VOCOM

chapter XXI

“I hated Benlark for turning me into what I am from the very beginning. I was looking for a way to take my revenge on him from every point. When I noticed his plans for you, everything became perfect.” She continued. “I decided to see if you were really worth my use when I hid you in that subject group. I watched your training and how you took to it after learning your parents’ deaths. You were devoted, even with being barely inducted into Kortan.” She eyed my left wrist. “I used my focus to keep you safe. Your parents were a different story.

“There’s only one way to take down an arrogant, incorrect, pompous ass: let him play his cards, let things go his way. When his moment is over, sweep him out from underneath his feet. You were the perfect tool for that.”

“You . . .” anger surged through me, clenching at my stomach and tensing my muscles with an unfavorable itch. “You let him kill my parents?! You used me!”

“Yes.” She was unfazed with my directed anger. “What were they going to do? I loved Kortan, the labs, not Benlark. They were doing to destroy my labs and me once it was over with. What were you going to do? You were going to fight. You had it in you from the beginning. You would keep my love of Kortan alive and take down Benlark as revenge for your parents.”

A low growl rumbled in my throat, and I restrained myself from reaching over and hitting the android. She was the true reason my parents died while I lived on, and the anger and hatred I had put aside for her resurfaced, burning with a new flame. She had been using me all along, and I played her little pawn perfectly for her own selfish wants.

I thought we had shared the same goals for the same reason, but now it turned out she was using my vendetta as a reasonable leash to guide me on. It frustrated me that yet again I fell into her traps—her impenetrable, inescapable traps. She was ten times smarter than I was, and I couldn’t find a way to outsmart her, no matter how many ways I tried.

“How did you plan this?”

“I told you; Kortan is based mainly off assumptions. Humans aren’t that hard to predict.”

I scowled, clenching my jaw so hard that my teeth began to ache. And by telling me that right then, I was only falling further into her clutches. I couldn’t deny it or escape it; she had claimed me from the beginning and was going to use me until I fulfilled my purpose. I had further enhanced her plans by bringing her to my home. All along I had thought that I was using her, when I had been in her favor all along.

I would’ve called myself stupid if I hadn’t been so stubborn. And while I wanted to refuse to work with her anymore, the vendetta kept me rooted. She was a spiteful, jealous thing. She was angry because I hadn’t become an AI like she was—like I apparently was supposed to be. That scared me out of my wits, but then I looked at who was human. She was just a computer- she always had been. She had let my parents die so Kortan and she would survive.

“But, well, look what happened . . . .” she gave a dramatic sigh. “You blew it up.” Her voice was flat and directive. “Benlark had tried to stop me; that was when I went haywire. It was the only way to sap all his power without him noticing. And that worked, until you and Quintley interfered. I simply killed the people that were fighting me- those under neuratonic influences. I never really intended to take down my beloved Kortan—never.

“Then I lay in ruins, ruing over what I could’ve done. I was so focused on you, watching you grow up and keeping you out of that old man’s clutches, that I paid no attention to the idiot that got me to where I am now. For years I sat there, unable to do anything while that bastard gloated in less than a mile away from my domain. I should’ve killed him when you two burst into my room—but then you started fiddling with my mainframe.