Peter Parker - Sm

2016. New York.
Most people perceive reality as a sequence of random events. I see it as an endless stream of algorithms. When I enter a room, my brain automatically scans the air humidity, the structural integrity of the floors, and the number of microchips within a ten-meter radius.

Living in Tony Stark's house isn't "luxury." It's a never-ending beta test of the future. While my peers were excited about their new smartphones, at seven, I rewrote the kernel of FRIDAY's operating system simply because I didn't like her British accent at three in the morning.

"Gwen, if you use my servers to mine neural networks that predict stock prices again, I will block your access to the workshop.

The father grumbles, not looking up from the hologram of the new stabilizer for Mark-46.

I don't even look at him, my fingers are flying over the keyboard of my custom tablet, tweaking the data compression algorithm.

"Dad, first of all, I'm not mining, I'm optimizing your cooling system. And secondly, you forgot to set up a firewall for protocol 7-G. That was too easy. "

He's a genius, a billionaire, a playboy, and a philanthropist. I'm the one who corrects his trajectory errors while drinking my morning smoothie. My mom says I got the best of him: an intellect that can reverse entropy, and that unbearable desire to always be one step ahead. But she gave me something even more important: empathy. That's why I'm here now.

Midtown School of Science and Technology.

Why not an elite school in Switzerland? Seriously? Private schools are incubators for ambitious zeros. A bunch of arrogant primates whose IQs barely reach room temperature and whose only accomplishment is having the right last name on their birth certificate. It's a biological dead end. There's nothing for me to learn there.

In Midtown, there is chaos. There is real life. And there is St. Petersburg.