Sunny’s program destroyed JD’s brain but left the brain stem intact. She had analyzed Naomi’s black box and separated the Patriot control system from the vital lifelines of society. Water, air, electricity, food, medicine, communication, transportation—Sunny cut off the Patriots’ control while preserving modern civilization.
Maybe it was her way of avenging her mother, Olga. Or maybe she wanted to shape the future into her own ideal image.
Or maybe it was just one big defragmentation.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Patriots’ reign had crumbled away. That which we thought to be control, and a prison, was destroyed. But that was a large part of our world. With such a considerable loss, nothing would ever be the same.
Some was destroyed, and some remained. Ironically, we ensured the survival of civilization’s oldest cultivation since the times of Genesis: war. I can only pray that the world you make will be better than the one we fought.
What did we lose? What did we save?
To tell the truth, even as I compile the telling of these events, I still don’t know. I suppose those questions come at the end of any battle.
In any time, in any war. In all the past, and all the future.