Work Text:
You are born in January as the new year begins. You are surrounded by family: a mother, a grandmother, two sisters waiting with a father in the hall. They will give you many things: a home, a cat, a set of throwing knives. A name.
This is your future, David:
You will be tormented for a year by a boy with blond hair. He will hide stolen toys in your bag and tell the teacher you took them, convince everyone to pretend you don’t exist for a month, pull your hair, break your things, put thumbtacks on your chair. He will move that summer. You won’t see him again until middle school three years later.
You will shove his head into the bathroom mirror during lunch. Blood will stain his blond hair pink and you won’t know how much is from his head and how much is from your own torn hands.
This is your future, Corporal:
You will go through boot camp on another planet in the Leonis Minoris system. It’s the furthest from home you’ve ever been. The day after you graduate two thirds of the system will be glassed, and you know you’ll never go home again.
Your squad will be sent on a suicide mission a few years later. You won’t go. You won’t know what color the Staff Sargent’s hair is - if the roots were brown or blond or pink when you’re done with him.
This is your future, Agent Washington:
You will be visited by a man in a suit. He will make you an offer; you will sign on the dotted line. You will skate down hallways, steal apples from the mess, laugh with your friends.
You will love them more than they love you.
This is your future, Recovery One:
Aisling Niner Ash Command will send you to Vox when Agent Delaware’s distress beacon goes off. When you arrive, she’s already dead - ribs concave with the force of the blow that killed her, blood matted in her curly hair from the gash in her head and the mess of her implants. You will log her death in your mission report, set a charge in her armor, leave before it detonates.
She will be the first asset you “recover”. She will not be the last.
This is your future, Prisoner 619-B:
They won’t take your armor when they lock you away. Instead, they will install overrides in your systems, hardwire in tracking, set new protocols for the armor lock. You will be untouchable and powerless.
You will visit a man in a suit. He will make you an offer; you will sign on the dotted line. You will wreak bloody vengeance. You will bleed out in the snow. You will wake to the smell of spray paint.
This is your future, Wash:
You will spend a month waiting for the Blues to send you back. You will spend another plagued with nightmares worse than you’ve had since implantation. You will eat pancakes and color with a gentle giant, run your teammates through drills, and play capture the flag.
You will hold an old friend at gunpoint and hand her your pistol days later. You will save a planet. You will save a universe.
This is your future, David:
You will have a family. You will lose them. You will have a team. They will leave you. You will have a mind. It will be torn asunder.
You will have two bases on opposite sides of a valley, a canyon, a lunar plateau. You will have second-hand armor layered with blue and grey spray paint. You will (briefly) have a beard.
This is your future: