His parents, concerned by his actions, sent him to many substitute parents
[4] in the hope that they might be able to reach him, but nothing came of it.
"Christoph, how much longer do you plan on sitting in that Ferrari? Come out of your room," his mother demanded, as she often did.
"You got something better going on outside?" he shouted back pointedly and glared at her. "Leave me alone already, before I fly the hell out of here."
His mother was devastated by not being able to communicate with him.
"If the kid’s dead set on sitting there, let him," a substitute parent remarked after yet another brutal session with the mother and son. "I see progress, even though he exhibits indifference and boredom during our sessions. I believe it's all an act. He’s curiously testing us, watching for reactions."
"He's not testing anything… he really is bored and indifferent. We're not interesting him."
"I’m sure he'll find something that’ll turn him on, set off a passion in him. Give him time."
In the ample free time he had alone with himself, Christoph created an imaginary world where neopets and people lived on after dying. From time to time, his parents would invite the sons of acquaintances to play with him, but only minutes after being introduced to his scowling face, they would be running, crying, out of his room, usually after one of his inventions had ‘accidentally’ injured them - by his account. When his parents apologized to their guests and glared at him inquisitively, he would shrug innocently. "I don’t know what happened, it was strange," he would claim, a hint of malice tugging at the corner of his mouth.
***
In spite of his parents' concerns, Christoph grew to be a clever and independent young man, brimming with ingenuity and imagination. He spent a great deal of time self-teaching with the Personal Teacher app. It was a holographic teaching program, exceptionally clever and challenging, which tutored kids and helped them acquire skills at their own personal pace by working the imagination and setting stimulating tasks.
The long-bearded 3D agent who went by the name of Ron would hover beside the boy, guide him through all his lessons and, when necessary, lay an insubstantial arm on his shoulder in a show of support, speaking to him in fatherly tones.
Christoph was blessed with a sleek charisma. On the rare occasions when he met with other teens, the boys would listen to him with obvious respect, even though he seldom said anything, and the girls kept stealing glances. But, unlike other privileged kids his age, he did not become a playboy or show any particular interest in girls, for the simple reason that he did not consider them worthy collaborators on his show-of-force antics, which took the fun out of it.
“He admires power,” the digital Ron told his parents in their final evaluation meeting. “He wins every possible verbal confrontation and shows himself to be a great manipulator.”
They looked at each other, concerned.
“We received reports that he's been choosing boys and girls to experiment on with his electro-digital inventions. Some got away from him, and the parents are now getting ready to file a class action suit for mental and physical damages. We're lucky his pranks didn't end in disaster.”
“Oh!” A sob escaped Claudia, and tears welled in her eyes.
Johann tried to calm her down. “We'll talk to them, try to reach some understanding. And we'll speak with Christoph. He should apologize.”
“That might help, but I doubt you could talk them out of the lawsuit,” said Ron.
“Are you trying to educate me?” Christoph shouted. “You? You set loose a seven-foot neo polar bear that almost killed a kid! Hilarious… if anything, I picked it up from you. So stop preaching!”
His parents said nothing. They remembered the bear they had developed in a clear violation of the Bubble Game Service Convention for neopets, which set the strength of digital animals at a level that would never allow them to cause injury, even by accident.
“How dare you?” Johann screamed. “We put hard work into building this company. Have some respect!”
Christoph simply turned his back to them and walked away, pleased. He had said his piece.
***
After that incident, Johann and Claudia understood they had to find a solution to Christoph's misdemeanors, which would soon grow beyond manageable proportions. This realization finally dawned after Christoph laid out a battlefield on the expansive grounds of their estate, and enlisted dozens of kids from around the neighborhood to don soldier uniforms. Toy fighter jets that zoomed overhead almost dropped their bombs on one of the boys, and by some miracle, the incident ended with nothing more than torn skin. It was hard not to be impressed with the young man's flair for military strategy, and his daring and skill in arranging the boys in the field, but his mother realized it was time to re-think his education.
Against his will, Christoph was sent to the prestigious North Paul boarding school, one of the world’s leading educational institutions for life training. It was a secluded school for boys on an artificial island planted in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. North Paul only accepted kids from rich and connected families, who chose it for the high level of education, but more so for the extracurricular activities and skills taught on its grounds.
The extreme cold and discipline created an atmosphere far from what the boys were used to in their pleasant home environments. Arriving at the boarding school, they were stripped of all privileged mannerisms and taught to appreciate any reward that accorded their performance. They were rewarded with benefits only when successfully completing assignments. The bare minimal space, stripped to nothing but essentials, naturally provided them with abundant time for thought - an extremely rare commodity in a world that kept chasing its own tail. They could live and daydream without feeling persecuted. Money bought them the peace of mind to contemplate and create without the distraction of existential concerns.
Outside the school building, in a carefully controlled and designed environment, neopets modeled after white seal pups, penguins and miniature polar bears wandered the grounds. The rooms contained practically nothing apart from walls displaying permanent projections of the curriculum. Three-dimensional study aids occasionally hovered by. Daily rations were dispatched via Pneumatrix
[5] tubes, saving the students unnecessary excursions from their rooms. At scheduled hours, the walls simulated hiking routes, and the boys would each train separately. Their achievements in physical and mental exercise were monitored by cameras and tallied toward a personal score that would periodically be updated throughout their time at the school. And efficiency was the name of the game.
The rage Christoph felt for being put in North Paul was quickly displaced by a feeling of regret that the world outside was not run in the same manner as in North Paul. Around them on the island were miles of piling snow. The boys practiced water skiing in warm water reservoirs, engaged in snow fights, ran long distances and arranged dog sled races pulled by neo-huskies. Christoph liked seeing Bubble Game inventions moving around and being used. They were his family's donation to the school, and he owed them his admittance and warm welcome.
The island was dotted with dozens of igloo-like structures, each dedicated to a unique field of study. The boys learned to shoot, write code, hunt, command their bodies in martial arts, play complicated computer games, war games and survival games, run experiments and carry out research. It was the school's hope that with the tools it imparted – such as quick thinking and primal instinct – it would be known for the finest designers and promoters of new ideas, galactic architects, organic designers, thought hackers, nano-physicians, stream editors, digital detectives and planners of the next generation.
The real attraction, though, was Newland, a small artificial town which bordered the school and was exclusively populated by androids. The streets were true scale models of world destinations. The resident androids of every street spoke the native tongue of the original cities and challenged the students to converse and hon
e their language skills in-situ. On more than one occasion, the boys landed themselves in trouble and suffered penalties for consorting with humanoid harlots from Little Amsterdam. After all, self-control was a major part of the curriculum.
The school was laid out in a bright, white clean style. Robotic custodians shaped like huge, adorable spiders took care of the cleaning, making vigilant rounds through the rooms and halls every hour. ‘Hurricane’ vehicles - passenger rockets which traveled at insane speeds - ran on tracks that connected the igloos and ferried students and faculty around the campus.
The boarding school maintained an iron discipline. It was shut off from the outside world, and the only way out was with a permit and under supervision. Being late was not tolerated; nor were disrespect, raised voices or disappearances. Machine learning algorithms ranked the students, tracking their performance with a fleet of hovercams that followed them at all times, factoring in their accumulated achievements. Those who broke the rules at North Paul were severely punished.
All that aside, the general sentiment in North Paul was that the taming of Christoph Müller, who was an exceptionally bright, but also privileged and headstrong boy, was a task no one would ever dare take on. He excelled in every field, which made his mischief easier to overlook.
The great self-confidence he exuded made the rogue a natural ringleader. More often than not, the other boys would take his lead in everything. But there was one time when he stood alone. It happened when he insisted that a bonsai plant which decorated one of the rooms had the features of a human face.
"How can you not see it?" he asked. "It's like looking at a person. It's just brilliant."
His friends shrugged. "I can't see anything,” said one dismissively. “People in a bonsai tree? You got a sick imagination."
Christoph continued to examine the plant. "I suppose very few are blessed with the vision to see this marvel. Perhaps, some day, one of you will get lucky."
"Perhaps, some day, it will be me smiling at you from the tree… beware!" another boy joked.
"How charming. I promise to smile back from out here," Christoph answered and the boys moved on.
A short while later, when Christoph came home on vacation, he brought a bonsai plant with him as a gift. He proudly set the plant in a place his parents could not ignore. When he left his room several hours later, he couldn't find it. The plant had vanished as if it was never there. Christoph was petrified and heard his heart pounding. The young man was stunned. The thought that his magnificent gift could have been thrown out unceremoniously had him paralyzed. How could they throw it just like that, like it had no value? He returned to his room in silence and never asked about it.
One of the school's main foundations was a strict separation between boys and girls, to keep the boys focused on their work. They were therefore forbidden from coming into contact with the girls of the adjacent North Paul 2. One day Christoph enlisted some friends to hack the local Cloud and make changes to the permission lists which controlled security credentials. They rode like kings on the Hurricane straight into the girls building without being flagged as students.
For Christoph, unlike other boys, breaking into the girls’ compound was nothing more than a test of skill. He wasn't interested in the girls. But he did show a certain interest in one golden haired boy who seemed to be an information network on legs. The boy's name was Fabian Sean Rockefeller, the black sheep offspring of a family of billionaires. The two bonded when Fabian slipped in the snow and nearly fell into a ravine and Christoph leaped to grab him in the nick of time. Fabian knew about every last thing that went on in the campus, and his social skills became one of Christoph's prime assets. Every minor piece of gossip would pass through him in its earliest circulation, and he was aware of every last plot at play. If Christoph could write poetry out of code, Fabian understood what made people act. God, to them both, was a programmer deity, and his ministering angels were hackers sitting on stores of highly classified information.
By and by, the two gathered the finest minds the school had to offer, and they held secret meetings deep inside North Paul's underground caverns. Together, they became a sophisticated teen force of corruption on the local Cloud. At first, they entertained themselves by bumping up grades and evaluations on their personal files. They also smeared hated instructors, fabricated evaluations on enemy students and a video of two teachers having sex, interfered with personal communications, and mostly enjoyed having power. When they got bored of all the coding and hacking, they started inventing evil toys, such as a firework bomb that looked like a snowman but flared up when touched. At least they thought it was funny.
"It's all about the camouflage," Christoph told Fabian. "Most people will believe what they see."
"You feel like God, don't you?" Fabian said when his friend managed to break past the personal firewall of a member of the school board.
"Only his deputy," Christoph smiled as he executed a transfer from the board member's bank account and into the account of a prestigious escort service, emptying half of his savings. "Now let’s wait and see what he does when his wife finds out," he laughed. "Serves him right. This is foreplay. We're only having some fun," Christoph added with a straight face. “People don't understand that they're nothing more than tools to the network. Fools. Being smart is being in control. Always.”
Fabian nodded and they carried on ruining the life of their unwitting plaything.
The boys expanded their enterprise. Their business now included a clandestine network for trading in illicit digital drugs, nutritional nano-booze, and female students who provided virtual sexual services to the boys at the school. By the end of the school year, they had managed to have their enemies expelled for unsatisfactory academic achievements. Christoph's group gradually extended its influence to other schools where they found hackers to recruit. They had every little detail planned to such a degree that their activities could not be traced back to them. To the world, they were a group of neat boys, groomed, polite and educated, and only at night did they let their demons out to play.
“What's going on with you and Christoph?” a fellow student asked Fabian once, when they were petting a neopet white seal pup and talking in the cold open air.
“Nothing, why?” Fabian answered cautiously.
“You're not together? Like a couple?”
“A couple? No!” Fabian laughed, “but I think very highly of him.”
“He doesn't seem to be into anybody,” another boy butted in. “If I were into boys, I’d probably fall for him.”
Despite the lack of interest Christoph showed in Fabian on the outside, their relationship went beyond a normal friendship. The many nights they spent together, being close as a matter of circumstance, separated from the rest of the world – it all added up, and they found comfort and warmth in each other's company.
One evening they had a thrilling conversation about historic confrontations, and Christoph passionately described how the world might have been today had certain powers collapsed and others taken their place. When he spoke, his words were poignant and his eyes shone.
“You see, Fabian,” he said, “anything can be changed.”
“I suppose.”
“Don't suppose. Be sure of it,” Christoph insisted.
He came closer to Fabian. “Sometimes I feel like I was born to transform this world,” he said, and a vein on his forehead bulged out.
“I believe in you,” Fabian said and put his hand on Christoph's shoulder.
Christoph looked out of the window of the igloo. They looked at each other. The two were like soldiers, wearing the authoritative sky blue school uniform, ushanka hats and matching gloves. Fabian burned inside. He stretched out a hand and caressed his friend's back, and quickly withdrew from apprehension, confusion and fear. Christoph seemed uneasy with the gesture and said nothing.
Moments later, Christoph found himself surrendering to his friend’s touch on his nape. He was still holding back, while Fab
ian breathed heavily and seemed ready to explode. Christoph gradually gave in, all the while stubbornly holding back his otherwise raging hormones. Fabian ventured a brisk kiss, and Christoph grabbed him by the jaw. They kissed for a long time, with intense passion, a kiss that ended with Christoph pushing Fabian away, then caught by the arm and pulled close again. They held each other for a long and silent moment.
Their hearts were pounding hard through their long jackets and layers of clothing. Fabian reached from behind and grabbed Christoph's cock. Christoph groaned. They kissed violently, groping and stripping each other naked, each with a hard and erect penis.
Fabian spun his friend around, grabbed his pelvis forcefully and penetrated him quickly while Christoph moaned. The two rocked intensely back and forth. Christoph positioned himself below Fabian and waited for the pleasure, as if signaling Fabian to show him who's boss, far away where no one could see them. He let out an ecstatic cry and froze, still on his knees. Fabian came a few seconds later and the two stayed there, soaking in semen.
Christoph was the first to regain his senses. He hurried to assume a respectable appearance, grabbed his shirt, buttoned his jacket to the last button and addressed his friend in a cool tone, as if nothing had happened. "I have some assignments to take care of," he told the shocked Fabian, who was still fully naked in front of him.
"Yeah… I understand…" Fabian tried to hide his disappointment.
"What happened here, stays here," Christoph stated and faced him with a stone cold expression. "We lost control. It happens."
"We were actually in full control. Look at me." Fabian raised his voice as if demanding reassurance. "Why should I act like nothing happened here?"
"Fabian, I have to finish something. See you tomorrow." Christoph cut him off coldly, leaving his friend silent and crushed, and waiting for him to leave.
Fabian put his clothes on quietly, collected his gloves and hat and left the room, looking back before he stepped out. But Christoph was pretending not to notice until the igloo's magnetic door closed. He then sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the white wall.
Netopia: A Thrilling Dystopian Novel (Science Fiction & Action) Page 5
