Matteo Moriarty || D3 || CBD #3 fin

Matteo liked to live on the curious side of an ethical question. He took after his father, a brilliant professor, and didn’t mind if everyone thought so.

He thrived on the reputation he and Dilly had built in school, excelling side by side and speaking their secret codes. The more people who knew of his exceptionality, the better—one day he hoped to work alongside his father as a leading scientist in the biotechnology field.

Often he would cut open the brains of tiny mice with a scalpel and try to control their movements with special microchips placed into their basal ganglia. There was just no other way of putting it. The idea was small enough to start with, but its applications were myriad. If he could make it work with people, they would be rich one day—well, richer. Untouchable. And the world might be safer, more predictable.

His classmates called him cold, insensitive, and some of that was true. A scarlet flame burned in his chest, urging him to be the first to solve a problem. When he made an incision, he felt nothing—or just a sort of mental clarity. Maybe this was because he had done it so often.

Or maybe because that soft side he inherited from his mother was slowly vanishing, eclipsed by the intoxicating sacrifice of conquering the unknown.