alias filesystem_repair='fsck'

History is not made by great men. It is not made by the conquests of individual leaders, by giants of mythic proportions. No, the historical materialist knows that the engine of history is class conflict. The great wheels of time turn not at the valor of prophets, kings, knights, nor messiahs. They turn by the combined labor of the faceless and nameless masses. The great machine of human history is fueled by the toil of billions. And history turns, unceasing. The future belongs to those faceless and nameless masses.

An Elementary Student’s Introduction to Historical Materialism, 3rd Edition, Ka Clara Firmina circa 2090, provided by the PRA Central Compilation and Translation Bureau

Point Valley, San Antonio, Texas, Axis Mundi, Earth, UCF 02/16/454, 2016 hours

Time yawns before Flechette. The endless expanse of the future. An entire life. Far too long. Too long to be in this pain. What horror.

How many more centuries to be felt, without you there.

The young pilot rolls onto her side. The childhood bed in her parents’ home reeks of memory. Nothing resembling the comforting sterility of a pilot’s bunk. The clean vacuum of space. The clarifying distance of low-earth orbit. Everything is so simple up there. The world so small, so far away. Tears would betray her. Instead, the dull ache of deferred wounds.

I miss home. She stares out the window, curled in the fetal position, trying to imagine the Rumsfeld above her, in that distant sky, pinned to Heaven and filled with angels. The air here doesn’t have enough ozone.

There’s a gentle knock at the door. Flechette is silent, unmoving. The door cracks open, sending a blade of light flying into the room amidst the waning sun.

“Dinner’s ready, Flechette.” Crisp, courteous English.

Flechette curls into herself, tightly. As if trying to collapse into an event horizon. The door begins to close.

Before the latch… 

“Wait, Mom—”

The closing of the door hesitates.

“I—”

Aiko waits expectantly.

Flechette can’t say it. She can’t apologize. To do so would betray herself, the principles her world stands on. The world she belongs to. She sighs.

“…Can you come in?”

“Of course, Flechette.” Aiko’s voice is gentle, kind. The use of her English name somehow snags at Flechette’s heart like the barb of a fishhook, in spite of herself. Aiko comes and sits on the bed, places a hand on her daughter’s hip.

Flechette rallies all of her combat training, her abilities built to withstand fear and face horror, and allows her mother’s hand to stay there, unchallenged.

Aiko waits patiently. Time seemingly does not daunt her, nor does silence. Perhaps she has already spent years here, waiting for her daughter to come home. Flechette wonders at the strength of the feat, as she gathers her own strength, her conviction. Until finally…

“Can you tell me about home? I mean. Where you came from— where, we, come from?”

Aiko smiles brightly.

“I would be happy to.”

“I remember the matsuri most vividly. Oh, the summer heat, and the cool night. I remember meeting your father there, I was a young student and, well, he was a rippana— oh, I don’t know how you say it in English. He was a very handsome soldier. So cool with his cigarettes from Axis Mundi. He kissed me under the fireworks, him in his crisp uniform, me in my yukata — oh I wish you could have seen it, it was like an old photograph. Ha, he won me a goldfish — somehow, because, you know, those games are rigged — my mother always told me to avoid them because in those years the Yakuza still existed and still ran the festival games.” Aiko giggles, quietly, covering her mouth with her hand, careful to hide her teeth.

“And I remember the forests. They were so beautiful. The desert here is beautiful too, but — well, we’re not supposed to say things like this anymore. But you could feel the kami in the forest. You could feel them in the soil, in the wind and in the trees above. I remember walking through the torii gates as a schoolgirl, twirling in my new uniform, showing off to my schoolmates… Haha, I used to be beautiful, can you believe it? Or at least, supposedly I was. It was… A long time ago…”

Flechette stares at her mother with intensity, attempting to envision a world so different from her own. The scale of the human universe begins to reveal itself to her, widening farther than her vision can assimilate.

“Was it… Better? Than here?”

Aiko turns to face Flechette with shimmering, pained eyes.

“It… It wasn’t better. Life here is wonderful, and I love you and your father, and I wouldn’t ask for anything more. But… It was different. And… Sometimes I do miss it.” It suddenly strikes Flechette to wonder if her mother has any friends here.

“Do you… Do you think it would be better if, it wasn’t a part of the UCF?” Flechette, out of either bravery or innocence, asks the question that cannot be asked. Her mother just looks at her, sadly, defeated.

“Hana- Flechette… You need to understand. Japan… We did bad things. A long, long time ago, there were wars. Really, really awful wars. Wars where we did bad things. Unforgivable things. We are not the victims of this story. We were the villains. And we were defeated. It is right and just that we should be subjects of the UCF now. The UCF is fighting for peace, for justice, and balance. The world needs order and peace. It doesn’t need an independent Japan. Not… Not after the things we did. This is how we repay our debt to the world. I wish it were simpler.” Simpler. The word hangs in the air like a guillotine.

Night spreads its wings over the canopy of the Earth, exposes the heavens above for the void they contain. Flechette is awake. Sleep, of course, is a luxury rarely afforded her racing mind. Not without the aid of combat-exhaustion, strained muscles and drained adrenalines. So Flechette lies awake in the dark.

Abruptly, near midnight, after hours of waiting in the dark, Flechette remembers the package. Who would send me a package? What could they possibly want to send me?

Flechette sits down on her bed, cradling the small parcel. Inside are two very simple objects — one, a small datadrive — judging from its size and quality, it can’t be more than someone’s personal drive, certainly nothing institutional — and secondly, a letter, in official ARC letterhead.