the damned

CHAPTER ONE

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
-Martin Luther King Jr.
***

My name is Paul. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm a genius. The worst kind, I suppose. The kind who impose their apparent and inherent superiority on everyone else. I have an IQ of 201 and considering I've been the marvel of the psychoanalysis world, and forcibly retired more than a dozen psychologists who were stupid enough to think they could dissect my brain, I think it's safe to say that I'm probably more brilliant than you.

I am supposed to school at Johnson High but I'm way smarter than my teachers but don't let them know that. I think they're scared of me! I really hate school. My God, when people I know better than tell me what to do, it really pisses me off. Like what the hell.

I'm just going to continue. The purpose of this journal is to document everything. From the beginning to Jo... to now.

You see, I have a very special ability. I'm eidetic. This means that I have a perfectly enhanced memory system. I can recall my entire life as if it is a loop of film. And here in my prison-like environment, it's a very useful gift when you want to maintain your sanity. I can play the loop backwards or forwards stopping it on any frame I wish, calling up memories at will.

So, from the beginning; shall we?

It all started in the summer of 2017. I was 16 and a half then. It was an eerily bright Wednesday morning. In fact, I was heading downtown to a special summer school, sitting at the sixth row window seat in the bus and in my hand I had a tablet. State-of the art, top-of-the-line exclusively designed by yours truly, moi. I was in the middle of designing a computer program. DASH. It was going to take all my protection money for me. You know... the money people pay to gangs and hardened criminals to leave them alone or in this case, money paid by hardened criminals and gang leaders to a 16-year old boy to prevent him from imploding their businesses and eventually, killing them as well. I like to think of myself as a modern day Artemis Fowl. Well... Artemis Fowl minus the fairies and whatnot.

Ok... back to the story. When a person paid money (mind you it was protection money) into my account at the bank, DASH would separate the now digitized currency into thousands upon thousands of computer bits. This said bits would then move into different banks, to a numbered account in the Bahamas. From there, DASH would buy real estate and shares through seven different channels; subsidiaries, companies upon companies, enterprises. Sometime after that, DASH would automatically sell the shares and real estate to Guarantee Trust Holdings; a shady company in the Caymans and deposit the money in an account in the US. It would move around some more by wire transfers until it came to rest in seven numbered accounts; three in Geneva; two in the Bahamas and two in Cuba. Suddenly, the dirty money, had become clean. Money laundering at its best. Impossible to trace. It was going to ingenious. Just like me.

So,I was up in my ears in computer codes and when she sat down by me, I forgot all about DASH. She was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater and blue jeans. Black hair falling down to her shoulders. Eyes lowered, reading an Anatomy textbook. Black lashes. An exquisitely turned nose in a fine, sly, fox face, all high cheekbones and swift jaw and a lovely patrician brow. Altogether the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen in my entire messed-up-hair evil genius life. I dared.

'Any good?' I asked.

She turned to look at me. Raised her eyes to me. Eyes as black as chimney soot.