Born Into A Family of One

Thomas Abcot was born in a utopian Society, secluded from all other civilization. Tom knew his parents a bit differently than most; he knew his mother as Madam, and his father as Sir. Since the very beginning, however, Thomas suspected his father to be hiding something else- the man shared absolutely no qualities with Tom whatsoever, and Sir was awfully awkward around the family, especially Madam. Thomas kept all his suspicions to himself, however, and played the role of their perfect son. He was a respectful and quiet child. He never broke the rules or stepped out of line. Other mothers envied well-behaved Tom- they called him sweet, adorable, and most importantly, perfect, which he was always proud of. After all, that’s what he aspired to be- the most perfect person he could be.

Not being a very popular child in school, Tom only had two friends; one was a doll with tangled red hair, which was given to him by Madam, and the other was his best friend Hannah. He always spent his free time with the two. They would tell stories of their days, and stories of The Entity, the almighty god Thomas’s Society believed in. He only ever shared secrets with his small misfit group of friends. This disappointed Madam, who only wished to be closer to her son.

As Thomas grew older, he began to become more secretive, only ever sharing his ideas and thoughts with Hannah and his doll. These thoughts included his plans for the future, his sneaking suspicions of Sir, and his genuine love and concern for Hannah, the most perfect being on Earth. In an attempt to bring Thomas closer to her, Madam finally revealed to her son that Sir was only a replacement for Thomas’s dad, who left, and was ultimately exiled from, the Society while she was pregnant. This new information, however, just made Tom distance himself further from his mother, much to her dismay. If his own mother was keeping his secrets away from him, she couldn’t be trusted! Sir was moved out of the house soon after, as Thomas began to show severe detachment and distaste for Sir. Slowly, Tom felt less and less at home with his mother, and began to think of himself as a stranger among his own family. His perfect world no longer included them.

Imperfection Looks Like A Newborn Baby

As he reached his early teenage years, Thomas was finally called by the leader of the Society, The Head, to wed Hannah and have a baby in the name of the Entity. This was a normal procedure in the Society, but Thomas wasn’t expecting his partner to be Hannah. Not one to question the wishes of the Society’s leader, and much less the Entity, Thomas accepted the situation, even if it made both Thomas and Hannah, deep down, extremely uncomfortable. Despite their silent qualms, they were married, and within the same year, Hannah was pregnant with Tom’s child.

Putting aside his own discomfort and troubles to reassure himself that this was all how it was supposed to be, in his perfect world, Thomas visited Hannah regularly as he was instructed. Hannah and Thomas’s friendship quickly became awkward and forced. Although Thomas still cared for Hannah, his trust in her started to dwindle. It pushed Thomas to start keeping his thoughts, fears, and hopes between him and his doll, his only tool to speak to the Entity through. No amount of urging from Madam could convince Tom to open up about his problems, and soon Tom had shut her out as a mother figure completely.

Nine months crawled by, and Hannah had her baby. Although the day should have been joyous for Thomas, he was horrified to learn that Hannah was pronounced dead, having died during childbirth. This wasn’t right, Thomas thought. Why would a perfect person like Hannah be allowed to die? There had to be a rational explanation! Thomas quickly figured that the Entity let Hannah die in order to let a new, perfect baby into the world. This had to be why! He’d accept nothing less! Despite his rationalization being a sloppy way of coping with the loss of his best friend, Thomas became excited to meet his new son, Hannah’s predecessor. As Tom held his baby for the first time, all seemed perfect… until he noticed something very very wrong.

There was a large dark birthmark across the baby’s nose. Something so hideous could not be perfect! So… So why did Hannah die? His reasoning for Hannah’s death slowly crumbled, along with the rest of his hope for this situation to work. Thomas felt nothing but resentment for the baby, and for every reason it existed. Loud, consistent thoughts screamed at Thomas to do something about this horrible imperfection. They were terrifying thoughts, so Thomas tried his best to push them away and keep living his fragmented life.

A couple months passed, but the thoughts were persistent. They were louder and darker than they had ever been. Soon, Thomas had snapped. Something had to be done about this plaguing imperfection. He took the baby to a pond just outside of his Society, and drowned his son, throwing the swaddled body into the water. But, Thomas felt nothing. He was so empty inside- he thought this would solve everything. After all, it was what was being screamed at him in his own head for months on end. He began to cry- why would the Entity destroy his once perfect life with all this imperfection? Why would he take away the only perfect person in his life, Hannah? What was happening to his world?

Suddenly, Thomas was struck with a revelation. A vision! What he saw was gone within seconds, but Tom knew whose voice he had been hearing this whole time. It was the Entity! It told him that Thomas had to experience imperfection through his own son in order to understand it. Thomas didn’t feel anything because he wasn’t done saving the world from the imperfection on Earth, and if he continued to ‘cleanse the world’, he would please the Entity and enter a world of perfection. This revelation led to the transformation of Thomas’s old belief in the Entity, to a new, warped perception of the Entity, his ‘God’, that he created himself. Now filled with a purpose, Thomas had a renewed view on life. He went home and destroyed his old doll, getting rid of the last person with Tom’s secrets. Thomas’s own life began, and began to plan his future by himself, a future filled with salvation and perfection.

Whatever, Dad!

Thomas’s future was jolted to a halt. When Tom was around 16, Madam coaxed Thomas to unknowingly follow her in a plan to escape the Society she believed was so poisonous. Madam, Thomas, and Madam’s lover were, as a result, exiled from the Society. Madam and her lover celebrated, but Thomas was infuriated. How dare this woman tear him away from a Society that produced perfection! Swimming in unfamiliar waters, the outside world, Thomas ran from the only familiar person in his life. The teenager, who was frantic for somewhere to stay, realized there was only one person who would consider taking him in. So Mr. Abcot, or Sir as he was once known, was surprised to see the son he thought he would never see again standing on his porch.

Elliot Abcot took Tom in and gave him a room, and introduced the teenager to his wife, Melissa. It was slow, but tension crept over the household. Thomas gradually became repulsed by Elliot’s evident disappointment and fear towards him, and by Melissa’s manipulation and unwanted advances, all made in an attempt to urge Thomas to leave. It was only a couple of months until Thomas ran again, but not before stealing a bundle of clothes, food, and money from his father. With nowhere to run to, Thomas was forced to live on the streets, and it was the first time Thomas was truly alone. Praying every night and day for things to get better, Thomas told himself he had failed the Entity, and his confidence and hope plummeted.

Thomas needed food, he needed shelter, and he needed money. He knocked on every door he crossed, until he eventually stumbled upon a daycare, run by an elderly couple, that took pity on the homeless boy. After a few months of doing work to earn his keep, the owners took advantage of his experience with children and allowed him to work part time looking after toddlers for pay. Although it was mainly a job of necessity, and there was no real interest in it, Thomas gained perspective. Children liked him, and they always listened to the stories he told, especially about the Entity. Kids were so pure, their minds moldable and easy to influence; Thomas realized these were the perfect kids to grow into perfect adults! He got to work- he told the kids stories, taught them right from wrong, and essentially started planting views in their minds. However, parents began to complain, and Thomas was quickly fired from his only job after a year. But not to worry- he figured he already had what he needed to get started on his life mission for the Entity.

It's Alive! Unfortunately

Thomas had always been good with words, and persuading others. He easily talked his way into being accepted by groups of adults, who were not only amazed at how intelligent Tom came off as, but who also bought into Thomas’s teachings. As he grew into a young adult, he made plans with these older adults to start an organization- Thomas named it Future Perfection, which reflected his goal. Thomas’s new followers were eager to give him all of their money, so that he may be able to get a better place for his organization, and everyone who followed him. With his words, good looks, and charisma, Tom slowly roped in more people who believed in what he preached, and those people gave up their lives to follow him. Tom gained respect and much more money that he used to buy land and build buildings, picking one to live in and start his organization. The people in his organization had to reflect the perfect life Thomas pictured! They all wear black suits and red ties, even Thomas himself! Tom also adopted the title ‘The Head’. It served to hide his identity even further; Thomas would never use his real name in public, not even with his own group.

As his group grew, so did Thomas’s paranoia of being torn away from his carefully crafted utopia. It became clear that having computers and other electronics hold all of the data and files for Future Perfection was unreasonable. What if there were spies in his devil machine?? So he hired a group of robotic scientists, paired with the intelligent members of his group, to help him build the perfect being; a being that would not only hold all of that important information, but would become as an example of ultimate perfection for new members of his group. It took time, effort, and money, but soon the team created a robot being known as THARES (The Head's Almighty Rejuvenated Example of Salvation). This robot had to be able to connect with humans, Thomas reasoned. Imagine a perfect robotic being, existing with a human brain! He hired a duo by the names of Tyler and Olivia to help him transplant a brain into the robot. They succeeded, and soon THARES had a human brain and nervous system to function with, able to hold all the important information of Future Perfection, and then some. It was all going according to plan…

Or, so Tom thought. The robot never matured past an elementary school level of thought, and soon Tom had a robotic child on his hands. Infuriated, Tom took his frustrations out on the robot, eventually reducing it to a metal frame. Slapping the name Creation Gone Wrong (CGW) on it, Thomas soon used CGW for nothing more than a sentient storage unit. The robot eventually adopted its own name, Ares, and spent its days in the basement. That was alright though, because Thomas had been thinking foolishly. The only shining example of perfection is HIMSELF- and there was honestly nothing better in his eyes.

Two, Fifty-Three, and Twenty-Four

With the rate at which Thomas gained money and followers, he was able to quickly get his hands on more land, buildings, and several buses for easy travel. But it just was not enough! Tom couldn’t help but think back to the daycare he used to work at, where the kids listened to him and innocently did as they were told. He wanted to once again work with kids, and to be able to create a new generation of perfect people for the Entity. He started small; he would pose as a religious camp educator and have parents sign their kids up for his camp, and then disappear with the kids without warning. It was a slow process, and for impatient Thomas, it just wasn’t efficient. He started to use raids to kidnap children, and his army of loyal suited followers ensured he had no trouble getting away with it.

One of these many raids ended a little differently. The group picked up a young adult by the name of Lorelei. She had decided to come willingly, and admitted to Tom that she wanted a world like the one he painted. Of course, he accepted her, but he thought nothing of her unusual loyalty. Things changed when he called upon her to assist him with a project- the homemade bomb the two had been working on detonated, taking out a wing of Thomas’s building, and assumably killing Lorelei. No one could survive that! Or, so he thought. When Tom went to check out the damage, Lorelei was practically unscathed. This was impossible! Her survival, combined with the new mark on her neck, had godly intervention written all over it. She instantly became Tom’s Number Two, for anyone whose death was stopped personally by the Entity was an important person to have included in his perfect world. Tom took a personal liking to Lorelei; he paid for her education, and Lorelei became a licensed therapist, her most important client becoming Tom. Thomas made sure she knew her duty: to have his perfect children some day in the future, which Lorelei gratefully accepted as her fate. Future Perfection continued to grow in size and threat.

The countless raids blended together in Thomas’s mind, but two in particular became memorable. Two back to back raids picked up two children, a girl and a boy. Thomas never bothered with their names, nor spent much time with them; he simply gave them their numbers, 53 and 24 respectively, and forgot about them shortly after. It wasn’t until a few years later when 53 and 24 started gaining attention. They were out of line, speaking out, and seemingly not taking the teachings to heart. A line was drawn after being attacked by 24, but the adults protested, explaining that 24 was physically strong to be used as a Laborer, and 53 was a Continuer, someone who was to give birth to more children. For those reasons, Tom was swayed into keeping them around a little longer.

A big mistake, Tom realized later. He came upon the body of one of his trusted adults in an unused room of his building. Thomas was never a foolish person- he knew who was behind this, and he eventually confronted 53 and 24 where they secretly met. 24 tried to run, but began to suffer from an asthma attack. A child in his perfect world with asthma couldn’t be! So Thomas let the boy gasp his final breath, and punished 53 for her disobedience. The brainstorming for several different punishments began, but it never got very far. With Thomas so preoccupied with 53, Future Perfection’s location was given away, and the organization was raided by the police. Thomas escaped with a majority of his followers, but a good handful of adults and children, including 53, were taken by the police. Forced to move to another hidden location of his, Thomas dubbed the police raids as “The Raid of 53 and 24”, in haunting memory of the two followers that never followed. He vowed he’d find and either save 53, or end her once and for all.

This Would Look Great In My Robot Collection!

After all the years, with his friendship with Tyler still strong, Thomas caught wind of the fact that the man Ares’s brain came from- Everett Irving- was now a learning cyborg living with Thomas’s father, Elliot. The idea of a robot to practically spoon feed perfection to was too good to pass up! In the twilight of one fateful night, Thomas stole Haust, the cyborg’s identity at the time, and had Tyler’s team wipe Haust’s memory. The cyborg was given the name TAILPIPE (The Treacherous Adaptable Intelligent Learning Program Intended for Potential Eradication) and he was stored away as a weapon and obedient servant. TAILPIPE essentially took over Ares’s original role as an artificial example of perfection.

Thomas lives in his hidden building with Lorelei, Ares, TAILPIPE, and the rest of his group, working to make the world a perfect place to live in. He is known notoriously among authorities and the public, and is actively being sought.