9 Mistakes (1)

I pushed my hair back and turned around to see Darren fuming just like I was. The only difference between us was that he was taller and a boy. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to differentiate the both of us.

"I am not going to stay in a house alone with a bunch of savage boys!" I screamed at him, walking into my room, my safe place. But he entered it and placed himself in front of me. "Ashe, listen to me. You won't be alone. There will be a cook to care of you all. There are guards. There are cameras. You will be safe.

"Then why even send me there in the first place?" I questioned back.

We had been fighting for almost ten minutes and till now, I didn't know the reason he wanted me to quit school for a few days and do this...horrible thing. It's just...I don't have words.

"Because in the whole Systema Games, only you can accomplish this," he reasoned softly and sat down on my study table, making me sit down on the bed.

So it was company involved. I sighed, "Just...tell me everything from the starting." I looked up at him, his frowning face begging for me to agree, "I'm so lost, Darren."

He smiled and started speaking and I listened, the tangled threads of confusion slowly straightening out like lines of clear cut code.

"The company figured out a way to program characters created in computers and fuse that program into the atoms we see around us, allowing the program to become a real life person...with the help of dad's pointers of course."

"The ones he left behind in those black notebooks?" I asked, remembering digging out tens of them from under his bed while cleaning the room out. It had all these weird functions I had never seen before and the most complicated drawings. Darren had taken it away from me before I could even get curious about it.

"Mhmm. We needed to animate the characters first...so we decided to make the whole thing into a movie with some random story line, using only that old VR game Breakfire Online as reference."

I laughed, "It was a good story line though...who made it?"

Darren shrugged, "Maybe me. Maybe Tasha. Dunno. We both worked on it...anyway. We had decided to bring the characters to life after erasing the character's memory from the movie. Imagine if Voldemort came to this earth searching for Harry Potter. So to avoid that, we have to erase the character's memories in the code, otherwise they will be out to kill the professor in the movie."

I gasped, "The professor in the movie was Dad, right? That's why they are hunting for me now. They couldn't find Dad but their programming wants revenge, so they are behind me."

Darren sighed, "Yes. We shouldn't have put real life people as characters. If we designed the professor as someone else, maybe this wouldn't have happened. I'm sorry, Ash-"

"Stop that-" I frowned, "-and continue."

"Yeah, but someone converted the code into real world code and made the six boys into real people without erasing their memories. And now they are out to kill you," his voice had guilt trickling in it

"But! They can't kill you directly!" he exclaimed, smiling.

"What do you mean?"

"You saw right? When Kai tried to cut you with the knife...which I should have stopped. I'm such a bad brother-"

I raised my eyebrows, "Darren."

He stopped rambling and took a breath, "Okay, sorry. Whatever those boys are, they are not human. They are still programs with fake memories. This wasn't mentioned in Dad's books but I think it's nature's way of providing balance to the world. The characters can't kill humans. So that also means humans can't kill them either."

I nod, staring off to the distance. I saw a black Mercedes take a U-turn into our street. "So how is this bad? You can't turn them back to code. You haven't figured out how."

"No, I haven't."

I paused and locked deadly eyes with him, "How is all this related to me staying with them!!!!!" I screamed into his ears, probably turning him deaf for the rest of his good years.

"Because when they realize they can't kill you, they'll aim for the company! They might not be able to kill you directly. But who knows. What if they hire some human to do the job?" Darren shot back.

"I still don't get how I'm involved," I looked up at the ceiling. What could a weak frail girl like me do? I can't even protect myself.

"Those boys are now locked up inside the house until the government decides on a final verdict after thorough investigation. Until then, they are under our watch. And our only option is to eliminate them before they are let free and destroy Dad's company."

ELIMINATE? Did that include...Adrien?

" If you go, and stay with them. Their anger against you will be limitless because they are programmed that way. And with those brains of yours, you can maybe lead them to..." Darren paused as if he was finding for the right way to say it.

"Lead them to do what?"

"Well, humans can't kill them. But you can lead them to kill each other."

I looked up at him in shock. "Are you asking me to initiate MURDER?"

He shook his head, "Well, no, they are technically characters only. Not humans. So that wouldn't be murder."

"Then what is it?" I asked, clearly astounded by the words my brother was saying. I didn't care if they were just characters. They had feelings. They had a life to live. What else makes a person more human?

He shrugged, "It would be like, you know, deleting a few folders?"

I stand up and scoff, "I don't believe this."

I heard tires on the bricks and looked outside the bedroom window. It was that black Mercedes I had seen earlier. "Who's that?"

Darren jumped at seeing the car and rushed to the front door.

"I didn't know we were expecting someone," I called after him. Darren ignored me and took a look around the house to see if it was neat enough and swung open the front door to reveal two people, a father and a son.

I narrowed my eyes at the sight of them entering the house. Darren closed the front door. I suddenly felt small among the four of us in the house.

Darren never invited people over. And these two were corporate workers, I knew, because I had seen them before.

"Lucas?" I blurted and the boy looked at me and nodded his head, not smiling much. The father was more enthusiastic.

"Ah! So you're Hermann's daughter! Nice, nice. I didn't know before," he slightly tilted his head forward, "My apologies miss."

Darren looked between us three, "Did I miss something?"

I told him about the exhibition in as short words as possible. Like the snob he was, he laughed. I felt so distant from him then. Like he wasn't my brother. Rather, my manager or something. Making me do things just to save himself.

"I guess we can skip the introductions then, shall I bring the box?" he asked Professor Martin. The Professor nodded and took a seat on the sofa. Lucas sat on the opposite end.

"Ashe bring that box we got," Darren softly ordered. Before I could turn around and get it from my room, Lucas looked up. Our eyes met. Chills ran through my skin.

Creep.

I reluctantly kept the unwrapped box on the teapoy and dragged a chair from the dining table area and sat on it, as far away from Lucas as possible.

The professor put his gloves on and took his tools out from another suitcase he had brought with him. As he slowly started to lift the flap of the box, Lucas looked up at me.

"Are you scared, Ashe?"

I gritted my teeth. Hearing his voice made me angry. I don't know why. It just did. I kept silent and stared at the box. My heart beat started to pound in my head too.

Me. Five boys. One house. Darren was going to send me in there as a Trojan Horse. A killer, but not a killer. All to save the company. Dad's company. I blinked.

Adrien. What about him? Where was he?

My eyes left the box for a second and I looked at Darren. He looked up at the same time like some sibling telepathic connection was acting between us.

"Adrien?" I mouthed quietly. Darren smiled and nodded and made a circling motion with his fingers and I got his point, "Later, Ashe."

Fine. Later it is.

The flap lifted open and all of us for a second, expected the house to blow to bits.

But it didn't. All that remained was silence as we all peered into what was inside that box.

Nothing.

Nothing, except a shoe.

Huh? I looked up at Darren and he met my confused gaze, immediately getting that we were in the danger zone. He laughed.

"Oh, it's just a shoe. Well, thanks for coming here anyway, Mr Martin. I appreciate the help," Darren sang. The professor just looked up at him in confusion and got up, removing his gloves and stuffing them back in the suitcase.

"No problem, Darren. Though I would go as far as to wonder who would send a shoe to the house a world reputed company's CEO," he said, not taking his eyes off the shoe. He leaned forward to take it but Darren pushed his hand away and led him to the door, "You'll be late for your meetings, sir."

The professor grimaced, "I don't have any scheduled..."

Darren opened the door and lead Lucas and his father out of the Hermann house and shut the door on their faces. He drew the curtains close and the otherwise sunny house fell into a hush of darkness.

I parted the curtains a bit to see the Mercedes drive away. As it rolled out of the driveway, I caught Lucas turn back from his seat and look at me, like he knew I was there.

Darren picked up the shoe and pointed it at me, "What is this?"

I couldn't move. I had found the shoe yesterday and dropped it somewhere on the way...but I never expected it to come back to me.

Who had sent it?

I rushed forward and grabbed the shoe from him and dug inside and fished out the thing I had missed the first time.

The golden card glinted in my hand. Darren's jaw dropped.

We had thought that only the characters had been brought to real life. But the card in my hand proved otherwise.

"YOU ARE INVITED TO PLAY BREAKFIRE ONLINE"

Our breaths hitched.

Breakfire Online was back.