Epilogue: Abide with me.
0800hrs, 31 December 2013, Bloomington, Minnesota, United States
"O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!" Miranda, The Tempest.
Mina curled up into ball on the bed in the safe house. How she got here was a blur, with a vague recollection of a hospital visit, then lots of plane rides, then arriving here two days ago.
At first glance, keeping Mina in a more secure facility, such as Fort Leavenworth or Guantanamo Bay. Someplace like that. But since Mina didn't even "exist," and now was in the hands of the United States due to a disobeyed order, they simply didn't know what to do with her. Her psychological evaluation showed that she was completely and utterly broken, and that she posed very little threat to anyone else. And since the President didn't want any word on the SAILOR team getting out, she had to keep things as low key as possible. Which made everyone very unhappy.
Fort Leavenworth also had a massive case of "escapees", due to the terrorist attacks that had devastated a good chunk of the prison infrastructure and military facilities that would normally hold a person like Mina. Guantanamo Bay was also having trouble as well, so that was out of the question.
So they stuck her with the FBI until they could unfuck themselves, and figure out what to do with a living, breathing supersoldier. At least the SWAT team was on standby, so if things got out of hand…well, maybe they could slow her down until they could bring in some heavier firepower.
"Hey," one of the FBI Agents said to her, knocking on the door to her room. She brought in a plate of one of those shitty McDonalds platters, full of hotcakes, sausage and eggs. "You have to eat something…" She sat next to Mina, who was still in the fetal position.
"Agent Serxner," another agent said, coming into the room and disturbing the two of them.
"Yeah, York, what is it?" Serxner said to him, shooting him a look. Now was not the time for interruptions…
"It's the field office. They want a status update."
Serxner rolled her eyes at that. "Jesus, I've given them enough fucking status updates, alright? It's like I'm on my Facebook page with these guys."
York shrugged. "Sorry. That's what they wanted."
"Why the hell aren't the US Marshals taking care of this?" Serxner bitched out loud. "Isn't witness protection their thing?"
"Serxner, I have no idea, alright."
"Yeah, you wouldn't. Especially after that incident in that one town…Greenvale, wasn't it?"
Agent York glared at her, but said nothing else. He left the room, leaving the FBI agent with Mina.
"Look, sweetie, you gotta eat something," Serxner said to her, trying to coo her out of your shell. "You've haven't eaten in three days, okay?"
Mina said nothing back to her, despite her good intentions.
"I'll leave this here for you…if you want to eat it." Serxner left the food on the bedside table with a fork, next to Mina's bed, patted her on the back, and then got up to leave the room.
She gave Mina one last glance before she left; her eyes were gaunt and sunk in, her long, blonde hair mussed and unclean, and dried tears staining her eyes. That was odd, somewhat, because Serxner hadn't heard her cry out loud. Maybe she was just silent about it.
Poor girl, Serxner thought. Whatever she's been through, it must have been hell. She closed the door to the room.
Mina closed her eyes for a second, remembering the time that she had spent in the United Kingdom when she was a younger child. Her parents had taken her to a funeral; one of their coworkers had died in a car accident. Near the end of the funeral, almost spontaneously, everyone began to sing a soft, touching song.
"The minstrel boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death you will find him."
How true, Mina thought to herself. Everyone that she had known, her best friends were now dead.
"His father's sword he hath girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him."
They had gone into battle, fighting for what they thought was a just and good cause, ready to die if necessary if that meant the injustice that had been inflicted upon the world would be at last resolved.
"Land of Song!" said the warrior bard, "Though all the world betray thee!"
All the world had betrayed them. There was no denying that fact.
"One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard, One faithful harp shall praise thee!"
She smiled bitterly at the lyrics. How very fitting they were to her own sad situation. One could say that she was the one to carry on the sword, and to play the harp that would sing the praises of an unknown and erased unit of soldiers. But she didn't want to carry it anymore.
"Yeah…uh-huh. Yep. Sure, you betcha." Agent York ended the call on his cell phone and looked at Serxner, who was just coming out of the bedroom.
"Well, you can forget that status report. It looks like this is the last day we're holding her."
Serxner sighed gladly. "Glad it's not my fucking problem anymore. She's a really fucked up case. Hope she gets some help soon."
Agent York got some coffee from a French press in the kitchen and poured himself a cup. "Who's great idea was it to stick her out in Minnesota, of all the fucking places. There is NOTHING out here."
Serxner rolled her eyes at the man, but he did have a point. "York, quit your bitching. All the maximum security prisons are completely FUBAR right now, and she's been deemed a non-threat by HQ. You know that, so why complain now?"
"It's just…sorry. It's been a really bad couple of weeks. We lost so many good people…" York's eyes fell to the ground, thinking of the horrors that had befallen the nation on the 16th of December.
"Yeah…tell me about it."
There was a moment of silence before York started talking again.
"Do you think they'll let us go back on break?" Agent York asked her, sipping his coffee and staring at the TV blaring away in the kitchen.
Serxner shook her head at that. "Probably not. They'll just keep us working."
"Oh well. Never much liked New Year's celebrations anyway. Did you get around to reading the paperwork on that girl?" York asked absentmindedly.
Serxner shrugged. "Just a little bit. Something about medications and this and that and the other, but she's cooperative and I don't think she needs much else. Just some food and rest. She looks like she came through hell to get here, and I'm just going to leave her alone."
"Sounds good." York turned his attention back to the TV.
The TV was on, showing advertisements in-between shows; "Save big money at Menards!" a jingle sang out, before returning to the normal programming. It was one of those morning talk shows, and the hosts were trying to remain excited, despite the horrible atrocities that had happened in the last couple of weeks. Serxner looked back at the entrance to Mina's bedroom one last time before sitting down at the table in the kitchen, eating her own breakfast and filling out reports.
Mina waited until the FBI agent was gone, listening for the door to close. When she was sure that Agent Serxner or whatever her name was had left, Mina pulled something out from underneath her pillow.
It was her Glock 26, the weapon that had seen so much action in the last six months. One full clip of ammunition. The FBI agents hadn't been very thorough in searching her, and she had managed to sneak it in during her flight over from Socotra to Germany, then back to the United States in a disassembled form. Whoever was in charge of her, was not good at operational security, that's for sure.
She didn't want to take any more lives…she wanted to take her own. What was the point of living now? Amy was dead. Serena was dead. Lita was dead. Raye was dead. She didn't even exist as person. And now, she could look forward to being a prisoner until the day she died.
Mina momentarily put the gun back underneath the pillow and sat up, slowly and painfully pushing her frail body back up from one of the pillows.
"Damn." As she breathed in, something about the dry air made her cough. She tried to swallow, but it only made her cough even more, so she picked herself off of the bed and walked quickly to the bathroom. More coughing.
Then blood.
"Great." There was some blood in the sink now, after Mina had hacked it up during another coughing fit. Whatever was happening to her body, it wasn't good. But there wasn't anything she could do about it. Mina turned the faucet on and cupped her hands in the cool water. During winter in Minnesota, the pipes got extremely cold, but that also made for some relief if you were having a coughing fit. The ice cold water went down smoothly. She splashed some water over her face in order to clear her head a bit; as she did so, she caught her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Hollow, gaunt eyes, with sunken cheeks, messy and unkempt hair and a thousand yard stare greeted her. She looked away, ashamed of her appearance.
As she came out of the bathroom, Mina felt her stomach rumble extremely loudly. There was no denying it now; she needed some food. Looking at that stupid plate of food, it took her back to her first meal at the medical facility; Green tea, rice, miso soup, tamagoyaki, and some salted salmon, with umeboshi on the side. That seemed so much better than this processed…shit. Taking the plate gingerly, she sat on the side of the bed with a fork that Agent Serxner had left with the meal, staring at it for a second.
"Itadakimasu." She slowly clapped her hands together and dug into the meal with a fork, consuming it rapidly. It was awful tasting, but when you didn't have anything to eat for the last couple of days, anything tasted good. Finishing the meal, she put the empty plate back on the table.
Mina then looked at the gun, wondering if she should do it. It would be so easy, just putting the gun into her mouth like the fork she had just eaten breakfast with, pull the trigger…
No.
A voice in her head told her not to do it.
It sounded like Amy's voice, actually.
"Amy…? Are you there?" Mina whispered quietly. She had no idea what was going on.
The voice disappeared as soon as it had come, leaving Mina sitting on that pathetic bed in a pathetic safe house. Memories of her time with the SAILOR team, of all the missions they had gone on, of her relationship with Amy…it all flashed by so quickly.
She didn't know what to do. She was so very tired. Tired of it all. Tired of being used. Tired of not having control over her life. Tired of international conspiracies. And now, she would probably end up being poked and prodded for the rest of her life, treated like cattle until she died maybe five or six years down the road, if she was lucky.
Oh well.
Mina put the gun back underneath the pillow, and reached for the light by her bedside.
She turned the switch, and everything went black. Pulling the sheets over her, she felt the coolness of them washing over her tired body.
At least she could finally have some rest now.
Mina closed her eyes and fell asleep.
Postscript: This was originally a separate chapter until it was pointed out to me that it went against guidelines. It has been moved here, and I apologize for any awkwardness that may result.
Author's Afterword:
"Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length; Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware, What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear." Lord Bryon, Hints from Horace.
I briefly touched on the origins of this story in the foreword, but I wish to elaborate in further detail upon how this story came to life, seeing the main part is concluded. As always, reading this is optional, as I do not want to bore you with details that you may not want to read (and it's really long).
As mentioned in the foreword, this story came about in February of 2012 and completed in July of 2012, after finishing up watching "Sailor Moon Abridged," which brought back happy memories of a better time, when dubs were awful, theme songs were rocking out, and in general, anime was not as well understood as it is today. When I wrote this, I literally sat down at my desk and started writing with no direction whatsoever. I had written before, but nothing on the scale of this. My previous works (only written for friends, sorry) only totaled about 70,000 words in sum, and I did not expect this story to expand too far beyond that, let alone past the 300,000 word mark. I thought that 150,000 words would be enough…turns out it wasn't.
I had also had some experience with other, more academic forms of writing as well (Chicago Manual of Style, ewww), but those were something else, and most definitely not fanfic. I tried not to take this work too seriously, but it was a significant amount of effort and I was surprised that I could even write this much. I also know that some of the earlier parts were not as fleshed out, since I was still trying to find my writing style, and that the dialogue can be quite stilted and unnatural at times, due to my experience in academic forms of writing. A side note; All the epigraphs (the quotes at the beginning of the chapter) come from works that I have personally read or seen, with a few exceptions (such as the quote about meat and Republicans…that one was too good to pass up). I felt like these were important to help set the scene and to perhaps foreshadow (or contradict) what goes on in the chapter.
I drew upon many experiences in my life, plus the media that I have obviously consumed in my short time on this good Earth. I tried to do a lot of research on the locations and have tried to not merely reduce them down to caricatures or stereotypes, which is unfortunately very easy to do. Same with the people of those settings as well. Many of the Original Characters are based upon people that I have come into contact with, but despite this, I have altered their personalities and such so that it does not become a complete exported character. I tried my best when it came to military and information technology research, and drew upon many sources to help flesh out the details and create a living, breathing story in which the reader could be immersed. I have very limited experience with Linux and programming languages, but I wanted to show the highly technical aspect of the world we live in today. Also, I wanted this story to be global in scale, since the internet and easy means of transportation across continents has brought the entire world closer together and in some cases, quite literally. What happens in one place affects people in another, and I wanted to make that very clear from the beginning. Case in point; this story has readers from Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, India, Japan, Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Russian Federation and many more.
One of the more obvious influences (other than Sailor Moon, duh) is Gunslinger Girl, marked by the similarities in the theme, action and characterization of that particular manga/anime. The similar training, the augmented bodies, and their skill in battle are very comparable to those characters in GSG. However, I wanted to make sure that this was not too influenced by this series, so I tried to change it up; no looming handlers, just Luna and Artemis talking to them, more independence, rebelling against their masters and in general, trying to be the "good guys." In GSG, it's a bit…more complicated.
Other anime/Manga that I have consulted would be Eden of the East, Gun X Sword, Azumanga Daioh (used for the slice of life sections), Lucky Star (that were a lot of the "…it smelled like," orphaned punch lines come from), RahXephon,Guilty Crown, Hetalia: Axis Powers, Haruhi Suzumiya, and oddly enough, Baka to Test to Shōkanjū, which was the basis for some of the VR training.
The books that I have been influenced include by Starship Troopers, the United States Marine Corps and Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual, the Battle of Dorking (the one book that started invasion literature), A Bridge too Far (the book, not the movie, that comes later), and Debt of Honor plus Executive Orders, one of which involves the Japanese as hostile enemies of the United States, and another dealing with the aftermath of a terrorist attack that leaves the US crippled. The naval engagements are similar to the ones in Red Storm Rising, down to the surprise attack on the fleet and the use of drones as decoys. Not a Good Day to Die, a book about Operation Anaconda, was a major influence, showing how a top-heavy command structure can needlessly complicate and squander key assets like D-Force and intelligence showing enemy movements. Shake Hands with the Devil was a particular influence on me, as it was my first introduction on the Rwandan Genocide; I picked the book up literally a month before Hotel Rwanda came out, and I knew the entire backstory behind the Genocide when I went to go see the movie. This influenced the overall themes of international apathy and nonchalance when it comes to things we don't care about or know about. Other books include Planet India (about the rise of India, duh. Fun statistic, one out of ten people in the world is an Indian under the age of twenty five!), all the political treaties mentioned in Chapter XII, The Longest Day, The Last Battle (along with A Bridge too Far, were all incredibly great books about WWII by Cornelius Ryan), the History of the Peloponnesian War, the Anabasis, the Apology (by Plato, concerning the trial of Socrates), Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, and many others.
The movies and TV shows that have influenced me are predictably mainstream; The Bourne Series, James Bond, and 24, to a certain extent, since I kinda lost interest after the third or fourth season.
The scene where Jason Bourne has to kill someone to accept the Treadstone program is basically the basis for the "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" chapter. The variety of gadgets and action scenes are taken from a potpourri of James Bond films including Goldfinger, The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. The fighting is more based off of the Bourne series and 24, with it being down and dirty rather than the choreographed wire-fu of Chinese films. Several scenes were lifted directly from the movie A Bridge Too Far, which were included in the shootout in Busan, South Korea and the engagement in Unity State. The UGVs or the "Youma" are kind of based off of the proto-Terminator style robots in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, but they are mostly based off of real life prototypes of UGVs like the Gladiator Tactical UGV and the Foster-Miller TALON.
Some of the more obscure movies include the French movie The Nest, which is basically like Assault on Precinct 13, except more minimalist. Another influence came from The Way of the Gun, another low budget film, but has surprisingly good gunplay due to one of the brothers of the directors being a US Navy SEAL. The "move, moving" dialogue that occasionally crops up from time to time is taken from this. Other movies include Chungking Express (well, there is an entire chapter named after it!), A Better Tomorrow, Aliens, Predator, Hot Fuzz (Sgt. Angel shows up in the story, if you couldn't tell)and Heat.
Other TV shows include Lost, where the multiple plotlines come into play, Adam-12, Hunter, Z-Cars, The Bill, The Sweeny, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek: TNG, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister (both were instrumental in helping to write the UK scenes), the Pacific, Band of Brothers, and Generation Kill (and yes, I've read the book too).
Of course, no plot reference would be complete without video games, so here it goes. Some of the plot does take a homage to Modern Warfare, and despite the atrocious story in MW2 and MW3, it still had a little bit of influence on me, including some of the door breaching sequences when the SAILOR team attacks the Nakanishi HQ in Japan, Lita's riot shield (which is a ballistic shield, big difference), tactical level shootouts, the AC-130, and overall level of action that takes place (no matter how ridiculous). The air battle sequences were taken from Ace Combat, right down to the callsigns of the fighters in the Battle of Socotra, and some from Battlefield 3 (Shark Flight is in the on-rails plane scene in that game). The Metal Gear Solid Franchise also had some influence, due to its discourse on the nature of war and the implications thereof. Also, the VR training comes from that as well.
The more obscure games that influenced me include "Act of War: Direct Action," which is a VERY good RTS, and despite being released in the mid-2000s, still has better graphics than a lot of RTS games out there. One of the developers said that the character models are basically on par with Half-Life, which is saying something for an RTS. Anyway, the micromanagement of the units and the overall plot (a big megacorp influencing world events, etc) was an influence on this story. Other games include Rainbow Six (when it was a tactical shooter), the Walking Dead, for its dialogue and split second choices that severely affect the gameplay, Splinter Cell: Conviction (and the others) for their take on stealth, Operation Flashpoint (plus ARMA and ARMA II), Alpha Protocol (again, for the dialogue system like the Walking Dead), Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (the HUD that the SAILOR team uses in influenced by is taken from that game), and others…I can't remember off of the top of my head, heh.
Other influences included are surprisingly enough, Love in the Time of Cholera (okay movie, great book), while not finding its way into the story proper, it still had some influence on how I write romance and love, and exposed me to the genre of "Magical Realism". No Country for Old Men (great book, great movie), was also not in the story directly, but the messed up nature of the setting in that particular story helped me in my world-building exercises concerning this story. Several religious texts were also consulted (don't want to start a flame war here, so that's all that is going to be said about that), and Katawa Shoujo, which has influenced the themes on disability in this story. Web Original content was also added as a reference; the Canadian squadron in the chapter "The Battle of Socotra", is shout-out to the Canadian web show Video Games Awesome, which is a…uh…awesome show about…uh…video games. The Salvation War, Tiberium Wars and The Conversion Bureau: Not Alone, also were some of the basis for my story, although I did not know of the latter until very late into my writing of this story.
Please note these references and sources are not the full extent of my research, just the ones I could think off of the top of my head at the moment.
If you have any questions, please PM me or write in the comments in the respective chapter or on this chapter page. I hope that you enjoyed this story, and thank you so much to those who helped out in making this story come to life, especially Dominus Tenebrosus, Neanda, NT, HN, and "Kathie Hanson". Again, many thanks to all of you for reading.
Sincerely,
Sierraoscar154
PS: There's a bunch of Omake in the works, and I have decided to put the commentary on hold, since a lot of it ended up stating the obvious. Much of my influence was explained in this Afterword, and I want to concentrate on new material rather than rehashing the old stuff.