[Fallout] American Intoxicants

[RiverDelta]

CW: This work deals with many mature and potentially triggering themes, such as slavery, abuse, transphobia, mental illness, fascism, assault, gaslighting, mental illness, torture, and sexual assault.

Readers are advised to take care of themselves as they enjoy the story.

First of all, if all this sounds like a downer, there will be lighter moments, there will be stuff other than constant suffering, and there will be good people in this story. This is not intended to be edgy or a downer, it merely grapples with complicated and painful topics.

Spoiler: FULL CONTENT WARNING AND WHY THE STORY HAS THE CONTENT IT HAS (DEAR GOD, READ)

I think that it's very important to depict the ways in which the main character's actions harm the lives of others. That's kind of a major theme of the story, that Jackie has just hurt so many people and that it's those people who we as a reader should be sorry for. You can certainly pity Jackie, my beta readers and I seem to, but in the end she is Evil with a capital-E, and all of her half-assed rationalizations and her genuine struggles don't alleviate any of that.

The question is whether someone like that can find some kind of redemption even if she wants it. We'll have to see where the story goes, I have most of it pre-written, but I do think that it is going to be extremely hard if not impossible for Jackie to stop doing what she does, and the moral weight of her past actions are things that can't just be hand-waved away with a Wholesome 100 "redemption arc".

The important thing in the story is that nobody who actually has gotten to know Jackie genuinely, rationally likes Jackie. They're right not to.

There's a lot of reasons Jackie became the kind of person she is, but none of them will ever justify the things she does to people. People like Jackie exist, and they hurt people, and it's not sexy. I think many fanfic writers would make Jackie into some kind of sexy dominatrix, a hot villainess with dommy qualities.

Jackie isn't like that. This isn't Fifty Shades of Grey, it's more like Misery. Jackie is a predator, and I have sought to depict her predation in as ugly a way as possible as well as a way that also tastefully and accurately reflects what I've heard from victims of abuse I've talked to about this.

Thankfully, this isn't a story just about Jackie. In a lot of ways, it's about the people who have to deal with her. As for why I wrote her to be so evil, it's because I find it interesting to write. More to the point, I wanted to depict fascist brutality and to show how anyone regardless of demographic can fall into fascist ideology. The point is that if a fairly educated, reasonably smart trans lesbian from a moderate-to-liberal family can end up as this (very toned down, but still horrifying) Dirlewanger-esque character, anyone can. It's meaningful to me, as a trans enby and as a Jew.

I think everyone can be seduced by authoritarianism, and that any narratives that claim that some group has no capacity to dominate or act cruelly over others are at best simplistic and at worst kind of dangerous. I also believe in radical empathy as politics, and I think one of the best ways to show the importance of being kind to others is to write a character who can barely even concieve of true kindness and to show the ways in which that transactional and power-driven mentality is deeply damaging to so many innocent people.

I also think it's important to make the point that people are rarely cartoon villains, and using a monstrous character to do it shows a certain kind of horror. Jackie could have been different. She should have been different. Everyone wanted her to be different. Her situation is complicated, painful, and tragic. She may well be utterly beyond regaining even a tiny fraction of whatever base humanity she's thrown away to become the woman she is.

Finally, Jackie is a rapist. I do not like writing rapists. I firmly believe that rape is an overused, cheap cliche used for easy drama and edgelord points in most media, that it is almost always unnecessary in a story and that a story is better served using some other crime instead. It also cheapens rape as a concept to use it for edgelord points. However, with Jackie, I found that there was no way I couldn't write her as a rapist.

We know she's hedonistic, we know she believes in the ownership of human beings on a pathological level, and we know that she believes you can only love something you completely control. Of course, I could change any one of those character traits, but they're all important to the fic. Her hedonism informs her character and explores the ways that she's chemically running away from her own guilt and misdeeds. Her belief in ownership demonstrates the mentality that fascism and supremacy narratives force onto people and it is a kind of exaggerated mirror of the sort of real-world abusive relationships that I believe are worth exploring. Finally, her need to control the things she loves shows her toxic qualities and her own paranoia that comes from her Social Darwinist worldview. All of these flaws come from her fascism that I intend to explore, and all of those flaws lead into it being natural for her to be a rapist.

I try not to write her as a cackling stereotype. If you asked her, she'd tell you that she got consent every single time with Roxie. It's just that consent doesn't mean shit under duress, and Jackie is lying to herself. When you have an ideology that states that the world exists for the strong to take what they want, what other conclusion could a follower of that come to than "taking" someone else's body? It's, as horrible as the act is in and of itself (and it is deeply repulsive), kind of the natural extension of everything Jackie already believes.

In a story like this, you have two options. You either write someone who's sympathetic (duped, under duress, either way not participating in any immoral acts) and you risk whitewashing fascism, or you show American fascism's ugly, corpse-like face.

I just don't think this story could explore the same themes about the minds of the genuinely evil and the consequences of American fascist ideology in the depth I try to do it in without Jackie being an example of both, especially when the question is about what redemption even means to someone who's hurt so many, or if it's even possible in even the smallest and faintest way. The main character, Jackie Stanton, is a fascist, an abusive girlfriend, and a sexual predator. She is also an abusive sibling. She's a tragic figure in many ways, but she is anything but a good person. This is set in the Fallout Pre-War and Post-War setting, and explores American fascism in its grisly detail, to a degree not explored by the games themselves.

In terms of how much triggering content there will be, most of the worst of it will be frontloaded, but those who are sensitive may want to steady themselves for the entire work anyway or simply choose a lighter Fallout fanfic.





United States of America

Canadian Counterinsurgency Command

Toronto Occupation Authority

3/3/2290



MISSING PERSONS FILE:



JACQUELINE ARANEA STANTON

BORN: 3/3/2051

MIA: 11/3/2289

GENDER: AUTOGYNEPHILIC TRANSSEXUAL

SPECIES: GHOUL

RACE: CAUCASIAN



SUMMARY:

SENATOR STANTON has proven herself to be an exemplary agent of the Toronto Enclave. From our founding in 2079 to the present day, Senator Stanton has proven a devoted Americanist and highly competent citizen. As a ghoul, she is among a small elite crust of our kind, immortal and perfect. A senatorial aide before the Great War to one Senator Cartwright, Jacqueline Stanton was sent to Toronto to oversee occupation efforts.

A consistent Liberty Party voter and transsexual autogynephile ("transgender lesbian"), Stanton nonetheless displays strong patriotic credentials from recorded childhood onward. Transsexuals and gender-confused patients typically display symptoms of Unstable Defiance Syndrome, perhaps explaining their large numbers in pre-War psychiatric institutions and current-day slave markets. Stanton has shown no sign of such issues.

Senator Stanton was quite devastated by the nuclear war, though thankfully it only led her to redouble her efforts to maintain the only United States outpost known to exist north of the nation's former capital after the events of the Commonwealth Great Game. Stanton worked her way through the US Army after the Great War, achieving the rank of General before running for a senatorial career on her actions as a "war hero". Please see corresponding files for more details.





[PERSONAL FILES]

Dear Bitch,

You're dead. I know you're dead. I love you, I need you, and you're dead. Humans, right? What kind of dumb species only lives eighty years? Well, uh, I wrote this letter for me, but I hope in Heaven you can read it. You did everything for me. Sure, there were the obvious things, the cooking, the cleaning, and the sex. You got me, though. Do you know the last person who got me, Bitch? It was my therapist. I had a therapist as a teenager. God, you don't know what a therapist was, right? It was a person who listened to your problems and was trained to help them. Mental problems, specifically. Like, if you were scared, or sad, or worried, your therapist could help you work through those feelings.

You didn't just make me feel seen, though. You loved me. Even my family didn't love me by the end of it. My brother was in China and he stopped sending me letters. My mother told me that she'd tried everything she could to love the person I became and still hated me. My little sibling, they called me out even when they were on death row for getting unlucky at a protest. Do you know what that feels like when even your own mom can't stand you? Plus, I'm pretty sure the real Enclave down South hated us. I finally got a message from another Enclave group in 2277. Yeah, there were other Enclave groups. Bigger ones, scarier ones, too. They said we were radioactive scum, not superhumans. I didn't tell anyone. I sat on it for 23 years. I'm done with that. Anyway, sucks to be them, looks like they got wiped out. Yeah, we're a kingdom of rejects, Bitch, every last one of us.

You stood by me, though. You loved me. You were the best slave I ever had, the best lover I ever had, and the best person in my life I ever had. When I held your hand as you slipped away in that hospital bed, I knew you were fighting. You wanted to stay with your owner. You wanted to stay with me, even as an old woman. I tried to get them to ghoulify you, but they wouldn't let me. Something about your genes not being good enough. I don't know. I need to find myself. I hope when I leave the Enclave I find another slave like you. Hell, when I end up in heaven I hope I can introduce you to her.

Jackie Stanton





A Children's History of the Toronto Enclave

Written by J. E. Turteltaub

For Kindergarten Use

Once upon a time, there was a country called America. America was a brave country and a free country, and it existed so that kids like you could be free and happy. America was good. However, there was another country that was very evil. Their name was Red China. Red China was lead by the evil Chairman Cheng, a cruel despot. A despot is a leader who likes to hurt people. Chairman Cheng hated that America was so free, and that little kids like you got to have fun and play games without being subject to the evil power of Communism.

One day, when America was defending itself from China, Chairman Chang got very angry! "Oh, no, the Americans won't let me force them to eat rats! They want to have corner stores and rocking horses and lots of candy instead!" Chairman Cheng used a device called an "atomic bomb". An atomic bomb is a very dangerous machine. If you explode an atomic bomb on a city, the entire city and everyone in it goes away forever.

In a fit of rage, Chairman Cheng dropped atomic bombs on every city in America, even the American cities here in Canada that the Americans were defending from the Chinese! Our brave soldiers in Canada found something strange. While most of them got very sick when they were exposed to the radiation that came from those atomic bombs, some of them instead became intelligent, immortal beings called ghouls.

These ghouls looked sort of like people with very bad burns, or like walking corpses, but they were very nice and very strong. The Toronto Occupation Authority was formed by US soldiers and a few lower-level members of a secret group of heroes called the Enclave. They were hard workers and brave soldiers who loved America and loved freedom.

After many massive expansions of local bunkers into the Undercity that the ghouls dwell in below the inferior muties, and after several major wars, the Toronto Occupation Authority currently owns almost all of the old city of Toronto. That's the power of American pride!

 

[RiverDelta]

2210 CE.

The room was white, the lights that dangled were nearly blinding, and Roxie was just starting to wake up. She looked down. Her pale hands were covered in duct tape, tied to the backrest of a cheap wooden chair. She wore a one-piece bodysuit in black. Looking down, she saw a silver "E" surrounded by thirteen stars on the front of her breast. So, they'd taken her alive.

"Hi!" A woman in a brown uniform entered the milky room with a suitcase. She looked...burned. A ghoul.

"You gonna tell me who you are, freak?" the raider asked. There was a tight thing around her neck.

"Oh, sure." The female ghoul reached out a hand to shake, but stopped with it outstretched for comedy effect. "Huh, you're probably not gonna be able to shake."

"Maybe it'd be easier if I weren't taped to a chair," Roxie said, dryly.

"It probably would," the ghoul conceded. "My name is Captain Jacqueline Stanton! I'd say it's nice to meet you, scavver, but I don't think it's nice for you." Jackie seemed to stare at Roxie's neck. "What you've got there on you is a Total Pacification Collar, invented for keeping Chinese detainees from fleeing camps back in the day. Now, we at the US government have another name for it. One I'm sure you're familiar with: a slave collar. Do you know what that means, mutie?"

"...I can't think of anything." Roxie said, sarcastically.

"Oh, you're playing dumb. Well, I guess I'll make it more clear. I'm enslaving you. You're going to get me cocktails, drive my Highwayman, tuck me into bed, and do anything and everything I want you to. You're a raider, you sort of deserve it. I know you've hurt a lot of people. Tortured 'em, ate them, did unspeakable things to 'em. Call it karma. What's your name?"

"Roxie."

Jackie frowned, her eyebrow furrowing for a split second before she threw a devastating punch through Roxie's cheek. There was blood and a tooth. A trail of red fell from the raider's mouth. "Wrong. Your name is 'Bitch', because that is what you are. That is the only name you will ever know from now on, and it is apt, because you are a dog . It's time for me to teach you that."

"Fuck you," Roxie spat.

"In your dreams." Jackie put her briefcase on the floor. "Dogs need to be trained, so that is what we'll do." Jackie drew a metal blade from the briefcase, holding it in front of the raider. "Bitch—" she said, calmly. "this is a medical-grade scalpel. It's normally used for making small incisions into the human body. I'll use it for that exact purpose. It won't feel good, sorry. I keep it blunt, because I am not a surgeon, I am a torturer. In fact, I'm the licensed pain specialist for this entire Enclave company, and soon you'll see why."

Jackie put the scalpel down on the floor, then drew from the briefcase a pair of pliers. "Pliers. For when you just need to rip something off...or out. I especially like these. A good, sturdy pair of pliers, and the world's your oyster. I think first I'll tear off your earlobes. Make a tiny little ten-millimeter incision into the ear, which will allow the torsion of the pliers to pull the earlobe and any skin attached to it clean off. If you ever wanted to see what a rug made of bloody skin and muscle looked like, you'll see."

Jackie put down the pliers, and drew from the briefcase a clawhammer. "Hammer. Big, heavy, I could kill you with this if I wanted. It wouldn't be too painful, just a little bop on the head." She mocked swinging the hammer at Roxie's head, but stopped right before hitting it, instead hitting the raider's head with her hand in an imprompto mock execution, clearly startling Roxie. "...Still, I won't. Instead, I'm going to use this to break each little toe." She giggled and reached down to hold one of Roxie's toes between her fingers. "Oooh, where did a mutie shit like you get nail polish in these chaotic times? Well, the black looks good on you. I really am sorry to ruin your look, Bitch. My apologies."

"Look, I don't know whatever fucked up shit you're into, but—" Roxie said, her tone quickening.

"Oh, no, no, no." Jackie put a finger to Roxie's lips, as if to shush her. "Dogs don't talk unless talked to, and you are a dog. Remember?" At that, with a loud, squelching crack, Roxie's big toe was flattened, turned into a mass of flesh, blood, and bone.

"Jesus Christ!" Roxie exclaimed.

"Dogs don't talk!" Jackie hissed, slamming with the hammer another toe with a similar ugly thud. Roxie gave a cry of pain, but crucially, didn't talk. "Good doggie," Jackie said. She put down the hammer and from the briefcase, she drew a Ripper. She laughed. "Now this? This is a piece of classic American military ingenuity! This is a chainsaw small enough to fit in a bag, but it'll churn you up really good. I'm thinking for this one we'll start with your eyes, stick the tip of the tip into each eye socket. It won't do anything to your brain, so you'll feel everything, but it'll blind you as your eyes are turned into a banana smoothie. Just so you know, you will need to see as my slave, so we'll plug in some cameras into the sockets and wire them to your brain. That'll also hurt. Then, we go for your groin—"

"Stop it, please, stop it, I've heard enough, you want me to be Bitch, I'll be your bitch, I'm Bitch, okay, I'm your dog, oh my god my foot, please—"

At that, Jackie's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oh, perfect! You're so helpful!" She drew a revolver from the briefcase, just in case, then used the scalpel to cut Bitch free. Bitch looked upon the ghoul with nothing but absolute terror.

"Without your Psycho, Bitch, without your Buffout and your stimulants...You really are nothing. I'm glad you're learning that," Jackie said, standing up and roughly pulling Bitch up off of the chair. "Oh, and by the way, I smoke a lot, so I'll need an ashtray. You know, someone to put out cigarettes on. You can do that, right?"

"Yes, Jackie..." Bitch mumbled.

"Good girl!"

---

A big, scary raider had been reduced to tears in front of her, and all Jackie could feel was pride. She stared at the muscled woman on the floor, the splint on her toe covered in bandages. Jackie sat there on her bunk in the officer's quarters of Camp Eisenhower, Bitch sitting at her feet.

"Why don't you just kill me? If I'm such a piece of human waste like you've been saying, why are ya keeping me around?" Bitch asked, her eyes' veins red and not just from the chem deprivation. "I don't wanna be here, you don't want me here, you killed my friends, so why am I even still alive?" she asked. Her speech was strained, worn, and her voice was hoarse. Jackie knew that was from all the screaming she'd been doing today. Jackie had decided to be the bigger woman, let her let it out. There was no fun in a slave who couldn't talk back, anyway.

Jackie put her hands together, looked down at the slave in her bomb collar and ill-fitting pre-War dress, and sighed. "Bitch, I'm not keeping you alive to hurt you."

"Well, it sure seems like it!"

"...That's because you're looking at it the wrong way," Jackie said, her tone quiet but firm.

"How else am I supposed to look at slavery?" she yelled, before coughing in starts.

"As an opportunity. Bitch, you spent your teenage and adult life hunting down people so you could capture them, kill them, and eat them, sometimes in that order. Am I wrong on that?"

"...You aren't."

"Cool. Your entire life has been parasitism. You harm towns full of poor, stupid muties just looking to live, you're not a good person."

"You're a slaver!" Bitch yelled, putting a hand on her throat in discomfort.

"So? At least I don't buy slaves to cook and eat. You're in America now, Bitch. But, but, but, but, this is actually a fantastic opportunity, like I said. You spent all that time trying to do what was good for you, what you wanted in the heat of the moment. You killed, you ate, you dismembered, all that. Now, though, you have a purpose."

"My purpose was with the gang."

"You were going to be in the ground by age thirty. You were acting like an animal and you would have died like one. Now, remember when I said you were nothing, that you were my dog, Bitch?" By this point, Jackie was saying 'Bitch' enough to seemingly desensitize the slave to the name.

"Yeah?" Bitch asked.

"That was the truth, but it doesn't have to be that way. You can be a slave and a person. You can be a slave and someone who matters. In fact, I think you matter a lot. You matter because you're mine, because I matter, and that's okay.

"Now, I don't blame you for a life of paratisism and cannibalism. It's all you had. I just bring it up because that's what you were, an animal. Now you're human." Jackie gently took the front of Bitch's white dress in her fingers. "In fact, I'd say it's much better to be Bitch than Roxie. Roxie had to fight for her food, Bitch gets fed. Roxie never knew if she was gonna be killed by Marco or Jack or Striker on a bad chem trip, Bitch gets to have Jackie all to herself. Roxie felt fear, Bitch gets love," Jackie said.

Bitch looked down. "You can't give me love, if you loved me you'd free me."

"I would if you'd just let me," Jackie said, softly. Her tone was incredibly sincere. It was, of course, a feint, this whole conversation was half honesty and half planned manipulation, but it certainly came off as genuine. "I know you never treated your slaves well, but I treat mine how they deserve, and I know you can show me that you deserve to be given kindness," Jackie said.

"Why?"

"I want a companion, and my favorite kind of companion is one that I have completely under my thumb, like a beloved pet or a prized possession. I own you, Bitch, but I own you because I protect you. I want to take care of you, I want to give you the most gilded cage you can imagine, and all you have to do is play nice, stop trying to escape, take a few cigarette burns, and let me be kind to you." Jackie produced a small smile. "I broke your toe because you called me 'fucked up', and that was incredibly rude of you. As long as you play nice, I'll play nice, and together, we can both be happy." She tilted the captive victim's head up and traced two fingers through Bitch's chestnut hair. "You're strong, you fought. You can be my soldier, and I'll never give you a fight you can't win. The wasteland can't do that."

Bitch mumbled something. "What if I run?" she asked.

"There's enemy gangs, murderously mutant animals, and towns that hang raiders hundreds of miles around Toronto. You won't survive and I'll miss you." The worst part was that it was the truth. Jackie would miss her, in her deeply morally skewed and unhealthy way, and Roxie (or Bitch, as the case was) probably would die for one reason or another. "I really will miss you, Bitch. You're pretty, honest, and a tough cookie. Maybe I'll even offer you a captive to eat on special occasions if you want. You know, as a compromise. You'll be my soldier, Bitch, and by being Bitch you'll be happier, safer, and more loved than Roxie ever was. Are you gonna run and die, or do you want to just relax, do your job, and let me give you a better life?" Jackie offered. "I just want you to feel better in the long run. If you've got any grudges from your old life, I'll do what I can to wipe 'em off the face of the earth for you. We're partners, now and you deserve better than being some chemmed up raider buried in a ditch like the rest of 'em." Jackie's words were tender. "That life ends today."

"I don't want to die," Bitch said, with hesitation.

Jackie wrapped her arms around Bitch, holding her softly but with a hint of tightness. "Good girl. Good soldier . Now, I haven't shown you what the officers eat, huh?" she asked.

"Good food?" Bitch asked.

Jackie smiled and took Bitch's hand, standing up. Tears started to run down Bitch's face. "Tears of joy, huh?" Jackie asked.

"I don't know," Bitch said. "I'm just...feeling a lot. I hate when you're right. I hate you. You don't make any sense."

"I'm always happy to talk if you need a shoulder to cry on," the torturer said without a hint of mockery. As they walked hand in hand to the officer's mess hall, Jackie nodded at a cafeteria table. "Sit down there and I'll get us some grub." At that, Bitch did so and Jackie made her way to the reheated meals. She put a slab of brisket on her plate and Bitch's plate, gave herself some mashed potatoes and tato fries, and gave Bitch sweet tato fries and a small pre-arranged salad from the hydroponic gardens in Toronto.

As Jackie looked around, she saw a few humans in bomb collars, but the vast majority of the mess hall's occupants in the expanded Victorian-style manor were ghouls in uniform. She got two cans of Vim! soda, a Vim! Classic for her and a Vim! Refresh for Bitch. Then, she took some metal silverware for each of them and put them on the trays. She brought the two trays over and placed them on the table. "Hope you like this better than living off tatos and tap water," Jackie said.

Bitch took a drink from her can. The sheer sweetness of it utterly overwhelmed her, and she couldn't help but smile. "So this is what soda tastes like cold," she said.

Jackie laughed. "Yep! That's how it's supposed to taste, just like how John-Caleb Bradberton liked it. Not that this is Nuka, this was made by a different company back before the bombs fell. We still make these, though, because copyright's dead." She smiled and started to eat her fries. "So, what'd you wanna talk about?"

"I don't know. Can I be honest?"

"Sure, always."

"I'm just scared. I thought I knew everything in Oshawa, but then you came along and you just...You captured me, you hurt me, you put a collar on me, sent me to this whole new world, you said you owned me, and that I wasn't human...I thought you were the most evil fuckin' creature in the universe, and now you're feeding me? Saying ya care? Saying I matter? I thought I understood you, I thought I got that you were just this monster who existed to ruin my life, and now here ya are being nice. I don't know if this is some kind of trick, but you seem fine with hearing how I really think so here I go. I'm just so confused, and my brain's telling me this has to be a scam. Are you crazy? Am I crazy?"

"I care about my property."

"What about the other raiders?"

" If we hadn't taken them out, some other raider or monster or disease would've. You know that, I know that. I get that a lifetime of raiding, then being captured, then being hit with a hammer, all that would probably be traumatizing and hard on the psyche. From now on, I want to make it clear that I'll do anything in my power to make sure your life as my slave is going to be as pleasant and safe as possible, since you're a strong woman, and I respect that."

"...Thanks," Bitch said. "Not strong enough to stay free, huh?"

"Lesson one, grasshopper: I'm stronger. The strong survive, and the weak don't, unless the weak get taken in by the strong." Jackie wiped a remnant of a tear from Bitch's eye with her thumb. "Honestly, slavery in the Enclave is probably better than freedom in some gang."

"But I'm your soldier, right?"

"Yeah, you're my soldier. I can depend on you, and you me. I answer to the lieutenant, you answer to your owner. Think of it as, like, me outranking you. That's it."

Bitch started to pick at her salad. "I...I could see it like that."

The best way to ensure a subject was obedient was to cause significant physical and mental distress, then alleviate that distress suddenly and build doubt in the mind of the subject. Then, you used that doubt to create a bond. It was better this way for everyone, Jackie thought. "I'm glad we're on the same page," Jackie said, starting on her steak.

 

[RiverDelta]

2290

There was peace. Then, she heard noises behind her. She heard screams.

"I'll see you up there, babe," she said, thinking of the old woman she'd enslaved so long ago. "What was the song you used to sing, Bitch?" she asked herself.

She started to sing under her breath:

So I'm sitting here obediently

Waiting for orders patiently

Jackie drew her weapons from her bag.

And I know I'm not to move from this seat

You don't need to tie me down don't wanna be free

An image of an old woman and an eternally young burned visage appeared in her head as she wielded her revolver in one hand and her laser rifle in the other. One gun aimed at the charging horde of Gulpers, the other at the ambushers at the back.

I am your soldier I come to serve you

But I've been a good girl I don't deserve you

An image of skin covered in ashy welts appeared in her head and a juvenile salamander creature got its head turned into chunky salsa.

Oh I salute you

I've faced up to my fate, attempted escape before

Oh I salute you

You don't need to sound the alarm, I'm not gonna run anymore

Jackie unloaded three .358 caliber rounds into the biggest, toughest looking bastard she could see, straight to the head. It dropped.

So down behind my back and up through my feet

Extracting the poison you claim to beat

I can accept now fighting only ends in pleas

How can I protest when you're stronger than me?

A hand on a neck, a hammer hovering over a toe, fingers crushed a throat until the owner played along. She put her laser rifle under her arm. "You were my good soldier, Bitch," she said, in a genuinely strange bit of affection for a woman she'd tortured, abused into compliance, and then lied to. Bitch was, if nothing else to Jackie, a certain friend. Her soldier. A manufactured one, built out of intense cruelty and evil, but...Jackie huffed some Jet and dropped the laser rifle. She needed to drown these feelings.

I am your soldier I come to serve you

But I've been a good girl I don't deserve you

Her fingers pulled at the revolver's trigger, twice, no, three times, no, four times as fast as she ever could have before. She exhausted all of its shots onto the tougher-looking ones, then threw the gun in her bag and picked her laser rifle back up.

Oh I salute you

I've faced up to my fate, attempted escape before

Oh I salute you

You don't need to sound the alarm, I'm not gonna run anymore

---

As she slept after the fight, she had a dream.

Jackie Stanton, now a tall, human, transgender woman clad in a women's pantsuit and silk neck scarf, stood in a room made of hexagons. It was a sphere of white whose borders between the shapes contained a black hole shade. The human looked over at the old woman in front of her. Her hair was a metal silver, now, not the beautiful chestnut that it once was. Her body was wrinkled and sagging, and she wore the same leotard she'd first worn during their fateful meeting at the torturer's chair. She did not wear a bomb collar, but there was an ugly red rash around her neck where it would have been.

"...Did you sleep long, Hel?" the elderly image of Bitch (Roxie?) asked.

"I did, Kjellfrid, my thrall," Jackie (Hel?) asked, and Jackie internally wondered exactly what was going on. Why was she talking like this?

"Good girl," the old woman said to the god of death, in mirror of what Hel had said to her during their first meeting as captive and prisoner.

"Where are we?"

"We're in Valhalla, Hel, not your native Helheim, not your underground citadel. Here we are not thrall and goddess. Here we are equal," Kjellfrid said. Jackie wondered if she needed some kind of mental distance to even consider this, or if the symbolism was just a quirk of the dream.

"You will never be equal, I thought that I taught you that early."

"All things are equal in death, Hel."

Hel nodded. "...So they are. Which of the faces are you? Bitch, Roxy, or Kjellfrid?"

"I am all three at once, warrior, slave, and free woman," Kjellfrid stated. "In death all too are free."

"Am I going crazy?" Jackie asked, her sheer emotion overpowering the strangeness of this dream to let her speak as herself.

"'It's merely a fantasy, Hel. I have to thank you, you taught me obedience and in return gave me security. You taught me terror and you gave me love. You taught me pain and you gave me pleasure. I hardly think that Bitch by the end was the same woman as Roxie before. Roxie is dead, Hel, and you have slain her."

Hel pursed her lips. "But is that such a crime? Roxie was weak, pathetic, violent, and cruel. I elevated her, she became mine and so she mattered."

"You were not like other masters, Hel. You didn't stop at cowing the body, you worked to remake the soul. I am who I am because of you, I could never betray my creator. All I would note was that the creation of Bitch required the death of Roxie."

"Stop! Stop trying to be poetic, or elaborate, or descriptive, or whatever! Stop, just stop, this isn't smart, this isn't meaningful! Shut up!" Jackie yelled, briefly taking control of the dream. "Roxie is dead, you're right, and so is Bitch, but at least Bitch was happy as my slave!"

"The choice between comfortable slavery and dangerous freedom was always a false one. You could have freed me as soon as you met me, and perhaps we could have become something more than master and slave. You taught me to love you, and I did, but I wish that love had come from a true bond instead of instruction. We could have been together as equals, but it was your own need for control that damned that hope, your need to own everything you cared about. I love you, loved you as a slave can a master, but I know our bloom is and was fed by blood-thirsting roots."

"You would have stabbed me in the back, you were a disgusting fucking mutie raider!" Jackie yelled.

"...As are you," Kjellfrid noted, and Jackie woke up.

As Jackie awoke to a start, her body shooting upright in the bedroll as she looked around, she begun to sob. It was loud, it was uncomfortable, it was strange. She didn't...understand what her own psyche was saying, between the weird Norse angle, the stilted language, and the fact that even she knew her perception of Bitch wasn't accurate to how Bitch really felt, necessarily, but it hurt.

Jackie cried and heaved.

---

Later, she turned to face the eyebot, looking up at him. She listened to what he had to say. "I think you're trying to say that there are relationships between organisms that aren't necessarily adversarial? Like, I'm aware of that. But symbiotic relationships have to come with the consent and will of the stronger party. They can degenerate, and they usually do. In the end, all that really matters is what you can grab, what you can hold. That's just life. Sure, I like you all, you're all friends, but you're all strong too, and any agreements we make to help each other are based on our mutual strength.

"Power isn't subjective. There's winners and losers, people with influence and people without it. That's more objective than anything else in, uh, sapient interactions, right?" In truth, Danforth was absolutely right, his argument that being a slave owner was dehumanizing for Jackie in the same way that it was for Bitch (Roxie?) had logic to it. "...There are ways to get people you control to not resent you. You get into their heads, you make sure to work them. You use incentive structures, contrasting painful behavior they believe they started with benevolent behavior you use strategically, threats, benefits, inducing Stockholm Syndrome...It can be done. I know, I've done it."

Then, the Mr. Handy mentioned a couple, one of whom was a former raider. "...Huh." Jackie quite obviously didn't know how to respond to that, the idea that the lowest of the low could act with intent and purpose instead of being all but animals or being acted on by the "superior" people was strange to her. "...You don't understand, I had to do it. I had to teach her, I took her in and..." She stopped at that, sitting down on the ground with her legs crossed and sighing. "...Shit, that was what the dream was about, wasn't it? Hel and Kjellfrid.

"Maybe, maybe it wasn't love. Maybe it wasn't love because I never gave her the chance to genuinely feel anything I didn't induce in her. Maybe I just created a simpering worm in constant pain who I let mistake pain for love. Maybe that's...Maybe that's why I...Maybe I knew that. Maybe I was the one who made her into an animal. I named her Bitch, right? I turned her from a person into a dog." It all came so suddenly, this half-tired revelation, something seemed to click.

"...No, that can't be it. A trained dog is better than a rabid wolf, and she would have just left me. I would have been alone."

She sat on that.

"...I've always been alone, Danforth. I had my family before the war, but Dave was in the Gobi when the bombs fell and the rest of them burned in Toledo. Senator Cartwright called me a transvestite even as I was doing a lot of his job, he was like a distant father. The government saved me and taught me. The Enclave took me in and taught me more. I was alone, and every day I made myself more and more alone except for my slaves, who I trained to depend on me because...I didn't want them to leave me too.

"If I'm special, superior, powerful, why is everything so empty?" She, by this point, looked frankly pathetic, her head in her hands, tears starting to roll down her cheeks again. "I have to be wrong, this is all...This is all just anxious bullshit, that's it! I'm just having second thoughts because I haven't had a new slave in a while, once I get a new one I'll feel as good as ever! Maybe get a good torture subject too, really work out some of these feelings! Yeah, I'm...I'm not...I'm not bad, I'm not hollow, I haven't lived a life of isolation for the last two hundred years, I'm not crazy, I'm not evil....

"It was just a bad dream."

 

[RiverDelta]

Jackie (born 2051): 7 years older than Raven, 2 years younger than Dave

Dave (Born 2049): 2 years older than Jackie, 9 years older than Raven

Raven (Born 2058): 7 years younger than Jackie, 9 years younger than Dave

 

[RiverDelta]

2076

All eyes were on her, and for once Jackie wasn't enjoying it. She wore a white blouse and pencil skirt, thin lips pressed together as she sat at the Stanton house dinner table. To her left was Raven Stanton, short and stocky. Across from her was Harold, a domesticated man but with dented iron for eyes. Sara Stanton was tall, like her daughter, and curvy where Jackie was lean. Nobody spoke.

Jackie took a deep breath. "So, uh, yeah. Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. Hey, Raven. How're you all doing?" she asked the table. She missed Dave. He had shipped out.

"I'm fine," Raven said. It was an obvious lie. In truth, Raven simply feared that their big sister would go after their weakness.

"I'm good," Harold said, taking a bite of his spaghetti dinner. "Had a pretty good day at the auto shop. Billie and Wedge got married a few weeks ago." He made a noncommital grunt.

Sara gave a nod and took a sip of her Nuka-Cola from its glass. "What'd you do, Jackie?" she asked. By her tone, her expectations weren't very high.

"Well, since we last met up again, I celebrated my birthday with Senator Cartwright. We went out for steak. I met this cute girl, too. She's kinda dumb, honestly, but, like, I can work with that," Jackie joked. Raven shivered.

Sara took a breath. "Jackie, I want you to know that I'd never judge you for who you are. I'm so happy you figured out that you were a woman, and I'm so proud of you, and you know I'd never judge who you go out with."

"Where's this going?" Jackie asked.

"...It's just that I don't want you to think that what I'm going to say is about being trans or gay. I've prayed on that. I just wish you were more like your sister."

"Sibling," Raven corrected, having long since concluded that you had to make that point if you wanted anyone to actually be decent to you about these things.

"Sibling. Raven's trans, right? They have a trans lady friend they tell us about who's nothing but kind. Why can't you be more like them? Why can't you be like your sibling?" Sara asked. "Raven doesn't...She doesn't seek out people to, you know..."

"Hurt?" Jackie asked, quirking up an eyebrow.

"That, yeah," Sara said. "So I know being a trans doesn't...require hurting people. So why can't you just try not to do it?"

Jackie exhaled. "I have a real problem, Sadistic Personality Disorder. It means I enjoy it. It almost compells me to do it. It's like a drug."

You'd know a lot about drugs, Raven thought.

Harold raised a finger. "Now wait just a minute. Jacqueline Stanton, your mental illness is painful, and I feel damn bad that you have to go through life with it, but your actions are on you. Life isn't fair, and sometimes when we're suffering we have to make the right call even though it's hard."

Sara pursed her lips, and Raven spoke. "Yeah."

"Look, I lead a hard life. Do you think it's easy being trans in this country? Do you think having mental illness is a cakewalk? Do you think the high-pressure environment in DC doesn't make me want to pull my hair out? Of course it does. My life sucks, and if I have to be less than perfectly nice all the time just to get through the day, that's just how it is," Jackie said. "There's two kinds of people in this world, sharks and minnows. Sharks eat minnows. That's it. If you don't like it, take it up with God."

Raven gripped the table with white knuckles. "Yeah, that sucks. It sucks that you deal with bigotry, it sucks that you've got a brain that doesn't work right, it sucks that we live in this shithole society, and it sucks that your job is so stressful, but what you do is on you. I 100% agree with Dad. It's not your issues, or your addictions, or the bigotry you've suffered that are making you be a predator. It's you. It's always been you, and someday you're going to have to just accept that and be a bigger person than you are now. Either that, or when the revolution comes I won't vouch for you."

"Please, Raven, at the table—" Harold said.

"I'm just tired," Raven said. "I'm tired of being bound to her. I'm tired of her shit leaking."

"Look, I hear what you're saying, really," Jackie said, not hearing what Raven was saying. "I know you just got to college and have probably joined some kind of underground pinko movement, but I wish that you would actually listen to me. I'm suffering! Raven, I've been suffering for years now. I don't think it's going to stop. When I say that I need to hurt people just to get through the day, that's not an exaggeration. It's just what I do."

"So, what, when you told me that you killed Santa Claus when I was three years old, that was totally necessary?" Raven asked. "You know what? It's good that you're in Washington now. At least you aren't here."

"Raven, can't we just have a normal dinner?" Harold asked. Sara didn't say anything.

"I just want her to be better. I just wish she would be better. I know she can do it," Raven said.

I'm sure as shit better than you, Jackie thought. "Look, I'm fine with your pinko leftism. Probably more fine with it than most in Ohio. Just don't force that on me, okay? I'm providing a valuable service. Every day, I ensure that this country functions the best it can be. That's important. America is important."

Raven stood up. "May I please be excused?" they asked. Jackie made a fist as she stretched in her chair, and Raven flinched. Jackie had never hit them.

Raven still flinched.

 

[RiverDelta]

In her boredom, as the storm grew more and more intense, she turned off the useless radio in her tent and popped a Daddy-O tablet. It was a downer chem. Then, she went to sleep, where she found herself in that white hexagonal lattice-world once more. Valhalla, no, Asgard. She looked down at herself, and no longer was she wearing her business suit and scarf. She also wasn't wearing her Enclave uniform she wore in the waking world, in Midgard. She wore a long white dress and furs, her skin translucent and red veins visible. She heard a metallic screech, like the music that Rad-Cada bugs would perform if given sentience and great size. "Do you see me in my true self?" an old woman asked, carrying a spear.

"Kjellfrid," Hel said. Jackie was stuck in the body.

"That was a name I used, yes. I am Odin, the One-Eyed, the Allmother, who stayed for a lifetime in Helheim only to return as Queen of the Gods," Odin said, holding the broken shock collar that she (Bitch? Roxie?) wore in her manicured grip. "You held a goddess as a thrall, dear Hel, that is quite the accomplishment."

"If you are a goddess, then why do you rest in the grave?"

Odin laughed, playfully. "But I do not."

"I buried you!" Jackie (Hel?) said. "You passed away in that hospital bed, your hand in mine, and then I buried you with my own hands! I am Hel, Lady of Helheim, Queen of the Dead," Hel (Jackie?) said.

"You are the Bifrost, dear Hel, and it is through your memory and mind that I survive in Midgard. A shadow, yes, but a shadow is what you made me into. Do you know what I felt in Helheim?"

"Devotion? Purposefulness? Worship?" Hel said.

"Pain. Only pain. All the rest came out of that. Do you enjoy this? Being a caravan guard in Michigan? Do you feel an ounce of what your love did to me? If you feel that a million times more, then you will know the pain that created Bitch, that created Odin."

"Why must you torture me?" Jackie yelled, taking control of her dream-self's pale body and marching up to Odin, to Bitch, to Roxie. "I will erase you!"

"You can't erase something you made, you have far too much pride for that," Odin said, two ravens perching on her shoulders. "If you remember your high school library binges, you'll know that these are Huginn and Muginn—thought and memory. As you can see, they bow to me. We are both shadows, Hel, both goddesses of dead pantheons.

"It's burning like thunderbolts, this is your fault, is it not?" Jackie yelled, manually puppeteering Hel's mouth. She grasped her head, pressing her fingers into her skull to try and dull the pain.

"All things must indeed come back around," Odin said.

"I don't feel guilt! I can't feel guilt! You deserved it, you're not Bitch!" Jackie, not Hel, yelled.

"You're correct, Hel of Helheim. I am not Bitch. Bitch rots, but in death all are equal and in death all are free. In this way you were a great force for equality."

Jackie-Hel got on her knees and started to slam her hand against the white floor of Asgard, tears falling out of her eyes like waterfalls. "Stop, just stop, I get it, I'm evil, is that what you want me to say? That I'm a monster, that I'm a complete piece of shit? Fine, I'll say it, okay, I'll give in!"

Odin frowned. "You see? Anyone can be made to do anything through torture."

Jackie cried, her form changing to resemble her ghoulified real-world self...save for wearing raider leathers and a slave collar instead of the dress and body of Hel. "Do you want me to be Hel? I'll be your Hel? I'll do whatever you want!" Her head was an atomic conflagration.

"It's too late for me, I'm just your guilt, your dawning realization of your ideological incoherence and personal failings. I am the symbol of you as a follower, too stupid and too immoral to realize the villainy that you became once life pushed you onto that path. I am a symbol of your inadequacy: a woman obsessed with feeling intimacy and closeness who could never connect herself to anyone. You are a woman obsessed with power whose singleminded devotion to the principle ensured you would never enjoy anything worth having power for. You are a woman who ruled by hedonism and cruelty because you excised herself of all but cruelty and hedonistic impulse.

"You made me in your image, Hel. Bitch was in a certain form a twisted symbol of your own dehumanized psyche. It does not take mystic sight to see that."

A few hours later, Jackie woke up, before hastily popping some Mentats to keep herself up. "Jesus Christ, where did this shit come from?"

---

By this point, Jackie was starting to consider just never sleeping again. You weren't supposed to feel pain in dreams, right? It was just the chems. She reminded herself of that, looking down at Bitch's stupid broken collar in her hand. Honestly, she almost wanted to say this was Danforth's fault. It was that robot who'd brought up all this moral complexity, all of these questions that nobody had bothered to ask in the Enclave. She put the broken collar in her lap, her head on the top of her pillow as she looked up at the tent's roof. The wind blew outside like the storm it was, but still.

It was quiet here.

There were moments that the words feared, suffering too terrible to name, and yet here she was. She closed her eyes and remembered Dave Stanton, before he'd shipped off to China. She remembered him telling her she looked good in her first dress, even though it was an unflattering rag she'd gotten at a thrift shop for a pittance. A mere two hundred dollars for a dress from the 2030s. She looked like a grandma, but Dave, he'd said it looked good. Sure, he'd then given her some money to buy some more upscale clothes, but the thought was what counted.

She remembered Raven, calling a reporter a pig on the evening news after the police shot their leg at the protest and amputated it. They said when they were killed it would be the final straw, that the people of the United States would rise up against their cruel leaders and create a new, brighter republic: a more perfect union. They shot them, laughed, and then nothing happened. The union remained imperfect. She remembered Mom telling her that even as the Patriot Party-controlled Texas Commonwealth reclassified being transgender as a mental illness requiring permanent institutionalization and soporific chems, that God would take care of the family. Sara had prayed on it, and come to the conclusion that it was wrong and evil. Surely God and the President would put an end to it.

There were things Jackie did not know.

Sara burned.

Harold Stanton, the old mechanic, had burned too. The simple and kind old man who'd pushed her to accomplish something glorious, who'd helped her scrimp and save and work to pay for college had died in an ugly instant. Dave was in China, fighting a war he believed in against an enemy he knew would kill him given half a chance. A Chinese stealth trooper snuck into his camp, slashed his throat like the rest of the grunts. He thought the Yankee GI was dead. He was not. As far as the Chinese infiltrator knew, the job was done, the dog tags brought to Shang Shi Peng Tao. Peng was a high-ranking NCO with a steely gaze and a future of staring into his own gun barrel.

Sara and Harold hugged each other, praying to Jesus that they would be saved as the TV announcer mentioned that Los Angeles was now immolated in scouring atomic fire. They had sent their last letter to Jackie, to their poor yet overachieving girl, a letter full of fear and anxiety. It had come with Bible verses and old cliches. Jackie never got it, it was picked out of the mailbox by a government censor who thought the Bible verses were a Chinese code. Sara and Harold died in the blast, one moment they were thinking, breathing human beings, the next moment they were atomized and erased from the universe.

They had all survived, though, in some way. Dave, for example, had survived the throat-slashing to become a mute folk hero for the average Chinese after the war, helping children, growing food, and acting as a wandering knight-errant of sorts. His name vanished from history, he died in bed with his wife's hand in his, his five children looking at their mother.

As for Raven, the Red Serpent tribe in Arizona, based in the University of Tempe where Raven went to school, created a new identity for them as the Crow Martyr, a passion-bearer of the wasteland half-remembered as they were. The Red Serpents would have a remarkably progressive view of gender, owing to their origins as a student communist underground movement, not that Raven was a communist. In this way, Red Serpents would ask the Crow Martyr for strength and wisdom, the only ones to remember the youngest Stanton.

For old Sara and Harold, they were merely immortalized in the letter, which was stolen years ago and currently sat opened in the house of a settler named Mary. She found it a reminder of Old World faith and family. If nothing else, the people before the Great War were still people. Mary wondered sometimes who Sara, Harold, and Jackie were. They must have been good people. She hoped they had good lives, as she drank her whiskey and petted her dog near the fireplace in her Canadian cabin.

All things fade away.

 

[Obscura]

info: proper tagging is important

Given the high-impact nature of this story, it's important that everybody coming into it knows what they're getting into. Sufficient Velocity allows high-impact content, provided that it is handled properly and maturely, which includes proper tagging.

Specifically, under Rule 6: Acceptable Content on SV, high-impact content such as this story must be handled maturely, including by not fetishizing or glorifying violence, hatred, or abuse, including high-impact elements harmoniously and appropriately within a greater context, and, most relevantly to this post, by making it clear what you're posting in advance - by tagging it - so that people who aren't interested don't have to read or see it.

While this story was correctly tagged as Mature, and the actual story content has been handled maturely so far, I have elected to add further tags to the story to make sure anyone encountering it knows exactly what they're getting into, these being the tags Abuse, Slavery, Abuse of Power, Mental Illness, Fascism, Assault, Sexual Assault, Torture, Dark, Transphobia, and Gaslighting.

 

[RiverDelta]

Well, here's a lighter chapter after all that darkness above.

---

Jackie looked around the bar in Wooden Point and noticed two women who seemed notable. First, there was a woman in a black suit and necktie with an eyepatch, and Jackie assumed that she was probably part of some kind of organization. Maybe it was organized crime, maybe it was some kind of FBI or DIA remnant she hadn't heard of, maybe it was even the Railroad. Who knew? What Jackie did know was that a woman like that had power, and it was probably best not to get too close to that.

She didn't want to involve herself in a new game she didn't know how to play.

The other woman on the other hand seemed far less threatening, so Jackie tentatively sat down at the bar next to her and ordered a Perry's Ale. For a woman so usually confident, Jackie actually seemed kind of anxious, squirming in her seat. How were you supposed to appeal to people without damaging them? she thought. "Uh, hey," the ghoul waved."

The blonde spoke. "Oh, um, hey. Are you...are you okay? Are you a ghoul, or do you need some help or something?" The woman wore patchwork garb with a combat armor chestplate.

"I'm a ghoul, don't worry, mu—smoo—yeah," Jackie said. So this was going well. "Jackie Stanton, from Toronto. You know, Ronto."

"Aubrey White, from, uh, Iowa. You're from Canada?" Aubrey asked. "What's it like up there?"

"It's nice underground," Jackie said, sipping her beer. "This is pretty good stuff," she said, desperately trying to make conversation.

Aubrey nodded. "You live underground up there?"

"Yeah, topside is mostly for the military and the human servants..." Jackie said, as even she had realized that talking about slavery to a potential date was probably a bad move.

"Sounds pretty upscale," Aubrey said.

"Oh, it was."

"So what're you doing down here?" Aubrey asked.

"There was a whole fiasco up there. I had to leave," Jackie said, visibly hesitant to talk about it.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I had to leave my home too."

"Why? What was it like over in Iowa?"

"Well, the Church of Fire is pretty big there, so...."

Jackie nodded. "...Ah. Yeah, that would be..."

"Also, there were a bunch of vault dwellers on horseback who were a real pain in the ass," Aubrey laughed.

"Yeah, makes sense. I do want to come back to my home, someday. I just hope it's still around, you know?"

"No place like home," Aubrey said. "Nice uniform, between you and the lady in the suit I'm feeling pretty underdressed," she laughed.

Jackie successfully fought the urge to make an off-color joke about the topic of being underdressed. "Nah, you look fine. You ever gonna visit home?"

"Maybe, I dunno. I send letters to people out there. Family, friends." Aubrey put on a smile. Jackie could tell it was just a polite one.

"Yeah, I used to do that too. You look good, by the way. The road leathers are surprisingly flattering."

"Oh, uh, thanks," Aubrey giggled. "Sorry about the whole ghoul thing."

"Nah, it kind of worked out for me. Immortality's pretty great."

"Oh? When were you born?"

"2051. Before the Great War," Jackie said.

"What was it like back then?"

"...Mixed. 2051 wasn't awful, but by 2076 my brother was at war on the other side of the planet, my sibling was mutilated and killed by the government for going to a protest, and in 2077 my mom and dad burned in nuclear fire."

Aubrey's eyes widened. "That's...intense, yeah."

"You caught me at a bad time. I promise I'm almost always more normal and less depressing. I just had a few bad chem trips, that's it."

"Well, if you ever need anything..."

"I mostly just wanna keep talking with you," Jackie said. "Honestly, you don't even want to talk to me, though, I'm probably kind of a piece of shit. I thought if I just ignored it I could...be the person I've been, forever, but now I'm asking questions I never bothered to..."

"You're not a piece of shit. You seem nice enough. Just...tired."

"No, I am. I've hurt people," Jackie said.

"Everyone's hurt people."

"Not everyone's committed war crimes," Jackie said.

"'He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.' 2 Timothy 1:9," Aubrey said. "God forgives everything as long as you repent and live a godly life, Jackie. I'll pray for you," Aubrey said, and Jackie actually felt a presence, a powerful, compassionate presence. Not God, there probably wasn't a God, but Aubrey. Jackie smiled.

"What if I don't believe in God?"

Aubrey's face dropped just a bit at that. "...You can still do good works, still try and help people and act as Christ the teacher did, not Christ the Son. Still...I think this is something maybe we could talk about together? Slowly, over time, at your pace."

"Please don't evangelize to me. The only god I know of is the one that the Patriot Party invented in the old United States to justify their bullshit. I put up with it, that's politics, but I'm not going to endorse it now that they're in the dirt."

"I won't evangelize to you. Jackie, you're...I'm sorry you're so...I'm sorry you're in pain, and I want to help you. Did you come here to get laid, or did you come here to find someone?"

"I wanted to...find someone. Someone I could love again," Jackie mumbled.

"Well, God loves everyone."

"Hey!"

"Joking, joking!" Aubrey laughed. "I won't force it on you, don't worry. Why don't we talk about something lighter? Favorite color?"

"Black."

"Figures. Mine's yellow. Favorite shape?"

"I dunno, the triangle? Definitely not the hexagon," Jackie mumbled.

"Mine's probably the oval. It reminds me of a puddle. Why not the hexagon?" Aubrey asked.

"...I dunno," Jackie said, thinking of those weird Norse mythology-themed dreams.

"Greatest accomplishment?"

"...Becoming Senator of the Toronto Enclave. How about you?"

"Finishing my first novel, probably." She raised her Pip-Boy to display to Jackie. "I write 'em on here."

"Oh, shit, you write novels?"

"Yeah!" Aubrey's eyes seemed to shimmer.

"What are they about?" Jackie asked.

"Different stuff. Senator seems pretty prestigious. Must've been hard work."

"Yeah, I went from a conscript to a General and then to a Senator, that took two centuries. It was, in my humble opinion, pretty impressive," Jackie said.

"Oh, damn, that...That must've required a lot of bravery, huh?"

"...Yeah. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, though."

"Naturally. So, what brings you to Wooden Point?" Aubrey asked.

"I'm a caravan guard, going to Toled—the Blast Zone." It was where she'd lived so long ago, where her parents had died. Jackie hated this newfound sense of tragedy that was infecting her. It was so easy before, just being a cheery and affable sadist.

Why couldn't that have stayed?

"Oh, you said you were looking for a spare?" Aubrey asked.

"In more ways than one," Jackie said.

"Works for me! Mind if I tag along?"

Jackie's gaze briefly moved over Aubrey's plush lips and adorable freckles. "I feel like I should probably say this, just to make sure you don't feel like you're being conned, but, I'm, uh, transgender."

"What does that mean?"

"I was born a boy in body but I had the brain of a girl, so I went through medical treatments as a teenager to become a woman. I've been a woman the last two hundred years."

"Huh, how come you're mentioning this?"

"I don't want anyone to get uncomfortable. When people found out, they usually used to freak out and dump me. Someone tried to stab me once over it. So I have to mention it ahead of time to make sure it's OK. I haven't had a date in a while, so..." It was obvious to Aubrey that Jackie was woefully out of practice at the art of talking to people she actually wanted to be happy.

"Oh, are we on a date?"

"Do you want this to be a date?" Jackie asked.

"I do."

"Then it's one." A corner of Jackie's burned mouth quirked up.

"Cool," Aubrey said, leaning in to kiss Jackie on the lips. "God, that is like two hundred years of no chapstick," she said with a smile.

"Oh, don't rub it in."

---

CW: A branding mark on a human body is featured in this segment of this chapter. Please be advised.



After a fun night of chatting and joking, Jackie and Aubrey had left Billie Everett's Tavern to go to a room Jackie had rented at a local hotel. Jackie had passed by Danforth, but neither the farm girl nor the Enclave senator had acknowledged the robot beyond a small wave or the like. Room 203 was...remarkably cozy. Nothing like the ramshackle world of Wooden Point. Aubrey got onto the bed and fingered her belt. "Mind if I get the leather off? This stuff doesn't breathe well."

"...Uh, sure," Jackie said, bemused. "Are...Are you hitting on me? This is really unsubtle."

"Kinda."

Jackie looked at Aubrey's hip and noticed a strange, depressed red mark. A pinwheel of a zero, a nine, and a three around a circle with a Vault-Tec symbol in the middle, Jackie noticed it for what it was—a brand. "....Those Vault Dwellers on horseback?" Jackie asked.

"What?"

"Your...marking, on your thigh over there. There's a Vault-Tec logo and some numbers."

"Shit, I should have known you'd see that. I know at the bar I hinted that I left Iowa because of the Church. That was...kind of true. They don't like bisexuals. It was also because the Vault Huns captured me and sold me to a childless farmer's family under the Church of the Fire. I ran. That's it, it's over. Problem solved. Just a minor event in my life."

Jackie stopped utterly at that. "....No! Come on!" she yelled.

"Yeah, it was awful!"

"Yeah, and...Look, you can't date me. You definitely can't date me. I...I've had a slave before, I...I tortured her and manipulated her into loving me, I made her into an...How can...How can a normal, strong person like you have been a..."

"....Jackie, what do you really believe when you talk about this 'strong person' thing?" Aubrey asked.

"That the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must, what else? Then there was the dreams, the chems, the image of Bitch, or Roxie, or Odin or whoever in my brain chewing me out, every time I fall asleep, and now the one girl I happen to match with is a former slave? I don't know anything anymore, Aubrey!"

"...Bitch? I was Kitten," Aubrey said in a level tone.

"Go fucking figure."

"So those were the war crimes you were talking about?"

"Well, that and gunning down civilians a few times," Jackie said. "I told you I'm not a good person!"

"But you can try."

"What?" Jackie asked. "You...I don't...I don't know anything, just fucking get rid of me so I can enslave someone and manipulate her into loving me again! It was so much easier before I found my conscience again. Please, just drop me, I'm...Stronger than you. Better than you, or you're better than me, or God knows what else, but I know we can't so much as kiss anymore because—"

"I don't know. For a slaver, you seem guilty about it. Why did you become a slaver, Jackie?"

"This is going to sound moronic," Jackie said.

"Tell me," Aubrey insisted.

"...Because it was normal in the Enclave, because I was taught before the war that politicians and soldiers got to do whatever they wanted, because the Enclave taught me Social Darwinism and fascism. Most of all, because I have a sadistic personality disorder and nobody told me otherwise!"

Aubrey got comfortable on the bed. "I don't think you want to be a slaver, Jackie. I think you want human connection, but the only way you'll ever allow yourself to get it is based on following these weird Social Darwinist rules about power. I think you want to stop. That's probably why you seem so obsessed with Roxie. Jackie, we're all sinners. Some of us more than others. Still, it seems like on some level you want to repent, that all you want is to be close to someone and to feel safe."

"I never felt safe in my entire life except when I was alone with Bitch," Jackie commented.

"Jackie, I'm not going to say you're innocent, or that you've hurt nobody, or that what you did to Roxie wasn't completely unacceptable, but it definitely wasn't good for her, and it doesn't seem like it was really good for you."

"I could have had her as a lover if I'd just..."

"See, look at this progress!" Aubrey said.

"...Why...Why don't you hate me?"

"Because, Jackie Stanton, you want to be better, and I want to help you become better. I know you can."

"You wanna know the worst part? When I was going to find some new date at the bar, I fantasized that she and I could, you know, get some slaves and settle down."

Aubrey, displaying incredible patience and well used to the psyches of awful people in her travels, spoke. "...Is slavery really the only way you know to maintain connections with others?"

"All my life since I got that job with Senator Cartwright in DC I've manipulated and hurt everyone I'd ever met if it'd help me. You're damn right slavery and abusive relationships were the only ways I could be emotionally intimate. Hurting people is all I've known how to do for centuries."

"...Jackie, sit down on the bed," Aubrey said, and Jackie tilted her head but nonetheless got onto the bed next to Aubrey. Aubrey wrapped a hand around Jackie.

"Could you get me a Vim?" Jackie asked.

"I think there's Sunset Sarsaparilla in the fridge."

"Sounds great," Jackie said, starting to get comfortable on the bed as she stared at Aubrey's curves. Aubrey returned with the soda and handed it to Jackie, who cracked it open with a bottle opener.

Aubrey returned. "God, you're cute from behind," she said, tracing her fingers down Aubrey's cheek and to her neck.

"Now, why don't you get yourself a drink and get on the bed?" she asked, tracing kisses down Aubrey's collarbone.

"Can do," Aubrey commented with a willing smile.

---

One fun night later, and Jackie and Aubrey sat on the bed in their pajamas. Aubrey wore something simple, just a white cotton t-shirt and pink pajama pants, while Jackie wore a blue set of silk sleepwear. The two women held hands as they lay on the bed, their backs down. "I still...I still can't believe that...You really think I can be better?" Jackie asked, the idea almost incomprehensible to her. After all, until very recently she didn't even think she was doing anything wrong. "What was it like, being a slave?" Jackie asked. It was a question she hadn't really bothered to think about in any kind of depth.

Aubrey gave it some thought, the topic a bit prying. Still, she didn't seem too bothered. It was a common question to answer for her. "Terrifying. Imagine being treated like an object and having to do anything anyone says, no matter how humiliating, painful, nonsensical, or uncomfortable. Worse, sometimes you aren't even given clear orders, and you have to assume things, and then you get beaten or shocked or...It's not a good experience. It's like being the cringing, terrified servant of an angry, stupid, and totally inconsistent god."

"How long were you a slave?"

"From nineteen to twenty-six."

Jackie put a hand on Aubrey's thigh at that. "I...I appreciate that you haven't just killed me in my sleep for what I did."

"I don't think, outside of self-defense, it's people's place to decide who lives or dies, Jackie. Joseph forgave his brothers in the Bible for selling him into slavery. I can't forgive you on behalf of Roxie, that's not how it works, but everyone can be redeemed and everyone can be saved."

"What about Hitler?" Jackie asked.

"Who?"

"He was this guy from centuries ago, he killed eleven million people and started the biggest war in human history," Jackie noted.

"...Oh, well, yeah, he's probably in the Lake of Fire or whatever," Aubrey noted. "My point is that you're learning, you want to be better."

"It was simpler when I just tortured and enslaved people, you know? Kicking back in my office while having someone come in and refill my wine glass."

"Jackie, you're a ghoul. Is that how you want to spend the next five hundred years? Drinking wine and abusing women? Really?"

"It's just that I'm...It was so superficial, which worked for me, but now I'm realizing that that was incredibly fucked up, that you can't just do that, because you're here and you're showing kindness to me even though I don't know why. You're a slave, but you're strong. You can handle yourself. You don't even use that for yourself, you're...kind, and strong in being kind. It doesn't make any sense to me."

Aubrey put a hand on Jackie's thigh and her head on the ghoul's shoulder. The empty Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle sat on the end table. "...Seems like kind of a miserable way to go through life, huh, thinking that everyone's out to get you so you need to be out to get everyone else, or at least that you can't ever get too close to people or they'll stab you in the back. Jackie, what was America like before the war? Really."

"There was a lot more food and luxuries, nobody was afraid of raiders or monsters or whatever, but it still wasn't good. Everyone was spying on you all the time, if you said the wrong thing and the government wanted to they'd put a bag over your head and disappear you, they even sent Americans to camps. It was necessary, probably, but...God, who am I kidding? I need to stop giving the people who killed my sibling for going to a rally the benefit of the doubt. I can't go home, can I?"

"Do you want to?"

"More than you know."

"You wouldn't be able to grow in the Enclave, in that underground slave metropolis. You'd never get to be better. It seems like the Enclave just froze a fraction of the Old World forever. As long as you lived there, as long as you thought of yourself as an American, you'd never become a better person," Aubrey said.

It was...a hard truth, and Jackie knew that. The worst part was that Jackie didn't even have friends in the Enclave. Not really. She had people she hung around, and people she chatted with and had fun with, but friends? Close friends? That was not for the perfect fascist girl.

"Babe, I'm gonna go hit the fight club for an hour or something," Jackie said. "See ya soon?"

---

"Did you hear? Senator Stanton disappeared into thin air." Daisy Cohen said, as she adjusted her school uniform. She sipped her paper cup of water. Dressed in a red sweater and pleated skirt, the unofficial most popular girl at the Toronto Patriotic Academy smiled. " My dad says that she turned out to be a lesbian."

A boy in a black trench coat sipping a slushie rolled his eyes. "That much was obvious," he said.

"And who the hell are you?" the shorter Daisy Johnson said, giving a quick look at Daisy Cohen in search of approval.

"That's none of your business," he said, cooly. "Suffice to say that we all knew that Senator Stanton was a lesbian and probably transgender. That isn't against the law here, as much as people like Mr. Cohen would like it to be." CJ exhaled briefly, sipping his slushie. "If you want my theory, I think she went too far with that slave of hers. Think about how that raider was with her all the time. Maybe she did things with that raider, and that's why she's not around anymore."

"Jackie Stanton would never fall in love with a slave, and even if she did, that wouldn't explain why she disappeared!" Daisy J. insisted, her speech higher than CJ's level voice or Daisy C's haughty tone. "I think what happened was that Jackie Stanton was killed by some ARC ghoul monster! Think about it, she was last seen—"

"Entering her office," CJ said, raising a finger. "Unless an ARC ghoul from Ottawa got into her office, I'd say your theory is less than compelling. If anyone would make her disappear, it'd be the Occupation Authority."

"That sounds like commie bull to me," Daisy Valdez said, looking at her yellow clad unofficial subordinate and her red-clad authority. "I say Jackie Stanton ran for her life. We all knew she was nutty for Nuka-puffs when she talked about her time as a torturer on the radio. I bet she was too much of a mad dog, and she ran before she could be rightfully put down," Daisy V. said.

"Shut up, Daisy!" Daisy C. yelled, shoving the girl next to her.

"Sorry, Daisy!" Daisy V. yelled

At that moment, a girl in a blue sweater approached the lunch table with her tray of hydroponic veggies and cloned meat, sitting down next to CJ. "What're you all taking about?" she asked.

"Well, Ginny, these three airheads and I are discussing the recent mysterious disappearance of Senator Jacqueline Stanton. Spooky, right?" he said, not sounding particularly spooked.

"Virginia, tell your psycho boyfriend to shut up," Daisy C. said.

"Oh, you wanna know why I think she disappeared? I think she never existed to begin with. All those newspaper interviews and radio addresses were just hallucinated collectively by all of us," Virginia said with an extremely jokey lilt in her voice.

"Virginia, what's your actual theory?" Daisy V. asked.

"...I don't have one."

"Come on, everyone has a theory. Mine's that she ran for her life to escape justice for her war crimes."

"C'mon Daisy, Jackie Stanton didn't do any war crimes," Daisy J. whined.

"She talked about torturing people over the radio," Daisy V. said, defensively.

"Yeah, but that's just what you do in the military. She's a ghoul, right? Why are even accusing her of things? She's better than us! She's part of the superior species, she's a Senator, she's fought in all these wars and stuff, right? We're just high school students," Daisy J. said.

"Oh, she's not better than me," Daisy C. interjected.

CJ rolled his eyes. "If you want my opinion, I think all of these ideas about who's better than who are just moronic."

"Nobody wants your opinion, psycho," Daisy C. responded.

"I wanna hear his opinion," Virginia said, softly.

"Thank you, Ginny. I say the ghouls need to be taken down from their pedestals. The only place ghouls and slaves can get along is in Heaven."

The whole group kind of chilled at that. "I'm reporting you to Officer Sam!" Daisy Valdez said, starting to run off.

CJ seemed to ignore the threat. "Stay, Miss Second-Rate, Officer Sam knows that I'm going to make an excellent soldier one day, so don't bother," he said with a cold smile.

Daisy Cohen reached over to grab Daisy Valdez's arm, pulling her back to the table. "Listen here, if you get the school's Ethics Committee looking at us because we're having fun, I am going to make you regret you were ever born. Are we clear, Daisy?"

"Sorry, Daisy!"

"Good. We're all gonna be collaborators for the Enclave government, so don't you get us shot!" Daisy Cohen hissed.

Daisy Valdez nodded and quickly sat back down, and an overweight girl in a Giddy-Up Buttercup shirt approached the group. "Uh, can I sit here?" she asked.

"Beat it, Madison Lard," Daisy Johnson hissed, in a desperate attempt to appeal to her superior. "Why is Daisy V. even in the Daisies?" Daisy J. asked. Daisy Cohen pretended not to hear her.

"It's Madison Laird..." the said, sitting down next to Virginia, who took her hand.

"Virginia, why are you infecting this table with a loser like her?" Daisy Cohen asked. She raised her Fancy Lad Diet Snack Cake in red-painted claws.

"She's her friend," CJ said.

"She's going to look better if she sits here, so she'd better get the hell out," Daisy Cohen said.

"Why do you have to be such a megabitch?" Virginia asked.

"Because it's what I do," Daisy C. responded with. "You'll understand that eventually. Hopefully."

"Weren't we talking about Jackie Stanton?" Daisy Johnson asked.

"Yeah, and I know who's gonna get her job once she gets ghoulified," Daisy Cohen said with a smile. "I can't wait to lord it over you plebs."

"I hate this school," CJ mumbled with a sigh.

 

[RiverDelta]

2076

Jackie was visiting the family and Dave was away. At the moment, the two trans people happened to be in Raven's room, Jackie with her pale skin and silk scarf and Raven sitting on the floor, their purple buzz cut and leather jacket contrasting with their older sister's professional wear.

"What do you want, fascist?" Raven asked, as Jackie sat on the bed.

The adult looked down at the high school senior. "...You say that like it's a bad thing," Jackie half-joked. "I'm here because Mom said you were going to a protest at Levis Square. Don't."

"I've heard it from Mom," they said. "Don't give me that crap, you already have your twenty pieces of silver working for that senile old jingoist."

Jackie exhaled. "Senator Cartwright is a—"

"Senator Cartwright is endorsing genocide in Mexico."

Jackie looked away, eyes darting. "...I know, but he can't stop it and neither can I. Look, I don't know what Mom told you, Raven, but—"

Raven glared up at their sister. "But what? Are you saying that we live in a fascist dictatorship currently enacting a genocide and torturing Chinese-Americans and it's good?"

Jackie wanted to deny what was going on with the camps, but she couldn't. At least, she couldn't to Raven. "...You can't beat the government. The FBI, DIA, hell, even BADTFL, they don't lose. They hold all the cards."

"So let's flip the table!"

"They'll kill you," Jackie said.

"Then I'll die a martyr."

"Nobody will care."

"Everyone will care. The entire country'll go nuts if a teenager gets killed by the government."

"They already are killing teenagers! Raven, listen to yourself, you're out of your goddamn mind," Jackie insisted. "You'll get crippled, or beaten, or shot, and nobody will care. You're trans, right? I'm trans. We have that in common, please, listen to me." Jackie was begging, whining, as images of her sibling's broken body played across her brain.

"I don't know, you sure seem to support transphobes daily."

Jackie's eyes widened. "Raven, the Liberty Party is the only political party with any power that wants to allow us to exist at all!"

"Only binary trans people, and after getting sterilized and mandatory surgery. It's sad how you support the party that'll legitimize your binary existence without even thinking about how they'll hurt millions of other trans people who can't fit into that."

"Who the fuck else is going to help us? You can't keep wishing for things to be perfect, because they're not, and they never will be. You have to support slow progress because if you rock the boat, you'll get black-bagged. Work within the system, Raven. Keep your head down. That's how trans people survive in America."

"I hope I never see your bootlicker ass again," Raven spat.

"Good for you, because in two weeks I'm shipping out to Canada and when you come to your senses you'll miss me. This is just your temper tantrum. Look, Raven, I want you to be safe, okay? People like us, we can't get victimized, because when we get hurt nobody cares. I care about you, Mom and Dad care about, you, Dave cares about you. Please just keep your head down," Jackie said.

"We need to set fire to this fascist nightmare before it kills everyone," Raven said.

Jackie rolled her eyes. "It won't burn. Think rationally," Jackie said, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.



The protest was a storm of shouts, a packed-in group of over one thousand college students. The sun was bright an the crowd filled the streets like a flood. "No more annexation wars! No more annexation wars!" Raven chanted, just one voice in a seemingly endless sea. "No Patriots, no KKK, no fascist USA! No Patriots, no KKK, no fascist USA!" Raven shook their first in the air, shouting the words.

"No Patriots, no KKK, no fascist USA! No Patriots, no KKK, no fascist USA!" They shouted along with the crowd, smelling sweat, fear, desperation, and glory.

A deafening sound like a BRAK-BRAK-BRAK-BRAK boomed through the crowd, and then screams of pain and terror. The police were firing into the crowd? With a machine gun? What kind of...As the bullets flew into the crowd, Raven watched as bodies in front of them fell onto their knees, their stomachs, their arms, their heads, their guts. BRAK-BRAK-BRAK-BRAK, like a laugh. They tried to run in the other direction, pushing through the crowd, and as they turned they saw the crowd thinning quickly. A slug slammed into their leg, snapping it into splinters, and they fell onto the ground. They closed their eyes. It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.



Then, they woke up, an IV in their arm as they stared at a Mister Orderly robot and a red-haired woman in a lab coat. "Greetings, citizen, you are of exemplary health, save for the amputation. A prosthetic will be provided thanks to the Ohio Reformatory," the robot said.

"You cut off my leg?" Raven exclaimed.

"The wound from the bullet was gangrenous," the woman in the lab coat said. "We had to." She didn't seem to mind.

"How long am I gonna stay in here?" Raven asked.

"Just two days."

"Just two days?"

"Well, your execution is in two days," the doctor said, in a professional tone.

"Well, I guess I'll die for a cause."

The doctor laughed. "You kids are always so stupid. You aren't the first teenager to think they could take on the US government, and you won't be the last. Kids like you would do better thinking about college, not revolution."




They stood on their new prosthetic leg. They wobbled on it, and it was hard to get used to. They'd fallen more than a few times, and had the bruises to show for it, yet still they had to stand so they could walk into the execution chamber without being helped. They deserved that much, right before the end.

They heard the sound of footsteps as Jackie Stanton walked by, on the other side of the bars. She stopped. "...I just didn't want our whole family relationship to end on such a lousy note," Jackie said.

"How'd you get here?"

"Senator Cartwright called some people. I bet you're regretting it now."

"...A little bit, yeah. I hope people remember me."

"I will," Jackie said, voice straining.

"Not just you, I hope the nation remembers me."

Jackie put a hand on the bars. "Why couldn't you have just listened to my advice?"

"Give me liberty or give me death," Raven said, softly.

"You always were such an idealist."

"They'll burn it all down. We'll get what we want, democracy in the USA. Even if I have to die for it," Raven said, with the ignorance and virtue of youth.

"The only way that's happening is if the Chinese launch the nukes and the world gets blown to Kingdom Come, and I wouldn't even bet on democracy coming from the ruins of America. It...It doesn't work. It never worked."

"Why did you become a fascist, Jackie?"

"To survive. Why does anyone?"

Raven's face was one of sadness, not accusation. "Was it to hurt people? You always liked that."

"A little bit of that too, yeah. Do you want me to come with you to the firing squad? Raven, you're a good person. Too good for this world, really."

"When I die, everything burns. You don't need to come with me. I don't want you to see my corpse."

Jackie nodded, and turned to a guard behind a corner. "They're ready, Officer." The officer rolled her eyes and unlocked the door to Raven's cell. Raven wobbled out and put their hands behind their back. They saw the gun on the officer's hip. No way out.

"Everything burns, Jackie," they said.

As Raven and the officer walked away, Jackie got down on her knees, covered her mouth, and tears started to flow from her eyes. She sighed and heaved, eyes bulging. "Goodbye..." she squeaked, her voice stilted and cracking. Raven didn't seem to hear her. It was a lesson: conform. She cried.

---

2079

<Hello, Comrade,> Corporal Stanton said, as he used Chinese Sign Language to communicate with the girl at the camp. Dave noted that she couldn't've been more than fifteen. He used fingerspelling, in hopes that she would be more likely to have learned the basic signs. She gave him a confused look as smoke from the firepit rose out of the forest. He continued to frantically sign, still clad in his Marine fatigues and helmet.

The girl disappeared into the tent city, returning with an old man with the countenance of a sketchy uncle. He started to sign at Dave back. <Hi. Are you that foreigner? Ghost Walker?>

<I am, yes,> Dave signed, his command of Chinese Sign Language still somewhat stilted. <But I am not a monster or an enemy.>

<What of the flag on your uniform?> the middle-aged man asked.

<I was made to wear it, I disavow that nation. It was a cruel place.>

<We're aware, yes,> the man responded. <Your people looted and burned Zhongguo. >

<I did not. I was sent here to do that, yes, but I found that purpose evil and so I rejected it.>

<You're a foreigner the same, Ghost Walker.>

<Perhaps, but Meiguo killed my people, as it did yours,> Dave signed. <My sibling was killed by the government of Meiguo , my sister was turned into a proud and callous person due to becoming part of the Meiguo government, and my parents were most likely burned alive due to a war that I am certain that Meiguo started, not Zhongguo . I am not of Zhongguo , yes, but I do not wish to fight a war that was never worth starting.>

The man gave a deep, belly laugh, indicating that he was deaf and not mute, unlike Dave. He patted him on the back. <Good man! The gun is for bandits?>

Dave nodded, his worn Service Rifle on his back. <Yes, it is for the defense of the innocent,> he signed.

The girl turned to the man, who translated her Chinese into sign. It wasn't really necessary, Dave knew Chinese, but it was appreciated nonetheless. <It's ironic that you're known as the Ghost Walker and yet you're out in the open,> the man said, translating for the girl.

<I can be invisible when I want to be,> Dave said.

The man laughed. < Meiguo ren are too loud for that,> he signed.

<There are a lot of things to dislike about Americans, but being too loud isn't one of the major ones in my eyes,> Dave signed.

<Well, I'm ignoring that yours is a country of murderers,>

<I'm aware,> Dave signed, sighing as he said it. <But those days are over. Now, we're all survivors.>

The girl whispered to the man, and the man signed to Dave. <That's true. Would you like some fried flatbread?> he asked. <Ma Bo is making some.>

<That would be lovely, thank you,> Corporal Stanton said, and for a moment he didn't think of Raven, Mom, Dad, or Jackie. He thought of food, and friends. <May this moment last forever,> he signed.

<Don't count on it,> the man signed, before leading Dave to the fire to watch Ma Bo cook. He ripped off the American flag patch on his uniform and threw it into the fire under the hanging pan. As it burned, he let his memories of being drafted, memories of the Gobi Offensive, memories of a sibling with bullet holes in their head, memories of a callous, cringingly servile bitch that used to be his beloved little sister, and all other pains that weighed on him burn as the patch did.

Where there are green hills, there will be wood to burn. 留得青山在，不怕没柴烧。

Where there is life, there is hope.

 

[RiverDelta]

June 6th, 2214


A Poem by Roxie, Untitled

Below, in a black kingdom I dwell
The wine and the chemicals sing
A song that i must not forget
if I am to survive this Hell

A soft voice listens to my worries
She tells me it is not my place to fight
A soft voice whispers my name
I stand against the dying of the light

Two fingers enter a perfect rose
She loves me, I excessively know
Educated to speak with articulation
Begging to be used in masturbation

She reminds me of my failings
I cannot tell truth from lies
She reminds me of my evil
I no longer fear to die

I walk on balsa wood, I hear it snap
She loves me more than I can take
She is my angel and has given me heaven
She loves me nightly until I break

My body is hamburger, my soul tissues
No one here is kinder than she
Forty volts when she finds issues
Forty volts makes me feel at ease
With the burning, this suffering has ceased

With her she has a thousand angles
and sometimes in grief it feels like fun
I know now why I do not dangle
for she loves me and I cannot run