals and spies. Being in this new town, it was like being captured as prisoners again. Sei was to work long hours separated from his mother Fei to push for results. Not only that, everyone looked down on Sei and thought his skills as a hacker were only gossip and rumors made by a small rebel group. How could a child out do the experienced a.d.u.l.ts that have been doing this for longer than the boy was alive?
However, as he spent his days as the only child in the group of a.d.u.l.t hackers, Sei continued breaking expectations. His hacking skills were surpa.s.sing every one of the organization"s so called "elite of all elite hackers".
At the age of nine, Sei was ordered to steal doc.u.ments of Country H"s military defense system, using of course his dear mother to make him abide. Thus, within a mere few hours, he managed to infiltrate the government"s system, steal their sensitive doc.u.ments, and leave without a single speck of a clue about his presence there. The entire town of Zemei was in an extreme uproar.
People who knew what he did started treating him like a king. Even the country"s president sent his military chief to personally confirm the news about him.
Since then, everyone started treating him respectfully and no one dared to touch him nor talk badly about him. The government and Blackleaf realized what kind of power the boy had and they decided to keep him at all cost, thus, they started trying to please him by giving him whatever he asked except of course leaving the town.
So, after years of being caged tightly, they finally loosen up their grip on Sei. They finally allowed him to roam around the town without guards and spent some more time with his mother. He was a caged bird who was just transferred into a little bigger cage where he at least could fly a little bit.
However, n.o.body knew that Sei already started scheming countless escape plans in his head ever since he realized what was truly happening in this place he and his mother was currently living in.
Roaming around the town freely, Sei started noticing what deeper workings lay beneath the surface. The place was actually a home of all sort of extreme illegal activities.
At a certain building he visited, Sei found a group of children at his age. They were pale children looking vampire-like. He asked around and discovered that they were the survivors of test tube experimental babies. They were trying to create geniuses skillful in the art of war… a living weapon that would be obedient to their masters. He found out that dozens of those children had died along the experiment process until eventually only eleven of them remained.
The children had numbers from 1 to 10 tattooed at their backs. An old seemingly heartless scientist told him that names were unnecessary for the children were numbered according to their obedience rate. However, what caught young Sei"s attention was the boy numbered zero.
He asked why his number was zero and the old man told him that it was because he was a complete failure. He told him that number Zero"s physical well-being was almost a superhuman, however, he said that it"s impossible to control him.
The old man also told him that they were planning to just send him to the war zone as front liner to at least be useful or they might use him as guinea pig for some further experiments. Words that made Sei quietly clenched his fist as his gaze fell into the boy in a white gown.
As though a sixth sense compelled him, number Zero looked up and met with Sei"s eyes. For some reason, as Sei gazed into his dangerous eyes, Sei felt like he will need him.
At the same time, Sei realized that he wasn"t a failure. He was the only one among those children who could still be called human. They failed to control him because unlike the other ten, he still held a spark of life in his eyes and was not a complete robot.
That moment, Sei felt that in order for him and his mother to have a chance of escaping this h.e.l.l, he needed to have him as an ally.