Baroness Anastasia

People like to talk about how open minded, how accepting the world is now. It's not like the bad old days when people killed each other over the color of their skin, or by how much oil they had. But things haven't changed. Women and men are still measured by different rulers, and that's not even taking into account clones, or the rights of the biologically reborn, the mechanical men, the lifeforms that exist purely in the electronic realm. The enemies were once the masses of ignorant bigots, those who had their hearts choked with hatred. The new enemies have shown their hands and their hearts are filled with greed. They would turn humanity into pieces of their machine, man's back bent at labor, or plugged into the great machine, feeding it with their very souls and minds.

I was young once, idealistic. I fancied myself a revolutionary. I wore the jaunty military hat and quoted guerrilla poets, I spoke of Che, of Lenin and Trotsky, Mao and McVey. I looked good too, tight leather and exposed cleavage. But time weathered me. My youthful enthusiasm and optimism were crushed by the cold reality that no one cared. The rallies and the petitions were a waste of time. The activism campaigns and sit ins were a waste of time. No one cared.

To make things change, you have to make people care.

The Baroness Anastasia

Born Anna Stacy Copperfield, raised in the lap of luxury in the London Arcoplex. She attended private schools and never lacked for servants or maids, both human and clone, and even several androids. As she grew up, she became involved in several liberalist and communist movements, taking up picket signs and running online activism campaigns. She went from cause to cause, clone rights, reparations for war veterans, birther rights, women's rights, android's rights. She also went from boyfriend to boyfriend, dating clones, men of other ethnicities, cyborgs, criminals and women. She was a striking figure in tight leather pants and body suits that accented her sexy curves. She would try to sell her cause de jour with a healthy dose of sex.

The world proved immune to her grandiose ideals and plans. Her lovers used and abused her, discarded her when they were done with her. Her causes rose and fell, and she saw that the real power behind the scenes wasn't the people, wasn't democracy. It was money, and she learned the extent that the men in power would take to stay in power.

To Defeat a Monster, a Monster You Must Become

The worst idea I ever had was that defeating the capitalists and the corporatists would require that I become one of them. I went to college, London, Paris, Berlin I toured those cities, learned the ways of the Business Samurai. How to cut throats, how to cook books and float budgets swimming in red ink. It was sorcery on a scale I had never imagined. It was more corrupt than I had ever imagined, and I was so very good at it.

But no matter how high my scores were, no matter how many times I won the debate I was laughed at. Discretely of course, but to them I was still a silly girl. I should be at home, plugged into a S3 rig, or shopping for expensive things while my rich husband made money and fucked me when he took time from work to come home. I hated them all so completely. They were better dressed, and better mannered, but they were my old boyfriends all over again. They wanted the screw the world. My old boyfriends wanted to watch it burn, these men wanted to own it, dominate it, destroy it in their own way.