Season 1, Episode 5 - The Boxtops VI - "The Exceptionalism"

“Hey, buddy,” Jackson said aloud, back in the jail cells below the Academy. “You deep in thought like usual?”

Alfie frowned, because he was deep in thought. He gave his companion in the cells the usual answer. “Tch.”

“That’s what I thought.” Jackson’s voice sounded like he didn’t have a care in the world. Jackson refused to cooperate with the Academy, so as Alfie gradually gained his freedoms, Jackson continued to laze around his jail cell. Alfie started working with the Academy before they applied “enhanced interrogation techniques” on him – he wondered if they put Jackson through them by this point. They did occasionally take him out of his cell, after all. But the man seemed so mellow, so content with that little jail cell.

“What do you think of the New Englanders?” Jackson asked.

“I am a New Englander,” Alfie reminded him.

“Ah, I forgot. But you’re only ethnically a New Englander. When it comes to a sense of belonging – let alone citizenship – you're just as New Englander as I am. Perhaps even less so.”

“Tch.”

Jackson chuckled. “See, none of it makes sense to me. New Englanders aren’t a race. They’re not an ethnicity. Everybody in the former United States, we’re all part of an alleged American race. But is the American race even a thing? Seems to me there's just a human race and that’s it. But you only spent a few weeks in a well-to-do Rddhi district. You haven’t seen the New England I have.”

Jackson hummed a few bars of the New England national anthem, then continued. “See, Rddhi districts are, shall we say, a little more cosmopolitan than the rest of the country. The textbooks are slightly different – more about loyalty to your school and district rather than the nation. But don’t get me wrong, they’re still far more nationalist than you or me. All these kids get taught that New Englanders are the only true Americans. That they’re the only true successors to the United States. And that gives them both the right and duty to reconquer the rest of the former United States.”

Jackson whistled. “Isn’t that something? The New Englanders used this ideology to make themselves into a separate people. Their belief that they’re the true successor to the American Revolution and the United States is what keeps them apart from other Americans. New Englanders and New Yorkers are just made up ideas. We’re all American, and Americans are just humans, just like any other people.”

“Then why’d you join Asenov and the CEF?” Alfie found himself asking. “They’re notorious for being anti-New England.”

“Hating New England is what makes them just like New England,” Jackson said. “Talk about irony. Their belief in us versus them is what creates the us and the them. But maybe they got a point. Maybe you can’t put America together again, maybe all the regions have gone their own separate ways and made themselves into separate peoples. But that’s above my pay grade. To answer your question, joining the CEF was just something to do.”

“Something to do?”

Jackson chuckled. “Yeah. Women, money, adventure. I moved millions of goods and dollars, slept with several dozen good-looking women, and now I’m locked in a jail cell. You don’t get that working a desk job.”

Alfie groaned. “To think, I’m here because I had no choice. And you chose to be here just to sleep with people.”

“You had a choice,” Jackson answered. His voice remained calm, but Alfie thought he detected just the hint of an edge to it. “You could’ve run away. Escaped. You could've made a break for it once they let you loose in the capital. Yet you continued the mission because you want what? Freedom? Your pursuit of freedom is what keeps you chained up. You've spent your whole life as a slave to the pursuit of freedom. Me? All I’ve wanted is a beer in one hand and a titty in the other. I could fulfill my pursuit every night.”

Alfie supposed Jackson had a point, but then he thought of the people he met recently.

“Did you find meaning in any of that?”

Jackson didn’t answer for a moment.

“Huh?”

“Do you think beers and ‘titties’ are meaningful?”

Jackson snorted.

“I suppose the answer to a question like comes down to who’s asking.”

The sound of the door to the cell block opening interrupted their conversation. The iron door scraped against the concrete floor, and then the two could hear the forceful, rhythmic sound of footsteps heading down the hall, walking with authority.

Jackson’s cell was located closer to the door. “Morning, Class Rep,” he greeted nonchalantly.

Alfie cracked his neck. Time for his daily interaction about math and science and other unnecessary things.

“Alfie,” Mackenzie greeted him, standing on the other side of his cell door. Alfie could see her through the bars – she was tall, as tall as him, with long blonde hair and a stern look on her face that said she did not take her duties lightly.

“Class Rep.” That was his usual answer, given in his usual bored tone.

“I told you, call me Mackenzie,” she said, crossing her arms. “Did you do the homework?”

“I always do,” Alfie muttered, then handed her the papers through the bars. The Technical Servicemen chained the pencil he used to the shelf, so it’s not like he could attack her with it. He didn’t have the anti-Rddhi device on his hand either, but when he casually taunted Mackenzie about attacking her with the Rddhi, she simply said she would kick his ass. Alfie decided he was better off keeping things civil.

“We had some short answers for history,” Mackenzie said, shuffling through the papers. “Let’s see. Question number two. What was the Nash Incident?”

Mackenzie read his answer aloud. “The Nash Incident was an event following the American War. In the days after the peace treaty, occupying Canadian forces crossing the Maine border accidentally activated a nuclear landmine buried there by the American government some time before the Unleashing. While the Canadian unit and several villages were completely wiped out, due to the remote location of the bomb, casualties were relatively light compared to similar nuclear landmine activations in Europe and Korea.”

Mackenzie looked up from the paper. “It’s First American War.”

“...tch.”

“Awfully fatalist of you people,” Jackson called out from his cell. “First American War. You’ve resigned yourselves to thinking that there’ll be a second.”

“Of course there’ll be a second,” Mackenzie sharply answered. “How else are we going to fix the issues caused by the first?”

“You’re not immune to your textbooks, either.”

Mackenzie narrowed her eyes; sitting on his bed in the cell, even with hard metal bars separating him from the Class Rep, Alfie slightly scooched away from her.

Mackenzie crossed her arms. “Oh, I’m sorry, did the drug-running smuggler have something to say about morality and thought?”

“I just call it like I see it,” Jackson answered in a cheerful voice. “And I suppose you two aren’t that bad. In other districts, they got taught that the Canadians detonated a leftover atomic bomb on purpose because a, they’re a fractured people ruled by independent, warmongering warlords in dire need of the New England civilizing mission, and b, because they hate New Englanders and wanted to give you guys a show of force.”

“Your not going to touch any titties talking like that,” Alfie mumbled. Mackenzie shot him a confused look; Alfie just sighed.

“Tell me, Class Rep,” Jackson continued. “What do you think about New England? About your people?”

“My people?” Mackenzie repeated. After thinking on it, she spoke in a proud voice. “Well, you said it yourself. They’re my people. We’re New Englanders.”

“Could you say there’s a New England race?”

Mackenzie nodded. “Sure! We’re a unique people. We’re the only ones who truly understand what it means to be an American.”

Jackson let out a long laugh, and even Alfie felt a slight amusement at the irony he was watching unfold in real time.

“What?” Mackenzie demanded to know. She balled her fists and stared daggers at Jackson’s direction. “Am I wrong? New England was the birthplace of the American Revolution and will also be the birthplace of the second. Could a New Yorker like you really understand what being an American means?"

She shook her head. "All you guys are just obsessed with making money and the bottom line. Being an American involves bringing liberty and the pursuit of happiness to those in need of it. And the whole of the former United States needs it right now. We really do have a civilizing mission, a duty to reunite the country-”

Jackson’s laughter interrupted her.

Alfie chuckled, then felt the anger literally radiating off of Mackenzie through her waves.

“I’m effing serious!”

And she didn’t say effing.

The guard, a Technical Serviceman named Jon, checked in on them to see what the hubbub was about. Alfie got a brief glance of him; one look from Mackenzie made him decide that leaving them to their business was the wisest decision. He returned to his metal chair at the entrance to the hallway.

Mackenzie poured her heart out to them, as if speaking for all of New England. “You New Yorkers, all you care about is money and power and greed. But New Englanders still carry the American Dream with them. That’s why we have to reunite America! We have to uplift the other peoples who have lost their way! Our knowledge, our customs and lifestyles, it’s what makes us superior-”

Mackenize cut her words off, realizing how much she had worked herself up.

For some reason, Alfie’s heart hurt. Just a tiny bit. “I never took you for someone like that.”

Mackenzie raised an eyebrow, her usual calm yet arrogant look returning to her face. “Like what? A patriot? Thinking like this is what makes us, us. Ask Isaac or anybody. It’s who we are as a people. It’s how we feel.”

Her face softened. “And it’s why we want you to join us. You’re a New Englander, too, you know.”

A sense of belonging, let alone citizenship.

Alfie didn’t understand. “Huh?”

“You’ve proven your loyalty to us,” Mackenzie explained. Her voice sounded soft, each word a warm invitation. “I came down here today to tell you that the Academy is allowing you to partake in regular classes now.”

“...huh?”

“Before seventh period, I’ll come down and get you. You’ll spend a few weeks just in Rddhi Theory with us, testing the waters, and if all goes well, you’ll be allowed to attend classes for the full day.” Mackenzie grinned. “And that means you need to wear the school uniform.”

Alfie looked down as his own ratty shirt and pants that marked him as a prisoner.

“A school uniform,” Alfie mumbled. He looked up at Mackenzie in a new light. “You mean...I’m becoming one of you?”

“That’s right. You’re becoming one of us.” She gave him a playful smile. “And to be honest, that makes me happy.”

Happy.

A sense of belonging.

A people.

“But...why?”

“Why does it make me happy?” Mackenzie repeated.

Alfie's question was more about why they considered him one of them, but he had to admit, he was curious all the same.

She put a hand on her hip and pointed a finger at him with the other. Her smile radiated with self-confidence.

“Because I’m your effing Class Rep, that’s why.”

And she didn’t say – well, you know the rest.