Amy Dallon

I sat down to lunch, I concentrated on my juice, slightly fermenting it. People didn't need to know about it. It took the edge off the harshness of the world, I didn't take it that far, just a little every now and then. I took a sip and felt the warmness enter my throat. Just enough to get me through the day.

I sighed as a couple asian kids got up, they looked angry, I knew what table they were going towards.

"Vicky."

"I'm on it."

I relaxed, a little smile, a little aura and it would all be fixed. Arcadia had a good thing going, they weren't ABB, they-

"Why do the asians have a problem with the arab kids?"

I sighed, the girl had glasses, freckles, dark skin, and green eyes, my guess is that she was multiracial which crossed the Empire off the list, she didn't have the piercings or branding that came with the Teeth, and wasn't asian. Obviously new and like a lot of new kids they came to my table sooner or later. It was a chance to talk to a real life parahuman. Vicky loved that shit, she would hold court and tell war stories. Me, I would drink my juice and try to forget.

"First of all it isn't just arabs, its also turks, persians and-"

"You know what I mean."

I took another sip of juice, enjoying the feel as it burned down my throat.

"You're not from around here, the city I mean."

"I used to live in Kansas."

"Well you're not in Kansas any more Dorothy."

"How did you know my name."

Really, fucking really? Well of course some asshole in Kansas was going to name their kid that.

"Lucky guess, pull up a seat."

Another sip.

"Know how the middle east was on fire? How there's a refugee crisis?"

"Can't they go to you know venus?"

"A f... a lot of people do, Venus is probably the most populated place in the solar system outside of Earth."

No cussing around civilians, got to keep with the image.

"But a lucky few got to the US, they either had money, or connections or they had something. Roughly ten thousand ended up here in Brockton bay."

I stopped.

"Now the bay was in a bad way and it already had a lot of refugees, asian ones, chinese, japanese, korean vietnamese, the works. Look at a map sometimes and you see they cluster around one part of town, well the middle eastern refugees had money and they went into the dead center of it and bought up the land and forcibly kicked everyone out."

I stopped.

"Oh."

"It gets worse."

I took another sip, I was running low and I limited myself to just one juice box a day, unless it was a really bad day. I had a lot of bad days.

"So the asian community was not happy, but this gang from the middle east managed to sneak in. They called themselves the 40 thives because they had 40 parahumans. Some people say they got Simurghed in Jordan, I don't know."

Another sip.

"So the 40's decided that they were going to own this town."

"The Empire must have hated that."

"Look at a map, you see the Empire hated the 40s but to get to Empire turf, the 40s had to go through a bunch of asian gangs and the Teeth, by the time they got to Empire turf the Empire would be ready and they would be exhausted because the 40s? Well they were crazy, loud and evil."

I shook my juice box, not nearly enough.

"The 40s didn't respect secret identities, they went after people's families, they went after their hang outs, their haunts. One of the things they would do is just go into a restaurant grab girls and then do stuff to them in the streets and force people to watch."

I paused.

"They did this a lot, they would go into people's homes, kill children on the way home from school. They thought if they terrorised the asian community enough that they would just obey. It got worse, they set churches, temples other places of worship on fire and bar the doors so that people would burn to death."

I stopped the girl was getting a little green.

"The 40s would ransack places, openly steal money and then because they thought of themselves as robin hood type villains, would go out and hand that money out in their community. Sometimes they would do this right in front of the family they stole from to show how worthless they were."

Another sip Im running out.

"Then they got cocky, they demanded one billion dollars and that the mayor of the city kiss the leaders feet or they would destroy the city."

And that's the last of it.

"So whether it was maddness, the Simrugh or some other assorted fu... insanity they went down to the docks and started wreaking ships, smashing them. When it was over our dock was completely wrecked and the boat graveyard was a thing. We became a port city without a port, our economy while bad before, was now completely destroyed."

"And?"

I looked longly at the finished juice box.

"No matter how tough you are, no matter how strong you are there is always someone stronger. The Protectorate ordered kill orders for the entire gang. Because there's a war going on and this fucked over the war effort. The other gangs, the asian ones, the Empire, the Teeth and the independents got together and declared war."

I grabbed a bottle of water from Vicky's seat...goddamn it, what a waste of money. I know it's her money, she did go through the Long Ten but fucking hell.

"And?"

"A newcomer came to town, Lung, he went in and killed every single parahuman in the 40's and then he displayed their dead bodies throughout town and told the other asian gangs to follow him."

I put down the bottle of water, I was thirsty but I had principles.

"The number of people in the 40's wasn't big, out of a population of what 10 thousand? There were maybe 500 people tops in the gang, they weren't even a thing for very long, just a little over a year, but the asian community still remembers what they did and how silent little Mecca was when the chaos was going on."

I tried to get just a little more juice out of the box, and sighed.

"It doesn't help that little Mecca is a nicer part of town. That they have a whole bunch of restaurants, that they get better rations cards, drive nicer cars and generally have just enough wealth to hire security to protect their little enclave, it doesn't help that they keep normal asians out of little Mecca just on suspicion of being ABB, but they can't stay in their little half a mile of the city forever, and to do that they have to go through the rest of town."

"Which is controlled by the ABB."

I nodded.

"Yeah and there were beatings and revenge killings so they started to use their expensive cars and just bolt it, and if someone, like a kid got run over and died. Well it's a tight knit community that has some serious money so stuff gets buried."

I stopped.

"So, yeah thats why the aisans and the middle easterners hate and despise each other. Even in places like Arcadia you get fights about once a week."

I got my plate.

"Well I got to go places to be classes to catch up on."

I got up.

"Thanks for, you know telling me."

I shrugged and walked out with the ringing bell.