My name is Madonna Charlotte Adams. I was born Donald Charles Adams on July 12, 2105.

I'm the third child of six, the twins John Michael, Jr. and Jennifer are two years older than I am, and Bobby is two years younger, and the "baby" twins, Céleste and William, are three years younger. Our Daddy was John Michael Adams, Sr., Momma is Patricia Danielle, maiden name Emberly.

You'll notice that I mentioned our Daddy in the past tense. Well, the simple truth is that our father was killed in a work related accident at his factory just before Bobby's first birthday in October of 2108. This left Momma in an awkward position because Daddy left only a small pension in his will, barely enough to pay for his funeral and various legal costs. Momma was forced to find a job or go on assistance from the government to keep us all fed and housed. At that time, jobs were extremely scarce, and thus, Momma ended up on assistance.

In early November of 2108, Momma realized that she couldn't support us without another source of income, trying to feed four growing children on the pittance from the government was becoming an impossible task, even using every coupon or discount that she could find. This was necessary because she discovered that she was two months pregnant. The hardest part for Momma was when she found out that she would be having twins again.

So she went back out into the city looking for work, leaving us in the capable hands of an 18 year old girl named Thérèse. After spending almost a month looking for work with no prospects in sight, Momma decided to become a prostitute, and on the night of November 27th, she began to walk the streets in one of the seedier areas of the city.

What city, you ask? Well, that would be New Charleston, in what used to be the old state of South Carolina before the Second Civil War in 2073. That war ended with the former United States being split into a dozen or more small territories, each with their own military and government. The southeastern portion of the old United States was reborn as the Dixie Confederacy, consisting of the former states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The biggest change resulting from that war was the need to protect the cities from the fallout generated by the nuclear bombs that were launched during the war and the long term effects of greenhouse gases. Scientists had found a way to build giant bubbles that could be used to enclose the cities, and these were put into place, with the bubbles extending far enough from the old city borders to ensure that there was arable land for food crops.

The old rail systems were upgraded, then new lines were built deep underground, connecting the various cities within the Confederacy, as well as a few lines leading to major cities in the other territories across the continent and Canada to the north.

Momma went out every night, usually returning home around 4 AM. Some nights were good, some weren't, but Momma's earnings ensured that we would be able to eat well on a daily basis; what we didn't know was that she was putting about half of her earnings into a small lockbox in her closet, money that she intended to use for sending each of us to college.

Momma continued to go out and work the streets until the beginning of April of 2109, then stayed home until her water broke just after breakfast on June 1st. On June 2nd, just before 10 PM, after more than 36 hours of labour, the new twins, Céleste Marie and William Edward, were born. They weighed 7 lbs., 5 oz. And 7 lbs., 2 oz. Respectively. Cèleste was the elder by seven minutes.

Momma stayed home taking care of all of us, until the babies were fifteen months old.

On September 5th, 2110, Momma started walking the streets again. The babysitter, Thérèse, returned to take care of us. She would come over for supper, then babysit until the wee hours. Once I turned ten years old, I asked Momma if I could take over the babysitting, as Johnny and Jen weren't interested, being too busy with school and the never-ending circle of boyfriends or girlfriends; Momma agreed, with the understanding that Thérèse would always be on call for emergencies.

On May 5th, 2117, Momma was beaten and robbed by a john; she lost all her earnings for that night, about 500 credits. This caused Bobby to become extremely upset, actually, he was downright furious that anyone would harm Mommy. He vowed to replace the money.

On May 11th, after extensively checking out a wealthy neighbourhood, he stalked a woman as she was returning from a jeweler's. She was carrying a small, locked box under one arm, with an elegant purse hanging from her right shoulder.

She had no idea he was even there until he stabbed her the first time. She fell to the floor of the walkway, gasping in agony. For several minutes, in a mindless haze of rage, Bobby continued to stab her; when he regained his senses, he saw that she was dead.

Horrified, he screamed several times from the shock before he began to calm down; it was at this point that he felt a strange attraction to the blood and gore overlaying the still body of the formerly beautiful woman. While standing there looking at her, he dropped the knife, not even noticing that he had done so.

He knelt by the dead woman, picked up the box, and flipped the small latch, revealing several pieces of jewelry. He then checked her purse, finding a small wallet with several pieces of identification and some business cards, a bank card and three hundred credits in cash. Pocketing the money, the jewelry and the bank card, he looked down at the dead woman one last time, then proceeded to a pawnshop, where he sold the jewelry for over one thousand credits.

Bobby used the walkways, wandering around the city, trying not to show how nervous he was as a result of the killing, checking his timepiece every few minutes. When midnight finally arrived, he made his way to a bank machine, where he used the woman's card to withdraw the maximum amount, 5,000 credits, from her account.

Bobby returned home just before 1 AM to find Momma and I waiting up for him. We were very worried, Bobby was only nine years old and he was still awake long after his normal bedtime. He handed Momma the money and followed me to our room. Five minutes later, he was sound asleep.

I walked over to Momma's room, where I found her picking up a loose tile inside her closet. She found a crack in the floor and placed the money there. She replaced the tile, then placed a box filled with old and broken toys on top of the tile so that the money was now hidden from sight. Momma and I returned to the family rooms, where we talked about Bobby for almost an hour before going to our own beds.

At lunchtime the next day, two police officers came to our apartment; they charged Bobby with armed robbery and second degree murder. After they had finished reading him his rights, while he stood there sullenly listening, they handcuffed him and led him away.

The younger twins cried for more than three hours after Bobby was arrested. Momma took all of us to a snack bar, where she treated us to ice cream, hoping to calm us down and distract us from the arrest; due to our financial situation, this was a rare occurrence in our home, so it was something we usually enjoyed immensely, but even the ice cream couldn't fill the sudden hole in our lives. Momma and I didn't sleep at all that night.

Bobby was tried, convicted and sentenced on June 2nd. On July 6th, he was transferred to the juvenile Detention Facility on the edge of the city. The facility had its own private bubble, connected to the city's by an enclosed path with an airlock at each end. Little did I realize that I, too, would soon be there.