"This is what your brother saw," my father said as he showed me the gritty operations of the Cosecha Meadows: the flooding of lungs with poisonous gas, the decomposition of the bodies, the disposal of the dead. "He saw what we did to the weak. He did not see what we did with the fallen."

He opened up a file of candidates with before and after photos. Labeled under the title, "The Once Fallen," it showed an image of the person on the left in the desperate state they were in before the Sower Foundation reached out to help them. Below their names was the title, "Fallen."

On the right, it showed what a year or two of job training, education, rehab, and hard work could result in. Below their names was the title of their new place in life. Police academy, firefighter, marine, teacher, chef, sanitation worker, manager, university student...

"70% of people graduated from the program and rose from pariahs to contributing citizens. They weren't the weak, they were the fallen. They simply needed a hand to lift them up." My father spoke with such calmness for having caught me snooping around his office at night. I half expected him to be furious.

"The other 30%, well they preferred to skip the job training sessions, the rehab appointments, the therapy sessions, the educational classes they indicated interest in. They gladly accepted the food allowances, the free housing, and the safe environment. However, they continued to stay weak. They relapsed into violence, drugs, laziness."

My father showed another file on screen: The Weak. Names and faces of individuals popped up with X's across their faces. "They were given a chance to rise up, but they failed even with a helping hand. They were deemed a hindrance to society. They couldn't contribute, they could only leech like a parasite."

He showed the next images of the trucks dumping bodies into a landfill of ash. "So naturally, we got rid of the parasite feeding on the host."

Images spread across the table, filled with a gas that had a unique chemical composition that would've made mass murderers shed a tear of joy. Little chemical models floated up in the air. My father swiped to the next image that showed a liquid composition with bullet notes fading in like it was being typed on the screen. Enhanced decomposition; erasure of cause of death; renders autopsies nugatory; environmentally friendly; repurposed ash can act as a fertilizer.

I almost vomited on that last point. My mind was all over the place. My father was helping a majority of the poor he took into his program, but at the moral expense of killing those who failed in order to promote a 100% success rate of those released back into society.

"I created the Sower Foundation as a means to tackle the challenge of eliminating poverty once and for all. Once it is eliminated, the hard-working upper classes who have accumulated their own stores of wealth, can be left alone to do as we please with it. We won't have governments clamoring for our cash and redistributing it to the parasites. I will accomplish what the system never could. As an assassin, I will bear the moral ambiguity to save our capitalistic society."

There was a slight pause as we both stared at the hologram. Then I asked. "Where's the contracts?" I clenched my fists. "Where's the contracts put on these dead people? Aren't we assassins? We kill for hire. We don't kill to enact social change."

"Ah, I guess I wasn't clear," my father said, flipping to the back of the virtual file. The page showed the symbol of the Sower Foundation, which was a farmer helping a person water a plant. Beneath this was a list of names, many of whom I recognized as ones who paid for contracts in the past.

"You see Za-Za, many have supported this program financially. You can consider their donations as contacts."

I stuttered reading through the names on the list. "Why do you care so much? You have so much money. Does it matter if you lose a bit?"

He came around the table and placed his hand on my shoulder. "Now you're sounding like a socialist. I don't need a corrupt and inept government stealing my hard-earned money to waste on frivolous programs that only enable and not solve the problem."

My father walked back to his side of the table and placed his hands on it. "Perhaps hanging around the Locusts has gotten to your head."

"It hasn't," I said firmly. "But I saw your security guards kill three workers at the community without hesitation. I saw dead bodies tossed onto beds like they were trash; and I now see a landfill of dead to satisfy your dragon's hoard of wealth. Did all of these people have to die? Momma Emma would never have wanted this."

My father sighed. "Momma Emma was an idealist. You cannot help the weak. I've tried," he said opening his hands to the hologram. "It's not like I didn't. I gave them a chance. I gave them more help than they deserved. I've hired trained psychologists for the mentally unstable, professors and skilled trainers to prepare them for the career of their choice, doctors and specialists to help them overcome their addictions. I've invested a lot into the weak and they threw it all away to live their life of torpidity. They cannot be saved. They must be culled."

"But it's wrong," I raised my voice. "It's not your place to kill those you deem useless."

"I know," he said. He bowed his head as if he was at a funeral. "If there is an afterlife, I will suffer terribly for it. But I'm willing to make that sacrifice to evolve this world, so that one day, you will grow up to have kids that won't have to do what we do."

He marched around the hologram. "I see a time where there will be no more contracts because there won't be weak people for the rich to prey upon, and by contrast, there won't be poor people longing to steal from the rich. Everyone will be accounted for."

"Except for the ones you killed," I said.

"Za-Za, it can't be helped. You'll see someday that what I'm doing is right."

"Right? You raised us as killers to pander to the rich who wish to erase their mistakes with murder. You think there aren't weak people among the wealthy too?"

My father smiled. "I never said that."

He went and pulled out the USB and opened his suit. He reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a tiny chip stitched to the pocket of his clothing. He inserted the chip in an almost microSD slot in the holographic projector. Up popped up a red file with a word written in black: "CLASSIFIED."

My father pressed his thumb across a bio scanner and the word faded and the file opened. Inside it was a list of names followed by dates and summaries of cases below:

Wife caught the client cheating on her with his secretary. Wife wants a divorce. She will make off with half his wealth in the process. Petition to eliminate the wife before the case goes through.

Professor withheld a passing grade from a student. She required the student to sleep with her in order to obtain the desirable mark in order to graduate on-time. Student will file sexual harassment complaint with the university. The university president does not want the bad press. Request from the President to eliminate the target before he files the complaint.

Wealthy executive of an oil company finds his son in a relationship with another man. Such a relationship might tarnish his name on the board. Request to eliminate the son's boyfriend to teach his son a lesson and "scare him straight."

A check mark appeared next to all the cases—all the contracts my family had received over the decades. All of these people's lives were destroyed for the sake of an elite few to keep their status untarnished.

"I know we advertise that we are discreet with the data," my father spoke. "But I backlog every single contract we've received. Horrible as they were, we've completed these contracts over the years, but I've never forgotten who asked for them. Completing these contracts was to lure the cowards from their caves. I've exposed the evil amongst the rich that give us a bad name. And just as I eliminate the weakest amongst the poor, I will cull the cowards amongst the rich."

I was left speechless. My father was declaring a war on both fronts, but he wasn't an idiot. He wasn't going to openly fight two battles simultaneously. He was going to eliminate one force before moving onto the next. He single-handled drew out countless evil men and women with tempting promises to eliminate their sins for them. By doing so, he exposed those who would've remained festering in society.

Yet, this came at the cost of killing innocent people who had been used and abused. For me to sit here and agree that it was fine to kill off the cowards but to oppose the killing of the weak... it spoke to the monster I was.

Not anymore.

"You killed countless innocent people in order to accomplish this," I said. "All to 'expose' the cowards? You're not a hero dad. You're a monster."

My father's smile faded. "Funny, your brother accused me of the same thing. Yet, look where that got him."

I took a step back and almost tripped and fell. My heart was pounding. My head was shaking.

"Now," my father closed the hologram. "The only two nuisances in the way are the Locusts and the Mayor. They fail to see that I'm helping them, not hurting them. They can't see the finish line. They only see the grim now. They kill my workers, murder those I've placed in positions of power, and clash with the police in retribution. I need both of them to fall. But for now, our focus should be on the Locusts."

He knelt down toward my level and gently touched my face to get my attention. "Can I trust you to handle them?"

I said nothing. I released myself from his grip and ran out the room. I ran out the house. I ran out the estate. I saw Ash waiting outside the car. He spotted me running. I ran into his arms and cried.

I was so blinded by my own hope. I hoped I had a father who actually loved us as his own children and only sought for us to be the best, even if that was at killing. But no, he treated us like he did anyone else—we were simply associates to him.

Ash rubbed my back and embraced me. "I'm here Zay."

But Noa wasn't.

And that's because my father labeled him as weak.