Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

abusus non tollit usum

There’s this thing called America. My name is America, too. We were both named after this guy Amerigo who was alive a really long time ago, but I’m told that I’ve been around for a long time, too. Not as long as Amerigo, but he’s dead now. I haven’t died yet. Not in a way that’s ever stayed.

There’s this place called home, and home is America, but America is bigger than home—all on the outside where I can’t get to it anymore. It’s a lot bigger than home; wide and beautiful and everything from the core of the planet to the Kármán line. All the people who live there, and all the bombs they build there, and me. America is this idea one must have faith in—I haven’t seen it in a long time, but I know it’s there. I feel it. That’s me!

Back to home, which is this sort of boring place made of cold metal and stark walls. That was something of a recent development, done sometime in the last… well, I’m not sure. I don’t really keep track of the time. But there had been a long while, back at the very beginning, when I lived in a more inviting place up in the mountains—the Catskills. I think I still live in the Catskills. It’s kind of hard to tell since we went underground, but that was a necessary evil. I’m told that the government got close to blowing the world up. It’s thanks to that I’m breathing recycled air.

The government wants to kill you, but the government isn’t America. The government doesn’t know America the best, but they’re the ones in control. America is confused for continuing to put bad people in power. That’s why the world was on fire all the way back at the beginning of my memory—the government didn’t know how to take care of me, and they made a lot of poor decisions against my will. The planet is made up of places, and each place has its person. If you can’t play nice, you shouldn’t play at all. You shouldn’t be concerned with anyone else’s business like that when you’re not in the game. At least, that’s what I’m told. Maybe it makes sense.

There was this war, not the first or last. There was a lot of fire. My house was on fire. Houses and homes aren’t the same things, by the way, but they also aren’t mutually exclusive. This house wasn’t really home, but it was still my house, and it was still on fire. There was this man there, all decked out in red. A Redcoat, I’m told. Those used to be a bigger deal than they are today, but back when I first heard this story, it meant big trouble. It’s all stories to me because I have trouble remembering things from before all of that happened. No one really knew why that happened, but then everyone got better at science, and technology, and understanding the universe over time, so now they say I had carbon monoxide poisoning. You know, because of the fire. And that can make you forget things because it fries your brain. I can get behind that on account of how I died that night. Got my brain fried, and then I forgot. Sometimes I’ll remember tiny little things, but that doesn’t happen often.

After that, I was born again in the Catskills, sort of brand new on account of how I don’t remember what happened before that, and they told me that I was America, and that I wouldn’t be endangered like that ever again. That’s not true, of course. But that’s the government’s fault and not anyone’s down here, because what the government does to America, the government does to me. They know it, too, but they don’t care. Bombs and war and killing. And for what? Land? Money?

I really don’t get it. And I know it’s bad because I’m America and it hurts me in this supernatural way, and things that hurt can’t be good. I’m supposed to represent the country, so I know they’re hurting too.

The people here cycle in and out of the bunker. It happens both in the sense that there’s always someone coming and going to keep everything running smoothly, but also in that they die because they’re human. It’s what they do, just like Amerigo—they die and stay dead. They have their kids, and then their kids come and continue the work, and so on. That’s actually a good way of keeping track of the time. About seven generations have passed since the fire, and two since the bunker. Before the bunker, we lived in the mountains in these cute little cabins among the trees and birds and bugs.

It’s really not been that long since I’ve seen America, then. Life wasn’t so terrible before we left the surface. I did a lot of supervised wandering in the woods. No one can get you out there, you know. Except a bomb.

It was because of New York City and our proximity to it. It’d be no good if a bomb got dropped that close to us. I said, “Well, let’s go somewhere else!” But, no. Underground. Maybe that is somewhere else, but it’s not what I meant. Surely there are some free wide-open spaces left in the world. There used to be.

That’s the thing I hate about the bunker. You can’t really do much aimless wandering. Back up top, I’d just walk and walk and walk. Then it would start getting dark and whoever was on the walk with me would make us go back. Every day, I’d go outside, and I’d try to get a little further. I’d go downhill because that’s the way gravity takes water, and you might find a stream or river in a valley, and then you can follow that somewhere else. People go where the water goes.

I don’t remember who told me that. Certainly not anyone in here.

I didn’t really think much about this whole situation until the bunker came into play. I ask if we’re safe from the bombs, and they say, “Sure.”

“Then why are we still here? Why not go back up top?”

I never get an answer I like. If it’s not Redcoats, it’s Confederates. If it’s not Confederates, it’s Nazis. If it’s not Nazis, it’s Soviets. If it’s not bombs, it’s the surveillance state. That’s the latest threat.

It’s always America, though. That’s who we’re hiding from. The Redcoats may have started the fire, but America made them do it. It was a retaliatory effort on their part, and we were punished for it. That’s why you don’t start wars with people—they start fighting back.

The fact that America is a place and a people and a government is one thing, but there’s also the fact that America is me. People are places, as previously mentioned. Every place has its person, and I get to be the person for America. Lucky me to be bestowed this great honor, I’m told. Lucky me because the spirit of America saved me the night of the fire, and it would not let me die the way humans do.

The other people in the bunker, who call themselves the Patriot Party, were founded a few years before the fire. They were of the belief that the government, spearheaded by the president, should not have had the power to do a number of things without my approval. America had been around for… one generation? And it had already spun out of control. Apparently, back in the day, I had a lot of opinions about things that were ignored. Typical. The Patriots liked my ideas for the most part, so I’m told; they liked me and not the president.

There are other things called the Patriot Party these days, so I’ve heard, but we were the first. We were the originals. Founded by real Patriots—the kind that fought real Redcoats.

The mission statement of my Patriots has changed over time. It started off as a… well, it was the Federalists. They didn’t want Madison’s War, and neither did I, so I’m… well, that’s not right- I think it was complicated. It was really, really complicated, and people don’t like to talk about complicated things. I must have been opposed to it. I’m told that I didn’t want to go to war with Canada, and that sounds about right. Canada is our neighbor. We like them. Maybe there was some good reason to do it that I agreed with, but I don’t remember that part, and I was never told more about it because that’s not what the Patriots wanted me to worry about.

It was the Federalists, but Federalists aren’t a thing anymore, the same way that Redcoats aren’t a thing. They said that the government should have my approval for those sorts of things because if the heart of America isn’t in it, then America cannot be in it at all. They said the government was trying to kill me, and that America was becoming perverted, and they wanted to keep me away from it so that I could keep America pure. All of that shifted to the current opinion of the Patriots, which is that the federal government simply should not be trusted with the power of a Nation if they don’t know how to use it. And that does sound a little manipulative; I am fully aware, but I do agree with what they want. No bombs, no wars, you know, normal things like that. It’s normal to want peace on earth. They think that America should be isolated and we shouldn’t intervene where we don’t belong. That way, the world would be a lot better.

I do think that I belong up there, though. I didn’t think of it much before we left the surface. If you’re hiding something, aren’t you usually doing something wrong? Once the Patriots realized what I was trying to do by following the water, they wouldn’t let me go that far again.

I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but they sure thought I was.

I don’t think they think they’re doing anything wrong, either. They’re nice people. Usually.

But lately, they sure do seem jumpy about the whole thing.

My favorite Patriot is a young man named Nate. He’s the great-great-great-great-great grandson of this man named Nathaniel who was the first face I saw after the fire. I see his face in Nate despite the fact that they’re not related and Nate has a Hispanic heritage—but, like, they’ve got the same eyes. I like him because he’s kind and he offers up information more freely than anyone else down here—I get the vibe that he’s a curious soul, and I am too. Sometimes I ask him questions he can’t really answer, and since then, he brings me fast food on Fridays.

I’m allowed to go pretty much anywhere in the bunker, and there are only a few places I need to get permission for. I’m not allowed in the meeting room if I’m not invited to the meeting, but that’s kinda understandable. Don’t go where you’re not invited—that’s our whole thing down here. I’m allowed in the main hall, of course, but there’s always someone standing there at the ladder watching. I’m standing there right now, safe and sound, staring up at the hatch. I think today is Friday, and I’m starting to get hungry, so there’s nothing to do but wait.

We’re not really that deep—the whole thing was constructed very quickly. Nate complains that there isn’t an elevator. I think I know why we don’t have one.

I step closer to the ladder, which is planted firmly in the middle of this round chamber. Upon hanging my arm on a rung, I’m given a firm look by the Patriot who is on duty to watch. Whatever—I roll my eyes and rest my head against it, watching up above for a sight of the sun. Why do we need people to watch? What do they think I’m going to do?

I’m not an idiot—I smile big and wide just thinking about it. No weapons down here, no sir; that would go against everything we stand for. There were guns at first, way back when, the types you’d have to manually load with gunpowder. Ideologies change, and there’s drama with the elders; people die, and new ideas rise up like steam. I don’t think this whole thing started with pacifism—it was an anti-war movement, but not anti-war in general. Just, you know, things change. It was just the one war that was an issue. There was a civil war, and we were all for that. I mean, war bad, but that was one that needed to be fought so America could keep on living. But after that was when we were all against every war, against intervention, and then there were the bombs, and then we were, like, no more guns in the bunker.

The guns didn’t bother me. We used them to hunt up on the mountain. I never did it but others would. They’d never let me get too close. I’m not sure when, but this whole operation turned from keeping America out to keeping me in. Maybe it’s because they want America not to intervene with the outside world too much, so they think doing the same to me will have some effect on what they do out there.

There’s a big horrible wrenching noise, and the hatch opens up. Today is clear and bright—the first thing I see is a beautiful and natural shade of blue. Pure beams of sunlight struggle to make it through unless it’s the perfect time of day, but I think Nate makes an effort for me. It means a late lunch, but whatever. A bit of sun is worth it. There are pills to help me avoid getting sick from stuff like vitamin D deficiency, but why supplement when you could have the real thing?

Nate’s head pops over the opening, all freckles and tan skin, and he smiles down at me. “Hello, Mr. America!”

The Patriot in the corner—Addie—grimaces. Nate isn’t supposed to do things like that. He’s supposed to discreetly come inside.

I give him a little wave and step out of the way, out of the sun. He quickly climbs down a few steps before shutting the hatch and sliding the rest of the way down and landing with a thud.

“Elevator,” Nate says with a huff, adjusting the straps of his backpack to sit more nicely. He looks to his fellow Patriot. “Elevators, Addie. Do you think we could all chip in for an elevator? Imagine the things we could bring down with an elevator.”

She huffs, but there’s a little smile there. “You’d have to get everything through the woods first. And with what funds?”

Money isn’t the issue here, though it is an issue in general. There are these waves where the previous generation of Patriots die out, or they’re too old to keep coming, and then we run out of cash. This thing has been running on fumes and ramen as of late. It’s also just expensive to live in the twenty-first century regardless of the age of the Patriots, and our pool has been dwindling. You aren’t allowed to tell anyone about this operation—that’s the number one rule. You can’t have a romantic partner outside of this because you have to dedicate your whole life to it. This wasn’t such an issue at first because the founders did have people they trusted come on occasionally, and there would be female Patriots to do cleaning and things like that. They’d have kids; those kids would be the next generation.

A few generations back, the gene pool became so small that they started adopting. Anything to keep this going. I don’t know that these kids can afford to do that, and then this thing is going to die. Oh, if only I could nudge it along a little faster. I watch the whole interaction with that same easy smile on my face.

Nate says, “What’s tens of thousands of dollars between friends?”

They’re actually cousins. Well, everyone down here are either siblings or cousins. Except me, of course. I’m just sort of here.

“We’d need a state inspector, I think,” Addie comments. “If we’re wanting this to be above board.”

I grin, “Oh, nothing is above anything here.”

The smiles all become a little uneasy. There I go, making things awkward. It used to be an accident, but, you know, things change.

“If we had an elevator, I could bring a Little Caesars pizza,” Nate says, breaking up the tension in the air with a practiced ease. “Or I could sorta just drop it down.”

“I could catch it!” I say. “Or we could, I dunno, go out for dinner sometime.”

Nate ignores the comment and starts to shrug off his bag. “Today, I have Burger King. There was a coupon on the app for buy-one-get-one-free Whoppers.”

“Oh, boy!” I exclaim, only a little sarcastic about it. This is genuinely exciting in a sad sort of way. God, what a life I lead. My mouth waters at the thought of not one, but two lukewarm burgers. I don’t know how close the nearest town is, but that’s my best judge of it. Cold food.

There’s a little mess hall—emphasis on the little. I’m really the only one who needs it, but it was designed just in case we all had to move down here for a century because of nuclear fallout, so there’s enough room for everyone to get cozy. It’s more than enough now, though, because there are so few active Patriots at the moment. There are five at the moment, which is the smallest number that I’ve witnessed, save maybe for the very beginning. They’re not all young, and the oldest at the moment is in his late seventies, I believe. That’s Mr. Hurst, Nate’s uncle. It was the Hurst line that started all of this, though the bloodline died out with Nate’s grandfather (an event that should have happened sooner on account of that very shallow pool). The next oldest would be Addie, who I believe just turned forty.

We sit to eat, same as we do every Friday, and I ask Nate what’s going on in the world.

“I did well on my last engineering test,” he says. On the bench next to him, he continues digging through his backpack. “Here, there’s a new Coke flavor I got for you to try.”

It’s always bottled because it’s hard to bring drinks down the ladder. It’s possible, just a hassle. He hands me the bottle and the label is all multicolored and galactic rather than the standard red. It says Starlight on it.

“Well, that’s fun,” I say, and the bottle hisses as I twist it open. “Good on you for the exam. Maybe you’ll be able to fix the ice machine.”

“I think that just needs to be replaced,” Nate says with a shrug, digging into his own meal. Those weird fry-shaped chicken things that taste good despite how strange they are, but I think most things taste good, so I’m not one to judge. He’s dipping them into a container of honey mustard. “That thing is, like, Soviet-era. It wouldn’t cost too much to get a new one on Amazon. Not a good one, but it’d do.”

It’s times like these that I’m hit with a pang of sadness, and this meal that I’ve been looking forward to all week suddenly has no appeal. I take a sip of the Starlight just to do something with my hands, and the flavor is so out there that it momentarily makes me feel better. It’s, like, fruity. Strongly vanilla. Still a Coke.

But I still feel bad in my chest.

“There are better things to buy than an ice machine,” I say, sipping the Coke. It’s not cold anymore, and likely hasn’t been since Nate got off the road and started his trek to wherever we are in the woods.

“We could ask Uncle Jay,” Nate says, referring to Mr. Hurst.

I can be an asshole sometimes; I’m fully aware. My mood fluctuates from all the boredom and the sudden bouts of despair I sometimes feel. I don’t like making Nate feel bad, but the negative emotion I’m feeling can’t help but permeate throughout this small space, and it tends to stick around until it’s all recycled out.

All of that is to say, I’m not being very helpful or gracious at the moment. “It’s been getting hotter earlier in the year, or I’ve just gotten a lot worse at telling the time.” I think it’s supposed to be spring right now, but spring is a thing that’s lasted shorter and shorter amounts of time over the last few however-long-it’s-been.

Nate grimaces, “Well, that’s Climate Change. There are too many factories, and the government doesn’t want to do anything to mitigate that. They’re happy to just let the Earth die—not forward-thinking at all. They only care about themselves. They get onto us about straws and sea turtles when, in reality, there’s no impact we could make without policy change, and they’re never gonna do it.”

There’s a little recycling logo on the Coke bottle. Recycle with cap on, it says.

“Why don’t we do anything?” I ask. For a political group, I sure haven’t heard many updates on us lobbying for anything since we went underground. “We could do things. Go marching in Washington like in all those videos I’ve seen. Organize something.”

“There aren’t many of us,” Nate points out. “And we’re not supposed to draw attention to the operation.”

The operation.

This burger sure is good—they layered it with extra onions. I’d like to meet the person who made it and learn all about how to operate a grill and run a restaurant.

I sigh, “What are we even doing anymore? What’s the point of all this?”

“We’re supposed to keep you safe because you’re our Nation and we love you,” Nate says, his mouth half-full. “Do you like the Coke?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“It’s supposed to be space-flavored.”

“That’s cool. I wish I could go stargazing again.”

It’s not like Nate is in charge—he doesn’t have the power to do anything in this situation, but that never stops me from guilt-tripping him when I’m in one of my moods. I’ve not been my best since we moved under. Well, since I moved under. Everyone else gets to leave, and they take turns sleeping down here. There’s always at least two people here at all times, plus me. The fewer people there are, the more stress it puts on them.

Nate feels awful, I can tell. His shoulders slump, and he becomes uninterested in eating. “C’mon, Merica.”

I’ve got to throw him a bone. “You take very good care of me, but don’t you think that I can take care of myself?”

Nate responds quickly, “That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

This is a tired conversation, one that we’ve had many times. Everything is quiet in the cavernous vacuum of the bunker. I miss birds, crickets, and cicadas. I miss the way that bees would buzz around my knees when I would make it down to the valley, and we’d stop to drink from the stream.

“It’s what we’ve always done,” Nate says. He quickly adds, “Charli XCX came out with a new album today if you wanna listen to it with me.”

“Yeah,” I say, feeling dejected about the whole thing. I’ll never turn down new music, though.

A while passes, but I don’t keep track of the days. I think maybe seven weeks have gone by since I got to try the weird new Coke flavor, or something like that. There’s just no good reason for me to keep track of the time when there’s nothing to live for.

Well, not nothing. Nate says that there will be a new Angel Olsen album out this summer. He’s really excited about that one, so I guess I am too. Listening to music is my favorite thing to do down here—it’s nice to hear new voices. I’ll listen to just about anything, and if I ask a Patriot for new music recommendations, they’re happy to give them to me. It started with cassettes, and I’d inherit entire collections by the time CDs came on the scene. I think I got my first CD player around the time Nate was born, and now, twenty-two years later, those are easy enough to find at thrift shops and bargain stores for a good price (or so I’m told). New albums are more expensive, but that’s not an issue any longer thanks to this wonderful invention called the iPod.

If I were allowed internet access, I could listen to absolutely anything. The next best thing was my iPod, which was passed down to me by a Patriot once they’d no longer needed it. When I want something new, Nate will take it and reload it with the latest music. I don’t think what he’s doing is totally legal, but I honestly don’t care.

My iPod was upgraded a few years ago to an iPod Touch, which has a touchscreen like smartphones today. Nate told me it was obsolete tech, but I don’t care. It has games on it and loads of storage. If I had a wireless signal down here, I’d be able to connect it to the internet. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that.

The elders have always been very strict with what I have access to, and Nate got into trouble for it one time—back when there were elders to get mad at you. He used to load up the iPod right here in the bunker, bringing his laptop with him and using a hotspot off of his phone, weak from our underground lifestyle. I’d see the internet then, and I’d get to listen to any song I wanted on demand. But then we got caught reading an online encyclopedia page on the topic of isolationist tribes, and he wasn’t allowed to keep doing that anymore.

The books I read have to be approved first, but the rules for music have always been much more lax. Maybe because music was thought to be a less serious thing by the last generation, and a thing that Nate’s group considers to be a human requirement right alongside water and air.

I’ll listen to anything. Another of the younger Patriots, Danny, gifted me an amazing pair of headphones, and I’ll just shut my eyes and wander around until I get dizzy while listening to Miley Cyrus or Fleet Foxes or Queen. I know this place like the back of my hand, but sometimes I’ll get lost in it if I do it for long enough, which incites this feeling of newness in my soul that makes getting up in the morning worth it.

And then I open my eyes, and everything is right where I left it.

There are so many things that I want to do and so many places I want to go. Do I remember being alive before the fire? Sure. I know I existed and did things, and I lived free. I don’t remember any of it, but I feel that it happened. And I didn’t mind living on the mountain if that’s what the Patriots said was the best thing for me to do. After what happened to me, that seemed like the safe thing to do. It was never supposed to be a forever thing, either. It was supposed to be temporary, and that promise made the waiting alright in my mind.

There are some songs that make the world feel so big.

When Sufjan Stevens sings about the Palisades, I can almost imagine that I am in Illinois.

Seven weeks, maybe. Something like that. We must be solidly out of winter, and you can tell by how stuffy the bunker becomes. We’re safe from the sun down here, but our heat condenser has seen better days. I’m in my bedroom, which is really the only private space I have in here. The other Patriots sleep in a small bunk room, though it's really only a storage closet with spare room for cots. Thank God I’ve got my own area, or else I’d have gone crazy a lot sooner. A man needs his privacy, you know. Unless I’m needed for something or some meeting, I’m left alone, and our meetings are sporadic. It used to be a more regular thing, but people have lives and classes and jobs because this thing is no longer able to run on a centuries-old inheritance.

My room is small, but it’s got everything I need. A bed, for one thing—a real one, unlike the Patriot camping cots. It’s not big enough for two people, but that’s not really something I need. I’ve got a chair, which comes in clutch for when I’d like to sit in a secondary location. A desk for writing. What do I need to write? Nothing, really, but I’ll throw some thoughts down in a notebook every now and then. Honestly, it’s something for my cassette player/CD player/iPod dock to sit on. And a tiny little TV with a DVD player, because approved movies and shows are at my disposal, especially if they’re educational.

What’s not approved? I’m not entirely sure, except that anything pro-war or violent isn’t alright. There was this president a while back, this guy named JFK, and the Patriots weren’t fans of him, so I’m not allowed to be shown anything that glorifies him or other people like that. I think it’s kinda cool that he started up that whole space program.

There’s this series done by some British guy where he narrates a bunch of footage of the planet, and that’s my favorite. I’ll put that on in the background and play it on repeat over and over again, sometimes muted and sometimes with the audio. I’ll completely zone out watching that footage. God, I can’t imagine what it’s like out there. The mountains are familiar to me, even if it’s been too long since I’ve seen them, but I don’t think I ever got to go to many places before the fire…

I’m watching one of the specials about oceans. I’ve seen oceans. I feel it deep inside that I’ve been on top of an empty ocean. The memory is just out of reach, same as the sun when the hatch opens. Back before boats were made of metal or people could cross the globe in planes, I’d been on oceans. There must have been somewhere I was trying to get to, once upon a time. Some place that I’d been allowed to go.

Imagine that—me, a globetrotter!

This David guy might be a Redcoat, but he’s not half bad; not at all.

God, where on Earth would I be going? Where have I been? Who was-

There’s a knock at my door, which completely startles me out of my Atlantic reverie.

“What’s up!” I shout, which is an invitation for whichever Patriot to come inside. I’m in a totally weird position at the moment, lying on my bed with my legs propped up on the adjacent wall while I watch the documentary. As I flip over, I’m surprised to spot Nate there when the door opens. My brow knits together. “Is it Friday? I could have sworn it was just Friday.”

Nate’s shifts are on Fridays and Saturdays to accommodate his college schedule. He tells his friends that he goes home at the end of the week, which isn’t entirely untrue because he grew up being brought to the bunker often. It was his grandfather’s generation who built it.

Nate steps in and shuts the door behind him, and I can tell immediately that there’s something going on because he looks down about something. Nate’s usually always smiling, so something is off. I straighten my spine and reach for the remote to mute the TV. “What’s going on, dude?”

Nate only sighs, and he sits down right next to me on the bed, which causes it to dip in his favor. “It’s about Uncle Jay.”

I frown. “He’s still got that cold?”

My Patriot shakes his head. “It’s not a cold. He’s got COVID, and now they’re saying he’s got pneumonia.”

Oh, Jesus. “COVID’s still a thing?”

Nate makes a face at me. “It never stopped being a thing, Merica.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know that?” I scoff. “It stopped coming up in meetings. Is he going to be okay?”

“I dunno,” my friend shrugs. “You know that he never really took care of himself, and he doesn’t have anyone but us, but what can we do about it? He was too obsessed with all of this, and now he’s got nothing.”

Mr. Uncle Jay Hurst—what a man. I remember when he was born—I always liked having babies around because I could help to take care of them, and that gave me something to do. It made me feel like I was contributing to this little society of ours in some way that actually meant something. It’s been a while since I got to do that on account of all of the adoptions, and apparently it’s expensive to get babies. That’s where most of our money has gone in the last fifty years, and Jay cashed in his inheritance of gold and silver for his baby girl, Addeline.

“How’s Addie?” I ask. “I haven’t seen her around much lately; is that why?”

“She’s spending time getting things together,” Nate says, sort of numb to it. “And she can’t see him unless he gets over the COVID.”

Getting things together. “Is he going to die?”

Nate shrugs, and he casts his gaze to my TV, like a fisherman on a great ship. I think I remember fishing, once upon a time. Not so much on the ocean, but… somewhere.

“I want to see him if he’s going to die,” I say, more strength in my voice than I’d intended. “Everyone always dies, and I’m never there.”

Uncle Jay was a sort of stern man in his old age, very staunch in his role as a Patriot. There was a frustration about him as he got older, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. What did he have to show for his life except personal satisfaction at protecting his Nation? He never got married, never got to experience the fullness of life. His father was just as dedicated, obsessed with building the bunker and protecting us from the threat of nuclear winter. I’d be resentful, too. I am.

I think Jay was about ten, maybe younger, when we went underground. I remember when he learned to walk, and hearing his first words. In the shadows of evergreens, I taught him to chain together flowered weeds to make crowns. Who taught it to me?

More than ever, I feel that this is an injustice not only to me, but to them. All of them, born into this cycle of throwing their lives away for what? For me? I’m not happy—not since it became clear that my subterranean life was intended to be permanent. There is so much world out there, and maybe the government overreaches and tries to ruin everyone’s lives, but people still make music. They still dance.

“Oh, Merica,” Nate sighs, “I wish you could, but that’s not allowed to happen.”

Tears sting at my eyes; I feel so angry about this situation. “Why the hell not?”

“Because-” Nate tries to repeat what he’s heard his whole life, but his heart is gone. He sounds choked up, same as me. I’ve noticed that—the way I feel infecting the others. “You know why.”

“Do you know why? Because I feel like we are so far away from where this thing started!” I can’t help raising my voice; I’m just so sick of this situation going on and on like ripples from a wave. “I know you don’t want it. I don’t want it. No one is happy. No good work is being done, and you know that.”

Nate winces, hunching in further with each thing that I say. He covers his face with his hands, and I immediately feel like the world’s biggest jerk. The guilt pools heavily in my gut—his uncle is dying, and here I am yelling at him about it.

“It’s worse than you think,” Nate mutters, muffled so faithfully by his hands that I hardly hear it.

I swear, I feel my heart stop beating. “What?”

He sits up again, shaking his head. I can tell by his glassy eyes that he feels tortured by something. “God, we are so selfish, Merica. We’d be in such big trouble.”

“For what?”

He doesn’t want to say, or he feels that it would be some sin against his community if he were to. “You’ve got to know that the American government wasn’t happy about losing you.”

Well, yeah. But they were being neglectful—that’s what I was told. War hurts Nations and it was irresponsible to enter into one unnecessarily, not only for my sake, but for the sake of thousands of Americans who would be called to fight against their will. For their folly, the capital burned. The Patriots saved me from the ashes. Mr. Nathaniel Hurst, the first Patriot, told me that I’d been unhappy with the president before that, and that I’d wanted out of their machine for many years before the fire. By hiding in the mountains, I was being freed.

There was something precious in my life being threatened. Something worth fighting and dying over. The only difference, it was our government pushing for the war, not the belligerent. Or, there was a second one—someone worth fighting, but that’s not who was being hurt. Or, maybe not. Maybe not a person, but a thing.

In my heart, I feel a coil ready to spring.

Nate says, “There will be trouble. We’ll all be in trouble. We’ll go to prison, or worse. Not you, but the rest of the family.”

“But no one has to find out,” I tell him. “We can be hidden in plain sight, and the government won’t know.”

“They’ll know,” Nate says, and that’s all. I figure he knows more about what would happen than I would.

“Well, fine if they find out—I’ll tell them you’re my family, and you didn’t do anything wrong. If we explain the situation, then maybe it would be okay.”

Nate bites his lip. “That’s a big risk.”

This is a tough situation. It’s true that I haven’t really put much consideration into what would happen if it were found out what the Hursts have continued to do. They would be seen as criminals, wouldn’t they? I might disagree with some of what they’ve done, but I could have left at any time before… maybe the civil war. I could have tried wandering off in the night, but I never did. Our little community was safe and loving, and the way that the outside world was described…

I wish I remembered who I was before. What would he have done? I was younger then, much younger than even Nate is now, and I was naive. Maybe I shouldn’t have accepted the kind help of strangers who insisted that the world was full of monsters who would use me and kill me. Who did kill me.

But none of that is Nate’s fault—he was born into this the same way that I had been. Not Nate, Addie, Danny, or Andy are at fault here—not even Jay. Maybe they continued a bad thing, but it was what they were told to do, and they were given no other options. They’ve all been kind. Maybe Jay got frustrated with me on occasion for yearning about fresh air, but he was typically a nice man. He might have resented me for being the reason behind his confinement to the Patriot Party, but…

Well, I think we’ve all wished that we were born with a better hand of cards.

No, I don’t want them to get into trouble. They are freer now, bound to me in this bunker, than they would be if they were imprisoned for what would likely be perceived as an act of treason.

“What if you had nothing to do with it?” I ask Nate. He looks at me, all confused, so I go on. “If someone finds me and they want to know where I’ve been, I just won’t say. I’ll never mention you or this place, and you won’t get into trouble.”

He opens his mouth, then snaps it back shut. He looks to be at a loss. “But, dude, you’ve got nothing. You’re like, a ghost of a person. No offense.”

“So?”

Nate shakes his head again. “I can’t believe we’re even talking about this right now.”

I don’t get it, and I don’t like that feeling of being so lost. I don’t like being aware of how little I know about the world.

“So,” Nate says slowly. “Even if you were to leave—just to see Uncle Jay, even—you can’t. You need an ID to get a visitor's pass at the hospital. You can’t just waltz in to say hello. On paper, you’re no one. You’re a colonial missing persons case.”

That’s not really something I’ve thought about, either. I mean, who was there to miss me? I’m a Nation, and I’m told that Nations just pop up somewhere when they’re born. It’s not like I have a family save for the Hursts and the other founding families who have all condensed into one line of four children. The tree became a wreath, and then it died out. The original bloodline has been dry since I entered the bunker.

I don’t know what to say. “I want out.”

Nate nods and refuses to look at me. “I know.”

“What would happen if I just got up and left right now?”

My dear friend swallows hard. “I don’t know. Andy and Danny are playing Uno in the hall.”

On the little TV, a flock of birds is pictured grazing the water to catch fish.

I say, “I hope you know that it’s not you I’m trying to get away from.”

He nods and says the ten most blessed words I’ve ever heard. “I’m going to talk to Addie about calling a meeting.

The meeting room is bigger than it needs to be. There used to be a reason for it, but that obviously isn’t the case anymore. The table is much too grand and large for our little group today, but even with the four of us, there is an uncertain and titillated buzz in the air.

I’m sitting next to Nate, and across from us sit Andy and Daniel—or, Andrea and Daniel. They’re siblings through adoption by Nancy Hurst, sister to both Jay and Nate’s father. She’s been deceased for about… well, I don’t keep track of the years, but it was a while ago. Nate’s dad died much more recently, but it was before all of that COVID stuff.

Addie is still at the hospital, but as the oldest in charge at the moment, she’s calling into the meeting. That fact is very exciting to me—Nate’s got his phone sitting there on the table with a connection to the outside world. It’s not a video call because the signal down here is so terrible, but it’s just enough to work. I think there must be a satellite outside, or something, but I don’t really know how any of that works.

Nate is the youngest, with Danny just after him, and then Andy. I guess you could say that I’m older than Addie by a long shot, but I look younger than all of them.

A little clock ticks on the screen of Nate’s phone, telling us how long the call has been going, which is at less than a minute. The photo that he’s used for Addie’s contact is one from over a decade ago where he’s sitting on her lap, and they both look happy. Addie’s ginger hair burns in the sun, so bright that I can almost feel it.

“Hi Addie!” I say in the direction of the phone. I’ve never talked on the phone before. I’ve seen it happen on film and I’ve read about it in books, but this is my first time. “Are you doing okay? How’s everything going?”

She doesn’t answer immediately, and then her voice rings out through the speaker. The quality of it is poor. “Hi, everyone. I’m okay. I do think that, um, my dad is going to die.”

I don’t know what to say about that. I feel sad.

Addie goes on, “But, you know, it’s okay. It happens. I’m accepting it.”

My fellow Patriots all look downtrodden. I say, “Your father is a very good man. He loves you very much.”

Something hurts inside of me for a reason I cannot place, something that doesn’t have to do with Jay or his daughter, niece, and nephews.

“I’ll call this meeting to order,” she says, punctual and pointed as always. “The topic is the future of the Patriots following the likely death of our most senior member. Who is present?”

“I’m here,” Nate says, uselessly raising his hand.

We go around the table after that. Across from him, our second-youngest says, “Danny here.” Danny has almost olive-toned skin and honey-brown hair, business in the front and party in the back. He’s got this stupid little mustache, and he looks like he came out of a film from the seventies. Blue eyes like the sky, he always complains when he crawls out of the hatch in the mornings—he says that the sun is too bright.

Next to him, his sister speaks. “Andy is present,” she says. Her curly, voluminous hair is always a different color, and lately it has been a shade of lavender that contrasts well with her dark brown skin. She’s always wearing loose-fitting, comfortable clothes. She pierced her own septum, and I thought it was so cool that I asked her to do mine as well. I remember Aunt Nancy was pissed about that, but it turned out well.

“And Merica is here, too,” I say, happy to be included. It’s more often than not these days, but it’s hard to forget all the times I was excluded, including during the planning of the bunker.

“So, with all that is going on at the moment, and taking into consideration private conversations that I have had with all of you-” That part surprises me- “There have been talks of disbanding the Patriots, or at least altering how we operate.”

I don’t say anything out of the fear that this will turn out to be a dream.

“The Administration of America is still a corrupt one, and that has not been something to change in the two centuries of our operation. I have felt that what we are doing has been deeply hypocritical. We want to change the world, and we hide from it.”

Around me, my Patriots nod solemnly.

“I do not want this cause to die with my father,” Addeline says fiercely. “But I am afraid that it will die anyway if something does not change.”

There is room for commentary after this, so I decide to be brave. “I do believe in world peace. I don’t know that it’s possible to achieve it from here, and with so little funds. We don’t have any reach, and we haven’t since we went under.”

Quietly, Danny says, “I agree with Merica.”

“I am also aware that you are all likely to be implicated in a crime if the authorities find out what’s going on here, and I don’t want you to get into trouble,” I say. “You’re all family to me, and I love you.”

Andy speaks up, “Our government is going to want you, because they’ll think you belong to them. That is, if we’re talking about what I think we’re talking about.”

The pace of my heart picks up, just a little bit.

Danny says, “Yeah, but Merica knows what he believes in—he’s not going to let himself be so easily swayed by a warmonger.”

I get the feeling that these siblings have spoken about this before.

From however many miles away, Addie pitches in. “The problem is that the administration wasn’t listening to him in the first place. That’s why this started. They were… um…”

Danny adds, “The War of 1812 is confusing.”

That makes me snort, and tiny smiles make their way onto the faces of the present Patriots. I say, “Well, I’d rather them not listen to me from up there than not listen to me down here.”

They sit with my statement for a moment.

Nate admits, “I think that what we do is cruel. I try to make it nice, but it’s not, and I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say automatically. They may be gatekeepers, but they were forced into the situation the same way that I was. But I have found, with each generation, the fight dies a little. We forget what we’re doing. America should not intervene with other countries; sure, I still believe in that. That’s the thing that gets people killed. But who is to say that I cannot intervene with America?

That’s me. All up there, out there, waiting for me to meet it. Waiting for me to breathe again.

“I don’t blame any of you,” I tell them—it’s what they need to hear. “I don’t blame your parents. I believe in the cause of the Patriots, but I have never believed in this.”

I motion all around me, to this tomb that I have called home. This place that I hate more than anything else in this green world.

Carefully, Addeline says, “I think we are not asking what we should do, but how we should do it.”

I break out into a grin—I just can’t help it; I feel happier than I’ve ever felt in my life.