Early Life & Abandonment

Birth and Early Childhood (Age 0-4)

America was born in Eden's Landing, a small settlement her parents founded south of the old interstate after escaping Prometheus Station. Her mother, Kasumi—the first and most powerful of the Genesis-Born—named her after The United States of America, believing her daughter would change the world. It was an enormous expectation to place on an infant, but Kasumi saw in her daughter the potential to heal what she herself could not.

America inherited Kasumi's sensory dissociation: the complete inability to feel physical pain. For Kasumi, this was a survival mechanism built into her bio-engineered body. For America, born fully human but carrying traces of her mother's unique physiology, it was simply part of who she was. She could be injured, burned, or broken without feeling it—a condition that would define her relationship with the world and with herself.

Her early years in Eden's Landing were brief and fragmented. Vegas crime families, drawn by rumors of Kasumi's power and fearful of what she represented, targeted the settlement. When America was still an infant, assassins struck. Kasumi was fatally wounded protecting her family. In truth, this was her end—she gave everything to ensure The Archivist and America could escape.

The Archivist, grief-stricken and losing control to Void Sickness—a dangerous contaminant that caused violent outbursts—made the agonizing decision to take infant America to The Archive. He believed she would be safer away from him, protected by scholars who could raise her in stability. He entrusted her to Magdalene, a brilliant woman dying of cancer, and then disappeared into the wasteland, his memories fragmenting as Void Sickness consumed him. America's first abandonment was an act of love. She would never know that until it was almost too late.

The Archive Years (Age 4-14)

Magdalene raised America in The Archive's underground facility with as much love as her failing health allowed. She read to her, taught her to think critically, and tried to shield her from the cruelty of the other children. But America was different in ways that made acceptance impossible. She was autistic, processing the world through patterns and routines that others found strange. She was tall and awkward, growing faster than her peers. And most damning of all, she couldn't feel pain.

The other children tested this. They pinched her, pushed her, burned her with hot metal from the Archive's machinery—not out of scientific curiosity, but out of cruelty. When America didn't cry or flinch, they called her a monster. A freak. Something wrong. She learned to hide her injuries, wrapping burns in cloth and pretending her broken fingers were fine because admitting she hadn't noticed the damage only made things worse.

Magdalene saw what was happening and tried to intervene, but her cancer was progressing. Without Kasumi's healing power—which Magdalene had refused even when offered, too depressed to accept help—her time was running out. She knew she couldn't give America the life she deserved. So Magdalene made the hardest decision of her life: she placed fourteen-year-old America with Kim, a fellow scholar, and her husband Jared, hoping they could provide the stability and care she could no longer offer.

Before she died, Magdalene gave America a teddy bear named Mollie. It was soft, worn, and smelled faintly of old books. "This is for when you feel alone," Magdalene told her, her voice weak. "You hold Mollie, and you remember someone loved you enough to let you go." America didn't understand then. She does now.

The Barrens (Age 14)

Kim and Jared tried. For a few months, they genuinely tried to make it work. But America's needs overwhelmed them. Her meltdowns when routines were disrupted, her inability to recognize social cues, her tendency to injure herself without noticing—it was too much. They weren't equipped to handle a neurodivergent teenager with a rare medical condition. So they made a choice that would haunt America for the rest of her life: they drove her to The Barrens—a treacherous stretch of irradiated wasteland—and left her there to die.

America doesn't remember much of what they said. She remembers the car stopping. She remembers them telling her to get out for "just a minute." She remembers the sound of the engine starting again and the dust cloud as they drove away. And then she remembers the silence.

For weeks—maybe months, she lost track—America survived The Barrens alone. Her sensory dissociation became a twisted advantage: injuries that would incapacitate others didn't slow her down. She walked on a sprained ankle without limping. She burned her hands on hot metal scavenging supplies and kept working. She bled from cuts she didn't notice until she saw the stains on her clothes. Her body kept moving even when it should have collapsed.

But emotional pain? That, she felt. Every night, America clutched Mollie and cried herself to sleep, asking the empty sky why everyone left. What was wrong with her? Why wasn't she worth keeping?

Rescue and The Vanguard (Age 14-19)

Callie Reyes found her purely by chance. The Vanguard was on a scouting mission through The Barrens when Callie spotted movement near an old overpass—a tall, painfully thin girl digging through wreckage with bleeding hands she didn't seem to notice. Callie approached cautiously, expecting hostility or fear. Instead, America looked up and said, "Do you have food?"

Callie gave her a packaged snack cake from her pack. America devoured it, and when Callie asked if she wanted to come with them, America simply nodded. She had nowhere else to go. What sealed their bond wasn't the rescue—it was a small, seemingly insignificant moment: Callie pointed at America's hair and said, "Hey, we match." Both had auburn-toned hair, though Callie's was a brighter shade. America smiled for the first time in months.

Life in The Spire with The Vanguard was better, but America still felt like an outsider. She helped with duties around the tower—organizing supplies, repairing equipment, documenting inventory—but she never quite fit into any specific group. The engineers found her too slow to keep up. The soldiers found her too awkward for combat training. The scouts appreciated her attention to detail but didn't invite her on missions. She existed in the gaps, useful but never essential.

Callie was the exception. Callie treated her like a little sister, checking in on her, making sure she ate, teasing her gently when she got lost in her own head. For five years, Callie was the only person who made America feel like she mattered. But even Callie had responsibilities that pulled her away. America learned not to expect too much. Expecting too much always led to disappointment.

Meeting The Archivist (Age 19)

When a stranger arrived at The Spire asking questions about the area, America was assigned to show him around. She was terrible at it. She rambled about supply routes and forgot to mention important landmarks. She got flustered and apologized too much. She expected him to get annoyed and ask for someone else.

Instead, The Archivist listened. Really listened. When she stammered through an explanation of how The Vanguard organized their resources, he asked thoughtful follow-up questions. When she mentioned she liked to draw, he asked to see her work. And when she accidentally revealed her fear of abandonment—"People don't usually stick around once they realize I'm... different"—he looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite read and said, "Different isn't bad. Different is just different."

Something about him felt familiar, though America couldn't explain why. She felt safe around him in a way she hadn't felt since Magdalene. When he asked if she wanted to travel with him through the wasteland, she said yes without hesitation. For months, they wandered together. He taught her how to survive outside settlements. She sketched the places they visited and told him stories about her childhood in The Archive.

Neither of them knew they were father and daughter. The Archivist's memories had been fragmented by Void Sickness and years of trauma. America had no clear memories of her parents—just the vague sense that they'd left her behind. But there was a pull between them, an unspoken recognition that something connected them beyond circumstance.

The Revelation

The truth came out during one of The Archivist's absences. He'd left on a dangerous mission, telling America to stay behind at a settlement where she'd be safe. Days passed. Then weeks. America heard fragments of news filtering through—something about a crisis in The Frontier, accusations, Republic forces mobilizing—but no word from him. The old fears came roaring back: *He's not coming back. No one ever comes back. You're alone again.*

She wandered away from the settlement in a daze, not really knowing where she was going or what she was doing. Everything felt distant and unreal. She ended up in an abandoned building, sitting on the floor with Mollie clutched in one hand and a knife in the other. She stared at her arm. She couldn't feel pain. What was the point of trying to hurt herself when her body wouldn't cooperate? But maybe if she bled enough, someone would notice. Maybe if she was broken visibly, someone would care enough to fix her.

That's when Rachel Vance found her. Rachel had been searching frantically after realizing America had left the settlement. When she saw what was about to happen, she didn't lecture or judge. She just sat down on the dusty floor beside America and told her the truth: The Archivist was her father. A photograph had been found—America as a baby with The Archivist and a woman named Kasumi. He hadn't known until recently, but he knew now. And he was alive. He was coming back.

When The Archivist finally arrived days later—exhausted, injured, having fought through whatever crisis had kept him away—and learned what had almost happened, he broke down. He told America everything: who he was, who Kasumi had been, how he'd left infant America with Magdalene at The Archive because Void Sickness was consuming him and making him dangerous. How he'd wandered for twenty years with fragmenting memories, not knowing he was searching for someone. How when he saw that photograph, everything finally clicked into place.

They cried together—ugly, heaving sobs that neither tried to hide. And when the tears finally stopped, America looked at him and said, "You came back."

"I'll always come back," he promised. It's a promise he's kept ever since.