The Intel Revival

Chapter Two

0010

When I arrived home from school that day, I found myself consumed by the thought of the special program that had been rumored about throughout the school. Ronnie's conversation with me echoed in my mind, but I tried to push it aside. What really mattered to me at the moment was my little brother.

I was sure that Ianto was going to get put into this program. To me, there was no doubt about it. There wasn't anything intellectual that he wasn't really qualified for. Although he tried to keep his extraordinary knowledge pushed aside, it was always evident that he was just that much more than the rest of us.

Ianto was unbelievably intelligent, that much was for sure. Ever since we were little kids, it was always clear to me to how smart he was. I would be lying completely if I claimed I never got jealous - in fact, I was jealous almost consistently. But I love my brother too much to worry about it on a regular basis, let alone act on it.

Just about everyone - including me, of course - visualized him growing up to be someone very important, being a name like Albert Einstein that would go down in history for being intelligent. He certainly was capable of creating things and it seemed pretty positive that he was going to grow up and end up being the unforgettable Ianto Parr. His names would be in textbooks everywhere.

Of course, that would mean I'd end up being his older sister that no one remembered - but somehow, I felt okay with that. I know my brother well enough to see that he wouldn't use his power against me. He just simply cared about his family too much for all of that. He supported me, and I supported him.

For the most part, he didn't seem to have any flaws when it came to learning and advancing in his studies. He was invincible to the outside eye, passing through each and every one of his classes without a single problem.

But he was still a human being. He still had a major flaw, something that kept him from being perfect as everyone saw him.

The only thing that kept Ianto back was his fear.

He had the worst fear that any data eater could possibly have. I wish I could say that I was exaggerating, but I'm really not. You'd think that it was some sort of a twisted joke that we were using to get Ianto out of school-work or something.

Ianto feared above all, oblivion. Nothingness made him tremble uncontrollably. He couldn't stand anything being completely gone or the thought of it. Of course, this applied to data as well. As the very point of being a data eater was to erase information completely and he feared that.

He could never be the one to actually delete the data when he was in his classes. The first time it had happened, they called me in to the room to talk to him. Although Ianto had already created an entire code for erasing, he refused to delete a thing with it. No matter how hard I tried to convince him, I found that it was impossible to get anything out of him.

I continued to think over his quirk as I sat on my bed, my homework spread out in front of me. I didn't feel like doing any of it - besides, there wasn't really that much that I could do at the moment. Soon I saw that Ianto had come into my room, so I glanced over at him.

Clutched between his fingers was a relatively thick book. I craned my neck around to attempt to identify it and saw that it had something to do with the nervous system. I assumed that it must have something to do with whatever he was doing in his science class. If he ever found a subject that interested him in his schoolwork, he would go even further in depth with it.

"Do you need something?" I asked.

"Oh, did I bother you?" Ianto said, answering my question with another question. "I'm sorry. I'll just go-"