Axine

A Story by Jared Moss

The crops of a teenage girl's home turn peculiar, spiraling her into habits and people she feigns to understand.

Axine

Of the few things the knew of, the motions of her bike were embedded to her. There was a hereditary connection between her and unorthodox figures, yet today opposed her. The isolated area she was witnessing was a familiar landscape of the wheat fields of a forgotten southeast United States, but traces of newness there sparked a bleak imagination of her.

The wheat, she thought.

This is not the color it needs to be.

She was more correct than she needed to be. More than she wanted, as the wheat was now a darkened shade of miserable purple, one which lacked all possible vibrance. What drug Jo’s spirit further was her father’s lifestyle, admittedly hers as well. Being detached from consumerism brought its virtues, except these crops were their center of nutrition. If this deadly shade spread to the capacities of their farm, it would kill off all supplies she used for her cattle and poultry and herself.

She landed in the driveway of her home, a larger and isolated one, leading to a garage with no cars, yet a bike rack. Her home seemed shambled together, almost colonial, as her father’s style. Leading further to the dread of her situation, of course. The consequences of this knowledge could be nothing good, which was simply factual. There was nothing else to confront, though, and this was the most intriguing situation.

“Dad! Did you- did you see the crops yet?” she said with an exhilarating subconscious. Perhaps the color would spread to her home, perhaps overtaking it in a fashion she urged but wouldn’t recognize only due to the papery ethics she carried.

“What about them, Jolene? You don’t mean to say there’s something wrong with them, you know as well they are.” He had known of things beyond his control, beyond his desire. There was a great possibility the way he mapped his life would lead him somewhere regrettable. This was also impossible.

“I figured a look could be worth your time.” It wasn’t to her father, Rawlings Shummings, for the luminescence the purple crops showed what was unwelcome to him. Against him, though, Jo looked towards the crops.

These were an inversion. However far the color spread, those crops would not be eaten, as she would decide. Rawlings would go a great deal to keep himself away from difference, though. Even to acknowledge a change was a trial for him.

“Those crops shouldn’t be treated differently just cause of their look. You’re probably just paranoid, all too stuffed with knowledge from that library you always go to, being fed all the wrong things.” Jo knew what he would say. It was a common argument of his, one which Jo wanted to respect, but ignored for her.

“I’ll try that wheat myself. If I don’t turn out all right, but I’m still alive I might as well keep trying it till it dies off its. Now, help me renew the soil of the crops we got left that hasn’t been touched by that color.”

Joleene saw how the unwell crops looked then. It was already a darkened night, and the luminescence was leaning. The world looked that way now, the dregs of the dark lights trailing away. If people lived where the light was pointing, did they see the light as clearly as she did? Perhaps she thought.

The difference with this disease wasn’t perfectly present in Jo’s mind. Her house was solemn. Dust was a staple. But the fields disregarded this now, and their dust had vibrancy. Enticing to her, but met with fear from Rawlings. Jo had sense enough to never grace these crops, but she felt a complete desire to disregard her senses.

She came to an action which should satisfy, a personal trek to the other side of these fields. There was supposedly a city there, a place away from monotony. This is how she pictured it at least and felt what she called a healthy desire to envelop this.

“That place has a capacity for something lethal Jo, I insist you use more caution. I quite discourage this decision, but I suppose I shouldn't have much conscience over your choices now.” There was a needed sentiment Jo saw in this. She felt a responsibility to recognize it, but, she needed new directions somewhere better.

On Rawlings, Jo respected him as an essential kindness. She found a deep flaw here as well, for Rawlings had a love for his land. Not a property, as Jo even recognized that this was something far too material for Rawlings. He loved his place, and where he decided to lay. Despite the plainness of these surroundings, Jo could tell there were reasons and humanity in what the crops were. On herself, however, Jo believed she needed to advance.

“How could you decide to come here if you were brought up in something so different,” Jo would ask him.

“I prefer to never ponder on the things of my past which cause me turbulence,” he’d say. “I found things essential to life the most essential for myself. I met a few people that way and decided that’s where I could stop my mind and let itself rest. That is what man seeks after, the plain desire at the roots of all our minds.” Jo felt truthfulness here, except for Rawling’s mistakes.

What had his achievements been, Jo thought when reaching the city, on the outskirts of the fields. He had food, and most of it was good, even for now. Was this enough, she thought. The first view she had of more people and more buildings showed her an answer. The rest of the people have experienced it. That’s why I need to see this place, she thought.

The crops shined on the outskirts of the town, and a crowd was there. Campfires and tents were set up, surrounded by the newly fanaticized motor-cycles and coca-cola, highlighting an envied life to Jo.

“Hey, you kid,” one scrawny adolescent sporting a mimic leather jacket and feebly tanned sunglasses, “would you know much about these plants? They look the coolest I’ve ever seen, only I don’t know much about plants. You’re from over there, aren’t you?”

Joleene was interested, the boy less so, yet both were exhilarated. They both left the campers that night entirely dissociated from the potentially lethal crops they met each other through, and potentially dragging the situation further from safety. The opposite was possible, only before the boy’s father interfered.

“I noticed that girl you were talking to earlier around those crops, she looked a little rural to me. She says anything about them?”

“Nah, she seemed clueless about that as well.”

“You should get to know her then. She could use some people if her family is gonna starve with all those rotten crops.”

The boy's father made a clear effort to be kind. Most people from the town did, as it was rather small which made manners communal rather than obligatory. All of them had the precisely opposite intentions of ever harming anyone known.

“I’ve been trying dad, and I think she might spend some time with me at the drive-in.”

“That’s great Jeremy- um... James, if you'd like that so much.”

“Yeah, dad, I like James a lot more if you don’t mind.”

"I can tell you, the folks up at the repair shop are gonna like this news a lot more than your name. Not saying people don’t like that movie-”

“Please dad, it’s not just the movie-”

“Yeah, it’s a symbol or whatever. Anyway, they’ll love this. Might live past whenever you stop being such a jerk and get yourself a pack of Luckies instead of taking mine.”

Jeremy had a great deal of support for this idea, despite not knowing Joleene. Rawlings had no knowledge of anything Jolene had done that night and was left dazed as she continued.

“You’re good, Joleene, just have a bit of caution”. Sitting at a table, facing away from it, and staring. The crops were looking too. Creating an image to them both, and stirred and uncomfortable thing, yet only sensed by Jo. She ignored this, however. Suppressed it with the freedoms she had, as the crops were good. They had brought her to something extravagant, and everything there was good.

She ran back to the town that day, considering cutting through the crops. Seeing Jeremy decked in the loud black coat, the same one which belonged to an entire people. His bike was an ode to this, his dietary decisions, and his dialect, all dedicated to the template of freedom he recognized. Joleene was incarcerated by this. Something to tell yourself to have, a vibrant life without the hardships of something real. Most of all, the culture was a comfort. Seeing Jeremy again and idolizing their life with each other only after needing a single day. She could be pleasant this way, and the crops could die. Joleene needed to survive under all conditions now, but she owned a way of life.

“Do people do much now,” she asked him.

“Not much I can think of. My dad sees just a bit more than anyone else does, as far as I know. Can’t be too much I’m sure, no one he’s met has figured out a thing for this.”

“Guess that's pretty sad. Everyone's fine back home though, we've survived so far, and I couldn't miss them too much.”

Yet Rawlings was still staring. Into a blackened yard, with lessened spirits and sorrowful creatures to care for. He could see the saddened eyes of the cows. Their ribs were creeping and protruding each day, while they saw Joleene suck from a marrow of life she was intoxicated by rather than fed from.

Rawlings knew this. He walked to his window and climbed to the animals.

“It’s been far too long,” they told him. “This fear is killing us, and even with careless habits, it will kill you too.” Their eyes spilled out spite for him, a seething hatred they were too weak to act upon.

“She’s right though,” he told them. “These crops aren’t anything to be afraid of. Everyone knows Maxine will live with Joy.”

“Maxine isn’t alive yet,” the animals said. “She's a hopeless ambition you cannot make, only Joleene can do so, and she is not.”

“She will, though. I see her with that nice boy over there, that should be all she needs. She'll be okay and there's no fear after that.”

“This is not the truth. Maxine is a testament to the joys of simplicity, not the embracement of ignorance. She will never survive if the crops die out, she’ll never live.”

“Yes. But I’m tired, animals. I’m tired of Father Humphrey and Mother Francine, I’m tired of their work. The war was over, and their ambitions expired. Can’t I rest as they did.”

“The unholy should not rest, Rawlings. You were told the truest truth lied in simplicity, in the life, in the plants! What will you do but let her ignorance and selfishness rampage the pure, wholesome ideals of barren life? You know what way to take Rawlings, the truest way for your life.”

“Animals… I can do better for her, I’ll take her away from here, I’ll move her to somewhere even better this time, please animals.”

“Suffering is the soul’s nutrients. Do what you will.” Their evil simmered into anguish. Their anguish evaporated into thought. What was true to him, the basics of what was good and wrong all blurred.

He looked for his sickle that night. Studied the blade, and its purpose for labor and goodness. Something most would spit upon in his time. He knew this was one of many reasons why it needed to be done.

At 1:45 AM, September 7th, 1954, Joleene Shummings was the first person to witness the decapitated body of the late Rawlings Jumar Shummings. She sat by his corpse after recording the time and studied the difference between the blotched sickle and her father’s clean-cut corpse. It was labor-intensive, a sophisticated and knowledgeable death. The crops were everything except this, and when alerting authorities, she woke beside her father’s body, describing to them her late mother, Charlie Shummings, her late grandparents Jumar and Francine Shummings, and concluding to her that she was now, definitively alone. The crops clung her to this thought, while the authorities were people elsewhere. Coming with them, being there, it meant never seeing the crops. They had left her mind now, and she tied herself to this absence.

Joleene clung to her culture after. Begging Jeremy for any leather jacket he had, any toxic, vibrant drinks he could spare her, and finally begging for a committed, ideally romantic relationship. She would sleep in cells now, and wanted this.

As Joleene and her then significant other were in a daze of self-idolatry and simultaneous self-hatred in front of the city’s side of the crops, Jeremy’s father began an intervention for them. He wasn’t fascinated with either of their minds, as they seemed the type to sort these things to themselves. They had strayed, though.

"Hey, James. I know you don't like me talking to you when you're with Jo, but I think you two could spend less time together. You're not getting- "

Jeremy talked to him without remorse. His attention was divided into a majority, something unwanted, but required.

"Joleene," he told her, "Could you leave for a bit, just to let me deal with this, I don't want you to be hurt or anything." He put pride in his lonesome. To have it was a strength, a rarety. It was made from envy, though, the envy of anything else. This wasn’t his father’s matter, though.

“Son, I have to tell you this a second longer. Some folks have been coming up to my shop, not looking for repairs, but looking for a Robespierre. Jeremy Robespierre, that is. Namely, they want you as the closest person known to Joleene Shummings.”

It was a nervous statement. A disruption to their ideals, Jeremy thought, how could a caring father possibly lay his son to something so troubling. What would this do to his mentality, shouldn’t he have taken care of this himself instead of letting these sensitive teenagers deal with it? It was infuriating to Jeremy. Yet, he had to listen.

“What do they need me or Joleene for. Now, she’s just a mourning child, I don’t believe they have any business with her.”

“James, I- I would think these people are only trying to find me a better place than those prisons I’ve been living in,” Joleene said. It was a misty phrase. Something covered in loss, near-total carelessness.

“They were looking to introduce you to some work you might be interested in, Jo. At least, they mentioned you get some experience,” Jeremy’s father said.

Jeremy himself would shut himself from things, now. Of course, he wasn’t working then as he had taken everything off for Jo, even slackened his schooling. Jo, however, began to ignore many of the passions she once harbored for this. The crops began to attract her more. Their glow was something she still could grow from but never needed to leave. If this job was about it… she would get to live inside this mystery which captured her energy and showed her the real culture. Nothing was guaranteed, of course. Joleene was gravitating towards risks now, though.

"Thank you, Mr. Robespierre, I would like that. I’m sorry if this hurts you, Jeremy. But I’ll need something like this now. They might even give me a place if I accept.”

Many of these things were fabrications. Joleene didn’t need a job, and she didn’t quite desire a new place. Sympathy for her mind at this state is inherent, though. It clings to things it didn’t need, to suffice for something it never quite had.

“You were always welcome at our place, Jo, but I think you’ll take kindly to these people.” Third fabrications were at hand here, too. Jeremy’s father would have accepted her, yet to be welcome would have felt better. What Joleene craved wasn’t anything. She would have enjoyed a repetition of her ignorant years. Bliss inside caves of familiarity when she wouldn't have set from her home. Where her mother was blatantly deranged, and Rawlings embraced this attitude. She didn’t need it. But her necessity was now transparent, floating, up.

She met her employees quickly and encased herself away from Jeremy. These were things she needed, as she gravitated toward the beige of the agent's office.

“Ms. Shummings,” he said. “Perhaps you’re familiar with the Soviet Union?"

His manner was stiff. It became natural inside the frosted rooms, forming itself into it. "Of course, nothing very extreme will be given to you, but we wanted to ask about your family. I see your grandparents were rather friendly with some Soviets, is that right?”

She was silent awhile. The mention of her family. Why was it troubling? She felt her body convulse at the thought of them, so much froze her skin. Yet, she never knew them. Telling the man this, she hoped to move away from something.

“Perhaps you’ll know more about your mother.”

It was absent. Despite her mom disappearing around ten years old, she never processed this into any emotions, even subtle ones. Her father was an especially peculiar man as well, though never seeming Soviet.

“It seems to us, your family has suspicious, and even dangerous connections to the red army. Now, you may know something about the different technologies being made by your family.”

“I think I might. Yes. My grandpa was a mechanic, a famous on. But... he went away when the war ended. His machine never made it far, either. Patented a day before the market crashed."

“You can go to your room now," the agent said. "You’ll be pleased to know that, because of the family which you’re sadly unaware of, you’ve been selected to be apart of a nation-saving operation.

"Listen closely to this, but never repeat it. MK-Naomi. This may sound familiar, but where you’re at, and for now you’ll stay there, all rumors of previous MK projects are rumors, solely. Understand this, and you’ll become incredibly important and immaculately disposed of.”

Joleene dazed at the man’s sayings. She accepted, however, because the sound of it was close. They spoke to her, and though she could never understand their intentions, she saw herself deeper into a thing that took her away from the crops.

She was in her room. The ideas of terror which she had feebly escaped from since she saw the crops were now open fully to her. The prison-like sentiment was only a decoy for her, a figment which she said would help. Yet she urged against it, fought herself, and twisted her features in rage. All while being carried into their will.

She saw the agent there. He looked at her in a spell, with a face of confusion yet something which stirred Joleene's mind. He seemed to anticipate her arrival. Not warrant it, or encourage it, as he meant to do the opposite. But knew it would happen, and saw his prediction realized with speculative delight.

“You’ll be wanting the files on your family, I expect. People like you always have the ways, even since the beginning of the century. I should never trust you. They’re dangerous, everyone with a drop of that mechanic’s club’s blood. I already know what you’ll say though.” It was a cycle of knowledge. At this hour, she knew that he would know, and he knew she would know that. A delightful specter. There was one recognized truth of superiority, though.

“You are the mechanic.”

“As I am.”

It was a simultaneous revelation. Neither knew the first mechanic and barely the second. There had been two, however, and they knew this. The man reached for the files listed for Joleene’s family. With that, knowledge became disposed of. There was a crossroads Joleene met now. With every road seeming endlessly smooth.

The papers were unremarkable to her. Though spending deals of time dedicated to investigating these, her gathered knowledge hadn’t been new. Yet, with her confinement of whichever organization handled her, this dedication wasn’t upsetting. It was fascinating, yet the reality was never quite real to her.

Her files were of people from decades ago, obviously her relatives, though not familial. What seemed to be the main character in a file listed as a disturbance of peace, was Joleene’s grandfather’s partner, Jumer Squaller. He was the criminal, the first mechanic. Joleene had heard her father mutter before about a traitor mechanic, presumably her late uncle, but Jumer was left.

She gravitated toward him, as he was discovered. Jumer made machines, he invented. These weren’t simple mechanisms as were the fashion of others at his time. He was inspired by the mystical arts, the foreign, forbidden. He was entirely cut off from any writing she could find, as soon as on October 23rd, 1929, his team of workers tested their first machine powered by what Jumer called “the human spirit”. His goal was to capture happiness and make it eternal. He did, by taking the elements from all lengths of human beliefs, the stitches from voodoo dolls, blessed relics made for one’s ancestors, all surrounding and encasing the suspect, one Charles Clemmons. His mind was attached to the shell of the machine, yet when it was powered off and the electricity was no longer sourcing around the relics and the body, he had entirely vanished. This was the brother of Francine Clemmons, the researcher of the invention which Humphrey Shummings first proposed. Francine and Humphrey left, entirely away from the wretched New England bleak which charged the misery that prompted the machine. They bred two children, a Rawlings which seemed indifferent to the past the family had ignored, and one Vernes. Joleene had heard of Vernes, heard of his obscure connections from her father. Nothing was known, except this.

Joleene delved into these stories as something she depended on. There was an obligation there, an insignia to invent which could reclaim the things she desired. The facility was untrusting of her when they first heard what happened, yet no one else knew. Others did eventually, yet at the mouth of someone distant and freezing.

“Students,” a high ranked staff shouted to the attendants. “You are not aware of the education you are under. I have been informed of an incident that makes this process mandatory for the perfection of this society. You do not know of this, save one of you, as you similarly do not know of the importance of this one. This one is the fabled mechanic. Again, you will not know who this is, but before, he has put wheels on our society, failed to operate it, but before providing the sole mission of our lifetime. For a perfect society is not separated by cultural nationalism or prideful differences, but by one nation, dictated to the accumulation of the knowledge for freedom.” The man was supposed to be inspiring, Joleene knew. She felt something unwelcome in this. He was illuminating his crisp qualities, one which questions his state. And his speech brought something odious to Joleene's memory, a threat to traditions and values. These made a Utopia, but both were misled. Utopia means "no place".

In the room of Joleene’s mind, here her family was united without the curses of the mechanic’s ambitions, and no place could hold its peace. In the man’s eye, the place of tranquility and freedom which its nation promised had unity and paradise which no place could maintain. For both, however, the mechanic was something beyond the promises of reality, beyond the bounds of a creator of a paradise written to not exist. The mechanic was supposed to write paradise, mechanize it, and create it into the world.

“It is sorrowful, and against the ideals of freedom that some of you had to experience the loss of your crops. We hope you do agree, though, that for the sake of our mission to rid the world of the peace-killers and freedom antagonizers, that this is a worthy price to know that we now can accomplish this fate and bring Red to its palms!” The children enthralled the building with fanfare. Something exuberant, they thought, and the appraise led Joleene to know that this was something greater than the crops. It could help fight against the ones who made her family bleak.

“Your appraisal will be historical. We humbly welcome you, children, to the final beginning of the fight for freedom. The indestructible MK-Naomi, to destroy the lives of those who work to destroy all.”

It wasn’t a full truth. The society had already taken some time before this to set up trusts. The members were paranoid, enlisted into the society as a defense against rumored, yet real forces whose full truth was unknown. All due to the lack of knowledge, these members had let their fears control their society before.

“The caution you feel, the anxieties of an ending world, the tumbling of your ideals as you know them- that’s the start of the purest, most correct intelligence we can find. Use it. Save the nation, your freedoms, even yourself. As fear is an emotion made from our minds fire, and fire creates the brightest light in an abyss of darkness.”

There weren’t many issues with the abyss itself, however. Here, intelligence was coping, yet never overcoming.

“I think our first program is working, Richards,” he would say to his leaders later.

They slackened their jaws for this. Looked over their creeping fears and instead into relief. Relief from conflict, it was ideal for them they aspired to reach. An idea of the ones they promised.

“Then MK-Ultra has finished, and we're done with it. We are ready for use.”

“Yes, Richards, its worked on hundreds of suspects now. Their minds are nothing to this, they were so enthused, even the ones we know suffered.”

“Tell the ones from base to apply this to McCarthy’s suspects, then. They shouldn’t be able to think so hazardously now. And Naomi starts now as well?”

“Yes, it's ready. It was almost a set up for finishing MK-Ultra, so we have it prepared.”

“Good job, Urban. We’re safe then. We'll go home now. I suppose we’ll see each other later.”

Most of these men were right when they said things. These men were safe, prepared. They were fooling themselves, though, prancing about in a fantastic vaudeville of caricatures and mass ailments. Most of the harm was even coming back to themselves, always cursed with sleepless nightmares about being encased against their horrors. Being stripped of the words which they preached so much comfort in. With a single man possessing all of these thoughts.

“The mechanic visited me again tonight,” Urban thought to himself, against his sleep. “I don’t know where he comes from. I can’t know these, he’s so terrifying and he’s not here. I know he’s dead, it must be factual. What did that agent say, the one with the new Mechanic?”

“He isn’t gone like you think he is. He was right anyway. Even if he was powerful and extremely dangerous. He worked for us.”

Urban’s mind was never settled that night. Neither any other man who graced the scene of their society. As he was too fearful to even mutter the new mechanic’s name. The children all knew of her now, and they waited for their time. Their education, for the society to take place. They feared, however. All knew what this was for.

Joleene could tell in that night that someone would be looking for her. If they needed her, there was something she could do against them. They killed her crops, and they killed her father, this was an absolute truth. But what? Her ignorance terrified her, but she was the only one who despised this. What would she mechanize with her knowledge, how could she know she was that?

A presence alluded at her door. “You’re being gifted Joleene. You will be the first of your peers to center your intelligence. All of us know what you mean. You're ready for that too, as long as you agree.”

“NO! YOU COULDN’T UNDERSTAND HOW TO TRAIN ME, IT ISN’T NOW.” Her voice broke. Her mind and her life were clashing with each other, intelligence within emotions that couldn’t be recognized. She was a sobbing creature, dazed and blurred.

They spoke to her of machines she could make to lift her memories into ideals. Soften her sorrow into a place of happiness, ith her will at the forefront of its creation. And they would play an essential part, making the machine provide its necessary functions, and for herself to become happy.

She refuted their claims. A belief told her that for recovery, she required Jeremy with her. They had never been close, yet now would be a time for her to let that happen. Her mind was magnetized to dispose of her calamities, make her believe they had been taken care of through measures she determined.

“Did I ever need a home after that?” she asked herself. “No. No- no! I couldn’t need that home, all I need is him here, if he was here I could let myself go. I could shout at him and fully disintegrate but he’d still be here.” The idea of it was forlorn to her, she never knew it could be something to want.

“This is your freedom, Joleene. By letting yourself grow into this process, you’re giving yourself more than the outside world. You’ll take it. You’ll live pleasantly, as you’ll want to. You know what the mechanics made after all, don’t you? It’s only your uncle who caused destruction, while you can rebuild.” They were having to grasp for these thoughts, despite their confidence. No one was familiar with her family. Even her uncle was distant, always conspiring for his visions and disregarded most of The society. They could have only wanted to know Joleene. Perceive her genetics, know what abilities were with her, dependent on her fate she decided. This was not their following, though. Both were fearsome, radical controllers. Without the will to control, though. The society knew more about Joleene than she had, with their knowledge being the most intimidating tool for both of them.

“You’ll take yourself to the Bonaparte, Joleene. And everything will be better, won’t it?” He hadn’t been particularly dashing to her. It was an idea of something fresh, individual, and crisp in style and ideas which enticed her so. It was perfect freedom for her. Her mind was reeling at the thought such delicious circumstances could await her.

“What... am I training for?”

“You don’t already know. Curious. I suppose you should have a right as soon as you start it, but it isn't too hard. All we need is permission for your brain. Not to look into your thoughts, only scan them. If you allow this, you’ll have a paradise. Everything we see that fulfills your brain, we can encase your mind in. So, would you like this? " -- "Get a good sleep then, Joleene, and you can start your day whenever you’d like and go straight back to town. With all the other odd crops you're so fond of, doesn’t that sound lovely?”

“Yes,” she said and was already floating into a state of satisfaction. She let their steps and the lights fade away from her. Dancing in darkness, obscured in her movements, and shielding her thoughts. Yet dancing into a fully awake daydream.

Outside, the world had gotten colder than she remembered. By now, the crops had lost their beauty, and the field for the spectators was abandoned, the absence dragging her pleasant memories into shame. She set herself there, stared across the field of perished goods, wanting to latch off the parasitical sorrow. Only closing her eyes, demanding her conscience to see something far better.

“You’re here Joleene. It’s been long enough, man, no one comes here anymore. Didn’t you say that would happen before you left?”

“I can hear him”, she thought. “He came back here, even though it’s all gone, and he’ll let me stay with him.” Her eyes wept. With a final surrender against emotions, she let herself go.

Jeremy walked to her, at a pace he thought could keep him from this image. He wouldn’t want to see it. So he rejected this with every step. Joleene’s stay was only that. Everything about her presence now led him to detest the decisions he made. It seemed she lost much of her life. She had become quite the miserable creature.

He left her later, letting her take a seat beside him at the drive-in, and ignoring the base feelings that would distract him and force him into using everything for her. Driving off, with Joleene on the ground. It emptied her. She couldn’t bring herself to rebel anymore. Though the cause had never been, her energy was a spark she used to love. And now, the black forest behind the backdrop enveloped the scene for her. Watching the infestations and unwanted specimens of the forest were her entertainment, and she fell asleep there, left entirely alone until the dew of daybrake soaked her to rise.

She was taken by the same men who cared for her now and drove her further away than she knew. Seeing all the life which spilled into these cultures, it sparked her thought.

“You’re older now,” they told her. “Soon enough, your generation will dry out and the next one will need a life.”

“But I’m only seventeen.”

“You’re thirty.-- Born in July 1931. Inside a now-abandoned asylum, is what they tell me.”

“1931. You don't have the right records I barely even look my real age, and I don't remember anything past the last two decades.”

“MK-Axine. Verne's final, unfinished project. That didn’t keep him from it, though, because he had no limits, never any restraint and certainly no discipline. That’s what’s wrong with us, though, isn’t it?”

Joleene had left herself after hearing this. With the agent never getting his frustration to her, she was instead lost inside his claim. MK-Axine. No one had told her about this. But something in it violated her memory, trespassing her subconscious and deriving only its most vicious substance to the surface.

A faded memory reached up to her, put itself in her present, and told her this.

“Maxine will save us from the things I keep us from. When you bring her into this world, she will no longer know of the mechanics.”

“What’s a mechanic?”

“I only wish you would never know, lovely daughter. She’ll never know of it. Please promise me, this will be true.”

It hadn’t been in her memory. What Maxine was to her, something she always knew of but was protected in obscurity. Joleene would see her father’s words through grayed spectacles, and MK-Axine obstructed this.

“He would say it through tears, sir. Please don’t bring this up again, no one wanted it here.”

“You should call me Urban, Joleene. You should. You shouldn’t be crying. Nor even know his tears. We know of things to come, though. Which could come, and we need these things to happen. MK-Axine. It’s a rejection of your Maxine, and it is dreadful you should let her go. But dreadful still, that this was you.”

“It won’t go, though. Even The society wouldn’t go this far, they sent me here to take care of me after my dad’s suicide, not to … to brutalize it!” The car stopped as she said this. The building was the frontline of a grey valley. Which encapsulated all of the dying thoughts of those it stood against. Building itself a fortress from its terrors.

“But you’re thirty years old, Joleene. You’ll be taking care of yourself now.”

Before she went inside, her mind wandered from the building’s presence, and let herself remember final things. Brief childhoods, purities, and innocence in a perfectly white home. It was perfect for her.

“He took me away though, didn’t he? From my mother, he never even gave me a chance to learn what I need to.”

“He’s gone, though. You got your real father back, and your training is starting, it’s happening exactly how it needs to be.”

She thought to protest. Yet her mind was receiving the true past. Clear images of empty warehouses and cramped machines. Tiny materials and odd substances for days until there weren’t any visions.

“You’ll see what you will, Joleene. You should come inside now, you've had difficult days.”

“You can’t do that though, not if he never let you have it.”

“That’s what his work was, though. Even if he was secret, that didn’t change his job. Now, you’ll be alright soon enough.”

So, she entered in there. Seeing the people in the building waiting for her return, beaming at her with embraces and tearful eyes, joyous of her. The hall ended with a caring set of eyes from a man who captured her trust and welcomed her future.

“Everyone loves that you’ve made it Joleene. Wouldn’t you like to show them your blessing: Maxine?”