Hey everyone, it’s A.J.
again. Mr. Beckley if you’re nasty. Josh has given me permission to occasionally
post here. I guess it makes sense from a
propaganda standpoint to have the voice of a defector ring out for people in
UAS territory. Still, that’s a very
cynical way to look at it and I like to believe that Josh is a standup guy who
just wants another point of view as he continues to work as the historian to
all mankind.
So to those people in the UAS
who have access to this blog, I want to tell you a little about this new home I
have. New Haven is fantastic. But first, let’s start with the lies. I have no doubt the UAS has told you all that
I and the three others that left with me are locked up or being tortured for information. We were all debriefed, of course. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but being
questioned in a small room seldom is.
There was no torture, no one went Jack Bauer on me, there were just
questions. Unfortunately I didn’t have
much to tell them. It’s not like I was
in a compound with the higher-ups in the government. I just lived in a UAS town with my
laptop. I only started getting attention
from the more important UAS figures when my posts on the blog got noticed.
Let’s talk about the good in New
Haven. They have…and am not even joking about this…they have cheeseburgers. God help me, real cheeseburgers. Do you have any idea how completely at a loss
I am for words right now? They’re not
free, of course, you have to barter.
It’s worth any price, though. This
couple makes the burgers and they gave me one for free when they found out I
was a defector from the UAS. It was
refreshing to know that there was someone willing to accept me at face
value. When I told them that, they
pointed out that whether I’m exactly what I say I am, or whether I’m a spy,
there’s nothing they can do about it. So
why not believe the option that causes the least amount of pain? So I shut up and ate my burger.
New Haven itself is a tightly
run ship. I’m not going to discuss all
that for two reasons. One, Josh already
talks about the goings on and I don’t want to just parrot information. Second, I don’t want to give the impression
that I’m passing information about defenses.
But what I will say is that people are specialized here. Since the fall we’ve all had to do
everything. I’ve had to defend our walls
before, I’ve had to go out foraging, I’ve been on an undead raiding party. It didn’t matter that I’m a horrible shot or
that I favor a baseball bat over an assault rifle. We defend what’s ours and we all do what’s
asked so that everything gets done. New
Haven has been settled for so long, and has enough people, that they have their
own force patrolling the walls. They
have their own force of beaters to go out and trounce some undead booty. There’s no rotating schedule among the population
at large. People all have jobs, but
they’re jobs that they actually know how to do.
When the powers that be in New Haven asked me what job I could do, I
didn’t know how to answer. I’m so used
to being put on a schedule and having a new job each week. These people are not savages or anarchists
like the UAS tells you. They’re
organized and disciplined. They have
developed their own metropolis here and it’s closer to the world that was than
anything else I’ve seen since the Fall.
Oh, and the medical facilities
here are phenomenal compared to what I’ve seen in this post-Fall world. I paid them a visit to introduce myself and
give them my medical information. All of
the workers are great people and the hospital itself looks pretty much like a
pre-Fall hospital. That is almost as
incredible to me as the cheeseburgers. In
a world where people can die from a scrape because penicillin is no longer
readily available, this hospital – fully stocked and manned by professionals–
is nothing short of a miracle.
Let’s touch on the bad. I don’t want to seem like I’m whitewashing everything. New Haven isn’t perfect. It has its seedy areas as well. Walking through the place, there were certain
houses that looked more rundown due to their occupants being slobs. At least one place was pretty clearly running
a gambling establishment with a bouncer out front who had a jailhouse swastika
tattoo on the side of his neck. Another house
looked to me to be a speakeasy (if the exiting drunks pretending to act sober
were any indication.) Yet another house
had its owner sitting in a window in her underwear, pretty obviously looking
for clients. She was also scratching
herself in a profoundly unladylike way.
You’d think that would deter people, but she didn’t have long to wait in
that window before someone came in. And then
he appeared to insist that she keep the curtains open.
So New Haven is – gasp! – like
any other city that used to exist. It
has some good parts and some bad parts. And
the people are the same. A lot of people
have given me their support. Still,
there are others that clearly hate me because I once believed in the UAS. If I go for a walk around town, a long walk,
mind you, there will be at least one person who will spit in my general
direction. Or at least glare at me until
I walk away. One kid, maybe thirteen,
threw a muddy rock at me once. That’s as
bad as it’s gotten, though. Just some
cowards throwing mud and their own spit.
What this all comes down to,
though, is that by living here, I get to be myself. It goes back to what I said before about
specialization. I don’t have to do a stint
on the wall or in the kitchens. If I
want to go back to being a therapist, I’m allowed to. Hell, I’m encouraged to. It’s a way for me to pull my weight and I do
think that, given recent traumas we’ve all experienced, it’s a necessary
service to have. Of course, I don’t know
who would want to have a therapist who was involved with the UAS, but the point
is that I get to find that out if I choose to.
This is a place that can be a home, not just a place to survive. The time for survival is over. We have to start living again, otherwise
mankind truly is extinct.
So, in closing, I want everyone
in UAS territory to realize that there are other options. You want to stay with the UAS, fine. But know that there’s a whole world out
there. One with cheeseburgers, with a
stabilized work force, one with floating craps games and hookers with Chlamydia. It’s a real world, not a shadow of what once
was promising to resurrect a world long dead.
And it’s run by people who don’t gas children in their beds like
mass-murdering cowards. Think about it.
Beckley, first things first, I want to apologize for calling you a coward.
ReplyDeleteI will not call you A.J. we ain't friends yet. While I'll admit that you haven't earned my trust, leaving the UAS to uncertainty of the survival of the Union you have earned my respect.
While me and my crew are cooling our heels at Col. Ketill's base we know why they won't send us on missions, we are New to their army, and are under constant scrutiny. Though even Col. Ketill agrees that the UAS probably wouldn't send family units including pregnant women on covert ops.