I am Stormwind, and I'm a super-soldier in the Dark Watch.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? It's not.
I signed my contract under duress and underage. Plus, no one informed me that I was now dead to the outside world. Not that the outside world is the greatest. Nine corporations have seized the United States and they run the government, the military and pretty much everything else in their quest for profit. We call them "Corpos."
Not sure what I thought I'd find at the Watch, but it wasn't wanton sexism and a shadowy leadership waiting for the right moment to kill me.
Something else I didn't expect was Firebird. The man is ungodly handsome, the Watch Lothario and exceedingly good at his job. Unfortunately, he's made it his mission to meddle in my life. For my own good, of course.
So far, it doesn't seem like we're fighting the Corpos. I fact, I'm beginning to wonder what our true purpose really is – another thing that puts me in mortal danger.
I joined the Watch to have something to live for. Now, I'm just trying to stay alive.
I am Stormwind, and I'm a super-soldier in the Dark Watch.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? It's not.
I signed my contract under duress and underage. Plus, no one informed me that I was now dead to the outside world. Not that the outside world is the greatest. Nine corporations have seized the United States and they run the government, the military and pretty much everything else in their quest for profit. We call them "Corpos."
Not sure what I thought I'd find at the Watch, but it wasn't wanton sexism and a shadowy leadership waiting for the right moment to kill me.
Something else I didn't expect was Firebird. The man is ungodly handsome, the Watch Lothario and exceedingly good at his job. Unfortunately, he's made it his mission to meddle in my life. For my own good, of course.
So far, it doesn't seem like we're fighting the Corpos. I fact, I'm beginning to wonder what our true purpose really is – another thing that puts me in mortal danger.
I joined the Watch to have something to live for. Now, I'm just trying to stay alive.
Alexandra/Stormwind
February 1977
There’s more than one way of committing suicide. There were the freezing waves of the Detroit River thrashing beneath me – as invisible in the darkness as the toes of my ratty sneakers sticking over the edge of the bridge. But even at seventeen I’d learned that most of what was important in life was invisible.
The wind whipped my ponytail across my face and sandpapered my already chapped cheeks with a blast of ice particles. I leaned my body into the open air over the water. All I had to do was let go of the rail and I would plummet into the black void below. Instant death – what most people thought of when they thought of suicide.
I pulled myself back upright and considered returning home to the vodka bottle I’d abandoned a half hour earlier. A much slower death, but so far my method of choice. It offered escape without the commitment of instant results.
The third option was one most people wouldn’t consider suicide. To them it would seem like a way out of this decaying slum and into the good life. Living like a princess with my grandparents in Boston. I'd have nice clothes, plenty to eat and attend a private college. Be part of the Executive class that profited from the misery of others. No thanks.
A car rumbled onto the bridge behind me. I ignored it until I was suddenly bathed in flashing red and blue lights. One last chance. I could let go and get it over with; stop running. But I didn’t. I was too much of a coward to go that way. I turned and clambered back over the rail, my ruined ankle yammering at me the whole way.
“Alexandra?” the cop asked, standing at the door of his cruiser. “What on earth are you doing?”
Damn. Why did it have to be someone I knew? “Sorry, Officer Morton. It was dumb.”
“Go home right now. Should I tell your father you wanted to jump off a bridge?”
“I wasn’t going to jump,” I mumbled, shoving my hands into the pockets of my threadbare coat and turning to hobble home.
Much to my irritation, he got back in his car and followed me. I knew he wasn’t allowed to offer me a ride anymore, but tailing me the whole way? What a jerk.
This neighborhood had always been working class, but since the Corpos had taken over it'd gone downhill fast. It wasn't because of crime either. It's because when you barely make enough to pay the mortgage, eat and keep yourself clothed, home maintenance goes by the wayside. Boarded up windows, a rock replacing a broken stair and lawns turned to dirt lots from lack of water gave the feel of abandonment. It didn't look so bad earlier in the evening when there were lights in some of the houses, though several families had already turned to candles for illumination as a way to save money.
I was almost home when I noticed a car idling in front of my house. It was dark and sleek as a panther – a shiny black GTO. I was immediately wary. The most common reason for well-heeled strangers in the seedy dockside neighborhoods of Detroit were bill collectors, which didn’t habitually show up at eleven o’clock at night.
As I drew near, I could make out a figure in the driver’s seat, his body turned, one arm over the back, looking at me. As determined as I was to die, my heartbeat still stepped up its tempo.
"Super-senses seemed like a great thing until you actually had them. Then you realized what a pain in the ass they were."
So says tough, snarky Alexandra (Codename: Stormwind) Legasov, a young half-American, half-Russian member of the Worker class, living in 1977 Detroit. After her mother and brother are killed in a drunk driving accident, Alex only has her father left. An accident has also ruined her ankle, destroying her hopes of becoming a professional ballet dancer. Depressed and with seemingly nothing to lose, Alex signs up to become an enhanced super-soldier in a covert program called The Dark Watch. She won't ever be a dancer, but she'll get her limp fixed--and she'll be able to climb out of an inevitably impoverished and oppressive working class life.
Alex is living in the harsh, alternate past history of H.L. Jackson's military science fiction novel Stormwind (Dark Watch Trilogy Book 1). In this world, Ayn Rand's Objectivism became the dominant political philosophy in 1970s America, with nine major corporations, or "Corpos," running every facet of human existence: the Corpos control the government. The Corpos control the military. The Corpos brand their employees (and their employee's children) with identifying tattoos. If you find yourself out of a job, the Corpos will make sure that you starve to death.
The Dark Watch is a secret organization trying to overthrow the Corpos and end their influence, or so they claim. The leadership is mysterious and untrustworthy, often sending their super-soldiers on dangerous missions with bad Intel and making dubious decisions about performance enhancing drugs. Alex, or Stormwind, survives her painful super-soldier conversion and begins a difficult training regimen to be a squad leader--but some of her powers are so formidable and rare that she must keep them a secret. Additionally, she faces brutal sexism from some of her male cohort, who don't believe that a woman is competent or strong enough to lead or face combat. Stormwind's biggest detractor is the handsome playboy Firebird, who tries to harass her into quitting the Watch. Though Firebird, it turns out, is much more complex than he seems on the surface.
Stormwind is a thrilling and thought-provoking take on a different king of corporate America: one unfortunately not far from our current world of corrupt lobbyists and Citizens United. Jackson succeeds at both building complicated characters and plotting epic scenes of tense mission intrigue, giving the book plenty of heart and action in equal measure. Stormwind has so much adversity standing in her way, and it's a cathartic blast to see her prove all the misogynists wrong. I did wish that the book's supplemental material about the world came at the beginning of the narrative, as opposed to at the end, but overall this was a fun read, and I'm excited to see what Jackson comes up with in the sequels.