As I mentioned before, birthdays weren't exactly a thing for me. At the time, I barely knew what a birthday was. Of course, I knew that the age of a person was important for tracking milestones, but celebrating a birthday and giving and receiving gifts wasn't exactly a part of my curriculum. I wasn't sure people still tracked their age much after leaving Earth. And even if I did celebrate my birthdays, I wasn't sure when I was born in the first place, and I'm pretty sure even Kane didn't know.
Nevertheless, one day, instead of breakfast, the only thing I found next to the food slot was a two-hundred-millimeter shard of plasteel-edged carbon fiber perfectly molded to fit my hand. It was a perfect replication of the combat knife I preferred in VR training. I didn't believe it at first, assuming it might be some AR trick or something, but when I realized it was real, I couldn't help but feel like I had been given a gift.
It was only when I realized that I was no longer being given food that it felt less like a gift, and more like a test. Not long after I had been given the knife, I noticed that I no longer had access to Pixa, or the rest of my BSI.
The prospect of dying of starvation or dehydration crossed my mind very quickly. I couldn't even be sure whether the air was still recycling, and if it wasn't, I may have only had another day or so of breathable air. But I also couldn't be certain that I wasn't still being watched.
All of this consideration was done as I did some close combat drills with my new knife. I made sure not to let on that I was worried, or had even noticed that I was given no food. I continued with my normal routine until nightfall and began my next night cycle.
I feigned sleep for about an hour before slowly and carefully slipping my way out of my sheets and under my bed, doing my best to not make any noticeable movements. I had wondered for years whether the vent could be my way out, but had nothing I could use to remove the screws. Now I did.
By that time, I had pretty much grown to full size, but I remember thinking that if I had grown any more, I would not have made it out. Even now, after everything that's happened, I still have dreams of getting stuck and dying in that vent. The moment I was able to kick off the cover on the other end and into the hallway outside my room, I had never felt so free.
From that point, I had only two choices; right, or left. It's another thing that I dwell on frequently. If I had chosen the path down the right, I would have moved toward the exit, and things may have been very different, but I decided to go left instead. I had no idea what it would mean.
I'm not sure how long I walked the halls of that facility. It felt like hours, but I doubt that it was really that big in hindsight. It was just the first time that I was able to freely move around in a space that was larger than my room. Eventually I came upon a control room of sorts.
The overhead lights were off, as they were in the rest of the facility, but the glow of the displays covering the far wall flooded the room and the hallway outside its entrance. Each of the displays contained a different view of my room. After spending most of my life in that room, I was well aware of the cameras in each corner, but several of displays contained views I was completely unaware of, including a clear view of the vent that I had escaped through.
A chill ran down my spine as I thought about just how closely I was being watched, and the chill intensified when I noticed the watcher himself sitting in a chair in the center of the room, cloaked in shadow save for his glowing eyes. I tightened my stance and the man stood up from his seat.
The overhead lights faded-in and I had my first direct look at Kane that hadn't been broken by glass or digitization since he had taken me. He seemed so much bigger back then, but he was still a couple heads taller than me.
I was conflicted. I knew what he had done was a terrible thing to do to another person, but I was also aware that there were many people out there that had it worse than I did. He had never touched me, or abused me. Well, except for the whole BSI operation, but there are much worse things that he could have done. In a way, if Pixa was my mother, then Kane was the closest thing I had to a father. I still wanted to kill him.
"It is time," Kane said. Behind him, the displays changed to multiple live views of the both of us facing one another. "You have a choice before you, though I believe you have already made your decision. All that is needed now is to commit."
Hearing his voice, it seemed to me that he was also conflicted. It was confirmed when I lunged at him knife first. He caught my hand but hesitated to strike back. I took the opportunity to grip his wrist and dip to slide through his legs, flipping him forward and onto his back. It may have been his age, but the man didn't seem to resist, even when I moved on top of him and pinned his arms to the ground with my knees.
The look in Kane's eyes as he gazed at me from the floor said more than he could have said with words, especially since I didn't give him the opportunity to speak. I raised the knife high above me and forced it down with all of my might, sinking every millimeter of the blade into his chest.
The visage of agony on his face was without regret. He seemed almost proud, but also releived that his life was coming to an abrupt end.
