Mariana Trench

I gazed grimly at the wrought-iron gates of the family estate. Like my heart, they were twisted and spiked. The gates made me feel like a child again; small, insignificant, and trapped, as though the moment I passed beyond them I would be unable to return. I hadn’t been back here in the eight years since the tragic death of one of the estate staff.

The death occurred when I was ten and my brother Adam was twelve. An older maid had just finished cleaning my brother’s room without his express permission. I was in my own room when I heard screaming from across the hall, so I went to see what all the fuss was about. I watched my brother work himself into a frothing rage because one of his favorite games was now missing. Not wanting to further anger the young master, the woman tried to put some distance between them. This was her undoing. With her back turned, Adam pushed her over the foyer banister, breaking her neck upon the marble floor below, killing her instantly. Adam would later tearfully confess to our father that he had witnessed me push her over the edge. He claimed that he was scared that he might even be next. Flabbergasted, I had merely stared blankly while my father yelled and my mother sobbed into her Vicuña wool dress.

Packaged as an opportunity for accelerated education, I was cruelly shipped away to a distant boarding school. It was the best way they knew how to distance themselves from me and my perceived crime. Later, as I was packing, Adam patted my back and told me that he hadn’t blamed me because he hated me, he simply preferred not to face the repercussions of his actions. Though the murder was quickly covered up, it was as though a veil over my eyes had suddenly been lifted and I could finally see who my brother truly was.

Home became the Institut auf dem Rosenberg. Perched atop a hill, the school overlooked the picturesque town of Sankt Gallen, Switzerland. Renowned for its cutting-edge approach to private education, the school boasted a 2:1 staff to student ratio and tailored their teaching approach to every pupil. From rigorous lessons in over fifteen languages to courses like Diplomacy and Leadership, Wealth Creation and Investment, and Applied Robotics, students that could afford to attend for even one year were twenty times as likely to become successful leaders in their respective fields. Rosenberg could provide education to the highest standard because it understood that no child is the same.

The student body wholeheartedly agreed with this concept and arranged its own complex social hierarchy by the so-called three P’s: power, prestige, and potential. I could suggest several more; pretense, posturing, and psychopathy to name a few. Arguably the most important factor in determining social rank, however, was the degree of ruthlessness inherent to every human that was bestowed extravagant wealth. Having come from old money and bearing a handsome face, I was at first ranked relatively highly, only to gain more points when it was discovered that I had an uncanny affinity towards technology and robotics. Regrettably, I lost points because my moods were unpredictable; I oscillated frequently between fury and sullenness stemming from my family’s betrayal.

Four years later, I learned that Adam would also be attending the Institute. Our father had previously preferred to keep him close to home to better teach him the family business that he would eventually inherit. Attending the prestigious school would “round out his resume”. Mother’s words. By that time, my moods had evened out and the machinations of revenge had sunk down into the Mariana trench of my soul. A small flame of hope that my brother had somehow changed, the remnants of a child’s psyche, flickered in the darkness of my dread. I couldn’t help but wonder what else he might be capable of now.

That flame was extinguished no more than two weeks after his admittance to Rosenberg. After forming an alliance with another degenerate, a politician’s son named Max Eriksson, Adam publicly humiliated me during a campus-wide investment seminar, subsequently catapulting himself into the upper echelon of the social hierarchy and relegating me to something akin to a social pariah. The next two years were filled with various lessons in misery.

It was at the very end of my junior year that a bolt from the blue handed me the reigns to my revenge. I was alone, as usual, in a shadowy corner of one of my favorite haunts. The Glacier was an exclusive ice bar, sporting a frosty 0^oC temperature and an entire bar made of a two-ton brick of solid ice. Tourists were commonplace; clientele wore thick winter coats and warm hats. They usually only stayed for one gimmicky drink which was always served with a flourish of rolling dry ice vapor.

It so happened that this was the second day of summer break and most of the students had already left Rosenberg for their respective mansions around the world. Noisy patrons never caught my interest, as their conversations always devolved into uninteresting discussions of sports or the like. Nevertheless, interesting plots and seedy rumors could be overheard if one only knew how to listen. I was nursing my third beer (God bless Swiss drinking laws) and playing with my robotics final when a low chuckle crept into my ears, unbidden. It was the kind of laugh that came attached to a hidden agenda, the sort you heard from wealthy men in board rooms and at business dinners.

A quick glance told me it came from an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair dressed in a high-end suit. He was accompanied by a significantly younger, attractive woman who was clad in a hot pink parka and, absurdly, silk gloves. A father and daughter? I wondered. I only had to wait a short minute before I knew this was not the case. The man pulled his chair closer to the young woman and placed his hand dangerously high on her thigh and whispered something into her ear. The woman turned bright red and he looked pleased with himself. 

Something about the man reminded me of someone, but it took me a while to ascertain who. I’d nearly missed my chance when it came to me suddenly. It was Max’s father, the politician. I quickly retrieved my phone and searched for him online. A prominent public figure, Johan Eriksson was an elected official who had run his campaign on family values and a tough stance on crime. I sifted through several official looking portraits and then came across one of his family. Max was the spitting image of his father. More importantly, the woman in the pink parka was most certainly not his wife. I snapped several surreptitious photos of the pair. My feet were already moving before my brain had fully comprehended what I was doing. I stumbled into the pair on their way out, slipping my robotics final into the hood of the woman’s parka. I quickly pressed my Bluetooth headphones into my ears to listen in on their conversation.

-----

1 Year Later

I listened to the driver say something into a speaker box and then the estate gates yawned open like a mouth ready to swallow me whole. I hit the button to raise the privacy divider and caught the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror in the process. Call it paranoia, but I ventured a guess that he was in my brother’s pocket. It had taken me a long time to learn this one critical lesson: it was better to strike first, fast, and hard than to wait and end up playing defense later. I picked up my phone and made a call. Just when I thought it would go to voicemail, a voice I hadn’t heard in a year answered. I forced myself not to recoil at the rush of bad memories.

“Max, hey buddy, it’s me, Alex Petrov. No, not Adam. Yes, that’s right. You’re not going to want to do that. I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say. Listen, I hear your father’s reelection campaign is going well…”

---

“Mother,” I said, kissing both of her cheeks. She took two steps back, putting more distance between us than was strictly necessary.

 “Darling,” she said, not quite meeting my eyes. “You have a tan.”

 I watched the butler cart my luggage away to a bedroom upstairs. “Well, I should hope so, I just returned from a two-week trip to the Seychelles,” I said, waving a hand. “It’s too bad Adam couldn’t come, I sent him a personal invitation.”

As though his devilish ears had been listening from just around the corner, my older brother appeared, looking expensive. 

“I’m afraid I never received it,” Adam said crisply, pulling out an honest-to-goodness pocket watch. He peered at it in a way I imagined he’d practiced in a mirror. 

“Ah well, I knew I should have sent a follow-up.”

“Apology accepted,” he said, and slapped a hand on my shoulder more forcefully than could be called affectionate. “Well. I’m afraid I can’t stay to chat. Father and I have a business meeting with Cornings to discuss third quarter fiscal results.” His icy blue eyes met mine, boring into me. “You’ll stay out of trouble while I’m gone, won’t you?”

He brushed past me, pecked mother on the cheek, and swept out the door. Silence stretched long like a shadow behind him.

---

Intimately aware of the depths of my brother’s depravity, the first thing I did when I entered my bedroom was wheel my suitcase into the bathroom and close the door. I hoisted it onto the counter and opened it, quickly retrieving one of the tiny metal devices I’d assembled while attending the Institute. I pressed two round buttons on either side of its spherical body and watched as it whirred to life. A thin band of white light encircled its circumference. When the light flashed red, I pocketed it and opened the door to the bedroom, leaving my phone behind.

I walked casually to the door leading to the balcony and stepped out into the fresh air. I breathed in the smell of freshly clipped hedges. The device in my pocket began vibrating. I knew that if I peered into my pocket, the light would have turned green which meant that an electronic device of some kind was now within a three-foot radius. I noticed a security camera posted on the side of the house some distance away. Too far. I leaned down and feigned tying my shoe.

There.

On the underside of the stone railing was a small grey listening device. I felt dark pleasure of vindication ripple through me.

I tsked. “So mistrustful.”

----

I found two more devices in the bedroom and left them where they were. At 8 pm, I received a programmed phone call. I pretended to have a conversation and was careful to pause at all the right moments. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when my brother heard me say, “It’s time to let sleeping dogs lie. I’m just going to keep my head down and stay out of his way. I’ve got enough to deal with.”

-----

My father showed me my new office space the following day. “I hope you can get the technology sector of the company up to speed. Adam offered to do it, but he has far too much on his plate.”

“I’m sure he does,” I muttered.

“Alexander,” he turned to me, a chilly look on his face. “What happened when… What you did when you were a boy… well, I hope that we can put all that behind us now. We have to maintain a united front.”

I wondered when that had become the imperative. I pushed down the urge to sneer and nodded.

My father made to leave. With one hand on the door, he turned and said, “Adam suggested that you aren’t ready for this position. That you’re dangerous. That you’ll do something reckless. Don’t make me regret giving you another chance.” I balled my hands into fists. Not waiting for a response, he let himself out. The sound of the door closing echoed behind him, and it was a long time before I allowed myself to relax.

---

“Hey Space-Man,” Adam said into his cell, getting out of a slick black Porsche. “Long time no talk. You’re coming into town? When? I’ve been meaning to call you, actually. I saw your dad on the news yesterday, seems like he’ll probably win, right? No surprise there. Sure, Saturday it is. I’ll clear my schedule for you.”

---

Heat waves rolled off the pavement outside the car as Max and I sat parked near the entrance of a posh country club. I closed my laptop with a click, then turned the AC vents towards my face, letting the cold air take some of the edge off the moment. It was an hour before Max would meet my brother. I rolled down the passenger window, letting the blistering summer heat roll inside, and then hit the child window locks. The hostile man in my passenger seat seethed. It was petty, I admit, but the fact remained that Maximillian Eriksson had made my life hell for two long years. It wasn’t enough to blackmail him and his father, I must also cause him trivial discomfort.

I watched a bead of sweat drip down his forehead and smiled viciously. “So, now that you’ve seen that I can back up my claim with photo and audio evidence, are you ready to fulfill your part of the bargain?”

“You really are a sick fuck. Let’s just get this over with,” he spit out and threw open the door.

An hour later, I listened to my brother arrive at the table via the wire Max wore. Adam would be exceptionally cautious around me, but I hoped that he would let his guard down around Max.

“What’s up Space-Man, it’s good to see you,” I heard the clap of two hands meeting in a handshake. “How’s university?”

“Good, just chasing tail. Not having nearly as much fun as when you and I were in school together, naturally.”

“Man, those were the days. Do you remember when we set that fire in the custodian’s closet and somehow convinced the dean that it was my brother?”

“Yeah, what an idiot,” Max agreed.

“Alex is a slippery little asshole. Can’t believe he didn’t get expelled…” my brother trailed off, no doubt plotting something.

“First you get him early admittance and then you try to get him kicked out,” Max laughed.

“Ah well, God giveth and God taketh away,” Adam guffawed. “I’m God in this scenario, Max.”

“Ooh, blasphemous!”

“He’s back in town, you know, my brother. Father set him up with an office if you’ll believe it. I told him it was a huge mistake, but he did it anyway.”

“Who knows, maybe he’ll do well,” Max offered reluctantly.

Adam audibly snorted, “Not on my watch. I’m going to get rid of him the first chance I get. If I can’t convince father to do it, then I guess I’ll have to get rid of him too.”

“What do you mean? Do you think you’re ready to take over for your old man?”

“Oh yeah, I’m ready to take things in a new direction. I think once the Board of Directors hears that I’ve gotten some legal restrictions removed that have been barring our ability to, let’s say, do some alternative business, they’ll even get rid of my old man for me,” my brother bragged. There was no video, of course, but I could practically see his eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

“Legal restrictions?”

“How’s your father, by the way?” Adam asked abruptly.

“He’s been well. Busy. The election is in a few months, as you’re aware.”

“How’s his funding?”

Silence.

“It can’t hurt to have a little more funding, right?”

“My, Adam, you aren’t trying to bribe me, are you?”

My brother laughed. “What’s a little quid pro quo between friends? You get me a win, I get you a win. It’s not like its insider trading, right? Incidentally, third quarter results are looking magnificent. Couldn’t hurt to buy up some stock right now, I’m just saying.”

“You are a dirty dog,” Max snickered, but I could tell he was uneasy. My brother was more idiotic than I gave him credit for.

“Hey now, you know what they say. All’s fair in business and politics. Something like that, anyway.”

---

A stab of guilt pierced through me as the recording of my brother finished playing and my parents sat there with their mouths agape. The feeling faded quickly though; it served them right. I was a dangerous cocktail of numb and vindictive, so I listed off the evidence.

“Let’s see, that’s bribery, obviously,” I held up a finger. “Insider trading. Murder, can’t forget that one. Plotting to oust you from your position, we’ll just file that under the general ‘betrayal’ category. Being a crazy piece of sh—”

“Alex, that’s enough,” father said stiffly. “I think you should leave.”

I ignored him and stood up. “Is it though? Is it enough? I’ve told you for years that he was a sociopath, but you never believed me. I spent eight years at a boarding school because you trusted his word over mine. The two of you visited me four times. In eight years. Three of those coincided with Adam’s two-year stint. What kind of parents are you two, really?” My face was hot with anger. I hadn’t planned for the conversation to take this route, but here we were.

“Get out!” my father bellowed. This time, I heeded his words and stormed out of the room.

Revenge was supposed to taste sweet, but all I tasted was ash.