Komandarn Nolan stood at his field headquarters overlooking the city. He and his comrades were executing the People’s takeover of America and he was selected to wrangle the Big Apple away from American rebels trying to hold onto the city and the surrounding area. Robotic frames, vehicles, and aircraft were giving the bigots a good working over as he and his officers swept through the city, fighting room to room to destroy the American will to fight. If they had to, they would wipe every last one of them, man, woman, and child.

For the Greater Good of the People, he would do it.

The American takeover was a masterful build up. For decades, the Democratic Republic of the People kept to the shadows. They seeded agents into technology giants and used their positions to slowly launder money and resources into ‘research projects’ to develop advanced technology for the Republic. While this was going on, the tech giants did what tech giants did and gathered personal information of every person in the country, along with those in Canada and Mexico. The People took that information to formulate the most efficient campaign when they were ready to go. The People were looking to have the whereabouts on every person in the Americas, the locations of their homes and assets, and their affiliations. They got most of it by the time they were ready.

A key breakthrough was in robotics. Being few in number, the People needed an edge over their enemies, namely the liberals and conservative citizens of the three target countries, who would fight tooth and nail with their assault weapons when it came time to initiate the People’s Revolution. Chicago Dynamics was a company at the forefront of developing new robotic technology. The People infiltrated it and quietly took it over. They used the company to develop the technology that would later be used on robotic soldiers and vehicles. It quickly went from small research and development company to massive technology giant within ten years. Public stock of the company was worth more than Microsoft and Apple combined, although at that point, the latter two companies were thoroughly in the back pockets of the People.

In the years leading up to the revolution, the People constructed many secret robot factories for producing robotic soldiers and tanks. They built at least one hidden shipyard for blue water robotic ships too on either side of the continent. The People didn’t think they could directly challenge the US Navy but they felt confident over time that they could cripple the US Armed Forces enough to buy them time to outproduce the stronger American Navy.

The year before, a hostile agent by the name of Adam Nothing sabotaged a major operation of the People. The People had established Autonomous Zones, places legally outside the lawful enforcement and control of the Government. They were using them to traffic humans and drugs to rich contractors throughout the continent. The purpose of this operation was to gain more wealth so the People could rotate it through more R&D and more factory sites. The agent revealed their real purpose and forced a shutdown of all locations. This was a huge monetary blow to the People.

The People never found out the real affiliations of Adam Nothing but High Command suspected he was a freelancer of the liberal bigots. His time would come. The People would get him too.

Regardless, the collapse of their smuggling operations showed that there was a presence out there that was at least wary of the People’s existence. It sped up the People’s time tables. A year later, the People decided to start the Revolution. By then, the People had control over the majority of the federal government of all three countries, about half of the state and provincial governments, and all of the major technology and computer science corporations based in the United States and Canada.

The People initiated the revolution on inauguration day for the President of the United States. A center left populist president that received seventy percent of the vote was up to start her four-year term. Agents of the People rushed through her Secret Service and attempted an arrest. Secret Service tried to defend her. The People gunned down Secret Service with ray guns. The People arrested the president for Crimes against the People and executed her on the spot.

The People then declared the United States experiment over and the start of a new Socialist Union.

Naturally, the military announced they would resist the new Will of the People. The People set fire to half of their bases in retaliation. The American People took up arms against the coup. They were met with millions of robotic soldiers armed with micro-plasma bolters and robotic vehicles. The People responded with American Blood for the Blood Devil; American Skulls for the Skull Office, and gleefully slaughtered the American People to break their bigoted will. Man, woman, child. If they sided with white nationalist America, they were Enemies of the People.

Still, the Americans persisted.

The People would crush the bigots sooner or later. The People would have their Iridian society.

Europe immediately took notice. Once they realized things were getting out of hand, they declared the People an illegal revolution and mobilized their armies. An organization that was strong enough to challenge the US was an old school Soviet military parade with all the red flags. It was assumed that if the People could subdue the Americans, they were coming after America’s friends across the pond next.

They were not wrong, although Europe was in the grips of their own problems caused by another shadow organization behind the scenes. The Americans would have to survive on their own for now.

Nolan was assisted in his endeavor by the Republican Guard, a fitting name for the mockery of America and western ideals. The guard consisted of loyal Communists downloaded into specially designed ‘Iridian Suits’, a form of advanced robotic frame that allowed them to become super soldiers for the cause. Republican Guardspeople Frames were powered by a miniature fusion reactor that gave near unlimited energy for the Guardsperson to do their duty. By expelling energy through their hands and feet, Guardspeople were capable of powered flight. It wasn’t quite the speed of a fighter jet but they could at least match the bigot Apache Attack Helicopter. Guardspeople Frames were armored by a composite alloy that was capable of taking a tank shell to the face and keep going. The frames were equipped with a multitude of plasma weaponry to carry out their mission. Plasma beams, plasma bolters, and plasma bullets. The whole works.

All in all, a Republican Guardperson was a small flying army and Nolan was granted a battalion of them by High Command. Combined with a nearly unending stream of robotic hardware, the bigots would be smoked out and defeated. Nolan salivated for victory.

Nolan watched from his field headquarters a battle going on in front of the building. He was quite safe all the way up here. The only meaningful threats to his and his staff’s well-being were missile launchers and helicopter gunships, of which the rebels around here had few of the former and none of the latter.

The rebels could also try storming the building, Nolan supposed. But then they would need to fight through three dozen floors of robotic frames while fending off his personal line of Republican Guards. The rebels would not survive.

Down below, on the streets in front of the People’s Headquarters, General Turner led a desperate attack on the building. He and several squads of soldiers and patriots made their move on what they deduced was the local command center for the Enemy.

Armed with small arms and fighting for their homeland, the Americans were a formidable opponent for their enemies.

Turner took aim and put a burst of bullets into the head of the nearest robot. The robot, its processor destroyed, went down.

“On your nine, General!”

Turner turned and peppered another robot before it could raise its weapon. These robots used some sort of energy weapon and it was devastating. Fortunately, they weren’t Terminators, and their fire was inaccurate at best, and bad at worst. They made Stormtroopers look like Olympic marksmen. But they came in numbers.

The fifty odd patriots fought their way through a hundred robotic soldiers. They were trying to make it to the building. And they were nearly there.

But then one of the pride troopers strafed their positions, killing seven combatants and injuring another three. Turner and his patriots ducked into cover behind jersey barriers and destroyed cars.

Pride troopers were a kind of cyborg. The skunkworks division in Boston managed to capture one with help of US marines. It struggled all the way to containment deep underground in a very humanlike fashion. The skunkworks guys managed to figure out people downloaded their consciousness into the Iron Man like suit and were deployed much in the same way as a mass-produced superhero. They were called pride troopers because each suit had custom pride flag symbols etched across them and the person within kept screaming “bigot, racist, and homophobe” at the Americans, which was something that the more progressive types did to normal Americans. It took several more captures for the Americans to come to the sad conclusion that the consciousness downloaded into the suits were originally Americans, Americans that denounced their citizenship of the quote unquote ‘evil nation’ in favor of overthrowing the country.

The rebels learned much from captured pride troopers. They didn’t have to interrogate them or hack their systems. The pride troopers screamed unholy threats of violence against all Americans and gave away secrets of their own volition. The rebels learned that there were similar operations in Canada and Mexico and that a major goal of the People was to take control of North America completely. But beyond that, the rebels had no idea. Pride troopers were soldiers. They were weapons. They were not privy to strategic information.

“Shoot it down! Shoot it down!” ordered Turner.

Twenty sets of automatic weapons aimed at and tried to shoot the pride trooper down. They had limited effect.

A marine squad with them brought out a Stinger missile launcher. Stingers were the standard American man portable air-defense system and very potent at shooting down low-flying aircraft like helicopters. And pride troopers.

The marines did not have many Stinger missiles but it was a very effective method of shooting down pride troopers so the people under Turner valued procurement of them.

“Stinger missile preparing for action!”

“Nice and slow, nice and slow!”

“Targeting aircraft!”

“Target locked!”

“Firing!”

The missile left its launch tube and went straight for the pride trooper, which was on its way back for a second strafe. It tried to evade but American military technology was good. The pride trooper was hit and it crashed into the building on their right. The trooper would not survive the encounter. This was Turner’s third encounter with pride troopers where a Stinger MANPAD was present. The previous two times were confirmed kills and the targeted trooper did not survive being hit.

“General, enemy tanks closing in our position.”

“Fall back, men. We’ll try again later. Enemy HQ is getting too hot.”

“Falling back!”

In the nick of time, too. A dropship deployed a robotic tank right in the middle of the street in front of their headquarters building. Turner and his remaining men ducked into the buildings. There were networks of tunnels, some sewers, some former subway lines, running through New York City and they would be relatively safe as they regrouped. Fortunately for them, the Enemy’s robotic soldiers generally did not pursue them when they made their ways into the tunnel network. Pride troopers also didn’t pursue, even though they had superior firepower and armor. One captured pride trooper implied the tunnels were dirty and that’s why they didn’t pursue personally.

It was rich coming from a person who lived in a pod a thousand miles away.

Turner and his soldiers made their way through the tunnels to his field command center deep under New York City. The command center was the remnants of a former subway station that was closed for repairs. Then the revolution kicked off and no one came to fix it.

Everyone saluted Turned as he entered the main room. It was part of a damaged subway train whose final resting place was at the station. Cables snaked out of the train to outlets in the station wall. The power stations were still operational but the general needed to procure a better source of electricity. His troops were looking for ways to obtain and utilize solar panels on nearby buildings to supplement their power supply.

“How are we holding?” the general asked one of the technicians at a computer terminal.

The technician looked up from his screen, “We’re managing to hold The Bronx, most of Queens, and some of Brooklyn. The Enemy has Staten Island and Manhattan completely dialed in and the coastline of Queens is under constant threat from robotic ships.”

“Can we hold?”

“At this rate, we’ll be slowly kicked out of the city. I give us maybe a year at this rate. There’s just too many robots. Robotic tanks and aircraft are also things we can’t readily engage. Sure, Stingers will shoot a pride trooper or a robotic VTOL, but we don’t have enough of them to shoot every aerial threat.”

Turner furled his brow.

Commander Matt Smith was back in the saddle. After the conflict in southern Russia and Turkey, Smith retired from active service along the few remaining men under his command. They had enough of war and devastation and just wanted to go home and see their loved ones.

Twenty years later, revolutionaries kicked off a serious takeover of the country and Smith was called back to service. Smith was in his forties. He was put back into an M1A2 Abrams and paired with an armored division. His men were also called up for service. Smith turned down the divisional command. Instead, he demanded his old tanks and crews back. The army gladly gave them to Smith, although the vehicles were given the Mk3 upgrade package before being handed to him.

Smith was deployed to the defense Newark, New Jersey, and ultimately under direct command of General Turner, who was operating a spirited defense of New York City against the Enemy.

He and his three crews were roaming the countryside west of Newark searching for and destroying any robotic vehicles as they could find. So far, Smith and his soldiers were up to three confirmed kills on robotic tanks. They were advised to avoid battle with something called a ‘pride trooper’, but so far Smith hadn’t encountered any.

The three tank crews were pulled over on the side of the Essex Freeway, on Interstate-280, quietly resting from battle. Civilians had long since evacuated away from the major cities or were killed. Smith and his people remarked there were a lot of dead bodies leading away from Newark and they were saddened by the deaths of so many Americans.

As per protocols, one crew stood watch while the others rested. They would relieve the one crew in a while. Smith and his immediate crewmembers took the first watch to allow the other Abrams and the Bradley to have their break.

An hour into his watch, the gunner squinted his eyes.

“What’s up, gunner?” asked Smith.

“I don’t know.” He got out a set of binoculars and focused them.

Smith tried to focus on what the gunner was looking at. It looked like a drone or small aircraft. The ‘aircraft’ landed in front of the tank crews, about fifty feet ahead of them. It was a man, or at least something out of the Iron Man movies. But unlike Iron Man, it was colored with the rainbow. And wearing a cape.

“People of the former America!” it called out.

“Your time has come to surrender to the Democratic Republic of the People and be saved from the evils of America. Surrender quickly and the People will spare your lives. You will be...”

Smith took manual control of the Abrams’ turret, aimed at the rainbow man, and put a 120-millimeter care package into it.

“Red alert troops, break time’s over!”

His men hurried to get back into their vehicles and power them on.

“Gunner, load HE.”

“Loading HE!”

The dust settled where the metal man was. It was undamaged and behind an energy field.

The metal man shook its head once as it dissipated the energy shield.

“So be it, bigots! You will die for the Greater Good of the People. You will be annihilat...”

A second 120-millimeter care package hit it square in the chest. This time there was no energy shield to protect it and the metal man was sent flying backwards and skid across the road.

“Load HEAT.”

“Loading HEAT!”

“Push this thing back, men. Avenge our fallen people!”

“Hoorah!”

The two tanks moved out first, intending to shield their weaker Bradley from the enemy. The metal man got up. The tanks fired another set of shells at it but the metal man engaged its jets and dodged to the side. It jumped into the air and held its hands to its chest. The tankers aimed their remote weapon stations, 50-cal machine guns, at the metal man and commenced firing. The machine guns did little.

The metal man held its hands out in front of it, angled towards the tankers and open. Two beams of energy, one for each hand, emitted from the hands and impacted the lead tank, the one Smith was in. The beams blasted the reactive armor bricks on the turret of Smith’s tank, causing them to explode.

The metal man firing at Smith’s tank gave the other one time to aim a shot. A High Explosive round impacted the metal man and it fell from the sky. The metal man was not out, though, and returned that tank with energy bolts, the metal man making exaggerated movements straight out of Dragon Ball Z as it charged and fired the bolts.

Then a TOW missile came from the Bradley and impacted the metal man in the chest. It fell and did not get up. The missile damaged the front of the metal man.

“Hold men.”

Smith waited a few minutes. The metal man did not get up. Cautiously, Smith got out of his tank and approached the metal man, his men covering him and ready to deliver more care packages down range. When he got to the metal man, Smith saw that the entire front had been destroyed and its electronics damaged and exposed. It was ‘dead’.

Smith waved his men over. They parked their vehicles and powered them down before getting out and coming over to their commander.

“What is that thing, commander?” asked one of his troopers.

“Dunno, mate. It looks human from a distance but it’s clearly a robot.”

Though Smith could not confirm it, he was certain this was one of the ‘pride troopers’ that Command warned him about. Smith took some notes and pictures before getting his men back in their vehicles and driving away from the scene of the battle. He wanted some distance between him and the metal man in case the Enemy wanted to come investigate.

Smith and his buddies were several dozen miles away from their battlefield when Smith made the call to pull over into the brush and take a real break. He dialed up Command, a line to General Turner. He knew the general was safe to talk to because he got regular updates on the general’s operations.

“Turner.”

“This is Commander Smith of fourth armored squadron.”

“Ah, Commander. Congratulations on your promotion. How are you doing?”

“Fine, sir, and thank you. We just engaged and destroyed a rainbow-colored metal man. Asking for confirmation on what it was.”

Smith sent pictures to the general. Smith’s phone was confirmed as Turner acknowledged receiving them.

“Pride Trooper.”

“So, that was what it was?”

“Yes, Commander. That’s a pride trooper.”

“What is it?”

“A robotic shell where someone can download their consciousness into it to use a battlefield supersoldier. The Enemy uses them as shock troopers. We’ve downed three so far in NYC. They don’t take too kindly to Stingers.”

“The one that engaged us spouted some kind of nonsense about letting us surrender. We engaged it but it had an energy shield, phasers, and laser cannons. Three rounds and a TOW missile took it down, although its shield was offline.”

That troubled Turner. The three that he and his men downed did not use an energy shield. This may be a new model being deployed by the Enemy.

“They often say things like that. The thinkers are theorizing that they’re zealots for the cause. A number of the younger soldiers mentioned words like ‘Woke’ and ‘Leftist’. I don’t know what they mean, all I know is that they’re trying to kill us, so we’ll kill them first.

“Anything else, Commander?”

“No, sir.”

“Talk to you later, then. Stay safe.”

General Turner disconnected the call.

Turner wasn’t for unencrypted communications but surprisingly his IT and E-WAR people relayed no changes in movement for the Enemy regardless of how open and unencrypted communications were. They even tested actual strategic information of troop movements but no change in the Enemy’s positioning. It was as if the Enemy didn’t know how to check in or were deliberately ignoring American movements. Regardless, he had people under his command have some level of security when communicating, just in case someone was listening in to it.

Komandarn Nolan furled his brow. The Americans attacking his headquarters building were driven off by the deployment of Class 2 Robotic Tanks and a small army of Class 1 Robotic Soldiers, but one of the Republican Guard was shot down by a man portable missile. That was the third one in the last two weeks. He would need to be more forcible with their deployment, or lack of deployment. It was going to be somewhat of a problem, as the individuals that downloaded themselves into the Guardspeople frames did not like the term ‘conservative’ very much and would go completely ham on the Americans at every chance they got. Nolan would need to choose his words more carefully in the future to ensure his Republican Guard didn’t go flying off the handle and getting their frames destroyed. High Command only gave him a limited number of these assets.

He didn’t order the robots into the buildings after the fleeing Americans. He could have, as the pathfinding code was more than capable of navigating the tight spaces, but he didn’t want to risk robots running into traps. He didn’t have access to a proper robotics factory at this time. One such facility was being constructed in former Philadelphia. But it wouldn’t be finished and producing robots for the revolution for at least another year.

The elevator door opened to his field headquarters. A Guardsperson walked into the room.

“Finished my assignment, Komandarn Nolan. Those Americans are short twenty men and two fighting vehicles. I’m ready for my next assignment against the bigots.”

“Good, good,” responded Nolan. “We’re getting movements and sensor trips in Englewood. Go there and investigate. Don’t hesitate to call for reinforcements. The People have lost three Guardspeople frames in the last two weeks. The People cannot afford to get into a protracted attritional war.”

“Acknowledged, Komandarn.”

“Dismissed.”

The Guardsperson spun around and called for the elevator again. Once they left, Nolan turned his attention to the command board, where American rebel movements were being tracked.

“Technician Pearl.”

“Yes, Komandarn?”

“Move a battalion of Class 1 Frames and a column of Class 2 Tanks across the bridge to Fort Lee. I don’t trust that Guardsperson to not fly off the handle and get themselves taken out. I want to have reinforcements in the area to back them up.”

“Yes, Komandarn! Rerouting frames as we speak!”

“For the People.”

“For the People!” cheered Nolan’s command staff.

“I need a break.” To the command room, Nolan said, “I’ll be in my ready room for a couple hours. Send updates to my communicator but don’t interrupt me for the next two or so hours.”

“Yes, Komandarn!” responded his command staff.

Nolan walked out of the command room. He took the elevator to a higher floor. Nolan called the People’s Building Staff for the headquarters.

“This is Komandarn Nolan Mitchell. I am requesting Service 89676 to my room at Floor 56. I am selecting Staff Member ID 456 to be prepared for a session. I need the stress relief.”

“Yes, Komandarn. By the Will of the People, it will be done.”

Nolan clicked off his communicator. He got off at the intended floor and entered his assigned apartment. Nolan beelined for the bathroom to wash his face and body. Directing the destruction of the American rebels was not an especially hard job. But he was getting annoyed by the waiting. Nolan didn’t want to indiscriminately destroy buildings in order to get at them. He also didn’t want to liberally sweep through the city and take excessive casualties.

The Americans were on the backfoot. They would eventually be driven out. Nolan just needed to keep his cool and slowly apply heat and pressure to the pot they were going to boil in. The American frogs would boil. Nolan smiled at the thought of finally killing off the Americans and securing the Middle States with New People’s City at the site of the former New York City.

Nolan stepped into the shower and started to wash his body. He heard doors open and people shuffling in. Some muffled voices were heard, too. That must be the Service Staff. Once he was done with his shower, Nolan would enjoy his stress session.

Nolan finished rinsing and stepped out of the shower. He picked up a towel and dried him. Nolan didn’t bother with getting his clothes, instead affixing the towel around his waist. Nolan existed the bathroom, turning off the light as he left, and made his way to the bedroom.

It was not a big bedroom. Maybe 20 feet squared. But it did have a king’s sized bed, something he requested and was given once the People’s Service Staff found such an apartment with the specifications.

The lights were on but dimmed.

On the bed was a woman.

This was Staff Member 456.

She kneeled on the bed, her hands handcuffed behind her and her eyes blindfolded. A handcuff chain was attached to her left ankle and connected to the bed post. A key laid on the bedside table.

She wore satin lingerie, specifically a babydoll, colored dark red. The favorite color of the revolution.

She was nervous.

Nolan liked nervous. He licked his lips.

Nolan took in her beauty.

She appeared to be above average height despite her kneeling position. She was Caucasian, slim, with straight brown hair going to her shoulders. She had a small bosom, maybe 32B. She appeared to be young. Not that young, but young enough to be confused for that kind of young. Nolan used to visit the Island. Those were the good ole days before the Revolution, where he had the pick of the litter and all the pleasure he could handle.

Nolan liked them like that.

Nolan approached the woman. His footsteps alerted her to his presence and she started to visibly shake, afraid of him. Silent tears rolled down her face.

Nolan reached the bed and cupped his left hand around her chin. He pulled himself close to her and whispered in her ear, “Shh, don’t cry.”

The woman didn’t stop.

With a bit more authority in his voice, Nolan continued, “I said, don’t cry.”

It didn’t work as intended. She stopped shaking, but the tears kept silently going.”

Nolan slapped her.

“By the Will of the People, I command you to stop crying.”

She stopped, red mark on her cheek notwithstanding.

“Good.”

Nolan took off his towel and tossed it aside. He sat on the bed behind her, pulling her into his lap and felt her up. She could feel his member pressed against her backside and shivered in anticipation of what was to come. Nolan ran his hands across her shoulders, arms, waist, and chest, taking care to cup her breasts and pinch her nipples. She signed at his touch and squeaked when he pinched her.

“There, that’s better. When you do as you are told, better things happen to you.”

Nolan slid his right hand down from her chest, across her stomach, and into her panties. The woman gasped at his touch. Nolan kept the left hand on her breast, cupping and squeezing it as he rubbed her nether region.

“Tell me what you are.”

“I’m a filthy white liberal.”

“Say it again, but with more character.”

“I’m a filthy white liberal whore.”

“The People would describe me as sun-kissed. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes...”

Nolan removed his left hand from her breast and gripped her neck. “‘Yes, Daddy’ to you.”

She gasped at his touch and grip, “Yes, Daddy.”

“Getting better. Not quite good enough. What do you want?”

“I want your cock.”

“Say it with character.”

“I want your big throbbing cock.”

“Uh, uh, uh,” Nolan squeezed her neck lightly.