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“Isn't this what you wanted, aren't you happy?” There had never been such a deep knife dug into your back from the one that you were supposed to trust the most.
But there was no bad bone in Ayaka's body and so there were no problems before she set off on the walk that was supposed to come and find the truth of her statement that had come from the establishment of the geocommunities that had come to represent America on the world stage instead of the old decrepit system of taxes and capitalism that had helped the collapse in the first place.
There had been little time before Ayaka had asked the question that set her off on the attempt to find a book from the library that was standing proof of the mercy of the conquerors that practiced filthy revisionism that allowed for the kinds of ministries that trampled on the rights of man to continue beyond the war that had led to the greatest reduction of the state in people’s lives beyond her very own plan for the world.
Sadly all that remained was for her to go back to hitting the town with her girlfriend while playing that music that had gotten them enough attention that allowed for the post war transition to pass with some reasonable amount of calm in comparison to the slave states of Middle America, it was proof enough that when one's idol spoke they would listen.
Portland had done it’s best to listen to their idol and calm the hell down in the face of the new reality under these new kinds of white men that were coming for their land but if they had to be outsiders there were many worse options as what little news coming from the survivors of the state had proven in comparison to their own government that was the first to fall in the face of the Californian offensive.
Whatever happened to those bastards anyways? She certainly knew of what had happened to Sara after all that but there was the question of where the rest of the government had disappeared to but she knew they would find their own way to come out on top as one was made to do in Oregon politics now that there was a new master instead of the old status quo, she just hoped they would fulfill their promises in the name of freedom.
The fate of such a thing as a library was something she had given no thought in her own anarchist world if she had imagined herself to be the kind of person that was about warfare when the government had given them everything they might’ve wanted in the form of those bills that were now up in the air with the new government that seemed hands off on enforcement for that kind of thing.
She certainly had opinions about Sara’s corrupt government but when someone was messing with the government’s tax base there was nothing they wouldn’t do to find the perpetrator and bring them to justice for violating the taxes that were supposed to bring them money after the current legislature had been thoroughly brow beat into passing their bill that was supposed to give them the kind of freedom they wanted.
Now that that was in question she had to force herself to at least hope Ayaka was not getting any other ideas about bringing such legislation up to a national level once more even if there were a bunch of organization fo fellow musicians that would certainly love if those new government had the foresight to come along with the plan to introduce an actual investment into the arts.
The library stood in all its glory, very little, against the backdrop of the war that had taken and damaged their town beyond what was supposed to be expected between states before the national push to come and take out any remain resistance from the remnants of both the government and the remaining forces loyal to whichever splinters had risen up against the government in a moment of weakness.
For now life was based around one of the few buildings that had managed to avoid the entirety of the shells and bombs over such an important city as Portland against the rest of the state that was certainly going to be higher on the efforts of reconstruction but hopefully not so far on the national list that they might get something other than the library being the kind of place for people to congregate as her club had been a casualty of the war.
Good thing she could afford the costs of rebuilding such a place, and as far as she knew there were no resources she was suddenly sitting upon so she hopefully wouldn’t have to deal with the land tax. Her assumptions were why she was forcing herself to come to the library instead of hoping that there would be no measure of recompense coming in the mail for the crime of actually owning property in America.
Everyone needed some land for themselves and while that may have been anathema to the world she had envisioned she was currently living the consequences of man becoming free without masters in their ivory towers beyond the continued existence of the military and all the institutions that allowed for America to have an actual degree of national security that even she could see was necessary to surviving the dangerous world.
But there was that communal aspect as she shared Ayaka’s home with the rest of their friends that had been casualties of property damage but she was perfectly content to learn about Nilou than she was to learn more about Kunikuzushi, someone should probably teach him about the art of subtlety but she wasn’t the one with the kind of parents that was sure to make any interactions between Ayaka’s brother and himself awkward.
Now that the internet had been damaged as one of the first things to accidentally go when shelling a major city there really was nothing to do but go to the library instead of sitting at home and listening to the next ‘masterpiece’ Kuni had cooked up in the guest room without telling anyone else, good thing his desire to avoid the populace was much larger than his health need for some sun.
And while there was always the desire to spend more time listening to Ayaka as she prepared for the time honored tradition of writing about war as an observer there was little desire as they both had gone through such a challenge and her own desire was to escape that sphere for the moment.
A downside of being shackled with the queen of the community was an undue expectation about what it meant to come to one of her own performances in comparison to the whole glitz and glamor of those concerts that Ayaka had in the nicest venues in practicing the same kind of corruption that she railed against. Clearly they must have the same kind of reputation because they were still going steady before and after the war.
It was a culture shock to these fans of hers that were trying to understand the kind of woman that would have the attributes to get with their idol and last long enough where there was a negative factor to the amount of fans one might come to expect at one of her concerts. Nothing truly could be learned from listening to her do crowd work beyond another point of view into the experience of common suffering they faced.
A point of view that had nothing to do with the kind of person that would’ve managed to give Ayaka the perfect cookie cutter story that she could sell her fans as the trope of childhood friends was still strong with this one, life was odd in that way but it did bring to her the same kind of networking opportunities that had her in the fast lane through the process of dealing with the local security involved with keeping order.
While they had Ayaka to thank for the order that allowed them to take rest in a library instead of the local burnt out building turned into a barracks, something that was sure to help when compared to the former slave states, there was no doubt that they knew the hanger on to the woman that helped them enjoy the nice posting in the back of the country while went around their work in uniting the country. Ayaka would be sure to make her opinion heard of her girlfriend's epithet but thankfully she wasn’t here.
A nod was all that was really required for one of her friends but they had laws for a reason and while no one enjoyed being under foreign occupation it was much better than the old system and there was a clear understanding that despite how far they went in destroying control the military would still have a role as America spread its wings on the world stage in ways she was yet to see.
Soon enough they would be free of the kind of memory that was formed by having the men on the streets in times of crisis and thus there would be very little to keep them away from tearing one another apart besides the understanding of who really ran this territory now that they had been liberated in practice with the new theory that ran the government.
It didn’t cost anything to be informed and would even hurt to be uninformed about the kinds of dealing that left them alone with the lawsuit being the final weapon now that Americans were no longer allowed to erupt into civil war the next time they disagreed with the government over a policy.
Talk about kicking the ladder.
‘Am I happy?’
That was her worry as she quickly showed her identification, just one of many ways Oregon was anal about their sense of control, to the guard on duty in this quiet town. There was no reason to bother with identifying herself but she didn’t want to allow these men to become complicit even if it came through small ways.
Yoimiya Naganohara followed the motions with little fanfare as she was given the required by duty look at her identity and let through that thing with little more than a tired smile that showed just how well these men were dealing with boredom, they should be glad if anything that they had not been forced to try and reinforce the remains of that religion in the middle of Oregon. With a final smile at the men she walked into the one place that may have the kind of information she would need.
It was easy enough to come and try to find the man that had inspired the original thought of the party in control from the information that Yanfei had given them all as part of the brown network across the state that was of course connected to the generations of Chinese that had chosen to settle along with the Japanese instead of joining their brethren in California.
One must imagine Zhongli happy at this turn of events.
Evidently he certainly had enough interest in the words of the boy George that she had a clue to the kind of man she was looking for in the library starting with the letter G. She couldn’t have imagined any reason for him to be interested in such an ideology, maybe he was a geologist in a past life? Yet she would have to send him a post card for introducing this old ideology burning through the minds of academics and those in the anarchist sphere.
Yoimiya may have had ideas about the process but it was fair to wonder how possible it was to reconcile both ideologies in the face of the new tax policy and ‘enlightened anarchism’ that had come to be the nickname for the movement that had spawned from the early movements that had given power to the people rather than despots and the like.
She certainly could come around to god given rights when it allowed for her to live comfortably without having to deal with the kind of man that would’ve continued to make money off of her work without having to reconcile with the exploitation that they were perpetrating with the opportunities denied to people like her.
Of course that quibble had been what had driven the early movements into the ground but the less she spoke of Marx and what he had caused on the planet the better, this was about the best of a bad situation that she could imagine herself not just surviving under but even thriving as someone that was not already privileged.
For now the system ran on the alphabetical system though she had heard of them planning the move to a numerical system, helpful as she was looking for a common enough last name in the sea of names available, even though she doubted there were that many Henry George’s specifically considering how normal a name like that sounded to her ears. How many of those were supposed to be a part of economic theory in the first place?
It was like a jungle of cobwebs for that book as she noticed the kind of dust that was gathering on his works for a dead man long since buried coming out of the wood work to be relevant once more, she would get first crack on such things and she had to work before anyone got their grubby hands on such a thing.
Better her before Thoma made an entire day of having been with the literature and developing his own ideas about what to do in the name of creating his own community inside of the wider community with the help of Ayaka’s brother to the chagrin of Ayaka and the rest of her friends. Neither needed the duopoly that was supposed to come from such an organization forming with the wider community.
If there was one thing she couldn’t imagine it was Ayaka as someone that seriously became invested in land ownership. Soon enough he might find his sister more appealing to his own ideals than Ayato at the rate things were going, Oregon was a lot of things but even they would hesitate to return to a memory of the old apparatus.
She just sat down and already she was having headaches imagining Thoma getting his grubby hands on such an important document, he would already have had ideas running through his mind about this document and that was why she was glad to engage in anything else with him beyond discussions on theory, better to escape that lecture that perfectly explained why he had been chosen for that university despite everything else around him.
In a more rational world he might be nothing more than one of many minds she had to engage back and forth with a bit alas he was all she had and thus there she was engaging in this work to try and understand what that brain of his would come up with while doing whatever one did for the running of a school.
Might as well continue to hit the books for the next time Ayaka wanted to see her brother once again, the only upside of the war was the increased amount of time they had to spend with one another as the people prepared themselves for the new world that was occurring without their participation.
If such was the fate of the hanger on she would make sure she might as well school him on the ideology while they played house as someone returning from war.
Somehow he supposed he was supposed to hate the woman next to him as they both talked about this and that in comparison to the legal system that had existed before the moratorium on the entire system and the laws that were to be made after the new order was established and a grace period for the new form of combat now that they had were no longer to decide on overthrowing the government after the civil war.
Legal Warfare.
Yes, his favorite lawyer was about to become a battle princess.
There was no more need for the guns when Yanfei was to be the one in demand for a change against the idea of men and soldiers with their guns overthrowing any case they disagreed with. It was painfully obvious he disagreed with her career choice but seeing as this was about the easiest thing for her to transition towards after the war there was no reason for him to engage in pointless discussion.
Besides, he liked actually having a chance at dialogue, Yanfei was no Yoimiya and if there was someone he would never want to go against it was certainly the woman that had worked her own magic and given the kind of argument that turned a case into a slam dunk for her side of the bench. Of course debate was not like prosecuting someone and there was no real risk of losing a case that would mark a record beyond a private one but she was not a quitter even in no risk situations.
“Do you know anyone like that?” She had pulled that trick of hers on weaker men but Thoma was not one of them even as he might possibly know someone that could give her some more insight on the workings of contracts on a system not backed up on anything beyond the word of people and the backings of corporations against the state that used its monopoly to at least enforce rulings.
He wasn’t a objectivist like Furina or one of these with a stick up their own ass like some of the people he was troubled to find could be anarchistic like him but it seemed anarchy had won the day even if it wasn’t the way he would’ve wanted but even he would be not so cruel as to try and lead her to the dangerous minefield that was Furina and Focalors, either one was much too dangerous for her statist mind.
It was a miracle that he had to try and explain the very idea of the non aggression principle now that they seemed to have to day and a new type of king had been empowered in the way of freeing them from the oppression of Oregon, he would certainly take the anarchist over the Koch brothers or the objectivists but it was damn well clear to see they had won even if it was not in the manner they would’ve wanted.
There was a difference between the anarchy he supported and the chaos they would be supporting by allowing for Furina or Focalors to establish their own state over these great states of theirs that were not ready for the kind of madness that had infected the both of them along with their worship of that hero that was said to have existed.
The less he had to be reminded of Rand’s own desires for that man she had met years ago the better.
Yanfei deserved certain things for not sharing a jail cell with the rest of them in the days that followed the chaos of the government but it wasn’t like she had betrayed them in the course of such an event occurring, still they were the closest thing she had to an avenue to power and thus it hurt to see her on the outside of a jail cell. He wondered how many political favors she had to give for their own release at the time.
Obviously irrelevant in the face of the invader but she had done them a favor and thus it was his job to make sure she got something beyond whatever she might be able to find from people asking about the rights of man and property under the system of enlightened anarchism that was spreading.
And she had somehow caused Ayato and Ayaka to become even closer after a single day and if only because she had saved him from even more embarrassment from seeing them embracing one another like she had just won him his freedom like a slave so she deserved the world despite her politics and connections to the system.
Scratching one back for the other was certainly part of the communal action he had been advocating in the first place, it was only natural that he put his money where his mouth was and helped her to escape the sight of these fools that were now looking to her to be their champion in the arena after studying up upon property law and the enlightenment.
Thank god they had destroyed the internet for the moment as he didn’t trust Yanfei in a chatroom much less one where Furina would be the one to try and explain the concepts of minarchism and the night watch state that seemed to be the likely outcome if any of the information he had received from those further south proved to be correct.
He did not normally carry any books on such a dead ideology unlike his own about Marx and thus he would need to give her the crash course on the value of land and a like and taxes before explaining the kind of anarchist twist that was sure to come from mixing the words of boy George.
“Follow me.” There was little exchange to be had between them when the last thing either of them needed was more words out of his mouth when soon enough he would be putting his degree to use once more to educate his lawyer like she was another one of his students when it came to actual freedom.
Freedom never truly was free but he was suddenly out of a time constraint and thus he found himself with all the time in the world. There would be something fun in expanding the horizons of those narrow minds even if it was only in relation to the new kind of law that she was going to be practicing.
Lord knows she would not be here if not for those men bringing freedom but he would take his new found freedom to drill it into her head even if he needed to spend days on the effort, she would be his greatest challenge but one that he would gladly take up to expand the political consciousness of the people.
One mind at a time.
When working in the old world currently burning on the fields of the plains there was a process to which the world worked, she could visit those she might be able to stomach for a tip on certain actionable information that she might need for the current case she was working on and in return she might be able to provide services pro bono in the name of helping her community and those downtrodden from the man using their influence on those that did not deserve the attention.
It was a lot of work to do on the side of the company she was a member of but if anyone was able to do it all it was Yanfei as many an enemy or ally could admit, she worked with the kind of spirit that was sure to make any mortal man collapse after the many nights she spent making sure there was something to her legacy beyond the big break and peak behind the curtain she had received while working the Oregon legal system.
Lots of her dreams involved her taking a hatchet to the corruption that had festered even before she had arrived on the scene that caused each and every member of society to be the abstractions from the kind moral people she knew people to be when not forced into these games that even she played on the national stage.
In a way she supposed she got her wish in the end.
There was no real reason for her to worry about surrendering herself to these troops that had come out of the Californian quagmire with unification on the mind because of the army, there were no white supremacists that were coming to kill her and purify the nation of her demonic spirit that had to be the reason why she was put on this earth the great nation of America that was forced to deal with the reckoning.
If anything this was almost her dream occupation!
She already was one for restrained living as someone with dreams and with her head not all the way in her ass meaning she lived somewhere without all the extra stuff that was utterly alien to her along with the wisdom to stay humble in the face of those that were truly pillaging the country while keeping their facade together.
Defeating the white man in court was nothing of notice to her, because in court there was no room for biases, while sticking Kirby on Universal was the right move in the eyes of those that had hired her to defend them against the evil corporation she found no personal glory in that and opportunity for change beyond more connection to the kind of crime she was hoping to root out in the first place.
The people were not hungry for change and while she had probably inadvertently helped the collapse of California, leave Universal to include such language in their reports, she did not live in such a state that allowed for there to be enough popular resistance to overtake the government without serious mistakes.
To Yanfei’s despair Sara was actually competent at her caretaker position.
She wondered if she might’ve actually won the election if they had managed to have one in the first place, not impossible considering the restrictions, hopefully not because she always looked empty whenever she wasn’t portraying the kind of person that had the skill to keep this state together against the internal enemies trying to make a change for whatever reason.
Ruin was almost certain under apathy.
In this new world there would be even more need for people like her and because she cared so much about the new world coming for them it was time for her to learn about the system that she was going to operate under, there was only one man she trusted to point her somewhere in the correct direction if not lead her to the promised land himself.
The long history of her work with the institute was nothing to note of in itself beyond being that weird aunt of the school full of the Japanese living exiled from their homeland so long that there remained the question at what point they were even Japanese anymore; make sure not to raise that question around certain individuals both at the institute and on the street.
Off and on again as their population needed as well as a defense of the actual school in desperate times, a connection that paid itself off even in this weird manner. She had met both of the Kamisato siblings in this way and thus she had the pleasure of meeting the people that surrounded the both of them… with exceptions.
Much as she wanted to fault the older sibling she couldn’t exactly imagine someone like him singing and thus she understood the choice to surround himself with those of questionable moral value all in the name of making something out of the opportunity given to one from the moment of birth, she could understand the corruption of the soul with her own sins weighing her down.
And now she was free but there was someone that had caught her eye in the madness that even her useless nationalism could not hide from. A contradiction of everything she thought she knew about the leader of that school that had that special relationship that should not work form what she knew about Thoma and yet there they were seen together.
‘The kind of relationship that could only come from the lower economic class.’
That was Thoma’s agenda and while it may have been true she had never seen the man before he was at that school so who knew exactly how much of that statement was smoke yet it was certain that he was the closest thing Ayato had to a friend, more like an advisor when it came to these kinds of things while Ayato focused on the things that truly mattered for the school.
She personally would not have been able to coexist with such a contradiction of ideologies but that was the reason why she was glad she had not made friends before the war, now she had the chance to learn of these fools that were now in the same boat like her along with still having use to her even beyond the measure of a friend.
If Ayato wanted something done Thoma would be there to do so for all his friends and now he was going to help her as he led her through the mostly intact city, towards the center of knowledge remaining for them all where she had first made the mistake to get involved in the legal scene of such a state.
Now that was changing but into what form she did not know, there was a tinge of excitement to her steps at the new system that was certainly not to follow the Oregon model but the new system for lawyers to follow was the question that kept her up at night. For now all she could do was control the kind of information she received about the tax system that was to come and the potential loopholes in such a system.
Along with learning much more than she could ever need from the kind of system they had been advocating from their seat in Jefferson, at least Foldvary was someone that spoke with an expected posture that she could understand rather than whoever it was that caused Thoma to look like he was considering if his life of politics had been worth it in the end.
That did in fact put a smile on her face as the two of them made their way to the library that contained all the knowledge they would need and enough of a setting for Thoma to have his little teaching escapade, hopefully the kind of person she was being forced to learn about was at least more coherent than the kind of person that made Thoma of all people look like there was something caught in his throat.
Yanfei certainly saw some familiar faces as they moved towards the guards, seemingly pulled from the courts on the hiatus, showed her identification to the guards and along with Thoma and entered the center of learning before the people had invented the internet which left her with the unenviable task of learning like she was back in school.
“We don’t have to learn about economics, unless you want to?” He did have to try and offer her a way out after Rand.
“When’s the last time I’ve been known to act half heartedly?” He would pray for her soul.
There was always a moment in time that he loved to capture, the moment when one realized what exactly they were signing up for. While there were certain moments that were more hubris than anything else, a desire to break on through was something almost as delicious especially depending on the kind of task set before them, and with him pulling out the book along with the spine showing.
Any moment involving economics and Rand was worth its weight in gold.
“You’re kidding…” This might be too much even for her…
A library was not empty of places one might find for a good session of learning but there was only one place for them to go for the full experience of nostalgia at one point or another, certain places of the library had the special memory that came with having nothing but time and a lack of real responsibility before entering the workforce and all of those headaches.
Before she had any clue about the scope of the NSB and all of its work in keeping Oregon secure from internal threats and the like, at least she had the chance to live what she imagined those from California had to deal without the measure of a state security forces, in the end she was the one left standing over the graves of those in that shadowy building.
Something worth smiling about even as she was about to be settled with the hellish task of sitting through the words of that woman who had done them all a favor and died in the 70’s; a true believer till the end.
“Thoma!” When Yoimiya had come to study the new tax base there was little expectation of running into the man himself!
And with Yanfei of all people!
It was early on enough that she hadn’t been paying attention to the familiar voices of those two, much more focus on understanding if she might actually be expected to pay much more or less on her taxes, much less when they had decided to come to the best section of the library for the two of them to get their understanding of whatever topic they found.
A little closer and then she thought that it might’ve been them but why in the world would they also be here at the same time? She had to be imagining things because why else would Yanfei of all people be in the library instead of focusing on the next case of hers, had something happened to her that gave her the time to come here?
Even with Yanfei’s endless energy there had to be something much more interesting than the library for her to deal with, but no, there she was with Thoma of all people and his little teaching job as she found herself suddenly listening in on their little lesson and what exactly Yanfei had found interesting enough to learn on her initiative.
“Rand, of all people, how could you?” In the same way he hadn’t expected her to be here at the same time.
But there she was holding onto that book of economics that was certainly much more relevant than Rand but she had to see the beginnings of such a concept like the rest of them were forced to suffer.
“We can always trade?” That sneaky… he knew she would never subject herself to Rand.
“Nope! I’m very content with my own, thank you very much!” Georgism did seem much more relevant in Yanfei’s eyes than Rand…
Something between the both of them broke and suddenly they were both laughing before Yoimiya moved herself over to another chair right next to her as the little game of theirs continued while she despaired as the words of Rand melted her mind along with the whispers of her personal afflictions.
‘With the soldier?’ What a woman.
This was, sadly, nothing like her own experience learning the law but even she saw this was much more a book report than anything like the memorization of the laws in her mind and the custom made book of laws she carried with her. Plus it was impossible to take her teacher as someone worthy of respect when she was a fresh faced student, at least Thoma was much funnier than her old professor.
“Now as we all know the free market can fix everything.” She couldn’t imagine having to give an actual spirited defense to such a concept.
Especially when one ear was spent on the woman focused on making her lose control of her manners and the other was really stretching out the suffering she was forced to endure, making her come under attack from both fronts that was sure to break any other woman. Oh, why couldn’t she be reading the Georgism book instead?
Such a moment couldn’t be captured ever coming from the kind of person that was allowed to rise in Oregon, but none of them were any longer in the game of politics as it seemed to pass them all by.
What was the citizen Yanfei supposed to do in such a situation beyond laugh at the twist in fate that had brought her to a moment in time where she might find herself surrounded by friends as they worked to her lose herself?
She heard the two of them clap before the laughter spread to the two of them both from her rather quiet laugh, but still more than enough for the goal to have been worth all the trouble in breaking the attorney.
Mission accomplished.
