These first few chapters are prologue, I don't recommend skipping them. I've been cranking out chapters all day, so sorry if there are mistakes!

The United States of America had been in the midst of a civil war for nine months now. The war had forced the country into isolationism. All trades with them had stopped, sending the world market into a recession. Not one big enough to cause an unfixable amount of damage, but the absence was apparent. All the information about the war was by word of mouth through the people. Videos of anarchy and attempts at marshal law circled the internet. People talked about the teargas, the bullets, the senseless crime. Internet was scarce. Any electricity was, really. No one was there to pay the bills. No water, no heat, no air conditioning, no electricity, which meant no internet. People who had contracted with corporations with offices outside the country still had their power, and the good samaritans of society opened their doors to those who needed it. Everyone was helping pay the bills with every last penny in their credit account. It was the least they could do, those few people were saving lives.

When the resistance first made their voices heard, society continued without giving them a second thought. Everyone thought of them as a group that paralleled Anonymous, but it wasn't until their attacks against the governments were too big to conceal did things start getting scary. They had an unbreakable hivemind, communicating only through the postal service at first. Then, when experienced hackers joined their cause, they were able to communicate through encrypted deep-web chats hidden within proxies located in Estonia under big name corporations. Corporations who were too big to monitor every little thing that happened in their cyber network. Eventually, everyone in the resistance could talk freely on these chats without fear. Each one of them with months of code education behind them. No one really knew what the goal was. Their organization ran more like an oligarchy, with the only message coming from the assumed leaders was 'for equality'.

Help from any other government was nonexistent. No one wanted to take sides, and even if they did want to help, the United States had closed its' borders. Unofficial aid from relief groups in Canada were smuggled over the border, or flown in from Alaska or Hawaii, which were the only permitted ships and planes.

Alfred could no longer walk in the streets in peace. The moment war had been declared by the resistance the nation was taken by the government and put into holding until the war ended. As the government broke apart more and more, Alfred was forgotten about in a cement cell under the pentagon. Nations didn't need to eat or drink as often as normal humans, but they did need those things nonetheless. When both of those things stopped coming; when the shower, the toilet, the water fountain stopped working, Alfred started deteriorating. For the first time in his life, he felt what it was like to live on the baseline energy that came from the country's mere existence. It was the only thing left keeping him alive.

To pass the time Alfred daydreamed about how society was running outside. His gut instinct gave him a rough estimate of daily life, but he didn't know for sure until he saw it. He sat there, waiting for something to happen. Until one day, something did.

It was a usual day for him. Or was it night? He had lost track of time days, months, weeks ago. He was lying in his cot, thinking about what Matthew had been doing this entire time, when the power shut off. And when the power goes out, the cell lock stopped doing it's job.

It took Alfred a few seconds to realize this, but when he did, he jumped out of his cot as quick as he could. Maybe a little too fast, because as soon as he was on his feet, the all too familiar feeling of vertigo washed over him, and he fell over onto his side. After the room had stopped spinning, and he located his glasses that had fallen off during the fall, he slowly got up, and felt around for the door. Walking had gotten increasingly more difficult with the passing time. He was once a husky young man, but now, he was beyond thin. He swam in a shirt that once fit him perfectly, and his pants were held up by a string of fabric Alfred had torn off the bottom of his white T. Once he was out of the room, he placed his hand on a wall and started to follow it. The rough stone was familiar against his hand. It was the same material his cell had been made out of. The texture made him question if he was truly out, but after a few minutes of walking, his suspicions faded. He heard marching all around him. There was quite a few of them in the building. Whether they were government or something else, he wasn't sure. He heard a group approaching from behind. He turned to face them. He was met with five people in SWAT gear carrying rifles. They flashed their flashlights in his face.

"Are you… Alfred? Alfred F. Jones?" One of the frontmen asked the nation.

Alfred cleared his throat and balanced himself. It had been a long time since he talked, and he wasn't sure he had it in him anymore.

"Yes." He managed to croak.

"I'm sorry." The man said. He raised the butt of his gun and hit the side of Alfred's head, knocking him out cold.

Alfred woke up tied to a chair and blindfolded, with a piece of gauze taped to the side of his forehead. His wound pulsed with a dull pain that made him groan.

"Sir, he's awake." Someone said somewhere in the room.

"Water… please…" Alfred croaked. He heard someone scramble, and the crinkle of a plastic water bottle. The cold bottle pressed his lips and he instinctively drank as much water a possible. He greedily emptied the bottle, leaning back as soon as the water was gone and throwing his head back. He felt the water slosh around in his stomach, making him feel sick. The nausea won him over, and he bent forward and threw up the water he had just consumed. He tried to get his feet out of the mess he had just made, but he found his ankles were bound the the chair legs.

Alfred stay bent over, stuck in a coughing fit that rattled his frame. A hand came from behind and rubbed him back caringly until the fit had passed.

Human touch.

He had missed it so much.

He had missed life, he had missed his friends, his home, everything that was familiar to him. He missed it all. The coughing turned into sobs. Pure sadness filled his chest. The familiar feeling that he had fallen asleep to for so long returned in its' fullest power. The tears soaked his blindfold and snot that he couldn't even wipe away rolled down his face. The hand's body moved around and positioned itself in front of Alfred. His blindfold was removed, and the room was showcased to him. The hand had belonged to a young girl, probably in her early 20's. Older than Alfred's projected age, wearing a tight, long sleeve black shirt and loose grey sweatpants. She looked at Alfred with a worried expression. She wiped his face with the rage that was used to cover his eyes. His sobbing had calmed down, turning into ragged breathing, but the tears still flowed with vigor. His eyes felt heavy from crying as he sat up and looked at the girl. She sucked in a deep breath and came closer to him. And eventually, her arms were wrapped around him, comforting him.

"I'm sorry this is happening to you. I don't know anything, but I know we need you for our cause. May karma repay you one day."

The girl looked behind Alfred and nodded slowly before walking out of the room. One she left, he felt a strong hand grab the back of this chair and forcefully turned him around. His eyes met with the man now sitting across from him. A table separated the two of them. Details swam in his head, he had had a conversation with this man, but he couldn't grasp the situation. His focus wasn't with him, he felt light headed, and the room was growing darker.

Alfred groggily woke up in a bed, his feet were free this time, but his hands had been bound at the wrist with leather straps. He didn't have any of his old strength left, so busting out was out of the question. It wasn't like he could do anything anyway, he was on a cocktail of drugs that made his stomach feel funny and his head float in another world. He felt a cold tube on his lips. A feeding tube. His captors had shoved a feeding tube up his nose. At least he was being fed, though he was sure the "food" was taking part in keeping him drugged up. That, and the multiple IVs he was hooked up to. He heard his heartbeat on a monitor near him. Without his glasses, it was hard to see the numbers on the screen, or much detail of anything.

After what Alfred had assumed to be a day in the infirmary, someone came in and put a face mask over his nose and mouth. He tried to struggle against it, but whatever they were using to knock him out was working faster than he could react.

Alfred woke up in the same interrogation room they had thrown him in before, connected to a single IV. He was sitting at the same table, with the same man sitting across from him, he assumed, anyway. This time there was a few files on the table, a briefcase, and a glass of water. The man opened the file and slid a paper across the desk in front of Alfred.

"What does this mean." The man said.

"I don't know, I can't read it."

"You don't know how to read or somethin'?"

"No," Alfred started, "I can't see it, not without my glasses."

The man took in a deep breath and sighed, "What's your prescription, we'll see if we have any in lockup we can let you use."

"No, you don't understand," Alfred was beginning to panic at this point. His glasses couldn't be broken my human hands, but they could be broken by a strong enough human machine, "Only my glasses work for me. They are me. Do you not know who I am?"

"You're important to our cause." The man responded, he looked into a one way mirror next to them and gave a hand signal.

"But who am I." Alfred pressed.

"Alfred F. Jones."

"But who is Alfred F. Jones?! I'll tell you who, the god damn United States of America! I am your country! Bring me my glasses, or better yet, release me!" Alfred screamed, he struggled against his restraints. As soon as the man saw this he jumped into action, opening the briefcase and taking out a syringe. He tapped the bubbles out if it walked over to Alfred's IV, and administered the drug.

As soon as the drug hit Alfred's bloodstream, pure euphoria washed over him. He took in a sharp breath in surprise. A ragged exhale followed as his entire body relaxed and his head slumped back. All his brain could do was enjoy the high. Somewhere deep inside him the fight or flight instinct was still active, but he was powerless against the drug. Somewhere in the middle of his ethereal vacation, consciousness left him.

Alfred slowly woke up from his break from reality. He straightened his body as best as he could, trying to focus on what was around him. The effects of the drug still lingered, dulling any pain that would have bothered Alfred in the slightest.

"Here." A woman said. She his glasses on his face, "I'm sorry they were broken."

Alfred examined the damage of his glasses the best he could. The right lense had a massive crack that split it diagonally. The left lense had a chunk of glass missing from the top left corner. Alfred was lucky his glasses weren't like the common ones found at CVS, or his lenses would have popped out ages ago. If he ever sees Arthur again he'll have to thank him for binding the two pieces together. One of the nose pads was missing, making them susceptible to slipping off, and the bridge had been repaired with a thin strip of duct tape.

He got a good look at the person in front of him. She was an older woman, her brown hair was pulled up in a loose ponytail. It was greying at the roots, but no attempts had been made to stop the natural process. There was a motherly air about her. She wasn't dressed like a business woman, in fact, she was wearing a sweater and jeans. Her skin was a soothing caramel color, and when he reached over and grabbed his hand in hers, it was soft to the touch.

"You can call me Momma."