Hello readers! Welcome. As I mentioned in the summary, this is a very AU piece and involves quite a bit of belief suspension. It involves slavery, flashbacks related to slavery, non-sexual leashing & collaring, angst, friendship, family and some other things. If this doesn't sound like something you'd like to read, by all means, click away from the page. I invented several characters to fill in where needed. This prologue is an info-dumpy explanation of why this AU world is the way it is. You don't need to read it to understand the plot of the story, though I think it would be very helpful. Lastly, I have nothing against China, it was just a convenient country to use. And now... *curtain rises*

Rules and Laws in regards to slaves set forth by the government of China, pertaining to Quadrant E, vicinities 3-5, of the country formerly known as the

United States.

All slaves are to be collared at all times and have a visible ID tag.

Slaves venturing out in public must be leashed.

Everyone over age twenty is a slave until they become a free person at age forty. Those over age forty are free people and subject to the benefits of a free person.

Every slave has a ten-digit serial number by which they are recognized by the state.

Any discrepancies about slave ownership will be settled by the local laoban. Their word is final.

It began when China discovered a new kind of element deep in the Yellow River. They called it Jing Manna-Chi, or 'life-giving energy.' From that element, scientists in Beijing figured out a way to synthesize and process it to create a clean, green, energy source that replaced fossil fuels. China exported the new material to other countries, and within a matter of months, people on every continent were clamoring for more. It burned hotter, lasted longer, and was much better for the environment than fossil fuels. The new fuel was tightly regulated and exported and China became the world's most powerful country in a matter of years. People moved away from limited fossil fuels to embrace the seemingly endless supply of clean energy. China grew wealthier, her armies grew stronger, and she soon controlled a generous portion of the world's economy. Many countries floundered under China's control. Some disappeared entirely.

When Chinese leaders discovered fertile pockets of Jing Manna-Chi in other places on the globe, they marched in, created mines to access the element, and used brutal tactics to force people from the local populations into slavery to work the mines.

People dubbed the riots and wars that took place to protest China's sudden and alarming rise to power as The Fall, referring to the fall of civilization as people knew it. Thousands died. Once proud cities burned to ash. People fled and scattered when those in positions of power were unable to hold back the driving dragon force of China's power and greed for the element.

When the dust settled, when the Chinese leaders had the whole world on a leash firmly fisted in their palms, they built more mines. One of the most fertile areas for mining was in the Appalachian Mountain range and the surrounding area.

As slavery became the norm, previous government organizations—England's MI5, Japan's NPA, and the US's FBI, CIA, and NCIS branches—disintegrated and the states and countries were dissolved and organized into small divisions to be governed by a single person, called a laoban. Washington D.C. was one of those divisions—even though now it was called Quadrant E, Vicinity 5. It was one of the more successfully run divisions, with relatively low crime and decent employment rate. A woman named Ching-Lan was named the laoban and she had ten thousand people under her thumb.

Every able-bodied, healthy citizen under the age of forty and over age twenty was deemed a slave, and their China-assigned slave serial numbers were dropped in a pool to be drawn out at random—those chosen worked the mines. It wasn't long before people started snapping up new slaves for their own personal use, using literally any means possible to keep them docile. The idea of personal slaves caught on quickly, and those who could afford it eagerly bought slaves for themselves. The Fall was in 1998. The year is now 2003.