This is purely for fun. A villain POV. This is the Wicked Stepmother's Version of the Story. I do not endorse the actions described herein. It was purely an experiment in writing a villain POV story involving relatively sympathetic and humanized neo-Bolsheviks.
Think of it as a cautionary tale about what happens when our own structures mask a predatory personality.
You have been WARNED.
CONTENT WARNING: INFANTICIDE
Stepmother of the Revolution
By Raven Green
Sometime
After the Sixth Great Migration…
LaShade,
another planet in the Milky Way…
Many
lightyears from Earth…
Eustace
hated her husband’s kid.
Just,
absolutely, fucking hated the little snot, Isabella.
This
kid knew all her dirty secrets. She used to babysit this kid, when she was
practically still a kid herself, and in college. Then, she started a torrid
love affair with her professor, who also happened to be Isabella’s father and
her part-time employer, that led to a nullification, and a very bitter custody
battle whose outcome pleased no one.
But
Isabella was her father’s child, and it wasn’t long before, taking advantage of
the chaos of the Green Season Uprisings, she ran away from her mom’s place and
came to Eustace and her dad’s, and begged for the newly appointed DefSec and
CivAdmin of the newly independent Free Peoples’ Nation to let her live with
them in the Compound in DiKopa City.
And
who was Daddy to deny his little girl the right to follow in His Revolutionary
Path?
Fucking
little snot.
Eustace
decided, early on, there would be no favoritism for Isabella in the Party’s
Youth Wing. What she expected of the others, she expected triple from her
stepdaughter. She hoped the exactitude would drive the girl from the Party’s
ranks into a bunker somewhere she could then accidentally nuke.
And
then, all her dirty secrets would be safe.
But
as DefSec, she knew tactical fusion weapons didn’t work that way.
Nothing
got accidentally nuked. Everything was accounted for. No one did
anything alone.
Eustace
didn’t hate kids, in general. She had actually formed the Party’s Youth Wing,
and although she had moved on to other departments of the Liberation Struggle,
she still maintained strong ties with the younger members of the movement. The younger
Party officers liked her public persona, her theatricality, the gimmicks the
rest of the Party despised her for. If it weren’t for Binjamin, who was Party
Leader, they’d throw her out, but she’d probably take half of Youth Wing with
her.
And
if she was honest with herself, as she stood on the dais outside the Champions
Stadium, and accepted one of the city’s repurposed High Awards, a big gold
replica of an ancient key fob that was, in her opinion, absolutely hideous, and
as she looked on the sea of young faces staring up at her, she didn’t hate
Isabella, either.
She
hated herself, for being vulnerable through a child. Her husband’s child. The
fucking leader of the Revolution.
Eventually,
something would have to be done.
She
never considered an undiscriminating purge of Youth Wing, or a segment of Youth
Wing, or a random selection. That is Establishment propaganda, and this
publication disavows it.
She
did, however, consider how she could take the kid out herself.
Poison
would be detected by nano-snoopers.
She
had no enemy arms for a frame-up job. All the captured arsenals of the
Establishment were accounted for, same as fusion nukes. She could no more get
her hands on an enemy sniper rifle than she could an enemy fusion nuke without
attracting attention from her own, well trained security forces.
She
could not depend on any comrades. It wouldn’t be fair to draw them into this.
This was personal. The kid could really hurt her.
She
briefly considered mobilizing Youth Wing, sending them to the Borderzone to
fight the Remnant’s guerilla forces, or to the front, against the Establishment
Army, but the girl’s capture would have defeated the purpose of sending her
there to be killed, and then, her dirty secrets would be in the ears and minds of
the Enemy.
So,
she tried to talk to the girl.
Binjamin
gave his precious princess the penthouse suite of the hexagonal Central Tower
at the heart of the Compound. The seventeen-year-old had decorated the place
with that tiled art she liked that Eustace thought was only half as ugly as the
big gold key fob, which she planned on melting and banking with one of those
Bank-Neutrals in the Montesco Islands that the mob used. She was going to
convert it into cryptics for her soldiers.
“Hey
kiddo,” said Eustace, trying to be nice.
“Hey,”
said Isabella, coldly.
“Mind
if I come in?” She was standing on the landing. The door was half open and
Isabella was inside. Eustace didn’t wait for an answer. She pushed the door
open slowly.
“I
didn’t say yes,” said Isabella.
“You
didn’t say no,” said Eustace. “Come on. Remember how we used to talk? Girl to
girl?”
“This
isn’t happening. Oh, tell me this is not happening.”
“I
just wanted to say I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you. I didn’t want anyone to
think I was playing favorites and I guess I went a little overboard,” said Eustace.
“Fair
enough,” said Isabella. “Is that it?”
“No,”
said Eustace. “I wish there was some way I could go back in time and tell you
things I should have been upfront about then. There’s a lot of those. But
mostly, I wanted to ask if you could set the struggle aside. Go back to your
mom. She needs you now.”
“She’s
a self-absorbed alcoholic. You made her that way, you know. She never drank
before you. You know she stole my lunch money once? The same I earned doing
card tricks on the promenade, when you were distracted from your duties. You
know, technically, that was neglect. Minors aren’t supposed to be engaged in
commercial enterprise on the promenade,” said Isabella.
“Well,
there’s no commercial anything anymore. We’re a free people now. Your meals are
assured, and you can do all the card tricks you want,” said Eustace.
“I’m
not into card tricks anymore,” said Isabella. “I’m into this.” She held up the
armband with the yellow-on-black Party insignia and said, “This is the only
thing we have in common, Madame DefSec. Don’t expect me to pout and whine that
you’re not my mom. I’m over that. You’re no one to me but a name on a form.”
“You
can’t hurt me that way, child,” said Eustace.
“But
I can hurt you. That’s what this is about. And don’t call me ‘child.’ I am
Cadet 45-21-15, and the presumption of familial intimacy by a person providing
unwanted attention is grounds for investigation under Anti-Harassment Stricture
7.5A. I could press charges, even against you,” said Isabella.
“Is
that how you want to play this?” asked Eustace. “You little… if this were the
parade ground, I’d have you singled out and shot.”
“Then
catch me there, Madame DefSec,” said Isabella. “Right now, I’m a civilian, and
you’re a civilian representative of this government. It’s harassment, either
way. Go away.”
“If
that’s how this is going to be, then, your move,” said Eustace, fuming as she
descended the stairs to her and Binjamin’s suite.
Diplomacy
had failed. This was now a war.
On
Day 2 of the Glorious War, Isabella retaliated. In the capacity of an illegal
civilian combatant, defined as a “terrorist,” she sneaked into Eustace’s office
while Eustace was inspecting the Borderzone Troop Posts, and propped that ugly
big gold key fob up behind Eustace’s desk. She messed with the light and air
conditioning settings on the Main Access Terminal and uploaded a few
hypertrojans to the Primebox for good measure. Then, she rearranged every file
and form she could find that was sequentially numbered or alphabetized.
She
smeared a thin film of oil on the organic neurodes below the MAT screen where Eustace
neuralinked with the Compound’s Central Intelligence Matrix to monitor the
city. She reprogrammed the food dispenser with a Lorento Cipher, so it would
only make goop.
Eustace
swore out loud when she discovered Isabella’s sabotage, but Binjamin talked her
out of bringing the girl up on charges. The conflict was between them. It
wasn’t political.
And
Eustace smiled, and nodded, and agreed out loud, but as she told herself,
“Everything is political.”
André
the Android was an older-model mechanical, technologically inferior to the
biosynthetics that populated many planets and very often lived side by side
with Homo sapiens. He was one of the first AI organizers on the planet,
a pioneer in organized labor and human-synthetic relations. Now, aged, his
artificial skin flaked off his carbon-alloy frame. He was an early supporter of
the Party. He now held the rank of Captain of the Guard at the Party Compound
in DiKopa City. He wore a brown leather uniform, like his mixed lot of
synthetic and human troops wore, but his was sleeveless and customized with
medals taken from defeated enemy generals. He carried an EmCoil rifle. Andre
and his subordinates all wore the same yellow-on-black Party insignia armbands
as Youth Wing. The synthetics among them were all newer model biosynths,
virtually indistinguishable from humans.
André
demonstrated his troops’ discipline for Eustace. He had them shift their weight
about and handle their weapons in unison while chanting Party slogans. The
young soldiers seemed to enjoy their display. They were proud to bear arms for
the New Regime.
Some
of them had EmCoil rifles like André. Others held crossbows at the ready, or
crude, improvised weapons. Some of them only wore parts of their uniform. Some
of them were barely clothed, with the clan tats on their backs on display. But
no one mentioned the clans, here. Nor the castes, nor the Masters or Financiers
or Technocrats. Those distinctions were extinct in the Free Peoples’ Nation.
No
one breathed a positive word here about Elroy Honshuck, the techno-billionaire
who started this war when he tried to force the government to sell him one of
the moons using his own fleet of corporate-built gunships and surplus DeGustean
torpedo frigates.
No
one breathed a positive word either about Adrian Leury, the so-called “culture
critic” who had taken office as Supreme Thought Leader of the Establishment.
No
one said anything kind about Simone Paultrice, the SecDirector of the
Establishment, who hunted dissidents using extralegal means.
The
Free Peoples’ Nation emerged out of the Free Peoples’ Movement and the Free
Peoples’ Party. They were a confederation of cities and agrarian communes on
the Southern Continent of LaShade. DiKopa City was merely one city in the
confederation, which lacked a permanent capital. The Party preferred
decentralization as much as possible. But they were also fighting a war with
the Establishment, and at the Compound, discipline and rank were maintained as
in the armies of other nations.
André
the Android made a fine Unit Leader. And he was a friendly machine. He was
proud of his troops. Eustace could see his work made him happy.
Would
he have been able to do it?
No.
She couldn’t ask him. That would not be fair.
On
Day 25 of the Glorious War, Isabella turned eighteen. She enlisted in the Free
Peoples’ Army. SecDef Eustace came upon her application file on the MAT and
immediately e-stamped it with a DENIED cryptocode. Soon thereafter, Isabella
came running to Daddy.
Eustace
withdrew the denial and approved the application after an argument with
Binjamin that she lost badly, and Isabella boarded a troop convoy to travel to
the Rhyeander Training Compound at Mount Morigori.
She
wore the brown sleeveless leather variant of the uniform, with a green scarf
around her neck and clan tats on her arms. She carried two bags. She hugged her
father goodbye and grinned at Eustace.
“We’re
on the same side,” she said. “We both know that. So let’s stop pretending like
we’re enemies.”
Eustace
smiled and nodded. She hugged Isabella and, unknown to her, planted the
nano-tracking explosive gel-drone in her hair. Later, it would burrow into her
scalp. She would think it was a skinmite. The itch would pass before the end.