Charlotte Keene

Story so far

Charlotte is Donald’s younger sister and an Air Force drone pilot who served in Iraq during the Second Iranian War. Donald said she struggled to readjust after deployment, was diagnosed with PTSD after her first tour, and found her medication made her forgetful and caused a tic. She admired Thurman, who arranged her unexpected arrival at the convention just after she turned thirty. The blasts terrified her; Donald later remembered her helping pull him toward shelter before the women were put to sleep.

Donald eventually woke her after three centuries in a cryopod. Learning that their parents were gone, Charlotte recovered her strength through food, exercise, and drone work. Her first flights failed, and she assembled a radio from parts Donald supplied. Reading the Pact and his notes convinced her that all but one silo were intended to be exterminated. At first inclined to trust the computers and fearing intervention, she nevertheless came to suspect that her dying brother was preparing her escape.

When intruders beat Donald and took him away, Charlotte hid with the drone, then tried to learn his fate. Disguised in red reactor coveralls marked Stan, with grease on her face and her hair hidden, she stole a radio microphone. Eren attacked her in the lift; she stabbed him with a screwdriver while he strangled her and escaped with a bullet wound through her arm. After concealing her blood and preparing the drone lift as a hiding place, she installed the microphone and made contact with channel seventeen under her old call sign, charlie two-four.

Charlotte eventually gave Juliette her full name, Charlotte Keene, and identified Donald as her brother. She denied that he had destroyed Juliette’s silo, described his beating, and warned that computers would select only one silo to survive. She believed the poisoned region lay within a cloud with possible life beyond it, while acknowledging that her view had come through a camera. When Darcy found her, she offered the drones and Donald’s notes as evidence. She subsequently flew a drone beyond the damaged region, landed in real grass, and watched its sensor feed for another half hour.

She wanted to save Donald, even proposing to pilot a lightened drone carrying him away while she stayed behind. Instead, his plan sent her toward escape with Darcy. Charlotte tried to reach her brother as he left, then realized that he had always intended Darcy to take the second suit. She and Darcy helped each other dress, but she reached the surface alone through the drone lift and could not lower it again. Following the map taped to her arm, she climbed away from a widening collapse and whispered Donald’s name.

Charlotte arrives among Juliette’s survivors in a silver suit and collapses before Juliette reaches her. She identifies herself, explains that she came from a different place, and responds positively when Juliette invites her to join their long journey toward the water. Later, she sits beside Juliette at the fire, mostly quiet despite seeming to have much to say.

Appearance

Charlotte has dark hair, formerly worn in a military bun, and had recently turned thirty before her long cryosleep. She reaches the survivors wearing a silver protective suit; she is recovering from a gunshot wound to her arm.

Role

Her drone flights and radio testimony provide evidence of living country beyond the damaged region. She is now a survivor joining Juliette’s group.

Relationships