The air in the shed hung heavy with the scent of damp concrete and something metallic—perhaps rusted tools, perhaps the cold tang of the fear that had just filled the space. Evening had bled into night, the last slivers of twilight swallowed by the encroaching shadows. This forgotten structure, part of an abandoned facility on the unused land adjacent to the Anderson property, was Jason's secret haunt, a place where he could tinker and observe undisturbed.
Kenji shoved the warped door open, his breath ragged. He'd searched everywhere for Jason, a cold dread tightening in his gut when he found his brother's phone—always an extension of his hand, his constant connection to his nebulous online networks—abandoned on his desk at home. There was only one other place Jason would go, the place he'd gravitated to recently for his solitary "projects."
And there he was.
In the dim, flickering glow of a battery-powered lantern, Kenji saw the trap. Two figures, a boy and a girl, no older than ten, sat huddled together within a crude enclosure Jason had constructed. It wasn't simple bars. Jason had meticulously arranged scavenged scaffolding pipes, plywood panels, and lengths of chain to form a cage. But it was the details inside that chilled Kenji to the bone. Shards of glass, meticulously placed, covered the concrete floor, glinting like scattered teeth. Above them, a large, heavy wooden plank hung by frayed ropes, taut and precarious, balanced on metal supports. Any sudden movement, any desperate lurch, could send it crashing down.
Jason, barely visible in the shadows, stood watching, a small, dark silhouette, his notebook open, a pen poised. He didn't seem to notice Kenji at first, his focus entirely on his subjects.
"Don't you see?" Jason's voice drifted, quiet and analytical. "The glass isn't the trap. The rope isn't the trap. The trap is believing you can do nothing. The trap is waiting."
The girl whimpered, her face streaked with tears and dirt. The boy beside her, equally terrified, trembled.
"Jason!" Kenji's roar cut through the silence.
Jason looked up, his expression unreadable, almost bored. He didn't flinch. "You found me," he stated, as if Kenji's arrival had been a predictable variable in his experiment.
Kenji stormed forward, not caring for the sharp glass shards or the hazardous plank above. He knelt, his knees crunching on broken bits, and yanked at the belts holding the children captive. The knots were intricate, designed to resist. He tore at them with frantic fingers, the sharp edges of the glass on the floor catching his skin. A stinging cut opened on his palm as he finally ripped the last belt. "Run!" he urged, his voice hoarse with fury, pushing the kids clear.
The boy and girl scrambled free, stumbling through the doorway and disappearing into the night, their piercing cries fading into the cacophony of the distant road.
Kenji straightened, wiping a smear of his own blood onto his pant leg, his gaze burning with cold anger as he whirled on Jason. "What the hell is this?! You lured them here! Tied them up! What is wrong with you?!"
Jason calmly closed his notebook, then lifted his head, his dark eyes meeting Kenji's. There was no defiance in his gaze, no fear, only that unnerving, cold clarity.
Kenji turned on Jason. "What the hell are you doing?! Answer me!"
Jason closed his notebook slowly. "Testing."
"Testing what?!"
Jason stood, his small frame shadowed by the flickering light. His voice was calm, deliberate, almost detached.
"Freedom. How people react when it's taken. How they break. Whether they even try to take it back." He gestured at the crude trap. "There are a thousand ways to build constructs that strip someone of their freedom. Some are obvious. Bars, chains, guns. Others…" His eyes gleamed. "…others are invisible. Those are the best. When someone doesn't even realize they're trapped. when you strip their freedoms in stages… and see how much you can get away with. What you can construct and take, hijack; to make it to be above the law. When what's around them is strategically worsened to make it easier to prey and they're too disoriented to notice. When they accept the construct as normal. That's when their freedom becomes mine. Because if they don't fight for it, why should they keep it?"
Kenji's chest tightened. "Jason, that's not freedom. That's cruelty."
Jason tilted his head. "No. Cruelty is pretending people have freedom when their lives are already engineered. Look around, Kenji. They destabilize families, pump drugs into neighborhoods, twist systems to keep people in place. Who's they? You have an idea about who they are. Isn't that just another construct? I'm not doing anything new. I'm just small-scale. Testing. Learning."
"I should be able to test, to build and engineer artificial constructs around people to see if they can figure it out and get their freedom," Jason continued. "The best construct is the construct that people don't even realize they're trapped in. When you make a construct and you take a person's freedom without them even realizing that their freedom is taken. That's the best construct there is because once their freedom becomes forfeit, you can take their freedom and add it to yourself."
Kenji stepped forward, gripping his brother's shoulder hard. "You're not like them. You're not supposed to be like them."
Jason's voice cracked, but not from weakness—rage. "Don't act like you know what I'm supposed to be. You weren't there."
Kenji froze. "Where?"
Jason's hands shook, just slightly, as he spoke. "When they took me and Mom. When they tied us in that basement with others. I watched them laugh as they broke people. And then one of them asked, 'Whose freedom should we take next?'" His throat tightened. "Mom stepped forward. Said, 'Take mine.'"
His voice cracked, tears finally brimming in his eyes, but his gaze remained fixed, unflinching, on Kenji.
He swallowed hard, eyes glassy. "They tortured her. Killed her. Right in front of me."
"And Dad? James? He came too late. He found her. He buried her. Too late to stop anything. He never hunted them down. Not him. Not the FBI. Not the CIA. No one. No one cared. They let it die. They were complicit. It was above them. Weaponized gag orders in a failing civilizational model."
The silence after his words pressed heavy between them.
"A man that owned 35% of Jike was powerless to stop mom from dying!"
Jason's voice lowered again, steady but scarred.
"So I learned something. Freedom isn't given. It's engineered. And if you can't see the construct, if you can't escape it—you don't deserve it. Somebody who has more freedom will take it and use it in the way they perceive, and the level they perceive, they don't perceive humans the way you and I might have, some embodiments are actually nothing more than civilizational viruses who want to take too much and leave nothing for you."
"Somebody who has more freedom, depending their embodiments will determine what they will tangibly do and what they will tangibly ripple out into the world, individually, collectively, and at the civilizational scale, to those around them, locally, across major cities and continentally."
"Freedom, - Somebody that has more freedom than you is who can determine how much freedom you get to have, that's the simplified term, since I'm aware in what phase of your life you're in big brother, you may not have the tangible truths I have absorbed and that will get in the way of your perception and clarity."
Jason's eyes went to the cross around Kenji's neck.
"Let me spell it out for you like this... what if Jesus could determine how much freedom you get to have? What if a crackhead could determine how much freedom you get to have? Completely different embodiments, completely different tangible results, completely different tangible actions they would ripple out, and make completely different tangible results …"
The worst it is-depending on the embodiment, if a crack head had 100 dollars, a million dollars, a billion dollars of extracted currency stolen in shady corrupt inexcusable ways against our American people, against humanity and against the core of the population, the tangible results speak sufficiently for itself. I had to use the Jesus example since that's what you believe in but the tangible truths speak for itself about the failing civilizational model the worst embodiments have weaponized against the core of the people."
Kenji's grip tightened. "What are you talking about? Jason, listen to me. That's not strength. That's despair. Okay? No matter how you try to justify it, freedom isn't about stealing someone else's. It's about lifting people so nobody ever has to make the choice your Mom did. You hear me? Nobody."
He continued, relentless to hit something Kenji cared about. "Basketball. Sports. You call it freedom? No, Kenji. It's a construct. It pacifies the populations. Keeps them docile, entertained. Presently it's worse than a mere bread and circus. They scream for teams while their civilizational model collapses around them. The neglect of the last five decades speaks for itself – spilling over locally, across major cities, continentally. Do you think that's an accident? Or is it the perfect artificially engineered environment for the worst embodiments to prey and use their parasitic networks to prey against especially the intentionally disoriented, destabilized, disconnected. Essentially to make it easier to prey against the core of the people and the particular failing civilizational model."
Kenji felt a cold dread creep up his spine. These weren't the words of a thirteen-year-old. These were the distilled observations of someone who had been listening to circles far beyond his age, far beyond what any child should comprehend.
Jason pressed on, voice gaining a chilling momentum. "Players are made to sign papers so that when they get some broadcasting power, they can't speak. That construct of basketball was made to distract people, disorient them, disconnect them from the failing civilizational model they're trapped in. It has more cons than pros. And if those who claim to see it don't act, they're either answering to handlers, or they're too disoriented themselves to know better. But it's not hard to see. All the documentation coming to light proves it."
Kenji took a step back, the sheer weight of Jason's articulated cynicism hitting him. "No. Basketball is about teamwork, about discipline! It brings people together! It builds integrity!"
Jason's face remained impassive. "That's what they want you to believe. That's the wrap they put on the cage. But it's still a cage, Kenji. And it's not just basketball. Look at Damian Cross recently."
Kenji's eyes widened. Damian Cross. A legend. One of the greatest to ever play the game, known not just for his five championships but for his uncompromising integrity.
"Damian Cross," Jason articulated, his tone almost reverent now, yet still detached. "He was more than a player. He was about to expose a giant pharmaceutical corporation for corrupt practices, for poisoning athletes. He was going to expose Jike, the sports brand that owned half the leagues. He planned to become a franchise owner, elevate athletes, teach metacognition, self-regulation. He was nudging people toward a new civilizational model."
Jason's voice darkened, a raw edge entering it now. "Three days after preparing his lawsuit, three days after planning his move, he dies in a helicopter crash. With his daughter. What types of the worst embodiments do you think would be capable of that? They don't perceive human life the way you do. You really think that was an accident, Kenji? No. They took his freedom. Because he was about to take theirs. The populations knew it. It was a hit. Covered up. Buried."
Kenji felt a cold wave wash over him. This wasn't just theory; this was a pointed, horrifying example.
Jason leaned closer, his voice a razor-sharp whisper. "You think specific corrupt oligarchs, corrupt handlers, the worst embodiments, won't kill you if you threaten their money? Take a crackhead. Give him a million, a billion. If you get in the way of his money, if you get in the way of his freedom, they will misuse everything under their disposal to destroy you. That's been tangibly documented."
"That's a line specifically from your notebook right?"
"How many credible grown adults have documented and reported the worsened negligence of the CIA and FBI too much infighting, just going after the low level people, the populations who are turned destabilized but don't go after the actual destabilizers that have been already too documented artificially perpetuating the failing civilizational model and the hijacked sectors answer to their handlers."
"The compromised CIA and FBI sectors will stop at certain levels because their families are at risk. Even when they wish they could. They don't have the tangible mechanisms at this moment in this particular type of failing civilizational model. They're not equipped to tackle what 5 decades of the population strategically destabilized, disoriented and disconnect-" Jason paused almost throwing up and quickly pressed the back of his hand up against his gritted teeth. "what the five decades of stacked negligence has tangibly caused."
"That's all it comes down to isn't it?"
Kenji's chest ached, a sharp pain mirroring the cut on his hand. He stepped forward, his voice low, steady, but trembling with desperate anguish.
"Jason, you're my little brother. I don't want to see you lost. Not to the streets. Not to these games you're playing with people's lives. Not to the kind of darkness that eats you up and never lets go."
Jason's eyes flickered, the first true sign of vulnerability Kenji had seen since he'd entered the shed. He heard the pain in Kenji's voice, the genuine love.
Kenji gripped his shoulder, holding him firm. "Listen to me. If I can prove it to you—if I can build a civilizational model on and off the court, one where people don't have to lose their freedom, one where they don't have to give it up just to survive—will you cut this out? Will you stop playing with cages?"
Jason blinked. He tilted his head, considering. A deep part of him wanted to scoff, to dismiss it entirely, to continue his detached analysis. But this was Kenji. His older brother, who had arrived, who cared, who hadn't abandoned him.
"You really think you can do that?" Jason's tone was softer now, tinged with disbelief rather than cynicism. "You really think basketball can undo constructs older than Dad, older than both of us? You can't. Nobody can. That's why I build mine. Because somebody has to."
Kenji squeezed his shoulder tighter. "I don't care what anybody else believes. I'm telling you—I can. I will. And I'll prove it to you. You don't have to take people's freedom to feel strong. You don't have to build cages to feel alive. You're still a kid, Jason. You deserve to grow up free. Playing ball. Being around people your age. Not hanging with older crowds online, not sneaking out to talk with men twice your age about constructs and cages. You belong with me. You belong with us."
Jason's eyes wavered. He looked away, chewing at the inside of his cheek. "...If you can prove it," he said slowly, almost a whisper, "maybe. But I don't believe you can. Nobody can."
Kenji let out a shaky breath. He didn't need Jason's belief now—he just needed him close enough to save.
"Then stay with me," Kenji said firmly. "Come to the camp. Train with me. You belong with us, not out here in the streets, not trapped in your own cages. Stay close. That's all I ask."
Jason looked away, then gave a small shrug. "...Fine. I'll come. But only because you asked."
Kenji didn't answer with words. Instead, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his brother. Jason stiffened eyes wide at first, the notebook caught between them, but then he let out a long breath and allowed the hug.
Kenji's voice was quiet, heavy with pain. "You're my little brother. I can't lose you."
Jason didn't reply. His arms didn't fully return the hug, but his silence spoke more than his words. For a moment, the two of them just stood there, in the flickering light of the shed—the older brother desperate to protect, the younger brother trapped between love and darkness.
Finally, Kenji pulled back, giving Jason's shoulder one last squeeze. "Come on. Let's go home."
Jason nodded faintly, notebook still clutched tight.
Together, they stepped out of the shed into the night. The trap lay broken behind them, the shadows swallowing the jagged remnants of Jason's experiment.
Kenji walked with his arm across Jason's shoulders, keeping him close as they made their way down the cracked pavement. The silence between them wasn't empty—it was filled with the weight of promises, fears, and the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, love could be a stronger construct than cages.