The Interview

My first look at Bradley Levin was as I entered the hotel lobby. He was a tall guy. Average.  But there was something about him. A greyness hung over him.  We had agreed to meet here and the Simchester, a large modern hotel in the centre of town.  He was standing by the mantle when I walked in, but he turned as I approached him.

Was this the cleverest sim alive?

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“Hi, Mr Levin”

“Most sims just call me Brad.”

“I'm Angel Rockfort, we spoke on the phone.”

He motions to the chair opposite. I sit. I feel awkward. I don't know why. I lay my folder on the table between us, my bag at my feet,

“Where do you want to start?”

“Wherever you want.” 

I lift my pen. I want to document this. It is an interview afterall but somehow I feel rude in preparing to write his thoughts.

“My name's Bradley Levin. I was on the top of Sim City's “Most Likely To Achieve” List. I was tipped to be the first sim in space. A media company wants to make a film of my story. I'm not telling you this to show off. It's nothing I'm proud of. It's just an eternal link to my past. Just a stark reminder. I'm the Wonder Child.” he sighs.

“I know the basics behind the project.”

“Probably not the truth. It was a good idea. Trouble was, it led to bad ones.”

“I don't understand.”

I stammered, feeling more stupid than I really should have. He didn't seem to mind the question, almost glad to be able to tell someone the truth.

“I am sure you, like everyone else, followed with great interest the lead up to the Wonder Child event? The money that must have been put into the advertising alone would have been immense. And I am sure you grasped the basic premise; whoever can raise their child the best, whoever can give them the best start in life would be given enough money to set the child up for life. A wonderful idea. In theory."

"But I thought that the show got cancelled, too much public concern."

He looked at me with that blank emotionless expression. He nodded slightly.

“It was.  But that didn't stop the experiment.”

“What experiment?”

I thought of the photos that had been sent to me.  Could what I have been seeing in those shots really have been what I thought I was seeing?

“Me”

I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. I couldn't think what to ask, the truth was astounding, if this was the truth.

I rummage in my folder and produce a photo. I hand it to him. He looks at it. I expected him to react, somehow. He doesn't. Just stares. Then hands it back.

“...Who are they?”

“My so called parents. I only knew them as Mr and Mrs Cranston. I was told to call them my parents. And do as I am told. We all had that instilled in us at the orphanage, behave or they'll send you back.”

I suddenly saw a whole other side to this character. A scared little child, desperate to please his new parents or else they would discard him, back to the orphanage. He must have thought this was his one chance to get away. I handed him another photo.

“That's the place. I was taken there straight from the orphanage. My new home.” 

He looked at it.  Again there was no emotion.  Only recognition.

"The room at the top, at the front..."

He pointed to the dormer window.

"That was mine.  Spent a lot of hours there."

I had some information that I wanted to share with him.  I actually knew more about this whole sordid affair than he realised.  I was intending to go public with my information regardless of whether he had agreed to talk with me or not.  I hadn't liked the idea of doing so, felt like I was sharing his unfortunate upbringing with the world, behind his back.  So, I had been glad that he had agreed this meeting but now I had the problem of raising the issue.  How much did he himself know?

"Is there is something you want to ask me?"


"Yes.  But I am not sure how to phrase it."

"I'd just say it.  Believe me, anything you can say now cannot make what I've been through any worse."

I reached into my bag and pulled out a manilla envelope.  I opened it and handed a selection of photographs to him.

"I recieved these in the mail.  They are what prompted me to begin my research into the whole Wonder Child Experiment."

He hadn't looked at me while I spoke, he was focussing on the photographs.  Pulling each one out and looking at it in turn.

"Did you know?  That you were being filmed the whole time?"

He carried on looking through the images.

"No.  But it comes as no surprise."

I left him shuffling them back and forth, appearing to order and reorder them in his hands.

"Is there anything you can tell me about them?  Can you explain more about what happened to you in that house?"

He paused.

"This one.."

 "And this..."

"..I remember doing these things.  She was always so encouraging.  At least that is how I thought about it.  By the time I turned to a teen I realised how oppressive she was being.  But at the time she just seemed to want me to do well, and seemed to be glad to give up her time to help me."

"The second one.  That room.  That was one of the weird things.  That room was locked.  Always locked from the moment I moved in.  I was told never to go in.  I often thought I heard noises in there at night and would cry for Her.  She always told me it was the old house creaking and to go back to sleep.  Then suddenly, the room was open.  My piano was moved in there.  I never heard the noises again."

"That piano.  It was always being moved.  I kept asking why.  And just kept being told it was for my benefit."

He paused again.  And then looked straight at me.  It was the first time I had truely been able to see his face, to study it.  It was not the face of a Wonder Child.  It was just the face of a normal, everyday guy.  Although, I had to remind myself that this was the face of possiblyone of the cleverest sims that has ever lived.  And that he was not born this way.  He didn't choose to be this way.  He was manufactured.

"Can I tell you something?  It may sound a little 'out there'."

I almost laughed that a guy who was the proof that the Wonder Child project had really been a ethicless experiment in child development was worrying that something might sound a little 'out there'.

"Not at all."

"I don't think I was the only kid there.  Not in the beginning anyway.  I think that is why the piano kept moving.  I think they were the noises that I heard.  I think as kids didn't live up to the task they were moved out.  By the time I turned teen, there was just me.  I was ... the winner."

This revelation made me stop in my tracks.  Other kids.  After all my research into the Wonderchild Project I had assumed that there was a chance that Bradley wasn't the only attempt, but the idea that there could be 'losers', weedled out during the actual project itself made me feel slightly ill.  What happened to those children if what Bradley believed was actually true?

NEXT......