Soldier In Me

Three: Turn The Page

I had looked into it, not a lot of people in Hadley's profession were like her. Most were stiff and there for just the paycheck (since it was a very well paying job). I wasn't as disabled as a lot of others, so that might have helped her treatment of me. But I like to think it was because she was just a good person.
Hadley was one of those people that you felt like you've known for years when its only been a few days. I'd been with her, or she'd been with me, for about a month or so.
My eyes dragged to the basement door. I clenched the key inside my pocket. My heart was a bouncy ball across my ribs every time I thought about going down there.
I didn't want to think that my parents were bad people. When I was first told about them I imagined them as kind-hearted beings with only the best of interests for people in mind. The kind of people who donated a large chunk of their savings to charity, or something like that.
Now that the electricity was back the servers would be active and I'd be able to access all they had down there.
I briefly considered keeping it locked and losing the key. But the truth was more important than my feelings.

My head was wrought with conflictions as the day went on.
As the sun went down the house started to fill with the smell of dinner. Hadley had been concocting a dinner of lasagna, of which I'd never had before, and the salad. Ugh. But I'd give it the benefit of the doubt, cause it all smelled really good.
And it was good, even the salad, because it had been decked in a homemade dressing Hadley had made.
After dinner, I helped Hadley get the dishes done and she once more insisted I go to one of the bedrooms.
"It's not good for you to sleep on the couch every night."
"Where I sleep is none of your business."
"Yeah, it is actually."
"Jeez, you act like a strict babysitter."
"I basically am."
A sudden question came to my mind and I couldn't help but ask it. I turned to face her with a serious almost worried expression. Her mess around attitude dropped almost immediately.
"Why did you come here?" I said in the kindest way I could.
She weaved her brows. "Because it's my job."
I pursued my lips. "Why here, specifically."
"Because I was offered to be your caregiver and I accepted.."
"You must be far away from your family."
"I don't have one."
As I questioned her, Hadley's answers were immediate and sure.
"Why'd you chose this profession?"
"Because I wanted to help people."
"Could you leave if you wanted to?"
"If I wanted I could always transfer you to another caregiver."
"Why do you treat me like I'm your friend?"
"Because I know you don't what to be treated like your a hopeless case because you're not." That was her final answer. "Now let's go upstairs you are not sleeping on the couch again."
I looked at her eyes. They were unyielding. The shine in her eyes had a hint of lie, like she was keeping something back, something she wouldn't tell me.
I obliged this time. I clenched the railing with one hand and Hadley held the other. I decided to go to my parents' room, the other had a small bed.
When I got inside I put all the framed photos face down except for one. It was of someone I didn't know, a friend of my parents or something. I tucked the photo of John in the frame.
Hadley asked me who he was. I could have called him a friend or a coworker. But none of those words really felt like enough. So I just said, "His name is John."
She bit her lip, then said goodbye. The door closed with a click.
I turned off the lights to create the illusion that I was going to bed, but I remained awake, clenching the metal key in my pocket. I sat there and stared at the horizon out my window.
I remembered when I had first gotten into the army, I must have been under ten years old. There was a war going on, it was closer to home than ever. The opposing side had more power and more soldiers than us. So my country had to take desperate measures. Little kids had been drafted, it went so little as seven-year-old army men. Our training had been quick but extensive, we barely got any sleep.
All the children were placed on the front line and that's how we won the war. They wouldn't shoot at children, but we shot at them.
After the war ended every child was given a choice, to go back home or stay and fight. I had been so hungry for justice. The fight for justice gave me reason, purpose. I chose to stay, to fight for my country.
It ended me here. And I wasn't sure whether to hate that or not.
After I was sure Hadley was asleep I tip-toed downstairs. I hugged the walls, those parts of the floor being less creaky. I unlocked the basement door. The light from inside took a moment to adjust to.
The servers were illuminated by blue, the place was awake. I walked up to the touch screen, I'd seen these types before, ones that cover the wall entirely. They were in the meeting room at my base.
I dragged two fingers down the screen and it lit up. Reports and scans came up one by one, filling up the screen. I expanded a report dated a month after my parents' death.
The report was part of a long chain moving five years, under the title "The Trena Plague."
Trena was a country connected to ours. They had a lot of resources and were our ally, but the report described my parents being told to create a disease that can kill only Trena people.
The first reports talked about trying to find a similarity between all the Trena, later talking about the design of the disease. They'd almost completed it, but the report that had popped up was followed by nothing.
I pulled up a search bar, dragging it to the middle of the screen. A keyboard appeared beside it.
I'd always been best at typing with my dominant hand, but the screen didn't register a metal hand. I used my right hand, being careful to avoid mistakes. I typed 'The Trena Plague.'
The search bar came up with one result, I tapped it. It was by a news station 'The Galif Satellite' I remembered that. It was our country's news station, sponsored and headed by the government.
The article's headline ran:

TOP GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS DENOUNCE THE TRENA PLAGUE RUMOR

It basically talked about how absurd the rumor is, how it was a big hoax probably spread by a terrorist with a few fewer brain cells than the average one. But after seeing all my parents' reports I wasn't so sure it was. But why would they wanna do this?