Allison Young (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
godelsolution) wrote2013-06-05 04:53 am
godelsolution) wrote2013-06-05 04:53 am
Entry tags:
Proving your loyalty to the cause at hand
Allison doesn't remember a lot about her last birthday, the last one she ever celebrated. She hadn't been that old, after all. She remembers the cake (chocolate), she remembers telling her father about a bike she saw that he promised that she'd have the next year. The year came, the birthday didn't.
The war came, and she survived by sheer luck. Her mother, she died during the first strike. She and her father survived, and she still didn't really understand how. There hadn't been much in the way of food, but eventually they and ten or twenty other people made their way to a bunker in a federal building nearly half a mile away. It felt like it took forever to get there. But it didn't matter. They were safe. Safer than anyone else, anyway.
A month later, so many of them had died of radiation sickness, some adults. Some children. Eventually, the bunker was found by the Resistance and the survivers were sent to another bunker. Mostly full of other children, and some young adults. People who were healthy enough to keep children alive and smart enough to teach them how to survive. How to use a gun. How to use a radio. How to do recon. How to hide from and reprogram metal.
She remembers the last time she saw her father. He'd been afraid, but who wasn't those days? He's been sad, but who wasn't? He hadn't told her what was happening, because he couldn't. Because honestly he didn't know. But they'd talked for a long time, about her mother about things they hadn't talked about since the war began. And the next day, he was gone and no one would tell her why or where.
She'd assumed, for the longest time, that he'd died. She never knew if she was right or wrong, but after she was brought into the Connor camp she heard people talk about The Engineer, and she wondered.
It had been Connor, they told her, who had decided to bring her into the camp. Into TechCom. Connor handpicked the people he brought closest to him, and she was apparently no exception. It was Connor that brought her into the camp, but the Reese brothers who made sure she was all right. That she had her share of the food, that she understood everything she was taught. It was Kyle that tried to make sure she was all right. Billy Wisher who gave her her first kiss and Martin Bedell, her first beer. They were like a family, and John Connor was like some weird enigmatic father-figure that no one really ever saw or talked to if it wasn't important.
Allison never even met him until she was eighteen. A day that she hadn't even realized was her birthday until he'd actually told her. The day he gave her the bracelet that meant she could actually leave the barracks in a group and come back alone, unquestioned for the most part. A passcode in a bracelet. "It'll make you a target, and you have to understand that," he told her, and she hadn't really understood that. How a bracelet could make her a bigger target than any human already was.
She'd asked him why, then, he was giving it to her. And all he said, somehow looking sadder and lonelier than anyone she'd ever met, was that he was selfish and gifts were hard to come by.
She hadn't really understood that either. But she understood being lonely. She understood being sad. And in that way, he said, she understood what it was like to be him. She didn't know about that, but she wanted to.
She wanted to.
The war came, and she survived by sheer luck. Her mother, she died during the first strike. She and her father survived, and she still didn't really understand how. There hadn't been much in the way of food, but eventually they and ten or twenty other people made their way to a bunker in a federal building nearly half a mile away. It felt like it took forever to get there. But it didn't matter. They were safe. Safer than anyone else, anyway.
A month later, so many of them had died of radiation sickness, some adults. Some children. Eventually, the bunker was found by the Resistance and the survivers were sent to another bunker. Mostly full of other children, and some young adults. People who were healthy enough to keep children alive and smart enough to teach them how to survive. How to use a gun. How to use a radio. How to do recon. How to hide from and reprogram metal.
She remembers the last time she saw her father. He'd been afraid, but who wasn't those days? He's been sad, but who wasn't? He hadn't told her what was happening, because he couldn't. Because honestly he didn't know. But they'd talked for a long time, about her mother about things they hadn't talked about since the war began. And the next day, he was gone and no one would tell her why or where.
She'd assumed, for the longest time, that he'd died. She never knew if she was right or wrong, but after she was brought into the Connor camp she heard people talk about The Engineer, and she wondered.
It had been Connor, they told her, who had decided to bring her into the camp. Into TechCom. Connor handpicked the people he brought closest to him, and she was apparently no exception. It was Connor that brought her into the camp, but the Reese brothers who made sure she was all right. That she had her share of the food, that she understood everything she was taught. It was Kyle that tried to make sure she was all right. Billy Wisher who gave her her first kiss and Martin Bedell, her first beer. They were like a family, and John Connor was like some weird enigmatic father-figure that no one really ever saw or talked to if it wasn't important.
Allison never even met him until she was eighteen. A day that she hadn't even realized was her birthday until he'd actually told her. The day he gave her the bracelet that meant she could actually leave the barracks in a group and come back alone, unquestioned for the most part. A passcode in a bracelet. "It'll make you a target, and you have to understand that," he told her, and she hadn't really understood that. How a bracelet could make her a bigger target than any human already was.
She'd asked him why, then, he was giving it to her. And all he said, somehow looking sadder and lonelier than anyone she'd ever met, was that he was selfish and gifts were hard to come by.
She hadn't really understood that either. But she understood being lonely. She understood being sad. And in that way, he said, she understood what it was like to be him. She didn't know about that, but she wanted to.
She wanted to.