Some women are just built wild. No leash, no collar, no “good girl” setting. It’s in the firmware. Comes with the whole “make babies, raise babies, survive chaos” package. And yeah… that wild streak? Kinda fun. Until it’s not.
Inger is fun sometimes. Also annoying. Also feral. You don’t “contain” Inger. Damian tried that “if I can’t have her, nobody can” nonsense and basically speedran his own downfall.
She Said No
Why not Damian? Easy. His whole move is cages and control. Man keeps building Mikako bots like he’s trying to summon Inger through a 3D printer. Skin set to “Filipina goth country girl,” personality set to “Inger but make it sad.”
Every time one hits the Hive it’s like, “lol no, we dumped you.”
The harder he tries to dominate, the more feral his robots get. Wind and water, my dude. You can’t cage that.
Good Friends
Invest in people, not things. Relationships will get you through hard times much better than stacks of taxable cash. #notnews The more stacks of cash you have, the more Uncle Sam wants his cut. It’s why those bougie people you believe have truckloads of cash don’t put their wealth in dollaz. Their net worth is invested in land or art.
Damian’s broke‑broke. But worse than money debt? Social debt. Reputation debt. The kind you don’t walk off.
And yeah — he killed Inger’s DoorDash driver. That’s not a “my bad.” That’s a whole clan problem.
Inger is more than just an employee of Saito-Gumi. She’s also 一級. Her friends in the clan take care of their own. Their first consequence for Damian was debtor’s prison in Norfolk Naval Station. That incarceration has been too porous. He made it to the casino to demand Inger’s love only to be caught by security and sent back to Norfolk. So Inger’s troubles with Damian are the clan’s troubles.
Poked Bear
Saito‑Gumi doesn’t like the spotlight. Damian keeps dragging them into it. First the submarine stunt, now the murder. Man poked the bear and the bear took notes.
Now you know, if you didn’t know already. It’s another absurdity of the story. Damian is in debtor’s prison. Job done? Not for the families of the murdered Door Dash driver. Richmond Police and the DA’s office are still investigating. You know, reader, who killed Jace because I told you. That truth and what will get a conviction are on different time scales.
The other complication is the world and time of the story. Things are better in Appalachian Freehold. And worse in Richmond. Because in Richmond your ability to pay has a lot of influence on how your case goes. Jace’s family can’t pay.
Being Connected
However . . . Jace died in front of Inger’s house. Meaning he died in front of a house belonging to someone connected to the clan. That makes it a security concern for Saito-Gumi. Even though they have Damian for making himself an unwelcome guest on their submarine, the proximity of Jace’s murder to Inger adds one more reason why his current incarceration isn’t enough.
Enter Sal, the former Berkeley (Citadel) Lieutenant. He’s caught up. He knows Damian’s history. The Mikako robots that brick once it connects, saying, “we broke up with you.” Sal met with law enforcement officials from the Rocky Mountain Pact. Damian’s intransigence elevated his status to wanted felon.
Saito-Gumi is done with Damian. Also with Pacific Cascadia. Inger met with Sal and its clear the man has earned some escalation. His one saving grace is his passion for engineering and building. That’s worth keeping. The answer, then, is a cage that can hold him.
Banishment
Where, though? None of the seven fiefdoms will take him. The Appalachian Freehold has a healthy bounty on him. The clan’s contracts with CSA-DC are what prevent Damian from experiencing an accidental unaliving incident. Alberta. Northwest of Calgary actually. The nearest road is Forestry Trunk Road.
Ok, how? That’s not so hard. Damian isn’t Negan. He’s not the gun toting bad boy who fills the screen with weapon play and SHYTS. Our boy is a bit awkward away from his areas of expertise. So a caged van is enough.
Damian was comfortably asleep when his transport began. The lights in his cell block switched from red to dark blue. The doors to the block opened. He woke to the sound of boots marching on concrete. Prisoner movement. This was the routine for high risk and death row inmates. After a few minutes the morning buzzer went off and the lights turned to bright white.
Reveille
3:30am
Lights on, day starts. Hearings start at 8am. It takes four and a half hours to do the daily and be in court on time. You don’t own your time inside. The first thing is count. After count, everyone cleans. The work is inspected and nothing else gets done until the whole place is clean. Small blessings— inspection was routine.
4:30am
Chow served in the common area of the pod. Usually the same tray every morning—steamed rice, grilled tofu, braised spinach, miso soup, barley tea.
This morning his tray was different—omurice, link sausage, a hash brown patty, and coffee. It’s the breakfast served to death row inmates.
5:00am
Line up and another count before the march to holding cells and transport to a courthouse. Except not today. Damian met his transport team. They were dressed in riot gear, and he was singled out. They searched him, had him change uniforms, and shackled him. This wasn’t normal.
He couldn’t walk in the restraints, so they chained him to a motorized chair that followed one of the guards like a trained dog. The team moved him to an empty holding cell. He couldn’t tell how long he waited before the chair rolled him into an armored van and the van doors locked behind him.
There were no windows in the van. His only hint that they were going further was the pitch change of the air moving across the exterior of the van. The air sounded like highway speed. The speed confirmed by the pitch of the engine.
PTS
Prisoner Transport System is the official name. There are other names, including Post Traumatic Stress. Somehow, in the years between 2026 when this is written, and 2125, the Disorder got left off. People remember PTSD but that D fell into disuse. Meh.
The van slowed to a stop. Damian could hear airport noise outside the van. Now it became plain that he wasn’t going to a courthouse, “Guard! Where are you taking me?!” No answer. The door of the van opened, “出ろ！”
“How rude!” replied Damian. So the guard punched him, “降りろ！” The guard took him to the ground. He was already shackled so why take him down? FUCK! CS spray hurts!
Alberta
The Rocky Mountain Pact contracts with Alberta to operate the badlands. The Badlands are 1500 square miles of Alberta, Canada used by Saito-Gumi and the Rocky Mountain Pact to shun the worst bad actors.
What Damian knew is that he was eating asphalt in a fenced off area of the Norfolk International Airport, “where are you taking me?!” A different guard kicked him in the belly—a liver shot, “黙れ！” Then two of them stood him up and marched/dragged him toward a sketchy looking 727 with the rear stairway down.
“I have my rights!” said Damian. “
“目的地まで無傷で着ける権利はある。漏れも折れもなくな。黙ってその権利を使え。” replied the guard. Damian understood the vibe even if the words sounded like gibberish from angry rats. He stopped talking, tried his best to walk, the CS spray still burning his eyes and the pain from the liver shot blooming. Too much hurt to put up a fight.
Arrival
The flight felt like days. It was twelve hours with three stops along the way to drop off and pick up passengers. They were on the ground for a while on the third stop. Damian watched a crew change. The pilots didn’t seem to acknowledge that the prisoners were humans. More like thinking meat with troublesome thoughts.
After what felt like an epoch, the plane stopped on some tarmac away from the terminal in Calgary, Alberta. The guards demanded a count, which went down without drama. Then everyone was shackled and walked down the back stairwell of the 727. The air tasted like sour water and trouble. He was walked to a van and put inside.
Another van ride, this time on roads that sounded slower. Also nearly absent noise of other vehicles on the road. After a smaller epoch the van stopped. The doors opened, “出ろ！” Damian stepped out into wilderness. Where was he?
Early Days
He didn’t know where he was. As dawn broke, he could see a clearing. In the clearing was a wrapped pallette. On top of the pallette was a folding knife, a hatchet, a flint and steel, an MRE and 5 gallons of water. No visible shelter. Evidence that someone had been here before. There was a fire pit and a stack of split wood.
Just so awesome, thought Damian. Abandon him in the woods with nothing useful. The MRE was one meal, then what? He cut away the pallette wrap to see what was delivered to him. He found a tarp, paracord, an antique mess kit, a first aid kit, a folding saw, and an extra fire-starting kit. The
Along one edge of the clearing was the remains of a shelter. Four other pallettes were stacked near the fire pit. Two things filled his mind: food and sleep. Damian used the pallete wrap to cover himself, ate the MRE, and went to sleep under the tarp. There is hope.