Location: Family apartment, Rue d'Assas, Paris
Date: October 1989
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte)
The October rain beat violently against the windows of the large apartment in the Rue d'Assas. Inside, the atmosphere, usually so muffled and protective, was charged with a sticky electricity.
The heavy solid oak front door swung open, slamming against the brass stop with a crash that echoed throughout the hallway.
Minh had just returned from his first day of punishment at the Ivry-sur-Seine factory.
The twelve-year-old boy was soaking wet, his black hair stuck to his forehead. But it was not the rain that made him tremble all over his body: it was a pure, incandescent, concentrated rage. For ten hours, the young prodigy who prided himself on mastering RISC architecture had been forced to empty industrial bins filled with cold coffee cups. He had to mop the corridors of the "Bunker", under the indifferent, sometimes vaguely amused gaze of Karim Belkacem's engineers. Worse still, he had seen these same engineers wade through lines of code that he could have optimized himself, without having the right to pronounce a single word or approach a single keyboard.
The humiliation had been total, methodical, absolute. And instead of breaking it to teach him humility, she had only twisted his arrogance into devastating resentment.
Minh threw his soggy backpack against the wall of the vestibule. He ripped off his jacket and swung it on the marble floor, ignoring the coat rack. He walked down the corridor like a wounded animal, looking for an outlet for the volcanic pressure that was crushing his chest.
As he passed in front of the Louis XVI console in the large salon, frustration overflowed. With a violent backlash of his arm, the teenager swept the pile of beautiful art books and the porcelain vase inside. The heavy works crashed into the herringbone floor with a thud, while the vase exploded into dozens of glittering fragments.
"This is shit!" shouted Minh, his voice cracking with fury, kicking angrily into the binding of a book about the Italian Renaissance. "I am not their slave! I am worth a thousand times more than all of them combined! »
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed from the kitchen. Madeleine, the matriarch of the family, appeared in the living room doorway, wiping her hands on a cloth. His face, framed by his elegant graying hair, tensed with concern as he discovered the disaster on the ground and the uncontrollable state of rage of his adopted grandson.
"Minh! My God, darling, what's going on? You're soaked... »
She advanced hurriedly towards him, skirting the fragments of porcelain, her face imbued with that infinite gentleness, that unshakeable patience that made her the emotional pillar of the Bonaparte family. She had welcomed this little Vietnamese refugee three years earlier with unconditional love, healing the invisible wounds of war with the tenderness of a mother.
"Come here, calm down, breathe..." Madeleine murmured, stretching out her arms to take him close. "Lazarus was too you, I'm going to tell him about it..." »
"Don't touch me!"
Minh's scream tore through space. In a gesture of unprecedented violence, the teenager brutally pushed Madeleine's hands away. The old lady, surprised by the force of the movement, staggered slightly backwards, her eyes wide with the shock.
Blinded by his flayed ego, Minh lost all touch with reality. The poison of his own intellectual vanity, the very poison that Lazarus had tried to extract from the Luxembourg Gardens, poured out on the one person who tried to comfort him.
"Leave me alone!" spitted Minh, his face distorted with contempt. "You don't understand anything! You don't understand anything about what's going on! Do you think your small meals and cuddles will solve the problem? I'm a genius, can you hear me? A genius! And he forces me to pick up the garbage cans of guys who are dumber than me! »
Madeleine put a hand on her chest, breathless, less from the insult than from the distress she saw in the boy's eyes. "Minh... You can't talk like that, it's not you... »
"What do you know about who I am?" he yelled, crossing the line of no return, spitting his venom to hurt, so that someone else would suffer with him. "You're nothing! You spend your days reading bourgeois novels and preparing dinner! You don't understand anything about mathematics, you don't understand anything about machines! You're useless! »
The silence that followed this last sentence fell on the large living room with the weight of a leaden anvil. Madeleine remained frozen, her eyes shining with repressed tears, her heart pierced by the crass and brutal ingratitude of adolescence.
But the storm was not over. He had only just begun.
"Minh."
The name was pronounced in a low, almost sluggish voice, devoid of the slightest inflection of anger. Still, he froze the air in the room.
Lazare Bonaparte stood in the shadow of the office's doorway, his arms crossed. He had watched the whole scene in silence. The sixty-year-old engineer, the implacable CEO of Volta, the adoptive father who tried to teach wisdom, had just disappeared.
In his place stood the former killer of the DGSE's Action Service.
Lazare walked into the living room with a slow, feline step, gliding on the floor without making the slightest noise. The aura he exuded was so absolutely cold, so murderous, that Minh felt the sweat freeze on the back of his neck. The teenager's rage evaporated instantly, replaced by primal dread. He took a step back, stumbling against the Louis XVI console.
Lazarus stopped at the level of Madeleine. He gently placed a hand on his mother's shoulder, his dark gaze still locked on the young boy.
"Mamma," whispered Lazarus with infinite sweetness. "Leave us, please. Go to your room. »
"Lazarus... He didn't mean a word of what he said, he's just tired... Madeleine tried to plead, quickly wiping away a tear.
"I know. Please. Let me sort that out. »
Madeleine hesitated, then, realizing that it was better not to interfere, she turned on her heel and left the living room, closing the door gently behind her.
Lazarus and his adopted son found themselves alone among the debris of the vase. The silence was broken only by the pounding of the rain against the windows.
Minh swallowed painfully. The adrenaline of his anger had turned to terror in the face of his father's empty stare.
"I can tolerate your insolence at school," Lazarus began, his voice cutting through the silence like a scalpel. "I can tolerate your spoiled child's whims. I can even tolerate you complaining about your fate after spending your day cleaning a floor. »
Lazarus took a step closer to him.
"But you have just disrespected the woman who offered you a roof over your head, who cooks your meals and who loved you like her own blood when you were just a starving person in an orphanage in Đà Nẵng. You have humiliated it in order to grow up, because you believe yourself superior thanks to mathematical concepts that I taught you. »
"I... Lazarus, I... Minh stammered, looking for an excuse, a way out.
"Shut up."
The order fell with military authority, crushing any attempt at justification. Lazarus looked down at the ground, looking at the scattered books, the damaged binding, the pulverized vase. Then he raised his head. The intellectual indulgence of the father had just died out. It was time to speak the only language that a teenager deafened by his ego could still understand. The physical confrontation.
"You have energy to spare tonight, Minh," Lazare said, his face still impassive, devoid of emotion. "You need to break things to prove that you exist. You need to show that you're strong, that you're superior, that you can crush the people around you. Very well. »
Lazarus uncrossed his arms and let his hands fall down his thighs.
"Go to your room. Put on your tracksuit, your sneakers, and grab your gym bag. We're leaving in five minutes. »
Minh frowned, completely taken aback by this incongruous order. "To go where?"
Lazarus' black eyes narrowed imperceptibly, staring at the boy with the hardness of tempered steel.
"Since you need to destroy so much, Minh, we're going to a ring. You're going to try to break me. And we'll see what your genius is really worth when you have to assume the consequences. »
Location: Boxing Gym "Le Cercle", 13th arrondissement, Paris
Date: October 1989
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte)
The car ride to the 13th arrondissement had been made in a tomb of silence. The rain lashed the windshield of the sedan. In the passenger seat, Minh stared at the road, his arms crossed, his chin tucked in. The adrenaline of the argument kept him in a state of nervous revolt, but deep down, a sticky anxiety began to set in. Lazarus had not uttered a single word.
The car stopped in a dark alley, in front of the blind front of an old private boxing club to which Lazarus had the keys—a remnant of his shadowy networks.
Inside, the air was cold and smelled of dried sweat, resin, and worn leather. Lazarus lit the crackling neon lights on the ceiling, which cast a harsh light on the raised center ring.
"Go up," Lazarus simply ordered, pointing to the ropes.
Minh complied, stepping over the first rope with a stiffness that betrayed his apprehension. The teenager was wearing his grey cotton tracksuit. He watched as Lazarus opened an old metal locker and pulled out a pair of thick, padded training boxing gloves.
Lazarus threw them on the canvas carpet.
"Put them on."
While Minh clumsily put on the gloves, closing the velcros with his teeth, Lazare removed his jacket, then his shirt, which he folded carefully on the edge of the ring. He kept his dress pants and leather shoes. He didn't take any gloves. He simply unrolled a strip of black cotton and methodically wrapped it around his knuckles and wrists, staring blankly, focused on his Builder hands, the same hands that designed the world's most complex processors.
He passed between the ropes and stood in the center of the square of canvas. His naked torso, sculpted by the training of the DGSE, bore the faint white scars of his former life.
"You think you're untouchable because you understand how a memory bus works, Minh," Lazarus said, his voice echoing through the empty gymnasium. "You think you are superior to Madeleine, to your teachers, to my engineers. You think that intelligence gives you the right to destroy. Come and prove it to me. I don't have gloves. Hit me. »
Minh's ego, bruised by his day of degrading toil and by the coldness of his adoptive father, took over. A cry of pure, animalistic rage escaped from the throat of the twelve-year-old boy. He lowered his head and charged, swinging a heavy right hook with all the energy of his teenage despair, hoping to hit the face, hurt, get revenge.
Lazarus did not move until the last tenth of a second. A slight pivot on his supporting leg. Minh's gloved fist split the void.
The boy was thrown off balance by the momentum of his own shot. Before he could catch himself, Lazarus' bandaged fist fell.
He did not hold back.
Lazarus struck Minh's left flank with surgical precision and sharp, hard-hitting violence. The fist sank under the floating ribs, striking the liver.
The sound of the impact slammed like a whiplash.
Air was instantly driven out of the teenager's lungs. Minh hiccuped chokely, his eyes widened in terror and pain, and his legs gave way under him. He collapsed on the rough canvas, curled up in a fetal position, unable to inhale a single molecule of oxygen.
The pain radiated throughout his body, paralyzing him. He thought he was dying of suffocation.
Lazarus remained standing, motionless above him, his eyes cold, waiting for the boy's lungs to deign to work again. This was not a paternal correction; it was annihilation.
After about ten seconds of agony, Minh finally managed to catch a gulp of air in a pitiful rattle. Tears of suffering flooded his face.
"Get up," Lazarus commanded.
"I... I can't... The boy sobbed, holding his ribs.
"Get up!" thundered the former killer, his voice rattling the ropes of the ring. "You want to humiliate people to prove your superiority? Assume it when someone stronger than you applies it to you. Arise! »
Driven by fear, Minh crawled, grabbed onto the ropes, and struggled to pull himself up on his trembling legs. His guard was pitiful, his arms heavy. The rebellion in his eyes had been replaced by a primal panic. He had never experienced this physical violence from Lazarus. The man who was tucking him in the evening had just hit him to hurt him.
"Come," whispered Lazarus.
Minh shook his head, crying bitterly, refusing to move forward. But Lazarus did not intend to stop there. He reduced the distance in the blink of an eye.
Minh tried to raise his arms to protect his face, but Lazarus feinted. His foot hit the teenager's inner thigh violently. A vicious low-kick , calculated to paralyze the muscle without breaking the bone. Minh screamed in pain, his dead leg instantly giving way.
As he fell forward, Lazarus' fist fused.
A direct, dry and brutal jab hit the boy's face. The shock threw Minh's head back. Blood spurted from his nostril, smearing the ring's blue canvas with a few dark drops. Minh collapsed heavily on his back, stunned, his nose on fire, his body broken.
There were no more cries. Only the panting sound of the child's breathing, mixed with the stifled sobs that he no longer even tried to hide. He had the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. He was annihilated, reduced to a pile of trembling flesh, far, far away from algorithms and processor pride. The intellectual ego had just smashed against the brutal reality of the physical world.
Lazarus slowly crouched down beside him. His torso did not even rise; His heart rate had not accelerated. The smell of blood mixed with cold sweat fills the child's nostrils.
Minh instinctively cowered, terrified, believing that Lazarus was going to finish him off.
But Lazarus did not raise his hand. He gently placed his black-bandaged knuckles on the carpet, close to his son's swollen face.
"Look at me."
Minh opened one eye, his vision blurred by tears, his face contorted in pain.
"Do you understand what just happened, Minh?" asked Lazarus in a low voice, devoid of anger, almost infinitely sad. "I am bigger, heavier, more trained, and smarter than you when it comes to destruction. If I wanted to, I could break your neck before you even had time to blink. I could destroy you totally. »
Lazarus moved his face forward, his black eyes anchored in the boy's fractured soul.
"But I don't. Not because I'm weak. I am not destroying you because I have chosen to hold back my strength. Because you are my son, and I love you. »
He pointed to the drops of blood on the canvas.
"You believe that intelligence is an excuse to crush others. You called Madeleine useless because she doesn't understand your lines of code. You humiliated your teacher because his memory architecture was obsolete. You used your gun to hit people who hadn't done anything to you, people who loved you or were trying to teach you something, just because you could. Just to flatter your fucking vanity. »
Lazarus' words penetrated deeper than the blows. Minh closed his eyes, a new wave of tears washing the blood down his cheek.
"Arrogance is not strength, Minh," the Builder whispered with the gravity of a man who knew the weight of his own sins. "This is the weakness of cowards. The real power, the only one that counts in this world, is not to destroy those who are more ignorant or weaker than you because you have the means to do so. True power is to have the absolute weapon in your hands... and to choose to keep it in the scabbard. It is to be able to pulverize a man, and to choose to spare him, or to help him get back up. »
Lazare took a clean handkerchief out of his pants pocket, which had remained on the edge of the ring, and gently applied it to Minh's bloody nose, with a gesture that had become purely paternal again.
"If you don't learn respect for those who don't possess your genius, you'll become a monster. And I won't let a monster grow up under my roof. Understood? »
"Yes... Minh whispered through tears, his voice breaking. "Sorry... Lazarus... sorry... »
It was no longer wounded pride that spoke. The adolescent insolence had been purged by raw violence. The rebellion was dead in that ring. At that moment, Minh understood the terrifying paradox of the man who raised him: Lazare Bonaparte was an absolute predator, a man capable of destroying empires and breaking bones without batting an eyelid, but whose true greatness lay in the love and restraint he imposed on himself to preserve his humanity.
"Get up," Lazarus said softly, straightening up, reaching out to the boy.
Minh grabbed his father's hand. Lazarus pulled him to his feet, holding him firmly by the shoulders as the teenager's leg flexed under the effect of the low-kick.
"We're going home," Lazarus whispered, putting Minh's arm around his neck to help him walk out of the ring. "You're going to take a shower. And you're going to go and apologize to Madeleine. Not because I command you to, but because you have understood why it is necessary. »
"I... Yes," murmured the boy, leaning heavily on the protective power he had thought a moment earlier he could defy.
They left the gym in the half-light, leaving behind a few drops of blood on the canvas. The lesson had been brutal at the limit of what was sustainable, but it was definitive. Minh's intelligence would never again be a blind weapon. Lazarus had just forged his son's character with a bang of an anvil, making sure that when the young prodigy inherited the technology to enslave the world, he would also possess the wisdom not to.