Checking in for my shift.

Time... about eight minutes to 12 midnight.

Day...

Day...

Shit! I can't remember what day it is! The one person who keeps track of days in this messed up world and I've lost count.

Oh, wait...

I remember now... It's been three weeks since Grandma died.

So that's 21 days since I last saw her.

Shit!

Why am I even thing about her?

She's one of them.

At least that's what Nico says. Oh, you don't know who that is. Commander Nicolae was the acting leader of the fifth regiment that stood with my father when the war with the Neos was at its final moments. Now he's the leader of the civilization known as Rath. The regiment had been tasked with the duty of not letting a single one of the Neos crawl into civilian populated areas, and as such were deployed at the Lower and Outer Divisions where casualties would be devastating were the machines to breach.

After the war, the General ordered them back to Capitol and showed them the new world order he was building. Commander Nico refused and he, together with his men, left to start their own world in the nuclear wastelands of Rath (or what you know as Russia). It turned out that the nuclear wastelands were not all as uninhabitable as taught in the Facilities.

Nico has been trying to get people out of the Commoners world and has amassed quite a respectable nation here. He says that the plans the General has for the New World will only see the extinction of mankind. He has been planning for years how he was going to storm him out of power. And he says my machine is the one thing standing between the success of the General's lunacy idea of a plan.

I thought he was crazy. Who wouldn't? I was just coming back to take Elena, Mihaela and Luca away and there he was. A crazy story in one hand and a photo of him, Mama and Papa holding me for the very first time I was born in the other. He says he is our Godfather... all four of us. I don't know what it means, but right now it is the only thing that saved my siblings' lives. My home has been burned to the ground. Every single thing I owned... gone. Everything... except for this bracelet I made for her.

Shit!

I did it again.

Nico says that I shouldn't go back to the Controller's world. It could give away our location and things are already complicated as it is. So I left her a message.

Stupid thing to do. Those nine words are the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life. I should have told her I love her. I should have told her that it was just confusing to go back to her, but I still loved her.

Her.

I'm not sure I can even call her that. If what Nico said was true, then it was not correct to call her that. There was only one thing left to call her and all those Controllers in that place.

It

*** END OF TRANSMISSION***

Middle Division, 0015 A.N, 20156 O.E

"Don't forget to have my suit pressed for tonight's party. I'm going to be late out again and I don't need you to stay up and wait. And for goodness sake Aisle, don't burn the cuffs again. I might have money but I'd rather not spend it on your stupidity."

Aisle was half listening to the ratings of her husband as she lay in their bed. This was the fifth time he was complaining about that incident that was serious not even a big deal. I mean, it was just a little burn on his most expensive shirt. And it wouldn't even be seen when he put on his jacket. And as for the waiting up at night, she was not even concerned about what time he decided to come home. She was only up because these recurring nightmares about laboratories and people trying to take her eyes out wouldn't quit bugging her.

"Aisle... Aisle... AISLE!"

"WHAT!"

"Are you listening to me?"

"Obviously not."

"Then why don't just tell me so I can stop talking?"

"Because you eventually do when I don't show interest."

Aisle knew she wasn't supposed to talk to her husband like that. But he was so annoying at times that it just slipped out. Besides, what was it that he could do to her that had not been done already by her mother? The Governor's son was, and Aisle took much delight in noticing it a day into their marriage, a wimp. I mean, honestly, he was as scrawny a guy as Aisle had ever seen. He was such a push over that Aisle was sometimes wondering who was the man in this house between them both.

OK. This was not a really good assessment of the Governor's son. Aisle could admit that he was not a bad guy who was paper thin. He generally left her to do whatever it was that she wanted to do, which Aisle would have done no matter what he told her. He gambled a lot... and slept with just as many women as the money he lost in those casinos. Aisle picked up the bras and panties every morning from the guest room on her way to doing the chores.

She would call them chores but they really weren't. The only two things she did that could qualify for chores were that she washed her body and walked herself from room to room. She had brought her M.A.I.D into the house and dared her husband to try and stop her.

He didn't care. He just wanted a meal on his table when he got back from his escapade with the women in town. Which was fine with Aisle. Living with him was actually starting to not seem so bad. So Aisle was not too bothered with the change in her life. She had already given up on ever having a better life at this point.

Then the notice for them having to mate came in the mail.

Aisle had never been so disgusted in her life. So she had to offer her own body up to the Government for procreation purposes. The Governor's son was not in a hurry to get her in his bed, surprisingly. Then again, Aisle thought about the many women he had already had and knew that he wasn't missing out on anything.

So they both set a date for the mating today and as predicted, her husband came home six hours past it. He was stone drunk and smelled strongly of something Aisle had come to know was marijuana. She had the driver take him to their room before she went to do her duty to the Eco system. She didn't care about having sex with him anymore. It was just something that had to be done when people were married at some point in time.

"There she is... myyy wiiiiife," he had slurred as he tried to sit up on the bed.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Aisle asked him as it looked like she would not get much out of him. Then again, she wouldn't have gotten much even if he was sober from the looks of his physique.

"Are you... kidding? I am always up... for you... baby." He giggled like an idiot at his own humor that Aisle just sighed and started undressing him. Her life was really just a pile of crap. Now she was about to let a drunk boy try to make a baby with her.

"Wait!" he said just as she had unbuckled his belt, "Help... me up."

"You want to be on top?"

"No... Wait, yes... But not now. I want... to sit... up."

Whatever, she thought to herself as she raised him to a sitting position on the bed. She had seen him drunk almost all the time these past couple of weeks, but today her looked different. And today had been the first time he didn't have that cute redhead on his arm. Although, he could have just ditched the redhead for her tonight. Probably

"Aisle... you... are my wife."

Obviously.

"And I... am your husband."

Where exactly was he going with this?

"I know... you hate me. I hate me too."

Aisle was quiet as she looked at him. It must be the drink talking.

"I'm not drunk, Aisle!" he shouted and she almost jumped. She had been surprised he had already guessed what she was thinking, "I... I'm just a sad man."

"Why?" and she was genuinely curious about this. Her husband had everything he could want. An empire that would see his children's children all taken care of no matter what. A beautiful trophy for a wife to show off in every party held in the city. More money than he could spend, not that he had not been trying to. So why would he be sad?

"I know you are not happy... here. I know... you hate me."

Aisle was quiet. She didn't know if this was true herself. There was that part of her that had hated him for stealing away her life. But there was this new part of her that was dead and uncaring to anything of this world. She had been leaning more to the uncaring part of her these days. Looks like the Governor's son had noticed it after all.

"I hate me too... Look at me, Aisle... Drinking and sleeping with women I don't even know when I'm married... What kind of person am I? A very sick one... very sick ... very sick."

Aisle wasn't sure if he was passed out. He had hung his head low and wasn't saying another word. She moved to lay him back on the bed when she heard him speak again.

"I'm sorry Aisle. I love you. But I can't love you like you love him."

She froze completely. There was no way... no way in hell that her husband knew about him. She had never thought about him since she burnt that phone. She had never mentioned that name for three weeks. She had been working for almost all her time day and night to erase every trace of existence that Clew had in her life. How did he know?

Shit.

She had said his name. Well, thought it but it was the same difference. This was bad. Her dreams were surely going to change today. She was afraid to go to sleep now. She was afraid to see those luminous blue hazel eyes looking at her again. But maybe that was how the Governor's son knew about Clew.

Shit!

She did it again!

"You love him, Aisle," her husband's words shook her back to reality. Did he have some kind of connection to her mind or what?

"I can see it in your eyes every time you are lost in thought. I wish you loved me like that. I tried to be a nice guy right? I never asked you to do anything you don't want to. I... I tried to be a nice guy so you could like me... but I'm still not a nice guy... I cheat on you... I drink... I gamble... I'm a piece of shit... living with me is living with a piece of shit, Aisle... You should go. I can't give you what you really want."

He was right. She didn't want to admit it but he was right. There was nothing that he could give her that she would want. But living with him was not what he had said it to be. He was not the saint that people think husbands should be. Hell, he was as far as anyone ever came to be a saint. But he knew about his vices. He knew that she had issues that he couldn't solve. She might not have loved him, but she just realized that she didn't really hate him. And the sensation of that epiphany in her body was almost like someone had turned a switch on somewhere.

"I'm not going anywhere. I made a vow to stay with you till death and I am not going to break it just because I don't love you."

He smiled impishly and lay back on the bed, a soft snore coming from him almost immediately.

Aisle didn't mention this little talk to him the next day he woke up to find her in the kitchen, for the very first time in all those three weeks they had been living together, cooking.

"Good morning, honey."

He stood there, a surprised look on his face and a skull breaking headache pounding his brain. But the headache wasn't from the hangover rocking his body harder than a boat in a storm overseas. It was because his wife wore the most pink and most lacy thing he had ever seen only. He had never seen his wife this jovial, and naked, since... well since ever.

"Good morning... honey?"

"Breakfast is ready. And I got you something for the headache i know you must have." She was dancing to him when she handed the pills and the glass of water.

"What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Breakfast? Naked? Honey?"

Aisle just shrugged her shoulders and gave him a peck before she went back to the stove. The Governor's son was surprised as he went to sit down next to his breakfast. His wife had never deigned to refer to him as anything remotely tasteful as honey. This must have been a dream. He must have still been in bed.

"So," he heard her speak as she came to sit on his lap, taking the pills she had given them and popping it in his mouth. "The office called and I told them you were not feeling well and you'd come in later. Should be just enough time for us to get freaky since you missed out on me last night."

Now he was sure this was a dream. His mouth was hanging open and she took the opportunity to pour the glass of water in it. He almost chocked down on the pills and it was not because he didn't know they were in there.

"You called my father?" he said after she had wiped off the excess water from his mouth.

"Actually he called you. And I think that was his secretary babe."

He was just piecing together what was happening here. OK, so this wasn't a dream.  But it could qualify to really explain what was happening here. He had imagined though. For one blissful moment, he had imagined that Aisle had actually come to this on her own volition. But he was wrong. He knew there was no way he could replace all that love already in her heart. He had asked for time so that he could. But it seems his father had gone over his head as always. He hated it when that was done to him.

But strangely enough, he didn't care. He didn't care if his wife was now submissive because of his father. He didn't care that she would never be the same again. He only cared that she was sitting here on his lap and feeding him the toast that she had cooked.

"So what do you say to getting freaky?" she asked him with a sly smile and he lifted her in his arms.

"Seems my schedule is free for the morning."

She laughed as he carried her up the stairs, her voice drowning out the tone from his Connector that indicated he had a new message from the office.

It's just a temporary fix.

Rath Nation, Nuclear Wastelands 0015 A.N

Clew sat at the outer perimeter of the Rath nation, trying hard not to doze off. Shifts were starting to get tight since the events of the past two days. But he didn't complain about the long hours on call. He was just as angry with the lack of concentration that had caused the incident as Nico was.

There was a disturbance at the west section of the Rath Nation. Intel suggests that they were after the machine that Clew was still trying to build. It made no sense to him whatsoever because even if they had taken it, it was nothing yet. He had only gotten half of it done and he was in no hurry to finish it.

Nico's plans involved infiltration and that involved Clew having to go back to that place he did not want to ever set foot in. The Controllers were starting to get desperate if that was really them attacking the base. Nico was convinced that the time to start the attack had arrived now that they were running scared and desperate. Clew wasn't so sure about that. Every time a person had tried to start a war earlier than it was needed, innocent lives were lost. He had a very compelling reason to not let the innocent lives closest to him get caught up in this.

He was just about to stand up and try to get some blood flowing in his feet when his vision was obscured by hands that had calluses in the places where one held a gun. He tried, but he couldn't refrain his mind for thinking how very different these hands were to the ones hat used to smell of lavender.

"Guess who?"

"Santa?"

"Close enough..."

He chuckled as the girl came to sit next to him on the rock. She did the same thing every single time she saw him and it was starting to get old.

"I went looking for you at the lab and they told me you volunteered for shift duty."

He wasn't surprised that she would go there first. That had been where he should have been if he had any sense. But he wanted to be left alone to think and this was the perfect place to do it.

"Where are the kids?"

"Well... Elena and Mihaela are with the other girls getting their toes done. Luca... well you know he hasn't left the library since he got here."

Clew nodded his head. His siblings were still adjusting to this new life, but they were adjusting well. He had feared that the events that caused them to leave their home would haunt them. The Controllers almost got Luca if it weren't for Nico. He had been right in a way. Two days into their stay here, Elena was crying in her sleep again. Mihaela was trying hard not to but she was not very strong. Even Luca, who Clew thought was impenetrable by anything life threw at him, was not sleeping well. He was lost for what to do.

That's when Daniela came and made his life easier. She gave the girls something to do in the Salon so that they wouldn't be left to wallow in the misfortunes of their lives. He took Luca to the library and he has never been the same since. He had helped his family from falling apart, and Clew was indebted to her for eternity.

She had asking for nothing but Clew to return the same feelings she expressed to him that superseded those of  just friendship. He couldn't say that she was not a beautiful girl. That would be a blatant lie. She was attractive enough for him to acknowledge it. In fact, if Clew was any wiser, he would go out with her. There was just one problem and he knew he was stupid to recognize it. She didn't have that hazel color in her eyes.

"So why aren't you working on the machine? I thought Papa said we were moving out as soon as you had it ready."

Dani was Nico's seventeen year old daughter and that made her family apparently. So Clew didn't offer her the answer that could be roughly translated to telling her to go and screw herself. That and he was not opposed to her company.

"I needed a break from machines."

Dani nodded and didn't push the subject any further. She had stayed with Clew for long enough to know that he did not like people prying into his feelings. But she longed to know what was going on through that mind of his, and perhaps know what it felt like to be held in between those arms of his.

He had told her in the most kind way possibly that he could not love her the way she wanted when she told him how she felt. Apparently his mind was still hooked on that Controller he had been dating. It irked her so much that Clew would be wasting his life on someone who by now was happily married to some idiot and would never spare him a thought again. She had gone out of her way to show him this by showing him just what the matches in the Controller's world was.

Dani was sure that he would come around after that. I mean, his love for the Controller was now the same as one having a great affection for their favorite song or cup. Treasured but meaningless to the one loved.

But he still refused to love her just because he was not over it. At least, that's what Dani had deduced from his so formal rejection. She didn't mind. She would just need to work her way into his heart. His siblings already had her in their hearts now that they knew the truth about all Controllers. He was going to be hers sooner or later.

"I missed you at the movie last night."

Clew didn't know how many times she was going to have to let Dani down so that she would realize he was not going to love her. Well that wasn't right. He had a great sense of attraction to her. But what she wanted he didn't have the power to give her. He didn't think he ever had the power to give it to anyone to begin with.

"I was working on the machine. Lost track of time."

"Come on, Lew. What's really bothering you?"

He sighed. Other than not being left alone at the moment, almost everything in his life bothered him. But he was tired of being cautious so as not to let his thoughts stray further than he needed.

"I thought I told you never to call me 'Lew'."

"Why do you think I will always do it?"

He chuckled before he could help it. Dani was impossible to annoy even on a good day.

"Well, I suppose you came to relieve me here?"

Dani's face flashed with something that Clew could identify with as panic. Then she asked him if he was in a hurry to go back.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

She's lying.

Yes, Clew had already deduced it even before Papa had offered his insight.

"I'll ask you again, Dani. What's going on?"

He watched the girl squirm before she finally spoke again.

"OK. I was looking into the security feeds of all the top officials in the Controllers world."

He didn't understand why she was keeping this from him. He had made the code for that very same purpose to be done. If anything, his Connector had a direct link to all the feeds as they came in. He didn't understand her discomfort so he asked her to explain.

"I was looking through this footage... But it's nothing important so I deleted it. I just wanted you to know so you wouldn't freak out when you found missing frames in the recordings of one house under surveillance."

"Why did you delete the footage if it isn't important?"

"Well... because... I... didn't want you to see it."

Now he was very curious to know just what was happening here. Obviously even if the footage she had deleted was unimportant to their mission, it seemed to be important to him. Which must mean it contained the one thing that Clew was dying to see right now.

"Clew wait."

Dani's words would have been better directed to the rocks there because they would have paid better attention than Clew. He had his Connector out and tapping away to find the missing scenes. A few keystrokes and he had already recovered the footage Dani had deleted.

This was footage from the security cameras in the officials house. A glance at the top of the screen told him this was the Governor of the Middle Division's son's house.

No.

She had married him! Of all the people in the world, she was supposed to marry the richest man their age? No wonder she went. What was he compared to the riches of the Governor's son. The footage was from two days ago. No wonder he had missed it. He was out with Nico's men fighting back the invasion.

He went through all the cameras in the house until he found her. She looked just as beautiful as the last time he had seen her. The moonlight did wonders to her face that she seemed even more beautiful than he remembered. He zoomed in to notice that she was crying. Was she crying because of him or because she was trapped in a life she did not like? He couldn't know. There was still a problem with getting audio from the hack.

He watched as the Aisle in the video was startled by something and she rose to exit the room. He followed her by switching camera feeds until she was standing at the front door with two men. The drunk one  being helped up was the Governor's son. Clew had the files about everyone in the Controller's world now from Nico.

He watched as the Governor's son was taken to the room Aisle had been in and Clew clenched the Connector harder between his fingers. His worst fears were about to be confirmed when Aisle started to undress him. He didn't need to see this. Dani had been right. She was right to delete the footage after all. He didn't need to know if she did it.

Yes you do.

And he couldn't have agreed more with Papa than now as he continued to stare at the screen. Aisle was just about to remove his pants when she stopped. It seemed the guy was talking. She sat him up and they both had a conversation that ended with the Governor's son flopping back to the mattress. Aisle sat still for so long that Clew thought she had just been threatened with something. But she snapped out of it and went on undressing the boy. She got the covers over him and left the room after a placing a kiss on his head.

Clew could feel his fingers relaxing. She didn't do it. She didn't allow it to happen. She could see why Dani had erased the footage, but it was just a false alarm. The girl might hate him, but not to that degree.

"It's not over," he heard Dani say and he looked down to notice he was only halfway through the recording. He had to fast forward through them sleeping to find Aisle in the kitchen with one of those very pink, very lacy items he liked. He was glad he did not have that bracelet he had made for her with him. If it was in his possession when he saw her like this, he might just have displaced to her side without a second thought.

She was jovial as she went about cooking the breakfast. Her lithe body was simply phenomenal. He had forgotten just how glorious her cooper brown hair glowed in the morning light. She dropped something from the counter and Clew almost lost his mind when he noticed that she didn't have anything on underneath. So Dani deleted the video because it was indecent? No. They had footage of her showering before. Of course, he had made sure that it was only in his files but still, that was not the reason.

The reason entered the room just afterwards.

He wanted to refuse it. That was not the woman he loved. That was not his hazel eyes. She smiled as she gave him his breakfast. Even sat on his lap. Then there was the moment that they stood, her in his arms and the look of pure ecstasy on her face. His fingers were shaking now as he switched cameras to follow them even before they left the room.

It was predictable that they were heading to the bedroom.

Two hours, fifty four minutes and thirty seconds.

That was the amount of time it took for Aisle to completely destroy him inside out. He wanted to stop looking at the images on his screen. He was trying to stop. But his fingers were frozen. His entire body was frozen stiff. He couldn't look away from his very own definition of Hell.

The screen was black when he felt the hand tag the Connector from his. Dani was asking him something but he did not know what it was. He was already thinking about his next cause of action.

Caution, Clew.

No. Papa was not allowed to speak anymore. He had led him into this mess that was called Aisle. He was not allowed to make decisions anymore. Now it was time for Clew to run his own life.

"Where are you going?" Dani asked him as he took the Connector from her and started walking away.

"To get the machine ready for war."

Dani watched him walking away and a smile spread on her face as she took out her Connector and dialed a number.

"Papa... it's done."