***
Papers were scattered sporadically over Sydney’s desk. His hair stuck up wildly from running his hands through it. His body hunched over data that his eyes strained to interpret. The tiny red veins cut across the whites of his eyes like roads on a map, winding and twisting their way through the earth. He picked up the paper and viciously ripped it in half then tossed the small pieces into the air, and they rained down like confetti. He slammed his arms on the desk and buried his face into the small hole they made.
Sniffles echoed from underneath his shaggy mop of hair. He finally picked his head up and wiped the snot and tears from his face. He childishly kicked the ground, frustrated at his own inability to recreate what another scientist had already discovered.
Maybe his father was right. Maybe he was nothing. His accomplishments would remain stuck in the realm of the theoretical. And if that was the case, then what was his purpose? What was his contribution? If he could produce no value, then what value did he possess?
A violent pounding at the door snapped him out of his self-loathing, and the fear of the moment gripped him. The door handle wobbled, and Sydney heard the scrape of a key entering the lock. He quickly snatched up the papers around him that contained his manipulation of the community’s blood tests. He barely had half of them gathered when Gordon burst through the door and grabbed Sydney by the collar, pinning him down against his own desk.
“What did you do, Sydney? Did you do something for your daddy? Is that it? Did he tell you to falsify the data?” Gordon asked, his voice low.
“W-what are you talking about? M-my d-dad didn’t tell me to d-do anything.”
Gordon lifted Sydney’s small frame off the desk and onto the wall by the front door. The contact between Sydney’s skull and the concrete resounded with a loud crack. Sydney’s vision went black. He found himself falling in and out of consciousness.
“What did you do, you little shit?” Gordon asked.
Just before Sydney blacked out, a group of sentries rushed into the lab.
“Mr. Reath, someone’s attacked a farm camp,” the sentry said.
“Camps? How many were hit?”
“So far just one, but we’re trying to contain the situation.”
“Well, stop them!” Gordon bellowed, and Sydney finally passed out.