milliways_bar | (no subject)

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YT's America, like ours, recently had a Presidential election. The 2008 presidential election. From our perspective, a bizarro-alternate-universe presidential election.

If you want to know the details you're SOL, because YT doesn't know who won - she doesn't even remember the names of the candidates - and she does not give a particular fuck. Her mom does give a particular fuck, and this difference of opinion led to an exchange of harsh words between the two of them.

Fast forward from there: YT is sitting at the bar nursing a beer and a bad mood while watching the TV. Some kind of alien nature program featuring four-winged bird-thingies, or at least she thinks it's a nature program featuring four-winged bird-thingies. It could be a soap opera or a reality show, for all she knows.

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There might be a little bit of a spring in Yamato's step, after the Tanabata sort-of-date with Quentin.

He's still scowling, though, because even a good mood is no reason not to scowl.

"Are you even old enough to drink that?" He asks as he sits at the Bar.

YT looks at Yamato and then at the bottle as if the issue hadn't even occurred to her. She picks up the bottle, pretends to examine it, takes a mock-cautious swig, swallows.

After a couple of seconds, she breathes a sigh of relief. "Whew! I was, like, totally scared shitless for a second there, but it looks like everything's okay." She rolls her eyes dramatically and takes another swig.

"Bar doesn't usually serve people who are underaged," Yamato says, very patiently. "Hence the question."

"Underaged? Who's counting?" YT asks.

In her America there isn't a federal minimum drinking age anymore, or at least it's not enforced.

"Usually the government of whichever place is outside your door. That's the benchmark the Bar goes by, at least."

"Nova Sicilia drinking age is sixteen," YT says. "And I'm a Nova Sicilia citizen. Yay for me." She polishes off the beer and orders another one. It should be obvious by now that there's more than just her usual 'tude at work here.

"Lucky you. What's wrong?"

It is entirely unfair that other people should not be cheerful on a day when Yamato actually is.

YT slumps on the Bar. "Got in a fight with mom," she says. "See, we just elected a new President, and she was upset because the guy she voted for didn't win, and I said it was just another old white guy, and besides she doesn't have to give a fuck because she doesn't work for the Feds anymore."

One can easily see where this is going. Unless one is YT, in which case one blunders into it.

"And then she started bitching at me. She gets way too worked up over this stuff."

"Your mother's probably right about this."

Yamato has been impromptu proof-reader for enough of his father's news stories that the impact of a political party has been drummed into his head.

"Even if it doesn't affect her -- I don't think there's ever been an election in my world that hasn't affected somebody, unless politicians aren't making laws anymore in your world."

Which is possible! But unlikely, Yamato thinks.

YT snorts. "You really don't know what the fuck is going on in my world, do you? Or in my America, anyhow." She takes a pull from her beer. "The U.S. Government doesn't control shit anymore. Most of the military, the CIA, and a lot of the government labs went private because President fuckin' Perot and the guys after him screwed up our currency big time and everything basically fell apart."

Yamato gives her a flat 'well, that was a silly question' look.

Then: "Your mom must think it makes some difference who's in power, though, right? If she's as bothered by it as you say. Unless you're saying she doesn't understand any of it like you do."

"Mom worked for the Feds for, like, years. Until recently, when they fucking kidnapped me and sent me off to the Raft." YT waves dismissively. "Long story. But she was really loyal to them. Feds have this big loyalty fetish. Guess it makes up for the long hours and the low pay and the random polygraph testing and all the other shit."

'Toxic work environment' does not begin to cover it.

"The Raft's some kind of prison?"

Because hey, that sounds way more interesting.

"No, it's...it was a ginormous floating city-slash-refugee camp," YT says. "Lotta action movies about the Raft. But the part I spend the most time on was pretty boring. I was mostly chopping fish and slinging soup in the Russian Orthodox neighborhood. I think they were trying to brainwash me or infect me with the Asherah virus that everyone else on the Raft had, but it didn't take or something."

Which means YT is one of the few humans immune to Asherah, putting her in some rather exalted company.

"After I got out of that and got back together with Mom, Uncle Enzo - the Don of Cosa Nostra - he helped us pack up and move. 'S why we live in a Nova Sicilia neighborhood now."

"What's the Asherah virus?"

What? Viruses are potentially a subject of interest for Yamato's world right now, given the Infection and everything.

"It's a metavirus - physical and also informational," YT says. "It's weird. You can catch it from bodily fluids or from looking at a special kind of bitmap, if you're a hacker," she explains. "I don't think it's the kind of thing you want to get up close and personal with. Especially with that whole digital world thing you got going on."

YT doesn't know what the Asherah metavirus would do to the digital world, or to Gabumon, but she doesn't want to find out.

"This communications magnate dude, L. Bob Rife, he figured out that you could basically use it to hack the human brain. So he was trying to take over the world with it. The Raft was part of that - bring a couple hundred thousand infected Refus to America and get them to spread it." YT shrugs.

"He pissed off Uncle Enzo and tried to use me as a hostage so Enzo wouldn't blit him. Packed me aboard his helicopter, with the last President of the United States, and they all ended up dying in a ball of flame." It was, frankly, awesome.

"Luckily, our Crests are pretty good at pulling no-sells on weird evil techno-magic shit. Not that I'm going to seek out this virus thing to test that."

That would just be foolish. Especially since the protection of a Crest provably doesn't extend to their partners.

"-- Wait, that's it, the dude just died in an explosion? Usually diabolical potential world dominators go out with a bit more style than that. Sucks to be him, I guess."

"He was in a Learjet about to take off and a Rat Thing - a cybernetic guard dog - leaped into one of the engines. At, like, seven hundred miles an hour. And you know, Rat Things have nuclear isotopes in them. It was a kick-ass explosion," YT says. She sighs. "Too bad the Rat Thing died. Never figured out why it went kamikaze like that. Their programming, like, normally keeps them from breaking out of the yard and going rogue that way."

"That -- is the most ridiculous, undramatic death a bad guy can possibly have," Yamato says, dryly. "Lucky thing he's dead, or else he'd have pretty good reason to be embarrassed."

"You weren't there, man. It was awesome. That Rat Thing went streaking across the ground like a Rife-seeking missile of justice and hit the jet - boom!" YT smacks one fist into the other palm for emphasis.

"If you don't think that's dramatic, I don't know what'd be up to your impossible standards, man."

"C'mon, if you're going to try to take over the world, you should at least try to die in battle," Yamato says, dismissively. "Not trying to run away in some plane-helicopter thing."

"Rife wasn't the battling type. He had people for that," YT says, and takes another pull on her beer. "Anyway. What were we talking about again? Yeah. Mom and this whole President thing."

"If he was that rich, he could've at least have invested in some kind of gun arm," Yamato says. "Yeah, you were saying you think working for the Feds kinda brainwashed her."

"I wouldn't call it brainwashing, but...yeah, maybe I would. Or it was like being in an abusive relationship or something." YT turns the bottle around slowly on the bartop. "She kind of knows how bad it was, but she also kind of doesn't."

"Where does she work now, then? Or -- is she unemployed?"