Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 480: Jake.
From a very young age, Finn had been considered a genius. Not the "he understands what he’s being told" or "he learned to talk early" kind of genius, though. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"Fiiinnn! Where are you!"
From a very young age, he became known for two things. The first was disappearing as soon as one takes their eyes off of him. As for the second-
"There you are!"
When you are too absorbed in something, you wouldn’t want to be picked up without a warning. Nevertheless, a three-year-old had in such a manner, especially when a man twenty times his size does the picking.
"Adventure time is over!" Said the man. "It’s nap time now!"
"Grrrr..."
"What are you glaring at me for? You know these are the rules!"
His name was Jake Davis, and this was not his job.
"Hm? Aaaah! You broke another toy!"
Jake was a musclehead—a two-meter-tall white man built like a tank, but other than that, he didn’t have much going on. His hair was very simple, as if he never bothered to style it, and the clothes he wore were always plain. He was far from smart, that’s for sure. Why else would he mistake taking something apart to look at its components for breaking it apart?
"You can’t keep doing this, man!" He said. "Your mama will be maaaaad!"
The mention of that woman was enough to erase the boy’s attitude. These people didn’t seem to understand what he was doing, so of course, they would get mad when they saw him take things apart.
"What are you doo~ing?"
Speaking of the devil.
"A-ah! Ms. Fernández! Finn and I were just-"
The woman’s name was Rosalie Fernandez. She was the boy’s mother and the absolute ruler in this house. She was tall for a woman, had long, brown hair, and dark almond skin.
Her orders were uncontested, and when she gave one, everyone was expected to follow it.
A while back, she had told the boy to stop taking things apart. That was the reason he bothered to hide his work in the closet of this remote room, but in the end, they still managed to find him.
"What did I tell you about breaking things?"
The boy looked but didn’t reply. He might have understood what she said, but speech was something he had yet to figure out. He would do so soon, though, just like he would figure out how to put things together on his own.
The woman didn’t like it when he took things apart, but Jake didn’t seem to mind. The big man didn’t want him to break his toys, though, so he started bringing things for him to fiddle with every now and then.
Eventually, he brought him real tools to make things easier, and he even let him watch other people take things apart and put new things together. Before long, the boy grew to like the giant man, to the point that he started considering him his first friend.
Jake was what they call a bodyguard, which was the reason he was always around. The boy learned that his father was an important person, which is why he had someone looking after him and his mother. Said father never showed up, meaning the boy had no memory of him, and since he had no memory of the man, he couldn’t care less about who he was and what he did.
Besides, if anyone deserved to be his father, that would be Jake.
"Ms. Fernández... I think Finn is a genius..."
As he grew older, Finn learned more about the things he took apart. He wasn’t playing with random pieces anymore—everything had a purpose, and as soon as he learned that purpose, he would know how it could be used. At three, he was taking things apart; at six, he could put them back together. At nine, he could take things apart and use the pieces to create something completely new.
His mother was a little terrified, but Jake was impressed. Jake wasn’t very smart, but he did everything he could to help him learn. He was patient, always cheerful, and he never got angry.
Well, there was this one time he got really angry. In his search for something to take apart, Finn got his hands on something he was warned to never touch. But did he listen? Of course not. He waited until the big man was taking a nap, then slipped it from under his arm.
Finn knew exactly what that thing was. A gun. A weapon. It was his first time holding one, so he was a little surprised by how heavy I was. Its blue coating was to his liking, but he didn’t like the nicks and scratches covering it.
Despite how old it looked, Finn was convinced that it would last much longer than. That’s why he wanted to take it apart—so he could learn the secret to making things that wouldn’t easily break. His young mind didn’t understand what he had done wrong at the time, and because of that, he was terrified when the man he thought was his friend started yelling at him.
Guns weren’t something to play with. That message was hammered in his head that day, and he came to learn that some things were too dangerous for him to mess with. Still, maybe because he felt bad for yelling at him, Jake promised to let him take a look at the Blue Night once he got a little older.
Years passed, and Finn started to sense something was off about the house. He soon figured that his mother and Jake were starting to get a bit too close. When they started disappearing into rooms, locking the door behind them, Finn had an idea of what they were doing.
By that point, the boy was starting to think of Jake as his real father, and from the looks of it, his mother was having the same thought. The three of them had been together for the longest time, so one wouldn’t be wrong to call them a family.
Of course, not everyone was on board with the idea. The boy’s real father decided to get more involved when he heard about his gift. He was a terrifying monster with jaws mad from metal, and just by looking at him, one could tell that he cared for few things, and Finn and his mother weren’t included.
Metal Face said something about making use of Finn’s gift. Jake opposed it, but there wasn’t much he could do. He was soon dismissed, and new guards were stationed in his place. Things were no longer the same. Finn’s mother went into depression, and he no longer had the same drive.
Weeks passed, and Jake finally returned. He wasn’t back to do his job or spend time with them, however. He was there to help them escape. They were going to go somewhere far away, somewhere the monster with the metal face wouldn’t be able to reach. Once they reached that place, they wouldn’t have to worry about anyone finding them. They could finally live together once more, and they could become a real family.
Finn was excited by the new development—he was finally going to get away from that suffocating place. Never did it cross his mind that they might get caught as they escaped, but that was exactly what happened. The man who never showed up, the man who never cared about them, didn’t want to let them go. He talked about owning all of them and how they betrayed him just because they wanted a different life.
The bastard killed Jake without hesitation. He then killed the boy’s mother right in front of him. As smart as he was, Finn failed to understand what had happened, and it took him a long while before he did that.
He was taken away, stuffed in an underground warehouse. Before he could even recover from the shock, his skull was opened, and a computer part was installed in his head. He was then made to Dive into machines and networks, forced to learn skills he never had interest in before, but with death being his only choice, he could only keep going.
Diving proved to be something else he was exceptionally good at. It didn’t take him much to learn the ropes, and before long, he was so good at it that he made others look like talentless hacks. His awareness eventually returned, and with it came anger and hatred.
His mother was killed, and so was his father—his real father. Jake had always been by his side, protecting him, guiding him. He taught him everything there is to know, and he always stood up for him whenever he made a mistake. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮
He was a kind man who only wanted what was best for him, but that monster killed him in cold blood. That monster. The bastard with the metal face. Finn swore that he would kill him. He swore that he would get revenge.
With the fire burning strong within him, the boy bided his time, and eventually, he made his escape. He refused to be a tool for that monster to use, and so he dedicated himself to finding a way. A way to crush that jaw, and to make sure its owner paid.
