Insider Outsider.
Amelia Zukov used to believe in God.
Well, to be fair, she used to believe in a lot of things that she doesn't anymore, but God's approval rating reached the negatives a while ago. After that stupid meeting, it dive-bombed. If God was ever gonna show his face around this damned place (pun intended), then now would've been it. It didn't have to even be God Himself-- just, y'know, a sign. Maybe a talking sock, or strange, cryptic and life-affirming messages coming from the toaster. Something. Anything!
Nope. Nada. Damnit. She chuckles at that and swivels in her lab chair over to laptop C2. Her hands hover over the keyboard and don't do anything for a moment.
They called her a child prodigy. She skipped two grades and it was only two because they said anything more would stunt her "social development". Uh-huh. Right. She knows she would've made Prom Queen and Valedictorian. She would've graduated, gotten emancipated, gotten the hell away from her parents and probably gone to the same college as Caleb. They'd finish out school for whatever while life happened as it always does, and one day they'd oversee some sort of corporation or something together. Screwing their parents as royally as possible was probably somewhere in that plan. Most of all, though, together they'd establish the stability they never had. The world would be on their terms and no one would be able to kick either of them ever again.
There were apparently different plans in the books, though. Maybe there was a day way back when that Amelia Zukov would've heard the words "celestial prophecy" and been more than happy to step aside to let what must be, be. It could be said that the Amelia of that time vanished completely the day she woke up in Metropolis, starring at her brother and an as-yet-unknown Tara Strong. That wouldn't be true, though. That Amelia vanished when she realized what Caleb had made of his life in her absence.
Amelia sighs. Her hands move swift and determined across the keyboard. She's been making the attempt to be completely distracted by work, for hours. Much like this stupid integration software that keeps erroring on startup, there's a whole lot of failure, and success that's random and brief.
Well, to be fair, she used to believe in a lot of things that she doesn't anymore, but God's approval rating reached the negatives a while ago. After that stupid meeting, it dive-bombed. If God was ever gonna show his face around this damned place (pun intended), then now would've been it. It didn't have to even be God Himself-- just, y'know, a sign. Maybe a talking sock, or strange, cryptic and life-affirming messages coming from the toaster. Something. Anything!
Nope. Nada. Damnit. She chuckles at that and swivels in her lab chair over to laptop C2. Her hands hover over the keyboard and don't do anything for a moment.
They called her a child prodigy. She skipped two grades and it was only two because they said anything more would stunt her "social development". Uh-huh. Right. She knows she would've made Prom Queen and Valedictorian. She would've graduated, gotten emancipated, gotten the hell away from her parents and probably gone to the same college as Caleb. They'd finish out school for whatever while life happened as it always does, and one day they'd oversee some sort of corporation or something together. Screwing their parents as royally as possible was probably somewhere in that plan. Most of all, though, together they'd establish the stability they never had. The world would be on their terms and no one would be able to kick either of them ever again.
There were apparently different plans in the books, though. Maybe there was a day way back when that Amelia Zukov would've heard the words "celestial prophecy" and been more than happy to step aside to let what must be, be. It could be said that the Amelia of that time vanished completely the day she woke up in Metropolis, starring at her brother and an as-yet-unknown Tara Strong. That wouldn't be true, though. That Amelia vanished when she realized what Caleb had made of his life in her absence.
Amelia sighs. Her hands move swift and determined across the keyboard. She's been making the attempt to be completely distracted by work, for hours. Much like this stupid integration software that keeps erroring on startup, there's a whole lot of failure, and success that's random and brief.