I was in my room as I usually am on weeknights. My piece-of-shit job sucked too much life out of me to leave me with much energy to go out in the evenings, and I'm nowhere near hot enough to waste my time trying to date. So I just sat at my desk trying to figure out some tricky bits of code I'd been trying to get to work. It was the only thing I had to show for my Computer Engineering degree.

"Cutting-edge technology," my dad always said. "Everyone will need to know this in the next five years." And he was right. He always is. I knew many of the egg-heads at CHAANK where he was on the board used this shit for the next generation of military technology. And I love it, more than I'd ever loved anything. I could speak to computers, but computers don't hire people. People do. And I can't speak to people.

There was a knock at my door. It broke me out of the pity-party I was starting to spiral into. I don't even think I answered. My dad just assumed I wasn't in the middle of anything important and let himself right it. Again, he was right.

"Hey kid," he said. Kid. I'm 25. Doesn't matter. I'll always be small next to him. He knows how to talk to people.

"Hey," I didn't take my eyes away from the screen.

"What are you up to," he asked.

"Just writing some code for a friend of mine." It was a lie. I had no friends, but I felt like it sounded less lame than just telling him I was trying to distract myself from the gnawing emptiness I felt inside.

"Nice," he said, almost sounding impressed. "Is it a commission?"

I sighed. Always about the money with him. It didn't matter what I was doing. If I wasn't making money, he'd lecture me about how I'm undervaluing my skill set. "No," I said. "It's just a favor I owe him. He helped me with a project back in college and I always intended to pay him back." I still hadn't turned away from my screen, but I didn't need to to know what face my dad was making. His disappointed look will be burned in the back of my mind for the rest of my life.

"Too bad favors don't pay bills."

That was rich. As if either of us had to worry about bills with the kind of money he made. Anyway, I decided to humor him. "No, they don't, but at least it's something to do," I said. I heard my dad sigh and I turned around. "What?"

"Kevin…Are you…happy like this?"

I laughed a bit. "What's 'like this' supposed to refer to? Living with my parents at 25? My shitty accounting job? The fact that I've never even kissed a girl? Be more specific."

He nodded. "I'll take that as a 'no,'" he said. "But I was specifically referring to your job. You seemed so lively in the computer engineering program. I'm surprised you didn't pursue it."

"Well, you know me," I said, shrugging. "I'm shit at selling myself."

"I know, which is what I wanted to talk to you about." I braced myself for another lecture. "I was wondering…Would you be alright if I sold you instead?" I'm not sure what my face was doing when I heard this, but I'm positive it read as confused. "I mean," he continued, "What if I got you a job at CHAANK? One that was, maybe, a bit better suited to your tallent? Because you do have talent. I've seen it…"

I stopped him before he could go on further. "Wait a second. Are you giving me a pep-talk? Because if that's the case, who are you and what have you done with my real dad?" I was joking, but there was definitely some sting there. My dad wasn't mean by any stretch of the imagination, but he definitely dolled out "constructive criticism" way more liberally than praise or encouragement, so I was more than a little caught off guard by this case of the warm-fuzzies he seemed to have come down with.

He nodded in acknowledgement. "I know. I know. I don't say this sort of thing often enough, but I mean it. I think you'd do well if you could just get your foot in the door. And I was thinking, if I could get you a spot in our research and development department, would you take it?"

"Would I," I asked, more to myself than anyone. I'd never been a big fan of my dad's work as part of the whole Military Industrial Complex thing. But, then again, I was an accountant for a rather unscrupulous lending firm, so my hands weren't exactly clean either. "I don't know," I said, finally. "I thought you already had a solid team in R and D. Wouldn't I just be a third wheel down there?"

My dad scowled. "I don't know if I'd call our team 'solid.' Lopsided is more like it. We have a few, well, one in particular, very… creative mind. But we need more people who have both the technical know-how and a more pragmatic mindset to really round things out. I was hoping I'd be able to get you in because I know how detail oriented you are." He paused, trying to come up with the most diplomatic way to say something obviously unpleasant. "And," he said, finally, "You don't relish the thought of hurting people."

I scoffed. "Don't you think that would be a downside?"

"No," he said, deadly serious. "In fact, it's even more vital for someone in our profession to exercise restraint in the pursuit of more efficient military technology. It's our responsibility."

Responsibility, huh? That's rich. Whatever happened to "Hard tech for a hard world?" My dad had always been a firm believer in the arms race, stating on multiple occasions that if we didn't get our butts in gear to build the biggest, baddest weapons, Russia, China, or North Korea would be only too happy to do the honors for us. Hell, he even thought two A-bombs was a soft consequence for Japan, and that we should have nuked Tokyo as well to make sure they never so much as thought about challenging the good old U.S. of A. again.

"Restraint," I said. "Since when did you become a peace-loving hippie?" My dad laughed, but I could see there was something bothering him. He hadn't suddenly grown a conscience. He knew something, and that something scared him. Whatever it was, I wasn't about to agree to throwing myself into the fray. My dad was a ruthless S.O.B. on the job, and if things were looking bad enough to scare him, I don't know why he thought I'd handle them any better.

"Just think it through," he said, turning to leave the room. "We really need someone like you down there."

"I will," I said, half-heartedly, as the door closed again. I definitely wanted to know why he was asking me, but beyond that, I didn't care too much for the idea of working for Evil Inc. The whole thing just felt off. But that was a mystery for future Kevin to solve. Present Kevin had some code to finish which would probably occupy him for the next few hours at least.