#bellamy octavia raven and atom were his conscious synths

[wellamarke]

twilight's last gleaming

humans challenge, week 2, day 3: crossover/fusion (the 100)

When Mattie arrived at the lab, George was nowhere to be found. That was unusual - he was always there first, usually mumbling to himself under his breath about a file he’d misplaced, or peering at the root code of a synth who’d been brought in for repairs. There were only two models in the lab this morning, and one of them was Odi, who didn’t really count, since he lived there.

Mattie made her way over to the other synth - a female dressed in overalls that suggested she was assigned to Mecha Station, working in the engine rooms, at temperatures no human could withstand for very long. There were burn marks on her clothes and skin, and Mattie absent-mindedly took a casing repair kit down from a shelf, beginning to patch up the worst of the burns while she waited for her holoscreen to load the synth’s diagnostics.

“Where’s George this morning, Odi?” she asked smoothing a finger over the synth’s name label. Hester. She couldn’t remember having any Hesters in for repairs before, which probably meant this one was fairly new. It seemed a shame that she was already so bashed about, in that case. She was only a baby. Sometimes it broke Mattie’s heart to see how badly the synths were treated by their human overseers - partly because it was so easy to imagine them doing the same things to Mia, or one of the other conscious synths who lived secretly among the workforce.

Odi shuffled over to Mattie, his faulty arm still folded awkwardly against him. They’d done everything they could, but he’d need an entirely new limb to fix the problem, and the manufacturing people next door weren’t exactly keen to sink resources into synths who should legally have been recycled years ago. Whenever there was an inspection, George and Mattie had to hide Odi under the floor. Otherwise, he’d have been taken and scrapped long before now.

“George was called to a meeting of the Council,” Odi told her. “He said he would be back as soon as possible.”

Mattie frowned. “What does the Council want him for?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Weird,” Mattie muttered, then returned to her work on Hester. The Ark’s Council didn’t usually call anyone from Synth Engineering to their meetings, and George had certainly never run for office himself. It was enough of a miracle that he’d taken Mattie on as his apprentice, her being the Chancellor’s daughter and all. He’d only softened once he’d realised how much Laura did for the conscious synths, behind the scenes - making sure they were kept out of harm’s way as much as she could.

Nobody outside their very elite circle could find out the truth about Mia and the others. It would cause a panic, and give credence to the crazy ideas of the people who said that the synths would one day rise up and destroy all the humans aboard the Ark, jettisoning the parts of the ship that generated oxygen and taking it for themselves. As long as the synths were brainless, dormant slaves, managing the ship and keeping it in orbit around the ravaged planet below, those people could be ignored, and called conspiracy theorists. But if synthetic consciousness ever became common knowledge, enough people would join their terror-mongering that Mattie actually wouldn’t even blame Niska if she flicked the switch and killed the oxygen.

Which was a great image to have, this early in the designated day-period.

Mattie worked busily on Hester, until the synth was in full working order again. The only sign that she wasn’t brand new out of the box was how dirty her clothing was, but Mattie could hardly do anything about that. Her mum was pretty laid-back for a colony Chancellor, but even she might have questions if Mattie arrived back at their quarters with an armful of synth laundry.

She’d put Hester on charge, and was tidying up her workstation and wondering what to do next when the door to the lab slid open. George entered, his lined face seeming even more drawn than usual. “This is bad, Mattie,” he said, as he approached his own station. “It’s all gonna fall apart, now.”

Mattie was alarmed. She went to meet him. “What? What’s going on? Why did the Council call you?”

George leaned on his workstation, one hand to his brow as if he was getting a headache. “All the qualified engineers were there. They were telling us the plan.”

“What plan?”

“I’m getting to it,” George said, sounding weary. “You’ve heard the rumours, I suppose. Dwindling resources, running out of air, et cetera, et cetera.”

Mattie gave a half-shrug. “Some people say we’ve only got 30 viable years left, but they’ve been saying the same thing since before my mother was born. So what?”

“So, they’re wrong,” George said. “But not in the way you think. We haven’t got thirty years. It’s more like three. Five, at a push. All this time we’ve kept humans running the numbers, but last week they had a synth recalculate them and it turns out the whole department’s been hiding the truth for decades, scared of the ramifications. If we’d known sooner, we might have been able to find another solution, but we don’t have time for that now.”

Mattie felt like she’d been slapped in the face. “Shit. Three years? I can’t believe it.” She paused. “So what, we just wait to die up here?”

“No,” said George. “They’re going to send fifty synths to earth in a dropship.”

“To earth?”

“They’ll monitor conditions down there, send up their readings. They won’t be able to recharge once their power is gone, but they should last long enough to make a report. Then we can decide if we should land the Ark, or stay up here.” He sighed. “I’d rather suffocate in space than die slowly of radiation sickness on the ground. But that’s just me.”

Mattie took this all in. “Will the synths be able to judge all of this without any humans to observe?” she asked. “They’re not exactly built to measure toxins.”

“No, they’re not,” George agreed. “Those dropships seat one hundred, Mattie. Fifty synths as a failsafe, to send us whatever information they can. And fifty humans for them to study.”

“What?” If she’d been shocked before, Mattie was now somewhere outside her own mind, drifting among the debris that floated past the ship. “No. My mother would never have agreed to this.”

“She did try to stop it. But the rest of the Council was unanimous against her. She could be deposed at any moment.”

“Who are they sending?”

George looked down at his hands, which were clasped on the top of his station. “Prisoners. The fifty healthiest people in the Skybox will be selected.”

“Oh, God.” It was all too much to take in. Mattie felt a lump rise in her threat at the thought of Harun, her childhood friend, who’d been arrested for the possession and distribution of recreational drugs, earlier that year. He was fit and young, especially compared to the people who’d been holed up in the Skybox for decades. Would he be sent to earth with the others, expected to survive in the wastelands, or else die of radiation poisoning? It was unthinkable.

“It gets worse,” said George. “Your mother had already set herself against them before they even proposed sending the prisoners. They’d drawn up a list of synths they deemed least vital to the Ark’s workings.”

“No,” said Mattie quietly, knowing what was coming. Her mother had kept Mia, Niska, Max and Fred safe. They had simple assignments. They worked longer shifts than any human, but not in places where they could be hurt or mistreated. Mia served in the cantine; Niska worked in the archives. Max and Fred were on Farm Station, with Leo as their overseer, designing and breeding genetically modified crops. They supported the agriculture workforce, but they definitely weren’t vital to the practical task of feeding the colony day to day.

“Are they all…?” Mattie began, trailing off when George met her eyes. He didn’t have to confirm it. All four of them were being sent to earth. Perhaps the radiation wouldn’t affect them, perhaps they’d be able to find some way of collecting power, perhaps they’d be alright. Even if all of that came true, she might never see them again.

“We can’t let them go,” Mattie said, though her own voice sounded far away, like she was listening from the other side of the door. “They’re like family, it’s not… we can’t…”

“You need to find Leo and tell him,” George told her, firmly. “I imagine he’ll want to get himself arrested as soon as possible. I can’t imagine him letting them go without him.”

“No, he won’t.” Mattie agreed. She looked around the mostly-empty lab. “Shall I go now? I can take Hester back on my way, give me a reason to be crossing stations.”

George nodded. “Go.”

Mattie powered up Hester and led her to the door. She paused. At length, she turned back and gave Odi a pat on the head. “Bye, Odi.”

George watched her do it, his face solemn. He didn’t flinch when she came and gave him a brief hug as well, before slipping through the doors of the lab. They slid closed behind her, as if she’d never been there at all.

Mattie paced down the corridor outside, Hester in tow. She wondered if George had guessed what she was planning - surely he had. He hadn’t trained her for five years without learning at least a little bit about her impulse control.

Now, she thought as she turned off toward the port that would take her to Farm Station, what’s the quickest way to get arrested around here?

Maybe Leo would have some ideas.