This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.

Phillip Larkin

The second attack by the East focused on a province where the Prime Minister, now known only as Dear Leader, lived. The East said that they did not want to attack innocents, but only rebel forces whom they called terrorists. The West said that the East were terrorists.

"They cause terror with their bombs," the news anchor raged, "they kill innocent people. They wish to terrorise us into bending to their will. We will not! We live for the leader and we will die for our country!"

Russia as promised attacked the East. The news and the people were in jubilation. There were even a few private parties in people's homes as they cheered for the devastation being reported on the news. The East said Russia had bombed a school and a hospital. Russia said they'd done no such thing but had attacked a military base. With no internet, nothing was clear, it was just two sides saying different things. No investigation could be done by individuals like Jack.

Jack found himself reading often. His father had taken away his games so he had nothing else to do. Sometimes he listened to his music through his headphones; the house was chillingly quiet when his sister wasn't banging angrily at the keys of her piano. But reading was sometimes even better than listening to music because in a book you could immerse yourself in another character in another world. Even when listening to music, he was still Jack and still trapped in his own mind which was becoming a very dark place, and not in the cool villain way, but in a sad lonely way. He finally finished 1984 which had fooled him into thinking he was reading a relatively boring love story set in an interesting dystopia. He now found himself wishing he'd never read it at all. The ending chilled him. His nightmares, frequent now, had taken on the unwelcome addition of him being thrown into Room 101. His dreams now featured rats.

He read The Grapes of Wrath next and found himself hating Americans. They were so greedy and so stupid that they didn't even care about one another. He told himself that he had hated Raimundo and Jerome. He even found himself hoping they got bombed next, so that they knew what it felt like to be constantly afraid.

Then he felt like a jerk.

He hadn't hated Jerome or Raimundo. Also, Ashley was an American and he had come to care about her deeply. It wasn't a crush or anything like that, it was just the simple relief of knowing someone out there understood his horror and his misery. None of his family had been in the Carnival Attack. Joanne could rant away all she liked, but she had never been so close to an explosion that it throws you backwards; to be so sick with fear that you'd climb into a filthy bin and hide for hours amongst the refuse because you just couldn't face going back out there; to see and hear people dying all around you but being helpless to do anything. Seeing burnt bodies, twisted and black and in strange angles; the mouths of corpses open in frozen screams.

Further, Jack wouldn't wish that on anyone. Anyone. Not the East. Not the Americans. Not the Monks. Not even Dear Leader.

The East did not take kindly to being bombed by Russia. It was then that attacks became common place. The East sent drones to the Republic. From then on the family often went into the basement, which now had a cot for each of them and a lot of tinned food. Public raid shelters sprang up around the Republic but were quietly and resentfully acknowledged as being useless. Air Raid sirens were also scattered about, letting out a loud wail as soon as war planes were seen approaching.

The city went from a normal, beautiful metropolis to a filthy pile of rubble. Feral packs of young children would be seen on the streets, their parents dead and their schools destroyed, picking through the ruins for food.

By the time they were on their fourth consecutive attack from the east, food was starting to run out. Crime sky-rocketed. Police responded with increasing brutality and death at the hands of cops became commonplace and accepted. Police were no longer the friend of the people; they were no longer the up holders of justice and an example to society. They became god-like. No one was to question them. They had divine rights, bestowed on them by the Dear Leader. Every decision they made was correct, even if that decision was gunning down men, women and children in droves. They stopped becoming public servants and instead became Grim Reapers.

Soon, there was a lot of buzz around the European Union. Apparently they did not like what was happening. The UK was siding solely with America and with the East. However, other European countries were more inclined to Russia's thinking and were supportive of the Republic. Old resentments of the United States were suddenly resurfacing; fears of another Middle East shit-storm were circulating. Cries of outrage were sent to the United Nations, who's stance of neutrality was becoming increasingly unsupportable.

It became a game of chess; who would side with them? Who would be against them? What would this mean for the people? What would this mean for their chances of winning the war?

School was now a training camp. Jack learnt how to use the weapons of the military, which were old, clunky and ridiculous compared to the things he'd created in his basement. Jack did surprisingly well as a soldier-in-training. He was agile and could take a hit well. It was because of all his time getting his ass kicked by the monks, but he kept that information to himself. They would watch propaganda videos all afternoon before singing the anthem and going home.

Jack would read to get away from their rhetoric, to allow himself to think again. Sometimes, if even that was too much, he would use the monkey staff. However, using the wu was dangerous, so he only did that when he had truly awful days.

Watching the news was the norm now.

It was the only thing of any substance on TV. There was no internet and no way of communicating with anyone. Phone lines had been back up for a while, though calls could only be local.

Jack had heard the phone ringing earlier that week and had been keen to answer it; he rarely spoke to anyone nowadays.

"Hello, Spicer household?"

"Jack," a tired, male voice greeted him, "it's Uncle Dima. Is your father there?"

"No, he's working." Father was always at work. "But mom is here."

A pause before, "ah…yeah I don't want to bother your mother."

"But she's your sister," Jack thought, "and you never want to speak to her."

"I was just thinking," his uncle continued, "you used to hang out with those monks in…" ("in Western China") "in the mountains?"

"Yes."

"I was wondering, your cousin is staying there. I was hoping you could tell me how to contact them. She needs to come home."

Jack let out a small, quiet sigh, "I'm not sure. I always had to speak to them in person. They're isolated." He paused and added meaningfully, "the order was not pacifistic, but they were apolitical and didn't respect borders. There's every chance she doesn't know the extent of…of how much she is needed back home."

They were both quiet for a moment, Uncle Dima thinking of his daughter and Jack wondering if it wasn't for the best that Megan stays away from the Republic. But then, what if West China forced her to be on their side? Would she not end up fighting her own family and friends?

"There was a girl," Jack said at last, "called Kimiko. She had a mobile phone. I don't know the number but her father was Tohomiko of Tohomiko Electronics. If you can get communication to him in Japan, maybe then you can get to Kimiko and then Megan."

"All right," Uncle Dima responded after a while. They both knew that this was an almost impossible task, "all right. I shall see what I can do. Oh, and Jack?"

"Yes?"

"Don't tell your father about this."

A tense silence.

"If he asks I'll have to," answered Jack, hating that his uncle had asked this from him. He wouldn't have mentioned the conversation to Father beforehand as they didn't talk anyway, but now he felt like he needed to.

"Ok, I understand. Goodbye Jack."

"Bye."

"My family are driving me crazy."

Ashley draped herself over Jack's bed. Her family had come round to see Jack's family; the two dynasties having a relationship going back decades. Jack wasn't sure how anyone could actually be friends with his dad, but Ashley's obnoxious father somehow was. The two men couldn't be more different; Jack's father being quiet and intense, Ashley's being boisterous and extroverted. One kept his cards close to his chest, the other wore his heart on his sleeve. Jack's dad was stick thin, pale with dark eyes and hair where Ashley's father was broad, tanned, with blue eyes and blonde hair. You never knew what Jack's dad was thinking but you always knew what Ashley's was because he'd tell you regardless of context or socially construed manners.

Winter was fast approaching but the heating was off. Everyone was pretty damned poor now, even their respective families in their large, middle-class homes. Jack and Ashley climbed under the quilt of his bed.

Ashley looked around the room. Piles of paperbacks littered every available space.

"Been reading a lot?"

"I had nothing else to do," he said, "read just about everything in the house. What about you?"

"I date," she answered simply, "and listen to a lot of music."

"Date? Date who?"

She sighed, flicking her black hair from her face. She was growing it so that eventually she could properly braid it into two pigtails, which was deemed an appropriate hairstyle of women her age.

"I know I'm a social pariah but I'm still pretty hot Jack. A boy called Yun. He's nice. We go for walks mainly, as there isn't much else to do. We can't kiss or anything because there's always some old bag watching, hoping to shop us into the police for sexual misbehaviour. We used to feed the ducks before the bread ran out." She paused before, "his family don't know about me. If I can get contacts to make my eyes brown, then he'll introduce me."

Jack lay quietly for a moment before, "well he's lucky to have you, never forget that."

She glanced at him. Jack had become quiet. She knew that he had never recovered from the Carnival Attacks. He needed therapy, but that wasn't going to happen with his father being a sociopath and his mother being a brainless idiot. But it was sad, watching him slowly fading away day after day. She wondered if the damage was now too great to ever be healed.

It wasn't much better for her, but unlike Jack she'd always been better at hiding her emotions. But she couldn't think about the attacks…she just couldn't. It was bad enough that she remembered every night in her dreams, reliving the nightmare over and over again. It couldn't invade her daytime as well.

However it was clear that Jack mused on the situation often, and it wasn't doing him any good. He needed to get out there, he needed to try to forget.

"You're not a bad-looking kid yourself." She said at last. "You should try to meet new people. All that stuff before about being popular means nothing now. Having a girlfriend, or boyfriend, in times like these can be nice."

Jack shrugged, "I'm ok."

"Are you still hung up on Chase? Or Wuya? Or Kimiko?" She leaned back, observing him contemplatively, "I even wondered if you had a thing for Raimundo at one point."

"No," he said shortly, sitting up in the bed and resting against the headboard. "There's no one I think of like that. I just…I don't have that in me anymore."

Ashley felt something inside her become quiet and still. "What do you mean?"

Jack looked down at the bed-spread, "I used to…" he began haltingly, "I used to have a lot of…fire…like…passion, I suppose. But, it isn't there anymore. It's gone away. That day, when I walked home. And I got here and…and my mom was in the kitchen. Like everything was normal. But it wasn't. I didn't understand anything back then. Evil isn't wearing black and having an evil laugh. Evil is a child being set on fire by a bomb. It's the indiscriminate death of –" he stopped. He sighed. "It's all gone. I feel old. I just don't care about that sort of thing anymore."

She put her hand on his head and began to brush through his hair slowly. "I'm sorry," she said at last.

"Nothing to be sorry about, you were there too, you saw-"

The image of her boyfriend bleeding out next her flashed in her mind's eye as the memory of a child screaming pierced through her, making her flinch. "I don't –" she bit out, "I can't talk about it."

He nodded, looking at her coldly. It wasn't unlike how his father looked at people sometimes.

"This is a Public service announcement!

"We are all united in the grief of our loved ones being killed by the Allies of Wickedness. Our population has been heavily reduced.

"This is genocide. They are wiping us out because they do not respect our independence or way of life.

"We shall resist! Our Great and wonderous Leader has implemented a brilliant new plan.

"And you, yes you, can live for your leader.

"The age of consent and the right to marry is no longer fourteen. Scientists have discovered that due to our superior genes and brains, not only is our IQ much higher than everyone else, but also our levels of maturity are higher than average. Therefore, the ages of consent have been changed to accurately represent our superiority! It is now age twelve for boys and for our mature and sensible women, age ten.

"Have a daughter you cannot feed? Get her married to a man who can take care of her!

"Socially awkward? Shy? Speak to our new matchmakers! They will set you up.

"Our leader follows his own laws for he is a man of the people. He has recently married his ten-year-old niece. What a handsome couple they make!

"We want all our young people to be happy and looked after. Once puberty hits, it is your duty to create more children to fill our wonderful country.

"Live for your Leader! Die for your country!"

Jack looked through the books in the school library. Many of the titles had been taken off the shelves. There were a lot more history books, all new editions, with slightly different facts to the ones he was used to. It seems that East China had always been pretty evil towards the West.

It was lunchtime. Usually he spent time with Ashley, but she hadn't arrived in school that day. He wanted something pleasant to read. He had enjoyed the first two books of the Anne of Green Gables series, but he hadn't the rest of the collection. He doubted school had anything that belonged to US authors now.

"Jack Spicer, isn't it?" A voice calmly asked.

He turned to see a military man, older, wider, standing a little way from him. Jack hadn't even heard him enter the library. The school staff was almost exclusively older, military personal now. He didn't know where the majority of teachers had gone. The teachers that still were here were like the students; either frightened and tight-lipped, or bright eyed and furious with the Republic's enemies.

"Yes Sir," he said at once, straightening like a soldier as they were teaching them.

"An American name."

He felt his stomach lurch slightly, "we are not American, Sir," he corrected lightly, "we're part Russian."

The man smiled and he felt his stomach loosen a little. Russia was in the Republic's good graces. "Excellent. Not a traditional Russian name. And a Chinese one would have been preferable."

"I agree Sir," he allowed himself a watery smile. He didn't know how he did it. It felt foreign and strange on his face. But he needed to survive, and that meant having some camaraderie with this old bigoted man.

The soldier chuckled. "No, I suppose your parents' decisions are hardly your fault. Jack, I have been watching you. You are very good on the field. Not strong, but agile, clever. You're a good problem solver."

"Thank you sir," he felt cold and frightened again. It was not a good thing to be considered clever or a thinker.

"How old are you son?"

A pause.

"S-sixteen Sir."

The man jolted in surprise. It looked false and clearly was put on for effect, "Sixteen?" He repeated, "and yet…and yet you are not married and you have not signed up for war. May I ask why?"

Jack looked at the ground, hiding his neck so that he could gulp nervously, "I've not yet met the right girl sir. And I am not strong Sir. Like you say. I thought that," he looked back up, "I could perhaps live for our leader by leading a productive life outside of the army. Perhaps creating weapons. I…I can do things like that. I of course hope to have a family one day also."

"Making weapons. That is vital." The man sat down gingerly. Looking at the tags on his uniform, Jack could see that he was a General. "You know," the General continued, "that if you stay in school and then go straight to…to some lab making weapons, you'll become some pencil neck dweeb. But if you go into the army, become a man, fight for your country, when you begin to design your weapons, you will have first hand experience of what we need and how we can implement it. It would be real world experience. It'd be very good for you."

Jack faltered, "I…see what you mean sir."

"We know your father designs weapons," continued the General, making Jack wonder why this man was asking him about his heritage when apparently he knew all about Jack anyway, "he's come out with some amazing prototypes recently. We're very impressed."

Jack said nothing, but his heart felt bitter.

"If you are anything like him, we could do with your brain. However, right now you are not living up to your potential. Skulking around at home reading kids' books. Hanging around that loose girl, the American." The General shook his head, "I think you should sign up. We could go down now."

Jack knew what was happening.

He understood perfectly.

"Of course Sir," he answered obediently.

A false, cold smile was sent his way. Together, the General and Jack left the library.

Jack didn't go home straight after school, which was the norm. Instead he wove his way through the ruined streets down broken roads to the south of his home. Packs of kids, orphans, huddled in craters of the buildings. As he went out further into the suburbs a few honest citizens were doing their best, sweeping the roads and tidying their gardens as well as they could. Hardly anyone grew flowers or grass lawns anymore. They grew vegetables. The clever streets worked together; one house growing potatoes, the next tomatoes, the next daikon, the next cucumber and so on. Then everyone traded and shared. A few very smart (and richer) people bought chickens or goats.

Ashley's house was a large, crass thing that loomed over the rest of the neighbourhood. It was like those medieval castles that stood on the hills looking over the peasants in their small huts. It probably hadn't helped the feelings of resentment towards the American family.

The outside was covered in graffiti and insulting names and caricature drawings of Americans and Christians. Ashley and her family weren't Christians but being western meant that the stereotype was assumed true.

He knocked on her front door and paused when it swung open of its own accord. He stepped inside.

"Ashley? Are you here?"

The large house was made larger by its emptiness. The family must have left.

"Oh," he muttered. She was gone. Ok. Well so would he be soon…

"Jack?"

He looked up.

Ashley stood on the stairs. Her hair was in two messy braids, the dye fading at the top where her roots were coming through. She looked very pale. She had taken out her contacts so her eyes were a natural blue. They were also reddened from crying.

"What happened?" he asked, coming towards the bottom of the stairs. She stepped down slowly, coming to sit on the bottom step. He joined her.

"I came home the other day to find it like this," she explained, "they've gone. Left. Leaving me behind."

It was quiet as Jack processed this news.

"But why?"

She shrugged.

He felt an old spark of something then. Anger perhaps.

"They abandoned you? Or have they been taken?"

"I went to the American embassy," she continued, her voice flat, "but all the representatives have been told to leave. But one lady, carrying a box of office stuff into her car, said that my family had come for Visas. Only two. For mom and dad. They've gone back home. Mom was born here, but her family are from Chicago. Dad's from…somewhere Midwest. They've gone and I can't," she shrugged, "I can't go after them. That was the last chance. Last plane out. I'm stuck here with no one."

They sat silently. Outside it began to grow dark as the sun set behind the tall, city structures.

"Have you eaten?"

"Of course not," she sighed, "Jack I know your parents are…difficult…but is there anyway I could stay with you?"

"I can ask," he said, "but…today a General came into the library to speak to me. I've been drafted into the army."

"What?" she muttered, shock making her quiet.

"It's not my choice. I didn't want to. But he made it clear. He knew about me. I think father may have had some hand in it too. He took my bots and I think he's passing them off as his own."

She bowed her head and rested it on her arms, "oh my god. Jack this is…"

He looked down at her. Slowly he bought his hand to her head and stroked down, brushing the fine hairs to the back of her neck. Her skin was warm. He kept his hand on her neck, which broke out into goosebumps.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I won't be deployed for straight away. I came here because… I think," his voice dropped even lower, "we need to hide the wu…"

She lifted her head and looked at him. Her face was flushed, her eyes were glassy with misery and unshed tears. "How?"

"Bury them somewhere," they were talking so quietly they could hardly hear each other, despite sitting so close that their legs were pressed together.

They both understood. The wu were powerful items. The government could not get its hands on them. None of the governments; friend or foe. It wasn't just that the last four months had taught Ashley and Jack hard lessons in being responsible, but also the part of them that wanted to keep at least one thing pure. Their childhood had been the Shen Gong Wu. Nothing was ever going to be the same again, but if they could protect this one thing from their childhood, then they needed to do that.

She put her arms around his neck pulling him in close. Their noses touched.

"I don't want you to go to war," she whispered.

They pressed their lips together. He brushed his face against hers.

"Where's the wu?"

"In my room."

"I have the monkey staff hidden away. I'm going to go get it. Then we can meet and bury it."

"Down by the West Bank is all deserted now. No one goes there."

"Ok. We'll meet in an hour. If one of us doesn't turn up, the other needs to just carry on and then go home."

He felt her nod. She was shaking slightly. He hugged her tightly for a second before letting go and standing.

"I'll see you later."

"Bye Jack," she said forlornly. He felt wrong leaving her alone in that empty house.

The monkey staff had been hidden in his room. It was placed into the side panel at the bottom of his bedroom wall, the section behind his bed. As he took it out and placed it into a large cardboard cylinder which had once housed a poster, he was glad that his family paid so little attention to him. Dad was out, his sisters were either hidden somewhere the labyrinth of their home or outside as well, mom was in the living wiping down the coffee table.

He passed by the living room and watched her for a little while, hovering in just behind the threshold.

"Hey mom? Why don't you sit down and relax? Maybe watch some TV?"

"Now dear," she answered flatly, not looking up or stopping what she was doing, "you know how much I love to clean."

He walked outside into the crisp air.

It was dark.

The lights of the streets were out. If they were on, they could alert enemy forces to their homes.

Luckily Jack knew the streets very well now, having reacquainted himself with them after the first few attacks. With little else to do but eat, sleep and attend military training, roaming around outside was the new Internet for West China's youth.

It took around twenty minutes to get to the West Bank. There was a small, man-made stream that was used by the local authority to get water to the city. Through damage and pollution, the once busy, gushing river was now sludgy and brown. The factory often was closed down and the machines barely worked, so getting clean water was increasingly difficult. Jack wondered if people would eventually end up using rainwater.

He sighed and knelt down by the bank. The ground was sludgy, sucking in his boots. It also stank with decay and hummed with bugs and flying things.

"I can't believe this is my real life," he thought not for the first time. From the time the first bomb fell, nothing seemed real. It was as if his life had become a show. As if he always existed slightly outside of his body, like a film-goer at the cinema. They were normal people from a rich area. How had it come to this?

He waited another ten minutes, each minute worrying that Ashley wouldn't arrive; that she'd been killed in the streets for being a western foreigner. But then she arrived.

"I had to grab this," she whispered, holding up a spade. Of course. She always had more common sense than him.

They dug in silence for a while, taking it in turns with the space, before dropping in their Wu.

"Will they really be safe here?" she asked.

"No where is safe," he answered, even though he knew she already knew that.

It was cold out. Autumn was settling in.

They huddled together on a stone wall, looking out into the city. What once would have been a sea of city lights accompanied by a susurrus of late-night traffic was now a deep shadow stretching into the horizon.

They held hands, both stiff and cold.

"There's talk of a curfew," she said, shuddering and pushing herself further into his side, "there's too much crime happening at night."

Jack pulled a face, "there's hardly any cops…"

"They're reinventing a new force. Men who couldn't join the army for whatever reason."

Jack nodded, it made sense. "What are you going to do Ashley?"

"After you left, I got talking to the boy I've been dating, Yun? Now I've got contacts his family may approve me for marriage. His mother works in a hospital and they have this new training programme. I might join it."

He leaned his head against hers. He was so tired.

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

"I'm glad he's marrying you," he said after a few moments. "I didn't like the idea that he was using you."

"I think he just wants to get laid," she stated, "and now marriage is the quickest way to do that. Also it means he has a choice of who he marries rather than risking the State choosing for him."

Jack shifted, uncomfortable. He didn't know this guy she'd been dating, but he knew that Yun seemed to have all the power in the relationship. What if he's parents didn't approve of Ashley? What if this boy decided to toy with her, now he had so much choice? And even if he did marry her, how would she live her life? How much would she be dictated by Yun and his prejudiced family?

"I don't like the sound of that," he stated.

"I don't like the sound of you going to war."

Jack turned to her, "do you want me to marry you?"

She stiffened, then looked up at him, "what? Really?"

"Why not? You get to be your own person that way. And it's honourable, right, having a husband in the military? It proves that you are loyal, even if you're blonde and blue eyed."

Her eyes welled with grateful tears, "I appreciate Jack. I really do. It means I could still-"

"Live a normal life? To a point anyway."

"Yeah," she chuckled, wiping away an errant tear with her cold hand, "but what if you find someone you like? In the army or whatever? I don't want you to be stuck with me."

"I won't be. On the off-chance we survive this, we can still date other people. It's a marriage of convenience. What do you say?"

She let out a small laugh, "yes, I will marry you."

"Good," he found himself settling a little. The tense feeling lessened, just a little. "Will Yun be a problem?"

"No, it wasn't love it was casual. I'll tell him that you're an old friend, going to war, and we needed to get married, so that you could…could have the potential of getting me pregnant before you left. I'm doing my duty. Yun isn't going to war, so it's not as necessary for him."

"Good idea. You're a real patriot." He shifted off the wall and offered her his hand, "you can come home with me. You're my fiancée, so I look after you now."

She took his hand and they walked down the dark street that way.

"To be honest, this might help me too," he said quietly, the streets were dark and full of criminals this time of night. The war had made people hard and desperate.

"How so?"

"I don't think my father liked the idea that I was…such a sissy. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She looked at him, "marrying a girl at such a young age…"

"And such a pretty girl…"

"Will help your position with him. I hope so Jack, I really do."

They arrived home without any trouble. Jack introduced Ashley to his mother as his now fiancée, and she replied that that was very nice. No one else was home.

They snuggled under the sheets of his single bed, warm at last. Both were wearing a set of his pyjamas.

"How long until you're deployed?" she asked, looking up at him with pale blue eyes.

Jack shrugged.

They closed their eyes and fell asleep.