What Stories Tell Us

Somewhere, whenever, there is a discussion between Sidestep and Ortega. This one is wrapped in softness and the vulnerability that comes with broken bones and close friendships. At another time, another place this might go differently, but the core will be there. A conversation. No choices. No code yet.

It all started with Ortega's father, a memory brought up, a crack in a facade where you dug your fingers in.

...

"Don't you have any good memories of him?" I ask, and maybe that's what does it. The asking. I never do that, not in any meaningful way. Knowledge gives power, but the power is not one-sided. To know something about someone is to be close to them. Danger. But maybe things have gone so far that danger is preferable to ignorance.

"He used to tell me stories." The answer comes slowly, but clearly, as if it had just been there waiting, under the surface. The past is coming back to haunt us all, perhaps that's understandable. "When I was little. When the world was falling apart around us."

"That's true," you say, mostly to dispel the silence you can feel building between you. "You were born just after the Big One." Two years after. Or a year and a half. Birthdays are there to mark the time, aren't they? Was it just coincidence that you choose your own rebirth to align with the disaster that wrecked this place? Or had the fates aligned to mark the date? Significant. That you know in your bones. "Weird to have a child in that mess."

"Hah." The laugh is sharp, disembodied somehow, as if it is easier to think of it as somehow apart from ${him}. The same reason you're looking elsewhere, not to see the impact your questions have. Blank mind. Unseen face. Does that makes it easier? "You're such an ass, ${nickname}. But I suppose you've got a point. I honestly don't know if I was an accident."

"An accident?" You turn to look at ${him} then, seeing your own frown reflected on ${his} face. In sync again. You hate when that happen. It's dangerous to get that close, and yet here you are.

"A man and a woman generally have to take active steps not to have babies if they sleep with each other." The smile is teasing, and directly aimed at you.

"I know that." You can't stop the annoyance, and it's as if the sharpness of your tone makes ${him} settle into something like comfort. "Just seems weird that would happen with..." with ${his} father. Not that you ever met him, but there's thoughts surfacing now again in Tía Elena that you can't unhear. Little memories. Some kind. Others painful.

"You're not wrong." Ortega is the one that looks away this time. "I think... I never asked. Maybe they were just optimists. Or desperate. Seems like one reaction to the end of the world. Make babies for the new one." Another laugh, hollow this time.

"Gross," you say to tease a real laugh from ${him} this time. Better.

"Sometimes shit happens." $!{he} shrugs. "And sometimes I'm that shit, I suppose." He beat you to the joke, and you reward ${him} with an annoyed snort. "Not that it matters. Texas wasn't that badly affected thanks to the prevalent wind direction, so there was less risk of complications. Later... well. He would tell stories of what it was like elsewhere."

"He wasn't home?"

"Not much. Not when I was a kid. I think he blamed himself for that, as if he had been around I might not have grown up... wrong." The laugh is there again, a placeholder for other emotions. "He was military, mom got a nice house near the base, but he was stationed where they needed him. And that was everywhere in those days."

"That was the stories he used to tell?"

"Yeah. I kept asking, and I think he probably saw it as some sort of life lesson. A bit 'look how good you've got it' you know? A warning example."

"He really didn't know you at all." You can't stop the smirk, though you're not quite sure what the feeling is. Pride? Anger? Glee? That you know Ortega better than ${his} father ever did or will.

"No. All it made me want was to go there. To see it. That was the first thing I did when I finally left home. Went west."

"How was it. I've only seen... documentaries from those days." Not something you looked deeply into, but late nights you've had to make do what was on television. For distraction. People like picking at open wounds, and this was a favorite. Different narratives, some claiming to tell the truth, others to be fiction. None of them agreeing on much. You suppose it doesn't matter, there's as many different ends of the world as there are people. Disasters can be surprisingly personal.

"I mostly remember clouds and rain where I grew up. Black rain only occasionally. Which was apparently not that common." Ortega leaned back, contemplating some distant past where you were not yet decanted. "Flooding was bad. I remember that. Some cities nearly abandoned. I'm told Houston used to be a lot larger than it is now. And that more people lived where the base was. Wherever... I remember we lived in a different place first, but I can't remember where. Maybe more than one. I suppose mom would know. But we were transferred to another base when I still was in elementary school and stayed there. Safer. Boring. Something I should be grateful for."

You can't stop the snort. "Sure."

"Yeah. I know." Ortega shares a smile with you. "Dad was stationed in the midwest at first. I was just a baby then. No families. It was strictly active troops. It was... bad. You know what it was called? Operation Cornfield." A shake of ${his} head. "He didn't like that. Never understood why. But the army was there to keep order. A whole lot of refugees had just been dumped there from the coast. Far enough away that the ash was a nuisance and not a death-sentence, but it still needed to be dealt with. Clearing roads. Sweeping ceilings. Repairing irrigation systems. Trying to make the farmland functioning again."

"Didn't take your father for a farmer."

"No. He was just there directing the troops that kept them at gunpoint. Too volatile, you see. Refugees with nothing. Farms that needed labor. The people back east needing food. There was no room for failure in that equation. And he was there to make sure things flowed smoothly. That nobody enriched themselves, or hid away things that should be sent east."

"Military dictatorship."

"Oh they called it something different. The congress had given the President emergency powers. But you're not wrong. He never told me if they shot people. But I figure they did. Looters."

"People who didn't do what they're told."

"That's what they did to... you?" $!{he} stops short of saying 'your kind.'

"If they were lucky." You force a shrug. "Probably for the best, if they were that obvious they were stupid. And if they went on they would just make things worse for everyone else."

"I didn't know." You didn't know ${his} voice could get that small.

"Nobody outside the Farm did. We weren't people anyway." You lean away from ${his} touch, so ${he} pulls back. "And neither were the refugees I bet. Just a mass of people of no use." You remember something ${he} said and adds "Except as labor I suppose."

"That's bleak."

"Is it? You need certain things to be people. Money. Somewhere to live. A job. Worth. Someone that cares about you. Otherwise you're something else. Refugee. Immigrant. Trash." Re-Gene. That is one thing you have come to realize at this point. You might not have been seen as people, but the same goes for so many humans. Peoplehood is conditional. Something you earn. Or is born into.

"I didn't say it wasn't true," Ortega admits. "The way dad talked about some of them. I think he was scared. The things they had seen... it made them hard to intimidate. Hard to control. Some shut down, but the ones that had survived to get that far... they were dangerous. That's why the military was there."

"That's what he said." You know an excuse when you hear one.

"I know. And I never questioned that part." Ortega sighs. "I guess I pictured them as some form of ash-covered dirty zombies ready to tear people apart for a scrap of food. And then..." there's a pause as ${he} fishes around for a thought, mulls it over, and finally decides to share it. "I guess I realized he was full of shit when he started treating me the same way."

"Push someone hard enough and they'll push back." Your voice is steel. You did. You will.

"Not everyone," Ortega reminds you, a fact you already know. And hates.

"That just means we have to do it for them." We. You realize that word doesn't sound wrong. Not right now.

"What are you talking about?" ${his} tone is light, but there is weight there. You know it. $!{he}'s not stupid. It's taken you a long time to realize that.

"Tell me a story your father told you." It is an open challenge to change the subject, but to your surprise (and relief) ${he} obeys.

"The horizons used to be made of thunder." Ortega looks down, ransacking old memories. "The wind was everything. If it blew just right the skies could be clear of ash, but the entire western horizon would be pitch black. Massive clouds of ash and volcanic thunder. It was a constant noise, like an endless freight train going past. Except the clouds had no rails, that always made me laugh as a child, picturing clouds on rails, so the train could swerve in your direction at any point and run you over. But it was beautiful, especially as the sun started to set. The sunsets were glorious back then, brilliant reds and purples, fiery oranges. Everything else might be gray and dead but the skies were more alive than ever."

Ortega pauses, running both hands over ${his} face. But you don't say anything, so ${he} haltingly continues.

"He told me to not trust beauty. It never lasts. If the wind shifted even slightly eastward the storms would roll in. Black rain. Flooding. And even if the thunder stayed away, the ash would cover everything. There used to be dust storms down south. Back in the days of his grandfather, or great grandfather. I can't remember. But there were drought and dust and all the fields died. And then the people. Or they left. Many went west. And now they returned. Except the dust storms were ash storms. Black instead of red. Respirators. Everyone brushing it off the rooftops. If it rained it would be heavy enough to collapse. Had to get it off the plants too. Too much would choke them."

"Why did they stay?" It sounded futile, they had weapons, they could go elsewhere.

"Orders. But they had to pull back eventually. The area they had been securing was deemed to be lost. Everyone kept moving east. Losing one settlement at the time. Farmland covered by ash. He didn't want to talk about that. The failure. He could control the people but he couldn't control nature."

"Guess that was the lesson you took." You hide your smile.

"What?" Ortega's confusion is as genuine as it gets.

"To be a force of nature."

"I walked right into that one." $!{he} laughs in delight, then gives you a long look. "Was that a compliment?"

"You take everything as a compliment."

"I'll take what I can get when coming from you." But the smile is soft.

"It feels distant, doesn't it?" Not for you, but here and now you are lying to make a point. "Military running the place. Forcing people to do their bidding."

"It's not..." Ortega reacts like you hoped to, contrary as always. "The President still has emergency powers. And there might not be that many army bases here, but they still have a presence. Just because the sun is shining doesn't mean everything is back to normal."

"Normal." You can't stop the laugh. "Neither of us know what that is. And neither does anybody else out here. The normal people keep talking about, that's... what... over forty years ago by now? Who remembers that?"

"Enough of the people in power." $!{his} voice is quiet. Hard. "This is all temporary to them. The Free Western Territories. Now that the coast is... well, somewhat rebuilt, and things have stabilized there's really no reason to renew the lease. That's what I've heard. Unify the country once more. Repair the rifts. Be one United States again. A greater force on the international stage."

"You really think that's going to happen?" You pretend disbelief.

"I don't see what can stop it." There's a tone in ${his} voice you can't place. Anger? Fear? "Sure, the companies will want assurances that their business will be uninterrupted. Some laws and regulations will most likely have to be modified on both sides. But if they can keep making money, I don't think they'd see the value in resisting."

"You think they could? Resist?" The smallest dig.

"What? You mean a proper secession?" Ortega runs a hand through ${his} hair. "They have no army. What's to stop the government from just moving in? Security forces? Besides, they can't agree on anything."

"You need an army to invade," you agree. "But do you really need one to defend? To make it too costly to attack?"

"It wouldn't be about cost at that point." Ortega's voice is flat. "It would be about power. Ego." $!{he} spoke from familiarity. "Open defiance can't be accepted. If so... what's stopping Texas from leaving? Or anybody else? No. It would have to be stamped out. Even if it ruins everything again."

"Better to keep something ruined than letting something whole run free from your control." Your face is grim. You've seen the same attitude at the Farm. Seen how handlers more inclined to let their 'charges' develop too freely be reprimanded and dismissed. They don't want powerful Re-Genes. They want obedient ones. And they'd break anybody who can't be that. "You worried they'd draft you in the fight?"

"It won't come to that." But the laugh is tense. You don't need to read ${his} thoughts to know ${he}'s considered the possibility. "Anyway. I'll tell you what I told Wei. It's over my head. But if they ask me to do something I don't think is right... well, I suck at obeying orders. Apparently."

"We both do." Abruptly you wish you could just ask. Lay out the facts coldly and logically and ask ${him} if ${he} thinks this is right. If ${he} will go along with it. Or if ${he} wants to do something about it. But what would you do if you have miscalculated? If ${he} agrees on some things but disapprove of your methods? Not now, you tell yourself. Not now. Not when you're still in a vulnerable state, reliant on help. But soon you'll be fully healed. Back in your armor.

Maybe then it is time for ${villain_name} and Charge to have a conversation.