I once had a dream of becoming a scientist.

It was something that interested me growing up, hearing those things about how their research paved the way for the advancement of humanity to get where it is today. I didn't care about advancing humanity or anything like that. I just thought at the time that building your own cool shit that does cool shit is…you know awesome I guess. I mean who wouldn't want to build something out of science fiction that can just break reality in ways you wouldn't imagine.

Growing up though…that dream just became too far out of my reach now. We were already having issues getting to school due to my mama trying to provide for all of my siblings, not to mention that my mama's side of the family is constantly fucking her over in the most dumbest shit I could think of. My mama didn't want me to get involved with the family drama between them though so after I finished High School, I just told her I wouldn't go to college and decided to help her in her online job. So those dreams just became nothing more than dreams to me…

Well, it looks like I got to act on my childhood wish…just not in the way I envisioned it. Certainly didn't expect it to come from a parasite in your head that gives you blueprints for shit that basically breaks physics in exchange for forcing you to use these inventions to hurt people or at least that's what I remembered about what the conflict drive is.

I'm not sure if that is what the conflict drive is. I did my research on the topic with Reddit and other websites and the results there were very mixed. People would argue that the parasite doesn't do much to the brain other than try to use your power in different and unique ways, otherwise they will go berserk like what happened with Canary and Amy.

But more disturbingly, I have also read that the parasite would also…not necessarily make you more prone to fighting others but would reward your brain for fighting others by giving it a boost in power, essentially changing you bit by bit into fighting more and getting into more conflicts.

If only I got the dead shard instead then I wouldn't be as worried…but being mutated into a strange alien with powers that would potentially harm yourself wouldn't be ideal either.

Really wished now that I read Worm properly instead of relying on Wiki and fandom knowledge. Would be useful on how to deal with this shit.

But worrying about myself and what my actions would be in the future isn't my concern right now. What I'm focusing on is finding out my specialization as a Tinker and based on the ideas that I had written down in this notebook (written in Filipino so that no one can translate it right away), I have managed to find out that I specialize…in the manipulation of data.

Yup, I can build things that can control data…which based on the ideas written down in the notebook does sound quite nice and useful.

Want to safeguard your mind from Thinkers? There is a blueprint for a chip that disrupts the flow of data between the brain and the shard, preventing them from reading you whether that it would be your body language or your mind.

Wanna build physical barriers out of thin air? I can build some sort of a projection data bomb that when triggered can transform the written data on said bomb into physical objects based instantly. Like creative mode on Minecraft except not as easy since I need to write the specific data for it to work.

I could even change the data of our DNA for our cells…which can't be built alone as somehow I require the assistance of a bio tinker since they have an instinctive knowledge of the human body for this device which I aptly named CRISPR.

Despite these wonderful ideas and just realizing just how broken my specialization is, I couldn't bring myself to be happy about this because I realized something pretty crucial.

How am I supposed to satisfy my urge to build something here without getting caught by either my family, the Wards, or the villains?

Oh, I have read SI before of people just somehow escaping into the dark and fighting people or building shit and somehow your familiar never figures it out right away except when the plot demands it or something like that but I don't know if I have that luxury of escaping so easily.

For one, my father expects me to take over the family business when I grow up so trying to divide my time between those things would be difficult but maybe manageable, assuming everything goes well and he never suspects anything. But the second issue comes up…

Lisa-! Sorry, Sarah Livesy.

Trying to emulate her brother is what worries me the most. It's already bad enough that I'm trying to fake being him. How much worse is it gonna be since I'm actually a Tinker that needs to build, otherwise, I go crazy. I don't know if trigger events are public knowledge or talked about on PHO but I can't risk letting Sarah know about my Tinker abilities or else she might trigger and…that won't end well for me.

Argh! This is just way too frustrating for me. Too many problems are happening at the same time, I just need to build a brain chip that would allow the connections between my neurons to process data faster and therefore come up with solutions much faster-!

Huh…should have known that my shard would pull out a blueprint that would only help me think faster instead of a solution to this dilemma!

Ahhh! Why did my powers have to be high maintenance!? This is absurd, I can't do anything about the swirling ideas in my head until I can actually figure out a solution on how to satisfy this urge.

For now though…since my Tinker specialization can also do coding since it's still considered "manipulation" of data, I can satisfy the impulse by doing some coding instead on the laptop.

What type of coding would I be doing? Creating a private VPN that would make me untraceable from hackers and even other Thinkers who would use the internet too to try and find any information about me. This is the first step to safeguarding myself after all.

And so with the coding in my mind, I opened the laptop and started to-!

Knock Knock Knock!

My eyes blinked as I was staring at the laptop with a program that is filled to the brim with command prompts that I have no idea what they do or if they make any type of sense at all.

I shook my head out of confusion as I called out to the door. "Yeah what is it?"

"Your lunch is ready sir."

An unfamiliar voice responds from the door as I can hear a tray being placed down, presumably in front of the door, and the footsteps of a person walking away.

I got up from my bed and opened the door to be greeted by lunch, which consists of grilled beef steak with corn on the cob and some string beans on the side. I'm starting to miss eating rice with my meals now, this kinda sucks. I wonder if I can ask Sarah's father to buy me rice to eat…

Who am I kidding? He'll probably say that rice is not meant for rich people or something like that. Or maybe he might be confused about it since typically Americans don't usually eat rice last time I remember…I think?

As I bring the tray of food to my bed and stare at the gibberish programs that make no sense to me, I begin to wonder if this is how Tinkers usually function in daily life. Having blueprints spawn out of nowhere to then find materials that you instinctively know what they can use for to then have your mind just blank out as your body goes on autopilot to just build the thing automatically before getting out of your funk with the newly built Tinkertech in your hands.

It's a weird feeling to have and not something I can get comfortable with as it feels like I have no control over what I can do in that period. Doesn't help that my brain doesn't exactly fill me in on what certain parts of this program prompts are supposed to do in the first place. Maybe it's because it's incomplete or is it because of the lack of knowledge in that certain field that my power would just fill in the blanks instead for me.

I don't know and don't care to find out, all I can think about is whether or not this program will actually protect me or fuck me over.

I have heard in the fandom of Tinkertech backfiring, mostly it comes from a villain called Leet that can build anything but only once, and if he tries to build something similar to the same thing he built previously, it has a high chance of a misfire or failure, making it likely that the tech will blow up in their faces, hence the fear of building his tech and why he is so cautious in buildings things in the first place, making his power hate him and wants to get rid of him to transfer to another host.

So I'm kinda afraid of this program being a virus that will eat my computer alive or fuck the internet in the worst way imaginable.

The only thing I can do now is pray to the eldritch horror who granted me these powers that the program I built will be successful.

Alright then, let's get to work.

By the time I had finished the coding of my VPN, it became dark…well not dark, more like twilight I guess based on how it looks outside.

I checked the time and was surprised that it was already 8 pm or 20:00 here which meant I spent about 10 hours coding the VPN without much rest or stopping. At least that's what I'm aware of anyway.

I look back at the screen but this time all I see is a green button on the screen that says activate internet shield which was kinda funny since VPN could be considered an internet shield I suppose.

Still, I hesitated in clicking that button on my screen, afraid that there will be no turning back if this program does rouge and fucks everything, essentially dooming humanity as a whole but I know there is no other way but forward at this point.

So with a press from my trackpad, the VPN activates and disappears from my laptop, not appearing as an application from my taskbar. I only notice the program running from the tiny part of the notification with a unique icon that I haven't seen before.

Clicking on that icon just brings up the program again, allowing me to turn it off should I wish for it. I simply minimized it instead. I waited with bated breath to see if the program would go rogue or do anything odd.

After a few minutes of letting the program run, I decided to finally test it by changing my virtual location to let's say Germany. I browse the random news article, not caring that I can't read their language and just seeing the program running. And I came across a problem.

Since the VPN program is made here in this laptop, I have essentially turned my laptop into a VPN server, overloading its processor and thus making the laptop overhead and slow down.

I decided to deactivate the program for now and let out a sigh of relief. At the very least, the VPN is working smoothly and no bugs have been seen so far so I called it a success.

Now that I had satisfied the urge to build for now, I decided to go back to my notebook to see what I need to build next.

Now that I have a working VPN, my next step is to build a database that would allow me to store cache data for me to manipulate freely. Then I would need to build a network gateway that would allow me to communicate with the internet to gather said cache data for my database. I can also use the network gateway for myself, allowing me to virtually access the internet freely without many constraints.

After that? I just need to build a network relay chip for both my gateway, any device that I want to give internet to, my database servers to access said cache data, and any future tinker tech that I will build, and voila, free internet for life without needing to connect through another ISP since it's all built into the chips to access the network gateway I had built.

Not to mention that I would also have access to the cache data that will be in the database which would power my future tinker tech since data is fuel for any tinkertech that I will build in the future.

Also, I need another computer to place my VPN since I don't want my laptop to be the one running the program so there's another thing I need to work on.

Gah! Too much shit I need to build and I haven't even fixed the problem of how am I gonna get everything in the first place.

Growl

Well, at least my stomach's crumbling put a stop to their thoughts for now. Food first then brainstorm later.

I got up from my bed and noticed the food tray that I had left from lunchtime. I decided to bring it with me as I exited the room, went downstairs, and was on my way to the dinner table.

There I noticed Sarah's dad on his laptop, as usual, Sarah herself who was staring disinterestedlyontoo the side, and a blonde-haired woman who I should assume is Sarah's and this body's mother I suppose.

Her outfit choice is similar to that of her husband's, that is to say, she doesn't wear expensive clothes here at home either– consisting of a simple red skort dress that you could find anywhere at a cheap clothing store. At the very least, I don't have to worry about wearing designer clothes in front of anybody at least. God knows that I hate dressing up nicely for no reason…

Her blue eyes snapped into attention as she gave me a warm smile that looked odd for some reason I can't put my finger on. "If it isn't my favorite superstar. How are you, sweetie?"

Sweetie? Superstar? Gotta admit, that's my first time being called like that. It sounds kinda cringe to me but if this is what they call their children here…

"I'm good mom, just placing this on the sink and gonna eat dinner," I replied hesitantly, noting my father's Sarah's dad's gaze at me as I placed my dishes down the sink. My urge to clean them right now was strong but I didn't wanna risk arguing with him right now so I just left them alone.

"Oh, you don't need to eat here with us. You can go back and eat in your room if you wish. I'll have the housekeeper bring your food as usual." Sarah's mother's statement took me by surprise. I knew that Reginald was in a bad mental health space but has it gotten so bad that he isolates himself from his own family?

Granted, as far as I know, the only piece of information I have about him is that he got increasingly distant from his family until he just simply does and that Sarah noticed it but never did anything about it. So it made me question if the parents were even remotely aware that their son has not been acting right for the past few years or so.

But it doesn't matter, this works to my advantage since I can maybe get away with some things as long as I obey their whims and whatnot. Just gotta be sure that I'm not too obvious about how different I am.

But I do wanna at least put myself out there with my not-family and not be a total loser hiding in his room to just eat his food. That's kinda pathetic even for me and I'm a freaking shut-in myself!

I smiled at her and waved her off. "No need. I want to eat here with you if you don't mind."

I noticed the surprised expression on Sarah's face but I choose to ignore it for now as I focus on Sarah's mother's face as she tilts her head at me. "Are you sure? You asked us to eat in your room so that you can focus on your studies more. Are you having problems studying?"

I furrowed my eyebrows at her response before replying back. "No mom I'm not. I just…want to get away from my room for a bit and just…eat here?" I wanted to respond with "eat with you" but I don't know if it's too intimate or not.

I am unaware of their relationship with each other and how close they were as a family. All I know is that he is their favorite child but I don't know if that is because he will take over the business and make them more money or is it that he is their firstborn and eldest child.

Man relationships with fictional characters you have little information about fucking suck and I hate it. Even worse if you have to live through it yourself.

Thankfully, my mother Sarah's mother simply nodded. "Alright, then sweetie. Take a seat then. The food should be coming up in a few moments."

With her piece said, I decided to sit beside Sarah as I am most comfortable being beside her since not only she is near my age but also someone I am familiar with, even if it's only a story version of her.

Only a few minutes later, a guy dressed up in what seems like a uniform for house cleaning shows up with a tray of food as he serves it to our table. The food was mashed potatoes with meatloaf and some vegetables on the side.

"Here is your dinner sir and mam." The guy spoke to us but was promptly ignored by my parents as they both proceeded to eat their food while me and Lisa thanked the person for making this meal which made him smile a bit before leaving the dining room.

For the most part, dinner was well, quiet. This was something I was used to though, as back with my family; I usually eat alone or when we eat together, we usually just either focus on our food or our phones on the dinner table so the quietness was something I'm familiar with.

It was when they started talking about business that kinda ruined the mood.

I think it was less about them talking at the table and more of the topic itself as they seemed to be very focused on how to make money or on how to impress some big company that I'm unfamiliar with or how they will train me as the next heir to the food company. I could honestly care less about these things but clearly, I can see that Sarah was bothered by it, judging by her face scrunched up in moments of disgust before returning to a stoic expression.

I don't know if Reggie decided to just eat in his room alone because he was tired of his parents talking about things like this or because he didn't wanna be near people due to his "depression". The only reason why I wanted to eat with Sarah's parents is to try and bond with them together as a family but Reggie did make the right choice in staying the fuck away from his parents.

They probably wouldn't even give a damn about me or Sarah as long as we do what we were told to do.

Even after finishing their meal, they still kept droning on and on about stock markets and food sales. I was getting bored listening to them and the only reason why I'm still here is that I haven't finished eating my dinner yet, despite having already thirds. I guess not having rice does affect how much you eat which doesn't make sense as this isn't my original body but I won't question my stomach.

Sarah already left the table after only 5 minutes of being there as she didn't get much food and just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I kinda wanted her to be here with me to keep me company at least but I still don't know how to…talk to her.

I doubt that I could talk to her like I would talk to my siblings, considering that despite hating each other as all siblings do, we still love and support each other unconditionally.

With me/Reggie and Sarah? Our relationship is basically nonexistent as we drifted apart for quite a while, not to mention that she resents him for not acting like an older brother unconditionally, which is something I can somewhat relate to. It would be nice if I can bond with my siblings more than just simply playing video games or doing chores with each other but I still would rather have that than simply cut them off from my life.

Doesn't help that I still somewhat compare Sarah to the cruel Tattletale that gets a kick out of breaking down a person for her own amusement. An unfair comparison I'm aware of but I just couldn't help it. Not to mention that since she isn't technically my sister…it's difficult for me to not be attracted to her since she is way more beautiful in person than I thought she would be.

So trying to act like a normal brother around her would be very…challenging to say the least. Thank you , me for being an incel you piece of shit.

Man these problems are already too much of a hassle to deal with. It's not even taking into account me being a Tinker who needs to build shit as well.

Man, I don't know which to focus on first, to be honest.

And they are still talking about business shit even now! They haven't even noticed that their children already left the table! I'm just simply surprised that Sarah and Reggie haven't tried drugs at this point, considering their negligent nature but I guess they did something right with their parenting if we made it this far…

Ok enough about this negative BS. I'm done with this.

As soon as I felt full, I grabbed mine and Sarah's dishes and placed them on the sink. Then simply made my way upstairs. I looked at Sarah's door and wondered if I should at least try and talk with her, to see if I can at least get us back to amiable relations…

But I don't think I can do that right now, not with me being this depressed over simply existing at that dinner table.

So with a deep sigh, I entered my room and simply collapsed on the bed, just waiting for the night to be finally over, hoping that with a good night's rest, I would have a solution to solve at least one of my problems.