Dont Be a Hero

Lillian's Story

"My work started to get attention. A lot of attention. The company I worked for was a privately owned research company. I had job offers from government-run facilities, but I turned them down. See... I didn't want my research and hard work to fall into military hands. So I took the job with the private company.

I was happy. Things began to accelerate quickly. My research quickly landed me in the position of Head of Research and Technology Sciences. I was the top scientist in the company. My work centered on robotics and artificial intelligence. It began to rival even the most respected Chinese developers. China and Japan, until then, were in first place in technological advancement with A.I.

In the meantime, our company was going through some changes. There was new management coming in. People were being replaced. It was all political stuff that I paid no attention to. So long as they left me alone, I didn't care. I should have. I wish I would have paid more attention to what was going on. Maybe I would have got out before it all blew up in my face.

Word about my brother's abilities leaked into the ears of people I worked with. I'm still not sure how that happened. I didn't speak to people about him. Ever. Somehow they found out.

Suddenly I was being catered to and cajoled in weird ways, telling me there was something they wanted from me that I wasn't going to want to give them. My research fell under extreme scrutiny. Every little break through I made. Every time I moved forward. They began requesting detailed reports. Of course it was their company. They could ask for whatever they wanted concerning the research I did there.

One day some men came into my lab. My boss brought them in. My bosses had changed 3 or 4 times in the few years I'd been there and this one had only been in the position for about 3 months. 

He came strolling into my lab with 5 men. All of them wore suits and ties and carried brief cases. They weren't American. They spoke with thick accents which I didn't place right away. After speaking to them for a bit, it dawned on me that they were Russian. They were interested in my research and my boss wanted me to impress them. He wanted me to demonstrate and explain some of my work.

I did as I was asked and they left. They came back about a week later and wanted to know more. I saw them frequently after that and then one evening as I was getting ready to call it a night, my boss asked me to come and speak to him in his office. I did.

He sat at his desk across from me and gave me a patronizing look. He was making me nervous. I could tell there was something unpleasant brewing. Finally it came out. He asked me about Jackson. About the rumors he was hearing. I lied. I told him it was nonsense and that to believe such silly things was childish, in my opinion.

Well, it didn't stop there. I started feeling like I was being followed. I tried to shake it off but then I began seeing suspicious men in odd places. They were watching me.

Before long, I was called back in by my boss and he told me that he knew I'd lied to him. Suddenly I was being treated as though I had committed some huge act that was against company policy. Like I'd been caught embezzling or something.

They began breathing down my neck and watching everything I did. I had Russian men standing in my lab all the time, just watching me. I was getting scared. Again my boss called a meeting with me, but this time he had the Russian men in suits with him.

He told me that there was a lot of money to be had and a huge name that I could make for myself. I only needed to cooperate with them. I asked them how I had been uncooperative and he brought up Jackson again. He told me I was sitting on the possible breakthrough of the millennium and that Jackson needed to be brought in to be studied.