God and the Devil:
Sherri Caniff was an intelligent, ethical, tough woman in charge of the BASIC (Bay Area Systems of Inter-Communication) System of the world of Grendel in the era of Pope Innocent XLII.
As the head of a System (which were essentially corporation-states within the western United States in the future, after a nuclear war), she was also a member of the Board, the only centralized government.
Her chief head of Labor was Orion Assante. He wanted to investigate Innocent and the Church, on of the few non-System powers in the world. They were taking enormous amounts of money from the people during their services and using it for mysterious purposes. She helped him get the Board to commission a committee, headed by Assante, to investigate the Church.
Assante was successful in his investigations, and Caniff continued to support him, although some of her fellow Board members were against him. She was smart, and also knew he was operating against the Church through other means outside his committee, including the Deva Princes, but she didn’t stop him from doing so. It was around this time that Orion started thinking that he could love her.
When Orion brought evidence that the Church had plans for a nuclear device, Sherri and the Board have him new powers to regulate the Church. However, the Church retaliated, summoning Sherri to their new Inquisition, where she would surely be tortured and killed. As a registered Catholic, she had to go, and she was very afraid. Orion looked into it, and found out that she was being accused of heresy, and that her accuser was being blackmailed to lie about her. He exposed the blackmailer, and Sherri was saved.
After Orion uncovered further malfeasance by the Church, he asked for more powers and also immunity from the Inquisition for himself and the Board, which they granted, having Sherri’s example in mind. However, when he once again asked for more power after finding out about a strange plan involving 600 tons of bananas, they balked and asked him to to go public with it. He quit and held a press conference, then went into exile underground. Sherri was sad that he couldn’t have continued his mission legally, but understood and still supported him. She later visited him in his new base at Mt. Rushmore and once again pledged her aid. She remained one of the few he could trust. Orion eventually collected a small army known as Orion’s Sword that helped defeat Innocent.
Devil’s Reign
In the post-Innocent world, there was a sudden power vacuum, and also a widespread vampire infestation. Sherri soon brought Orion back into the official bureaucracy of BASIC as the new Administrative Director, where he quickly established a can-do reputation regarding all the problems plaguing the System. He made Orion’s Sword the official army of the System, decreased poverty, and dealt with the vampires. Sherri and Fadi continued to be his primary advisors. Sherri in particular was almost a co-leader with him. They were very efficient and effective, and managed to get the other Systems of North America to join them, creating a new country, Calmerica, with Orion in charge.
At the same time, Sherri and Orion finally became a romantic couple, and continued to be for the rest of her life, although technically they never officially married.
Sherri soon became somewhat of a foreign ambassador for Calmerica, and traveled around the globe trying to do diplomatic work for the country. Due to her travels, she and Orion were often apart for months, which depressed them both. While in Australia, she met Manny McDoon, and sent him back to work with Orion; he later became one of Orions’ most trusted advisors. When she finally came home, they were in a competition with Great Japan for Australia: both countries wanted their resources. Sherri helped broker the deal that eventually led Australia to join with Calmerica; the new confederacy was called UNOW.
Their next goal was to annex SCAUR (South America). Orion planned to do it by conspiring with a drug kingpin, Diamond Diego, which Sherri was against; her advice was always more conservative and ethically-driven than his own impulses. However, Orion went with his original plan and succeeded.
Sherri became pregnant in her old age, but it was difficult, and ended in miscarriage, which pained the two of them immensely.
They took a trip to Africa, which was a unified country and one of their potential allies and/or competitors. While there, Sherri was kidnapped. She was held for a long time, and Orion was extremely worried. During this time, Fadi started a relationship with him to keep him stable under all the pressure. Orion’s Sword eventually rescued her. Originally they thought she was taken by the African government, and started a war with them based on that assumption, but they later realized wit was actually Great Japan, although they couldn’t prove it publicly.
After she returned, she, Orion, and Fadi now all had a romantic relationship together as a group.
UNOW was now in a major war with Africa, and their general, Oskar Berlinetta, was very aggressive. Sherri wanted no part in this and argued for pulling out, but it was difficult to do politically. Orion had continual arguments with his generals. Unfortunately, in the midst of all this Sherri weakened and died from cancer. Orion was overwrought and fled the capital, and only returned after a long period of grieving.