"Another day, another reason to question everything I thought I knew." Tobey in his mind
And so, they continued shopping—
As if nothing had changed.
As if the world hadn't just tilted slightly off its axis and kept spinning anyway.
Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, pale and twitchy like they'd seen too much.
The floor reflected their footsteps faintly, each one echoing with the rhythm of secrets.
Tobey trailed a step behind, his small hand resting on the edge of the shopping cart.
The plastic was warm. Familiar.
It shouldn't have been comforting—but it was.
The cart creaked.
The lights flickered once—like heaven blinking.
"If Mom was a test subject… and Dad was the hero…" whispering to himself
(He paused. His grip tightened.)
"…Then what… am I?"
Somewhere overhead, the supermarket speaker hissed and cracked—
Then started playing a nursery jingle.
The tune was warped. Slowed.
Like a music box winding down in an empty room.
Then—
Mother appearing like divine chaos in sneakers
"Hey guys! I'm back! Miss me?"
Father deadpan: "You didn't buy anything."
Mother dramatically rolling her eyes toward Father: "There were too many options. I was like—screw this, screw that, and you know what? Screw shopping. I quit."
She smelled of honey shampoo and retail exhaustion. Her voice had that spark. That signature mischief-angel combo that had the power to either calm storms… or start them.
She caught sight of 777 and smiled—
Not just any smile. The smile of someone who remembers.
"Hey 777… if I'm right, weren't you the one who fell in the river on the way to Sector 'A'?" mock-sweet
He froze.
The man who once allegedly disarmed a war drone with a spoon?
Wrecked.
The fluorescent light above his head seemed to dim.
A hush fell over his very soul.
The divine embarrassment descended like a glowing comet of shame.
777, sighing: "Aw man…"
Mother, grabbing Father's hand with the enthusiasm of a teenage girl dragging her date into a disaster sale
"Anyway—I'm stealing Rick now! He's boring me!"
Winks.
"You take care of Tobey. Byyyyyye!"
And just like that, world-class agent 777 was promoted to an unpaid babysitter.
The highest rank in emotional warfare.
777: "This was supposed to be dinner… not babysitting a five-year-old chaos wizard." muttering
Father halfway dragged into the fashion abyss
"Sorry! Check Tobey's left pants pocket!"
"What?" Tobey confused
777: "Check it."
Tobey reached in—
And pulled out a car key
—and a folded wad of cash.
Tobey blinking like someone finding a cheat code
"…When did he even—?"
777 shaking his head
"No freaking idea. That man is a sarcasm wizard in dad's clothing. Let's check out and wait in the car."
Tobey: "Yes. Let's go. Can you tell me stories about my dad while we wait?"
The automatic doors opened with a soft hiss.
Outside, the sun had begun its slow descent into gold.
The parking lot shimmered faintly, heat rising off the asphalt like lazy ghosts.
A kid screamed in the distance. A shopping cart rolled by with no one pushing it.
But in the middle of it all—
Two figures walked toward a car.
One tall, one small.
One a man of shadows, one a boy full of questions.
The car beeped open.
Tobey, climbing into the backseat, eyes wide, anticipation buzzing in his chest
"Now that we're waiting… can you please begin the story?"
777, stretching a bit, hands folded behind his head as he stared at the car ceiling like it held old ghosts
"Alright, kid. Here goes."
His voice dropped to a quiet, steady rhythm—like a storm long passed, still rumbling beneath the surface.
"Back in 1991, something started to shift. At first, it didn't seem like anything big—just a few missing persons. No ransom notes. No digital trail. They were all connected to scientific fields. High-value brains. Not political targets. Not military. Pure knowledge."
He paused, his eyes narrowing, lost in the memory.
"But then it escalated. Globally. Scientists, doctors, researchers—gone. Across countries. Across languages. No footprints. No bodies.
Just… gone."
The car seemed quieter than before, like the air was holding its breath.
"Most agencies brushed it off. Said it was defections. Fugitives. Cowards running from their governments. But we—our organization—saw a pattern.
The disappearances were surgical. Clinical.
And there was always one thing left behind—intentionally.
A fingerprint. A name. A journal. A fragment of DNA. Like someone wanted us to chase."
Tobey "Bait?" whispering
777 nodding: "Exactly. And we bit."
He glanced out the window. The sunlight outside bounced off the car's side mirror, catching in his eyes like fading sparks.
"At the time, I was a rising agent in the intelligence bureau. Fast. Efficient. Too fast. I was solving cases at speeds that made them question whether I was playing both sides. So… they sent someone in. Undercover.
To monitor me.
To expose me.
That someone was your father."
Tobey, quietly: "So he was spying on you?"
"Yup. But he didn't report me.
He joined me.
And together, we went rogue."
777 paused, tapping his fingers on the dashboard.
"That's when we found out about Project Echelon."
Tobey confuse :"Project… Echelon?"
777 darkly: "The project's real name has been wiped from every database. Echelon was just what we called it—a term we used for a plan to create 'the apex human.'
The perfect being.
Smarter. Stronger. Faster. Resistant to disease. Immune to aging.
Immortal, in some theories.
But not through tech.
Through biology."
Tobey, a chill creeping down his spine
"That's what Mom was part of?"
777: "She was one of the only survivors. The others—died horribly. Failed gene fusions. Nerve collapses. Some just melted. It was grotesque. Evil.
And yet…
It was genius."
The car was dead silent now, save for the distant noise of cart wheels outside and the hum of the supermarket roof fans.
"Your father…
He tore through that place alone. Burned the labs. Destroyed the data servers. Took your mom—who was barely conscious—and vanished.
But not before memorizing parts of the research.
And salvaging what he could.
Not because he agreed with the madman's methods—but because he believed that, used right, it could save humanity."
Tobey stunned: "So what happened next?"
"He contacted me. We faked the destruction of the data. Told the organizations it was all lost.
Then, we formed our own network.
Fifty-six scientists.
Trusted. Independent.
They tried decoding what he brought back.
None could. The language, the diagrams, the chemistry—alien, almost. Way ahead of its time."
He turned to Tobey now, his voice soft but heavy.
"Your father… rewrote every paper from scratch. Started over. Built it again—carefully. Morally. Secretly."
Tobey, quietly: "And now those papers are in a shed behind our house."
777: "Because the world doesn't deserve it. Not yet."
Silence again. But it didn't feel empty—it felt heavy with truth.
777 watching Tobey carefully now
"Your mother isn't just your mom.
She's a miracle.
And your father?
He's not a spy. Not a scientist.
He's something else entirely."
Tobey voice low as he looked at the floor of the car
"If that's true…
Then what does that make me?"
777 smiling faintly
"That, kid…
Is a story still being written."
The wind brushed the car like a whisper from the gods.
And the air felt just a little more alive.
But inside Tobey—
A storm was brewing.
Tobey in his mind
"A story still being written?"
He gripped the seatbelt against his chest, as if it were the only thing anchoring him to reality.
His heart pounded—not in fear, not in thrill—but in a cosmic kind of panic.
A tight knot curled in his gut.
Tobey – thoughts accelerating, breath quickening
"My mom was a science experiment?"
"My dad burned down a secret lab?"
"They faked a global disappearance?"
"They kept it all from me like it was bedtime trivia?"
The inside of his skull felt too small for the thoughts spiraling through it.
"Is that why I'm different?
Why I think too much?
Why my hands won't stay still?
Why books make more sense than people?"
A throb pulsed in his temples.
Tobey mentally unraveling
"Am I a mistake?"
"Or a backup plan?"
"What if I'm the real experiment?"
"WHAT IF THEY'RE WATCHING ME TOO?"
He looked at his own fingers like they belonged to someone else.
Small. But shaking.
And for a flicker of a second—he imagined strings tied to them.
Invisible threads.
Pulling him from above.
From someone.
Or… something.
He clenched his jaw.
Tobey, whispering inside
"…I didn't ask to be part of this."
But fate never asks.
It just writes you in.
He clenched his jaw.
"…I didn't ask to be part of this." whispering inside
But fate never asks.
It just writes you in.
—
And then—
777 breaking the silence like a kid tossing a rock into a pond of seriousness
"Okay, okay. Too much truth for one car ride."
He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head.
777 with a grin: "Did I ever tell you about the time your dad tried to bribe a wild bear with a granola bar?"
Tobey "…What?" blinking
777: "Sector G, middle of winter. We're camped out in the forest on a recon op. No lights. No backup. Your dad? He hears something near the tent. Walks out like it's just another squirrel."
He leans closer to Tobey, whispering dramatically.
"It wasn't a squirrel."
Tobey, wide-eyed despite himself
"…Was it a bear?"
777, proudly
"Not just a bear. The biggest bear I've ever seen. Must've been a bio-enhanced forest anomaly. I'm halfway convinced it was wearing a vest."
Tobey, caught mid-giggle
"No way."
777: "And what does your dad do? Pulls out a crushed granola bar from his coat pocket, walks right up to it, and offers it like it's a business deal.
Swear on my code tag."
Tobey stifled a laugh, snort escaping. The weight in his chest shifted just a little. Not gone—but lighter.
"Bear didn't even flinch. Just took the bar. Stared at him. Then walked away. Like they closed a deal.
I still don't know who won that negotiation." grinning
Tobey wiped his eyes—though he wouldn't admit they'd been a little watery a moment ago.
"…He bribed a bear."
777 solemnly nodding
"He bribed a bear."
And just like that, the chaos of identity, science, and shadows took a backseat—if only for a moment.
Sometimes, all it takes is one dumb, impossible story…
…to remind you who you really are.