To my dear son Tobias,I am your father. If you are reading this letter, I guess that means that I am dead. I do not know how I pa.s.sed but I am not surprised. I do not know how much your mother has told you about you deadbeat dad but know that I was a man who had done more evil than good. I was what the world would called a criminal.
I do not regret the life I lived. I did what I did and mostly I had a great time. I won"t say I lived a good life, but I had an exciting one and that was more than enough for me. While I regret little, one of things I do regret was not been there for my children. I made a choice long ago not to be a.s.sociated with any of you and while I won"t say I made the right choice, I still believe it would be best for you all not to have me as a father. You all deserved a normal life.
I do not know if you hate me for this but if you do, I do not blame you. You have more right to the hate than many of my enemies. Tobias. I do want you to know that while I was never around, I have always kept an eye on you. I know you go by Toby. You are now 32 years of age and the last time you cried was at your mother"s funeral. You were a poor student. Smart but without drive. You left school at 17 after your secondary school education but then surprisingly found your calling. You got an Advanced Diploma in Mechanical Engineering via night school and worked as a mechanic for over a decade at various places doing mainly repair works on vehicles. You like the job and did well for yourself but what you really wanted to be was an Advance Weapon Designer.
You told only a few people of your dream but monitoring the history of your net usage and your subscriptions to the "Battlesuits" and "Weapons Loadout" magazines, it wasn"t hard for me or my agents to figure out. I may be deadbeat absent dad but I shall do what I can to make your dream come true. The small building you are in is now yours. You can use it to start your dream of being a Designer known to the world. Do not worry, the building has already been paid for and the money used to buy it is totally clean. I have also bought the land around this work building in case you need it for future expansion. This is just the start of your inheritance.
If you do not know who I am then it is better for you not to know. Just know that I was not just a run-of-the-mill criminal. I was very successful and considered very dangerous. So successful that I was given a codename by the public and widely considered to be a supervillain. At my peak, I was a Global Threat wanted by the United Federation of Planets. Even in our amazing world of mad science and super technology, I was special and I was considered special from a very young age.
Please understand that being special so young was not always a good thing.
Looking back, I believed I grew too powerful too fast. I had more power than experience and made many mistakes because of it. I do not really regret my actions but in hindsight, there were a few things I could have done differently. For that reason, instead of giving you your full inheritance, I have devised a System that would give it to you in stages. You will receive them bit by bit once you have fulfilled the conditions that I had in mind. I do not believe in giving out free lunches. You need to work for the prize. Think of it as the stages of a game you have to pa.s.s through before advancing to the next stage of your life. Instead of a game in Dive, you will be doing it in real life. Do not worry too much, the System I left behind would guide you. Before long, you would advance on your chosen career and become a Designer known throughout the Solar System. I have faith in you.
Love,
Your Deadbeat Father.
P.S. I"m sorry if you are angry about my snooping but what can I say…I"m a criminal! (No emoji here; I hate them!)
***
I read the letter a second time before carefully folding it and putting it in his pocket. It was a little old fashioned but it was something I would always treasured. Looking around the small building I had inherited, I fought with my feelings. Should I be happy or sad at acquiring this building? I"m not really sure. I got this building at the expense of a man I had never met but in his own way, he did care about me. Mother told me who he was before she died and now I would never have the chance to speak to him.
His death wasn"t the only reason for my feelings. The building was a mess. It was big and I could see that while it was built to be specialized Designer Workshop of some kind, no one had been using it for some time. The good amount of dust and rust all over the place was all the proof I needed. I could only consoled myself by saying that most of the essentials were present.
Whoever had the building previously knew what he was doing. The secondhand building was well-lit, s.p.a.cious, had a good storage area, excellent electrical service, and even an office area with a full Dive setup inside. The 3D Printer, Metallic Fabricator, and Holographic Projector were a little dated but they were still useable. I have to look at the Rigging System more closely but even if it was a bust, this was still a lot better than most start-up weapons workshops.
Ignoring the building for the moment, I took out the second piece of my inheritance; a small scanning chip. The shady lawyer who had given me the news of my inheritance had emphasized that I should only scan the chip inside a building with blockers. It was a strange request but then my father was a dangerous man. Considering his career path, I wouldn"t be surprised if the chip contains some less than totally legal information. The fact that this building came equipped with white noise filters could not be a coincidence.
"Well, here goes nothing."
I activated the scan in my cybernetic right eye and the right half of my vision turned red. Holographic images and numbers filled the red portion of my vision and the download began immediately. It was surprising. Though wireless data transfer was common, a scanning download usually require a few seconds before commencing. It seems that my old man really was as good as everyone says he was. Then the unknown program in the chip kicks in and took over the holographic view of my eye.
{Technology System initializing. User Tobias Wong detected. Please prepare for sleep mode.]
I could only looked at the message in puzzlement. What in the world was sleep…