The cube was my whole world for three months. I spent every hour refining the mechanism in my head, drawing sketches on napkins, and hiding the prototype under my crib. I didn't care about the $30,000 anymore; I cared about the geometry. The money was just the toll booth to get me to the table with George M. Hamlin.
But the Bronx doesn't let you stay quiet. The streets run on chaos, and chaos always finds you.
It was October, and the fires were getting worse. The air tasted like soot and the bitter end of summer. I was playing near the mouth of the alley with Omar Little. We were both two years old, but Omar was always more focused on watching the shadows than on playing with the actual toys. He was my brother, even though my mind was from the future.
A kid named "Sticks"—a seven-year-old bully from a rival block—walked by. Sticks knew I was Stringer's mascot. He knew Stringer's money was dirty.
"You the mascot?" Sticks sneered, kicking Omar's plastic truck. "You smell like Nicky Barnes' money, little man."
Sticks thought if he pushed me around, he could send a message to Stringer. He grabbed my arm and twisted it, trying to get me to cry. I didn't cry. Crying was a luxury I couldn't afford.
But the anger made me lose control. I saw a quick Divine Revelation—not a famous movie, but a gritty clip of Robert "Bob" Lucci, the DEA agent, pulling a man out of a car in handcuffs. The clip was titled: The Capture of Frank Lucas(1975). The message wasn't about the law; it was about consequences. I saw the violence coming.
"You mess with me, you mess with the money, yo!" I screamed, using a mix of Russian and Spanish I shouldn't have known. I lunged at Sticks.
Sticks shoved me, and I went sprawling onto the asphalt, dropping the cube.
Before I could get back up, Sticks pulled out a broken bottle he'd hidden in his jacket and swung it at my face.
I closed my eyes. I knew the scar was coming. I knew the price.
But the scar didn't hit me.
Omar moved faster than I thought possible. He didn't think; he just acted. He shoved his small body in front of mine. The glass bottle scraped down the left side of his face.
The sound was wet and sickening. Omar didn't cry either. He just stood there, his eyes wide and dark, a clean diagonal line of bright, shocking red running down his cheek.
Sticks, horrified by the sight of blood, dropped the bottle and ran.
I scrambled up, clutching the cube prototype. I was fine. Omar was bleeding.
I looked at the cut, and I felt the betrayal of my own genius. My strategy had failed him. My money had bought him a scar.
We sat there on the curb, the sound of breakbeats muffled by the tenements. Nearby, a little older girl named Vivian Vázquez Irizarry (6) was watching us, her eyes wide with a quiet, terrified understanding of the block. She was witnessing history, too.
I wiped the blood off Omar's face with the sleeve of my jacket. I used my simple voice, the one without the strategy or the sass.
"Omar," I whispered, the words shaking. "You took that for me."
Omar just nodded, leaning his head against mine.
"We family," I said, my voice thick with the guilt of the future I saw. "We family, yo, like graffiti on these walls! We brothers."
Omar blinked, wincing slightly. "Brothers," he agreed.
That scar was the first and only physical price I paid for my Cube Rights Fund. It was a moral anchor I could never remove. The money was dirty, but my loyalty to my brother, Omar, was clean.