Solus was now an orphan, just like that. The officers had gathered in hushed tones outside his bedroom and debated what to do with him. They could have easily just assigned some caretakers to live with him in his old house which would have been the simplest solution.
But they kept saying things like "proper upbringing" and "healthy environment," worrying that leaving him alone in that big empty house would somehow damage his childhood. After hours of back-and-forth arguing, they finally settled on sending him to some fancy private military institution where he could supposedly play with other children and grow up "normally".
So on the very same day his mother's body was taken away, Solus found himself being carried out of his home. The officers didn't even let his feet touch the ground as they bundled him into the waiting car. He didn't look back at the house where he'd lived with his mother, didn't ask any questions. Just stared straight ahead with those blank eyes of his.
An ordinary orphanage would have been fine, more than fine. But Solus wasn't some nobody's kid. His father had been somebody important before he died, and that meant Solus got special treatment whether he wanted it or not. Instead of some crowded, underfunded children's home, they took him to this exclusive private facility that probably cost more per day than most people made in a month. The place had everything–brand new toys, large playrooms that echoed with emptiness, and caretakers who actually smiled instead of just going through the motions. Everything a spoiled little rich kid could possibly want.
When the car finally pulled up, Solus saw the main building looming in the distance. A huge concrete block sitting alone in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by perfectly shaped but almost empty fields. Before the car even came to a full stop, three female caretakers in identical light blue uniforms came rushing out to greet them. They took Solus from the officers with practiced ease and carried him inside, their shoes clicking against the spotless white pathway.
The inside was all soft edges and warm lighting, designed to feel safe and comforting. More caretakers moved about, herding groups of children much older than Solus from one activity to another. The officer in charge pulled the manager aside for a long, serious conversation while constantly glancing over at Solus.
Whatever was said must have been important, because from that moment on, Solus became the center of attention. A caretaker was assigned to him at all times and never left his side, not even for a minute. They worked in shifts and passed him off like some precious package that might break if left unattended.
"This is so annoying," Solus whispered under his breath as he sat trapped in yet another caretaker's lap. She had him pressed firmly against her chest while holding up a tablet playing some mind-numbing children's show. There was no privacy, no chance to sneak in any real studying. Just endless babysitting.
They had given him his own private room that was bigger than most apartments. It was complete with a toy corner that looked like a store display, a small playground set, a bed large enough for five kids, gleaming white tiles that hurt his eyes, and those same warm lights everywhere. It was all so unnecessary, so wasteful.
Right on schedule because everything here ran on strict schedules, two more caretakers entered with his meal. One carried a silver tray loaded with tiny portions of expensive-looking foods arranged just so, while the other followed behind with linen napkins and imported water in a jug. They treated him like some kind of prince, which in their eyes he basically was. Most orphans would kill for this kind of luxury, this kind of attention. But Solus hated every second of it. All he wanted was to be left alone, free to do what he wanted without constant supervision.
Here's your stretched version while keeping all the original wording and style intact, just expanding naturally:
"...I miss my mother. At least she left me alone most of the time. What is all this stupid nonsense now?" Solus thought to himself as yet another caretaker fussed over him.
One of the blue-uniformed women knelt down in front of him, raising a spoonful of mushy, expensive-looking food toward his face. "Come on sweetie, say Ahhh..." she cooed in that high-pitched voice adults use with babies.
Solus gave them all the same blank stare he had been using for days before slowly opening his mouth. He chewed the overly soft food without enthusiasm and they all immediately started making happy faces and clapping like he had done something amazing. They kept misunderstanding his empty expression and thought it was grief over his mother when really he just found all of this utterly ridiculous. Their pitying looks and whispered comments about "poor child" only made it worse.
There was technically an option where he could try watching complex mathematics lessons while pretending to randomly mash the tablet screen. But these weren't some dumb, uneducated babysitters. Each caretaker had years of specialized training and advanced degrees in child development. It would take them less than a second to recognize the real intelligence behind his actions, and that would create way more problems than it solved.
Of course, if they did discover how smart he really was, they would immediately force him into some accelerated learning program. And once he started performing at that level, their expectations would keep growing endlessly. That's just how humans were; demanding others achieve things they couldn't do themselves and constantly raising the bar higher with no regard for what he actually wanted.
The real challenge was figuring out how to study secretly under these conditions. Even if he somehow avoided the ever-present caretakers, the entire facility was monitored with surveillance cameras in every corner. They would catch him the moment he tried anything unusual.
"I'm wasting so much time. But to achieve my goal, I have to endure this."
He played along, day after day, acting like a completely normal child with a grim face. He pushed toy cars around the small playground in his oversized room. He let the caretakers carry him to different activities and watched whatever stupid baby games they showed him.
"They are definitely doing this on purpose. The higher dimensional beings manipulating this story are forcing me into this situation to stop me from reaching my goals."
But he wasn't going to panic and ruin everything by rushing. So what if he lost a few years playing this charade? Time wasn't an issue in the grand scheme. This wasn't some primitive world where humans died after 100 years. With full cybernetic conversion, a person could live for thousands of years. The technology was still new and rare, with only a handful of people having complete synthetic bodies, but it was advancing quickly. And Solus already knew he could build something far superior when the time came.
The days dragged on like endless eternities because every single thing they made him do was unbearably boring to him. Just like that, without him even noticing the time passing, two full years had somehow slipped by, and he finally reached what they considered the proper age where other normal kids would start learning to read their first basic words.
The ever-watchful caretakers carried him, like they always did, to one of the large brightly colored rooms that was specially used for tutoring small children. The walls were covered in different stupidly colorful child-friendly paintings of smiling animals and oversized letters, while toys were carelessly scattered around all over the floor in what was supposed to look like organized chaos. Their obvious goal was to make children learn while playing with others.
The other kids went there regularly in groups, but since Solus had been kept separate this whole time, today marked his very first day being brought to this ridiculous place. Not only that, but they had assigned a dedicated female teacher whose only job was to teach him and watch his every move as if he needed special handling.
She was an elegant, beautiful young lady who looked to be in her late twenties, dressed in a formal black and white gown that seemed too fancy for just teaching children. While the other ordinary kids were taught in small groups with just a single caretaker supervising each, Solus had this entire teacher devoted just to him, plus a few extra caretakers who sat around watching him.
It made him absolutely furious inside because he had thought this might finally be his chance to secretly study something real when their attention was divided, but everything had turned out to be completely different and worse than he imagined, with even more eyes on him than before.
"I am completely sure all of this is just another manipulation," he thought coldly as he stared blankly at the stupid alphabet cards she was showing him. "But do you pathetic fools really think something like this will actually stop me? It is only a matter of time before I force my way through every obstacle to reach my success."