Name: 1st Lt. Jane Penelope Guin

(Note: This recording was found in a long stretch of desert in New Mexico, buried in a heap of rubble that may have, at one time, been a house. If it was, it wasn't one for over a century.)

'Is this on? Okay. Good. I'm Jane Guin. I'm recording this in case I'm... No, I'm not going to say it just yet. You'd stop listening if I did. So here goes.

Who was I? A nobody. Before the citybusters fell? I was a VTOL pilot in the US Air Force, I paid my taxes, and before the war I drove the kids to school. Married young, had kids young, divorced young. My husband was actually pretty successful in Hollywood, and no, I have no idea if he survived. In a way I hope he didn't.

But that's not important, really. Who was I? A nobody. Until the day after the bombs fell. I was a survivor. That made me somebody. Being alive was being somebody.

I figure the first few times I talked about my kids, I probably cried my eyes out. It's been too long for tears to come now. Too long and too many hard lessons. Let's just say they didn't survive. I didn't get to bury them.

The first few months, no one knew what was going on. We didn't know about the Reckoners or anything like that. Just that everything had gone to hell, and there wasn't going to be any more PTA meetings or family picnics anymore. My unit disbanded as the VTOLs were grounded due to lack of fuel and spare parts. People started splitting up, going here, there. I didn't really know what to do at first. It's not like my skillset was in high demand with nothing left to fly.

Or so I thought.

Turns out Throckmorton's army needed people who knew how to fly. I'd been in the  US Air Force, VTOL pilot/door-gunner. I was encouraged to join them. I know now that if I'd said no, I'd be six feet under. As things went, I didn't have anything to live for, so I said yes.

I'm going to skip what I did for them. I'll just say that when you're that high above the combat, you don't think much about your targets as anything more than dots on a screen. You can't even hear them. Something like that? Takes away your humanity really quick.

It all came to a crashing end about two months ago. Literally. I was flying a mission out here in New Mexico, long-range reconnaisance, when something... And I have no idea what... Picked me out of the air like gravity's own assassin. I tumbled and crashed, and blacked out. My assumption would be that with the plane busted, the headbanger would kill me.

Well, obviously, it didn't.

I woke up a few days later. I was inside this little adobe house, and there was this family... We didn't share a language. I thought they were speaking spanish first, but I don't know now. Anyway, they'd found me, and were nursing me to health. I protested. I knew if Throckmorton's army found them, they'd be enslaved or killed. I couldn't have that. Not to people who were helping me.

Well, I'd gotten a nasty infection, and between the fever and not sharing a language, we didn't communicate real well. All I know is I passed out a lot, but I got better... And they prayed a lot. I couldn't tell what they were saying, but there's a cadence, you know?

Anyway... It was a few weeks later that I could walk on my own again. We still didn't understand words, but we understood each other. they wanted me to stay. I didn't want to bring hell down on top of them.

*there is a long pause in the recording*

I snuck out. Middle of the night several days later. I wanted to see if I could find something in the wreckage that would get me back to my unit. I'd never speak of the place again. The black hats would never know.

When I was out at the wreckage, I scrounged for a few hours. Something in me, though, said I couldn't. I couldn't go back. Not after all this. So... I walked back to the house.

It was sunrise. The house wasn't there.

Yeah. I think I may be going crazy. I didn't get lost. There was the ruins of a house where I'd been taken care of, but... Aw hells. I know how it sounds. I don't know how to explain it. I just know that someone, or something, took care of me, made sure I didn't die.

And they made me feel human again.

I can't go back to Throckmorton and let them take that away from me again.'


Description:

Jane is dressed in an old patched camouflage USAF VTOL crew flight suit with black turtleneck, a bandanna around her neck and a black USAF beret or US Army boonie hat on her head. She wears a Russian-style chest ammo harness over a Police Vest and a brown leather bomber jacket, and combat boots. When manning the MG, she wears a USAF flight helmet, although without the face mask or radio.

When not manning the Ma-Deuce, She's armed with an HI SAW and 3x spare 60-round magazines and a grenade in her ammo pouches. She carries a machete in a back sheath. She keeps a few clothes, a parka, poncho, 2 canteens, shelter half, mess-kit, 2 Milrats and a pair of sunglasses in a pack.

Her blonde hair is cut short over piercing blue eyes and she looks younger than she is.



12.7mm Hellfire SAW