I sighed to myself as I rubbed my face into my hands, disappointed with yet again how the last one turned out. It had no coherency, jumped from place to place, and was just one big lump of amateurish scribble being typed out in between Bawls-filled gaming marathons.

And work.

By the way, those of you who sent PMs asking about the stories, thank you for your support, and apologies for deleting them.

Here we go again.

One more thing - stop putting questions into your goddamn summaries. Why the hell are you asking people about what's going to happen in a story they haven't read yet?


The first and only thing I remember after having woken up was not my name, or where I lived, or whether or not that ceiling I was staring at was unfamiliar at all.

Rather, the first and only thing I remember was thus:

Pain. Unending pain.

First it felt like every single orifice possible was shoved full of something to the point of breaking, my every breath only at the whim of the asshole behind the curtain.

The next was the absolute helplessness due to none of my limbs being strong enough at all to move a single inch. They taunted me with that, having dumped me onto the ground unceremoniously, fluids and all, and told me if I could crawl out of the room, they'd let me go.

Back then, the only thing I could do was cry at my own inability and overwhelming weakness as they picked me back up and tossed me back into the bed with the only method of protest being my weakened, dry voice.

The kind of weakness no person should ever have forced upon them.

From then on, it was only the occasional flash of coherency – the briefest beep of heart monitors, a snippet of a verbal report on my status, and, most of all, I remember being rescued.

I remembered screaming.

I remembered gunshots.

I remembered a woman. Long hair. Hint of vanilla hidden beneath scentless clothing.

I remembered things being thrown at other people in anger.

But most of all…

I remembered who they really were.


The second thing I remembered was waking up in a comfy bed, hooked up to familiar looking monitors, with numbers written on it, and the beeping that comes with the heart monitor.

I had no idea where I was, only that I wasn't where I was before – violated and helpless, because there were no restraints on this bed.

A slow look around the room revealed a view of open space, a bulkhead that doubled as a door, a radio, a computer terminal, a screen of some kind, and a woman with long, auburn hair, curled up in a couch with a blanket around a fireplace.

The third thing was that I felt immediately nauseous and instinctively went to sit up. I couldn't, so in lieu of that, I did the next best thing and rolled onto my side and hoped to aim over the side of the bed.

I didn't.

So here I am, still weak as all hell, with vomitus all over the bed and the floor with a non-functioning body.

The immediately weakened, pained portion of my mind immediately screamed help.

The more analytical, overly paranoid portion on the other hand, screamed setup. The fact that there was nothing to indicate time, date, or anything of that sort reinforced that particular thought.

Not that it changed the fact that I was still, at the moment, absolutely powerless to do anything but make a mess out of myself.

"Oh, you're awake. Hang on a minute – I'll go get someone to clean that up for you." The woman spoke with a soothing accent – English, if I'm not mistaken.

The door hissed open and shut, and I was suddenly being gently lifted up into a sitting position as I felt something wet wipe itself across my lips, cleaning away the last of the vomit.

"There we are." She smiled, putting the cloth down with a sigh. "Isn't that better?"

In lieu of opening my mouth, I simply nodded.

"I see you're hesitant to speak at the moment. That's perfectly understandable. You've been through quite the ordeal. Luck seems to be on your side. Well, in any case, you've slept enough." She decided, gesturing towards the door. "Let's get you out of the room, shall we?"

Being a mute at the moment, I did my best to nod without my head completely falling over.

It didn't work.


She had a brief argument with the orderly (or so I assume that's what he was) about doctor's orders, and politely reminded him that not only was she her superior, she was also a fully qualified doctor.

The orderly gave up, and we started our trip throughout the place.

As grateful as I was to be free of whatever nightmare I was trapped in before, the paranoid side of me couldn't help but keep screaming "trap".

To be fair, I had spent a fair amount of time angrily ranting to my closest friend about the idiocy of some of the predicaments that come across in modern entertainment.

Huh. I remembered something.

So here I am – weak as all hell, being wheeled through an unfamiliar compound that was far too clinical to be anything else other than trouble, despite the large number of people that were milling around talking about medical needs of "the last group they pulled out of that hellhole".

I'm putting those in air quotes because in the six minutes I've been here as the beautiful woman behind me wheels me around, I've heard the phrase uttered no less than two dozen times. Bit odd, given the lengths they've gone through so far.

And of course, there was the spiel about saving all of us from some alien slaver's base as we (a small group of those of us supposedly liberated from said base) watched behind a pane of glass as a bunch of aliens were spaced screaming and begging for their lives, clawing desperately at the smooth, metal surface for any kind of purchase.

Still being the weak little human I was, I stayed quiet.

The others latched on to her every word, however – cheering for the small bit of comfort they felt never questioning whether or not the people who now flailed about as the vacuum boiled their blood whilst they suffocated.

Idiots.

Well, then. Whenever I get back in a position to take down these bastards, they'll have to answer for the deaths of eight people, at least.

I'll bide my time.

I needed to get out of there.

I started wheezing a little, choking on my own spit as a little bit dribbled out. The woman behind me spoke some more in her soothing tone and wheeled me out of there, back towards the room we first left.

She sat down on the bed as I was tucked back in, weak as I was (don't think I didn't realize they were using the blankets as a makeshift restraint, which, in my state, would've been next to impossible to get out of), and mentioned that they'd be using some experimental treatments to get me back up and running.

And all I had to do was "be myself" and "let them" shoulder my burdens.

What a crock of shit.

Unable to do anything else, I forced a convincing smile and drifted off to sleep as the sedatives they had in the IV took hold.


Dreams are interesting things.

We like to think that dreams are the stuff of hope, visions of the good things to be in another time, in another world.

We recognize the fact that sometimes, our dreams don't always go the way we want to. The so-called, "bad" dream, as it were.

Or, to put it another way, nightmares.

I don't know how much of the last three months were dreams or nightmares – or if I was ever asleep at all.

It was all just one, confusing, mishmash of voices and blurry sights. My brain instinctively did its best to retain anything useful, knowing that we were deep inside hostile territory with little success.

I remembered the blurs. I remembered the trombone like conversations.

And when I woke up, I couldn't remember anything.

"You're awake."

It was her again, with her soothing voice and gentle touch. What are they trying to do? And what the hell do they want with me?

I opened my mouth, but a single finger over my lips stopped me from saying anything.

"Shhhh." She whispered. "Don't speak. Your body is still recovering from the treatments we had to put you through to restore your muscle mass and fix the nerve damage, but something went wrong."

She removed the finger, a worrying expression on her face as she sat down on the side of the bed, leaning in ever so gently with her arms propping herself up.

"Still, it wasn't entirely bad." She said, holding up a mirror. "Recognize yourself?"

I did, vaguely. My face was still shaven, my hair was roughly in the same style I kept it in. It didn't look that different, actually.

I simply nodded, not trusting my voice.

"You might have to spend some time relearning how to do the simple things – we're not entirely certain how you ended up this way…but I suppose the bright side is it's going to be very hard for you to be taken in again like you did the first time." She smiled as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as the rest of it cascade down around her shoulder.

What is this, a fucking shampoo commercial?

She stood up, straightening her blouse (or using it as an excuse to show off her shapely body in that relatively tight outfit), clearing her throat.

"Alright then. Whenever you're ready, slowly, sit up and stand up. If you fall, I'll catch you, okay?"

I schooled myself for a moment, bracing for any kind of pain that might pop up as I lifted the covers off to the side and looked down at my legs.

I couldn't see them very well as I was wearing long, thin pants, so I wiggled my toes to make sure they still worked.

And then I put them onto the surprisingly warm floor and stood up slowly, waiting for any kind of vertigo or nausea to kick in.

It never did.

So I looked down at my bare chest, expecting to see my old, rotund self.

It was not.

"Surprised? I was as well. Despite having pioneered the techniques and treatments we used to bring you back to full health, your uniqueness someone took what I came up with an took it several steps further. No doubt you've realized that your strength will have probably increased dramatically, as well as your stamina. Testing will reveal exactly how far it's gone. We can start with this." She suggested, placing a round ball into my hand. "Squeeze it."

Doing the only thing I could think of at the time, I decided to slowly increase the amount of pressure I was squeezing with. It buckled right around what felt like my old soda can grip.

"Well, look at you – a regular Captain America."

"I'm not military." I replied immediately, my voice sounding slightly raspy from underuse.

But she didn't care. Her smile brightened up a notch – something I didn't think possible – and she placed a hand on her hip.

"It's nice to finally hear your voice."

"It's nice not to have a big fucking tube shoved up my ass for waste extraction." I grunted. "Got any clothes around here? I'd rather not walk around the place in just a pair of pants."

"Over there. We had to have some specially made due to your new size, so we borrowed some of the designs we found you with."

I walked over to the dresser, pulling it open and putting on the clothes.

I didn't give a crap what color they were, so long as they were comfortable and didn't stand out like a sore thumb. Then again, around this place, white seemed to be the color of choice.

"What now?"

"Now, we run some tests to make sure you can use your newfound gifts, and then that's it."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"And who exactly is this…"we", you keep talking about?"

She tilted her head to the side and gave a whimsical sigh. "We work for the human government."

I blinked. "Human?" I repeated, feigning ignorance.

"Yes. It's the year 2176. You've been asleep for more than a hundred and fifty years."

Little earlier than I expected.

Does explain a few things though.

Like why Miranda Lawson looks a little younger and why she doesn't have a permanent scowl on her face.

Oh. Hm.

"I see."

"Your personnel records were found in the facility we found you in, and have been used to create a new identity for you, along with a small stipend to get you started. You're free to go wherever you wish."

"Great." I snarked. "Not like I have a place to stay at."

"That's been taken care of." She answered, handing me a small card. "That's the address of the lodgings the Alliance has set up for the survivors. Your belongings…what little we could salvage have been moved to an apartment at that building. And this…is my information." She said ,plucking the card out from my hand, writing something on the back. "You can expect to see me within the next three days. I'll be checking up on you to make sure everything's working perfectly fine."

"I see. You know, it occurs to me, that throughout this entire ordeal, we've never swapped our names, have we?"

She giggled a little. "Well, in my case, it wasn't hard for me to look up yours, Mr. Pierce. You can call me Miranda."

"That a first or last name?"

She turned around with a teasing smile. "That's the only name you'll be getting from me, Mr. Pierce. A deal might be struck for the other part of my name, but…well, you'll have to work for it." She said, sashaying out of the room.

Honey pot, meet not playing the game.

"Just follow the yellow line."

So I did.


It was when I reached the front of the building when the fact that this was not where I was treated became abundantly clear.

For one thing, there was no shortage of clocks, updated news terminals, or communications devices.

For another thing, the conversations people were having were, largely, about the most pointless things.

Even a hundred and fifty years later, we still haven't become intelligent enough to move past friggin' celebrity gossip and sex scandals.

Of course, right next to the celebrity scandal magazines were gun magazines, so it couldn't have been all bad. A quick glance at them indicated a range of articles talking about everything from modern heat sink design to the use of the word "clip" instead of magazine" to one opinion article that was absolutely against "modern" modern arms and wanted a return to the good ole days when rifles and pistols didn't have computers built in to control precisely generated waves from something that broke the laws of physics.

On my way out, I was pulled aside by a gunnery chief who gave me a basic omni-tool and a tutorial on how to use it before she pointed me in the direction of a car that was waiting to take me to my new, if a bit temporary apartment.

Welcome to the 22nd Century indeed.

As the door hissed shut behind me, I went through the footlocker they plopped down at the foot of the bed, wondering if any of it held any indication as to my original identity.

There was no dust on the surface, so it hadn't been waiting long – although there was a physical seal over the opening that was signed, sealed and dated.

I opened it.

Inside were some familiar clothes, an old phone and a wallet – except the phone was dead and the wallet had been absolutely ruined. Burned, it looked like.

And then, at the bottom of the footlocker, I couldn't help but notice that it was a false bottom, with a little depression hidden near the wall. I placed my finger on it, trying to figure out how it worked when I heard a click, and the bottom popped up slightly, allowing me to push down on the opposite end to push it up.

And beneath the false bottom, I found a foam insert with a familiar knife, a Sig Sauer P320, a barrel compensator, a suppressor, three magazines, spare ammunition and next to it, a small stash of ten little golden coins.

I reached down with my right hand, lifting the P320 out of the foam insert, gripping it in my right hand almost instinctively.

I hit the magazine release and caught the magazine – loaded, of course, and locked the slide back, ejecting a single, spent round from the chamber. The firing pin indentation was clear, as was the smell of burnt gunpowder.

I can only guess that whoever gave me this did so to prove that the weapon was still functioning.

Putting it aside, I picked up one of the small, gold coins and weighed it in my hand.

It felt absolutely cool to the touch and extremely familiar, but I couldn't really place the reason why.

The gun on the other hand, was like wearing a glove.

I don't know what to make of that.