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IN NAME AND BLOOD
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"AIRLOCK SECURE. . . " a robotic voice calls overhead.
Lyra tries not to think of her dad.
It's not really him, she reminds herself, her heart pounding so loudly in her chest that she is sure Alie can hear it. You'll wake up from this and he'll be alright. You'll see. Happily-ever-after. Just like he promised.
Wiping away her tears, Lyra finds herself staring down at the Earth.
It's not the Ark like she originally thought. Rather than grey and dreary, these walls are a pristine, faultless white. Almost blinding like snow. They stretch into numerous corridors, some sealed off, and everything is very sleek and very advanced. But Lyra is not concerned with any of that. The engines hum and Lyra briefly is soothed by the gentle whine of the spacecraft; she hadn't ever realised it before, but she misses the machine hum of the Ark.
Starlight blazes through the porthole. The distant shimmering blue orb that is Earth stares back at her.
In the glassy walls, Lyra can see her own reflection staring back at her. She realizes with a start that she is wearing her spacesuit. Not the one Raven had come down to Earth in, not the false one that Alie had given her on the Go-Sci Ring. No, this one is hers, the vibrant tangerine with the faded Nasa patches and the half-burnt American flag. Her name tag is still there, too. Jupiter is stitched neatly over her heart.
The silence is disrupted suddenly. "Commander. I'm glad you made it."
Becca has returned once more.
Clarke's eyes are wide. "You're Becca Pramheda."
"Becca's fine," says the woman, wincing a little, as if the title is embarrassing. Her gaze flits to Lyra. "I see we've met again."
Lyra manages a weak grin. "You're, like, my great-great-great-great grandmother. Or something like that. How many greats are there — ?"
"Becca's fine," repeats the woman, not unkindly. "There's not much time. The code is nearly updated. And there is much I still need to tell you, Lyra. The world is changing and I'm afraid that you aren't ready for it. You're just a kid."
"I'm a lot of things," corrects Lyra, glancing at her spacesuit. "I used to just be a spacewalker."
Becca's smile is bittersweet. "And now you're the Captain on this bridge. Like my husband. You look so much like how I imagined our daughter. . . "
There is something strange in the woman's eyes and, for the first time, Lyra realises that the way she looks for someone else in Becca is not one-sided. She looks for her mother in Becca. And in Lyra, Becca sees the daughter that she never knew.
"Captain. . . " Lyra echoes slowly. She glances down at her spacesuit again; it's missing the helmet. "Is that why you gave me this?"
"I didn't give it to you. The Commander did," answers Becca curtly. She looks at Clarke again. "You gave yourself the watch as well. Alie 2.0 has merged with your mind. But your mind is in control, and only the mind that's in control can operate the kill switch."
Becca strides further into the lab. It is colossal, sleek and scientifically advanced ━━ more scientifically advanced than Lyra had ever seen in her whole life. She swallows back a barrage of questions as her eyes dart back and forth across the place that she could not conjure even in her wildest dreams. Rather than being lit by starlight or dull yellowing fluorescents like the Ark, vibrant blue-tinted lights glimmer from every little pore within the walls. She traipses after Becca and Clarke towards a very thin white table that seems to grow straight out of the white, glossy floor.
It takes Lyra a moment, but then she figures out why she's in a spacesuit. Clarke had thought they were on the Ark and thus thought of the Lyra that she remembers from the Ark ━━ the spacewalker.
"This is it," Becca tells Clarke.
Lyra jerks her head up. A polished switch lies in the dead-centre of the table.
She swallows thickly. The last time she and Clarke had stood in a room to code a kill-switch, three hundred and eighty one people had died. They'd committed a genocide. A massacre.
Clarke stares at it hesitantly, and Lyra knows that she is not the only one remembering Mount Weather.
"Do it," Lyra says quietly. Clarke glances at her in surprise and Lyra gives her a sharp nod. "Fate of the world at stake, remember? Pull it."
"If you pull that, you will be killing everyone. See for yourself."
Scowling, Lyra eyes Alie uneasily as she strides through the lab. She looks entirely out of place in her blood red dress. But the familiar spike of terror that she feels when she can see Alie never comes; she knows that Alie's not only in her head anymore. Clarke and Becca can see her too.
With some hesitation, Lyra trails Alie, following her back to the starboard window facing Earth.
The swirling blue planet is suddenly not so blue. Great fiery explosions rock the Earth's surface across the vast majority of it. Entire continents of green have been wiped out, razed by hellfire.
"The nuclear power plants that weren't destroyed by the bombs have begun to melt down," explains Alie. "My drones detected the first of them four months ago. There are more than a dozen at-risk plants around the world. Seven currently burning. Global radiation levels are already rising. By my calculations, in less than six months, 96% of the Earth's surface will be uninhabitable. Even for those born in space. . . "
Lyra's lips fully snap apart. The idea is so unfathomable that it is completely impossible to comprehend. Because what Alie's saying is that there will be an apocalypse.
Alie meets her shocked gaze easily. "So you see, Lyra, the City of Light is the only thing that can save you."
Lyra can only stare at the Earth in horror.
"Black rain will come first," Alie continues with baffling calmness. "There will be no drinkable water. Precancerous lesions will form on — "
"She's stalling," interjects Becca poisonously. She eyes her doppelgänger with an explicit hatred. "As soon as the update is complete, she'll delete the kill switch."
"But she's not lying. She can't," responds Lyra lowly. She glances back at Clarke, whose hand hovers uncertainly over the kill switch, then turns again to Alie. "This is what you wanted to tell me on the Ring, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Why tell us now?" Clarke demands. "If it's true, why not use this to get people to take the chip instead of torturing them?"
Alie stares Becca down from across the table. "The last time I warned my creator of the threat to human survival, she chose to lock me away and came here to work on my replacement."
Becca glares at her. "Define perverse instantiation."
"Perverse instantiation," repeats Alie at once. She looks frustrated with herself, but she cannot stop it. It's almost as if she's unable to disobey a direct order from her creator. "The implementation of a benign final goal through deleterious methods unforeseen by a human programmer."
"By killing six and a half billion people to solve overpopulation?" Becca shakes her head. "The goal isn't everything, Alie. How you reach that goal matters, too. Sorry I didn't teach you that."
Lyra's heart sinks. For the first time, she starts to think that she is more Alie than Becca. Because both of them have the blood of innocents on their hands.
Lyra committed a genocide at Mount Weather. And ninety-seven years ago, Alie lit the world on fire.
Alie latches onto her self-doubt at once.
"Let me help you, Lyra," insists the AI. "I am still in your head. I know you haven't forgotten about Mount Weather. You don't have to bear the decisions like this one. You don't have to live with the pain of the things that you've done anymore, the lives you have taken, and those you have lost. You and I are the same — "
"We are not the same," Lyra says, bristling. "I had no choice."
Alie's eyes flash. "Didn't you? Jasper only needed one more minute. He would have killed Cage. And you know it. Even now you're imagining how things would have been different, if you hadn't pulled the lever. If you hadn't left everyone. If you hadn't left Bellamy — the massacre would have never happened."
"Stop it," says Lyra, but her voice is shaking. "You're just another voice in my head."
"I've made your life better."
"If my life is going to mean anything, then I have to live it for myself," snaps Lyra.
Alie regards her with what almost looks like sadness. "Things did not have to end this way. I am sorry, Lyra, but you have given me no choice."
Lyra stares at her. "What are you — ?"
The pain is sudden and overwhelming.
A bloodcurdling scream rips up in her throat and bursts from her lips. It feels like a white-hot sword is being thrust into her. This is apocalyptic. Steel spiking straight through her hip bone and warm, iron-bitter blood dribbles across her hipbone and snakes down her naked leg. Her lips tremble as her entire body contorts and her knees can suddenly no longer support her. She collapses to the floor, writhing in pain.
The world around her glitches. She can hear Clarke's distorted and distressed repeated cries of Lyra! Lyra!, but Becca's lab seems to be disintegrating into Mount Weather.
"Lyra!" A woman cries out and a startlingly familiar face fades in and out of view. "Lyra — hold on!"
"Mom?" Lyra croaks.
But it's not her mom. It's only Becca.
Abruptly, everything comes to a standstill. There is no blood. There is only Alie's face looming over her.
"You wanted your memories," says the AI with horrifying carelessness. Lyra's tear-streaked face does not seem to disturb her. "Here they are."
Lyra cannot help herself from crying out. "No — no!"
The Commander's face ━━ Lexa's face ━━ lurches into view, distorted by war-paint and blood. Gone is Mount Weather and gone is Becca's lab. Now Lyra is tied to the stake as if she is a martyr. Pain detonated within her, like hellfire, incinerating her willpower as blood red scarlet slithers down her abdomen. She is doubling over, her blood is splattering the Earth beneath her feet, and she is screaming. She is screaming so, so, so loudly.
This was when she had been tortured by the Grounders. But this time, no one helps her.
"Submit to me." Alie's voice is like a glass of water and Lyra clutches onto the reprieve desperately as black spots maul at her distorted vision. "Submit and you will never have to feel pain again."
"NO — !" Lyra starts to shriek, but it's cut off as she's ripped into another painful memory.
Killing Wells. The knife is in her hands. It is slippery with blood.
Just as quickly as she stabs him in the neck, she is thrust into something new. Back in Mount Weather, only now it's the control center. Raw rocket fuel flares inside of her lungs as Clarke gives her the order to reverse the air scrubbers and murder three hundred and eighty one people. They are on the screen screaming arms bleeding furiously, savagely, choking on radioactive air. Families, innocents, Maya, and Eric. God, Maya and Eric.
Every heartbeat is her own demolition. God, she can hardly breathe ━━
So much pain. There is the day she cut herself with a poisoned knife for Octavia. The war at the dropship. Sinclair being stabbed to death in the darkness by Emerson. Lincoln being dragged out across the muddy field, being thrust to his knees, Pike putting a bullet in his brain.
"STOP!" Lyra screams. She has sunken to her knees, head in her hands. "MAKE IT STOP — PLEASE!"
Jasper crying over Maya's dead body.
Leaving Bellamy.
The moment she found out what he'd done to the 300 warriors. Watching Octavia beat her older brother ━━ beat Bellamy ━━ mercilessly. The dull horror on his face. His mouth trembling, foul tears gathering in his eyes as he slumped to the ground, the way he shuddered. The blood drenching his face until he was nearly unrecognizable. Because Bellamy had thought he'd deserved it. He'd bore the weight of all of Pike's crimes all so that his sister wouldn't feel the pain.
Lyra thrashes wildly. Everything burns like pure hellfire. All she can do is scream.
A fresh round of hurt seizes her as something seems to explode within her wrist. And yet somehow, compared to everything else, this is merely a dull tremor of agony.
Her eyelids roll shut.
Earthbound, like gravity has suddenly burst into existence, she feels everything crashing down around her. All the pain forks through her like bolt of lightning and then it vanishes.
It just leaves her there. Spluttering for breath. Lips trembling. Everything tastes like rot. She is choking on blood that isn't there, sobs catching in her throat. It feels as if someone is jackhammering an ice pick straight through her mind and there is an unprecedented agony that she is unfamiliar with.
This pain stays. And before she even opens her eyes, she knows something is very, very wrong.
She returns to the real world with a start.
The sounds of war echo all around her.
Memories bleed into her head, but Lyra is hardly concerned with them. Her chest heaves erratically as she raises her wrists to her eyes and wipes her tears away frantically. Her wrists that are still heavily bandaged because she sliced straight through burnt skin in an attempt to force herself to bleed out. They hurt.
But horror replaces her pain. The throne room has been overrun by chipped people. Clarke is seizing atop the throne while Abby crouches ahead of her body with a gun cocked and ready. Murphy is. . . well, Lyra's not quite sure what Murphy's doing. His hands are thrust deep into a halved chest and. . . oh, god, it looks like he's pumping Ontari's heart. . . Octavia fighting mechanically, as if she has been programmed for war. The hilt of her sword slams into a Grounder's head as she manages to simultaneously pivot and nail someone else in the chest. Noah is slumped in the corner, handcuffed. His eyes are shut. There is an ugly red welt on his forehead, like he's been knocked unconscious.
Every part of her feels battered and bruised. Lyra cannot move. She can hardly even think.
And then she sees Bellamy on the ground. Writhing. His bronze face bordering on purple as he thrashes wildly beneath Kane. Blood splatters his face and yet no matter how hard he tries, Kane's grip does not loosen. A fresh wave of horror engulfs her, overriding her pain. It looks like Kane is going to kill Bellamy ━━
And then it just. . . ends.
Everyone who has been chipped suddenly staggers backwards, groaning loudly. A few of them stumble and then topple to the ground. Jaha himself seems clutches his skull as if something seems to split it in two. Kane collapses off from Bellamy with an agonised wheeze.
Clarke had pulled the kill switch.
It takes Lyra a beat to figure out why she hadn't felt the same pain ━━ somehow, in the middle of everything ━━ Bellamy had managed to put one of the wristbands around her. The pain in her head had been the EMP.
Tears gather in her eyes. She fights to keep from sobbing. Because she can remember everything.
"Bellamy," she whispers. She is half-terrified of what his response will be, but calling out to him is like second nature. "Bellamy, are you OK — ?"
A soft groan escapes him as he staggers to his feet. Then he is surging towards her, gathering her in his arms, somehow managing to lift her from the cold floor. It's only partially and his arms tremble with effort after everything, but he is hugging her all the same.
"You were screaming," he blurts loudly, probably more loudly than he means too. "I had to EMP you. I'm sorry. I had to, I couldn't just sit there and do nothing — "
Before Lyra can realise what she's doing, she throws herself into him. He seems startled, then thrilled as he staggers backwards and wraps his arms around her, squeezing her tightly against his chest. There is nothing in the world except for Bellamy's smile lighting up his eyes. A small voice in the back of her head tells her to stop, but it's overpowered by the adrenaline and the feel of his touch and him.
"Thank you," she whispers, her voice muffled by his chest. "Thank you so much."
Because she was suddenly ripped into the pain of being alive. And life is pain and she knows that now. Life is pain and life is suffering and it all seems so horrible, but oh god, she's alive, and it's incredible.
"Typical Spacewalker," Murphy's grating drawl graces her. "Asleep for the action. Making us do all the hard work."
All at once, Lyra remembers how much reality sucks.
Kane's head is in the crook of Abby's shoulders as he sobs relentlessly. Emori has thrown herself around Murphy and Lyra doesn't even have any time to feel happy that they've found each other once again because Emori is weeping. Clarke is staggering up from the Commander's throne. Nightblood trickles from her nostrils. Her face is ashen as she locks eyes with Lyra from just beside the throne.
Because they are the only ones who know.
Lyra feels sick to her stomach. They haven't saved the world. Not even close.
She takes her hand from Bellamy's. Suddenly she feels colder than she has before, and she shivers. She can feel his eyes dart to her questioningly, but she doesn't have an answer for him. She doesn't even know how to look at him. She doesn't know how to even begin tell him that everything they've done might have been for nothing at all.
Then she catches sight of Octavia across the throne room. She moves with an inhuman swiftness, an unbridled rage in her step as she strides towards Pike.
Lyra knows what she is going to do.
And she does not even flinch as Octavia sinks her sword deep into Pike's chest. A startled yelp escapes his mouth as he convulses against the blade. Red blood pours from his chest. And then he is falling back against the stone, his eyes wide and open and dead as they stare at the ceiling.
In her peripheral, Lyra can see Bellamy's eyes widen with some sort of horror and some sort of shock.
Once upon a time, Lyra might have tried to stop Octavia. Might have argued that Pike could redeem himself.
But Lyra is not the same seventeen year old girl that stepped out of the dropship. . .
She turns from them then, facing out towards the balcony and the insipid morning. Spiralling hundreds of feet below her, she can see the streets drenched with blood and bodies. Survivors crawl across the callous red. There are so few of them. Most of them are weeping.
One last time, Lyra tells herself. She tries not to think of all the pain and suffering that surrounds her. The way that no one at all seems to think that they have been saved. She wonders if any of them will feel thankful once they realise what is coming for them.
One last time, she reminds herself as her gaze drifts between Kane's broken sobs, Noah's body as he slowly stirs to life, and then at last to Bellamy. His brows are knit as he watches her worriedly. She looks away from him quickly, not wanting him to see that she is holding back tears.
One last time.
They have not saved the world yet. Alie seemed certain that by all calculations, there is no way for them to live. But humans weren't supposed to survive the first apocalypse, either. By all logic, none of them should have survived the ground. Death has stalked all of them everywhere that they have gone.
They'll figure something out. They always do. Just like they have done since day one on the ground, they will make it out of this alive.
They just need to survive one last time.
One last time. . .
*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
the ending of season 4 is by far my best writing. im REALLY fucking proud of it and REALLY fucking excited for u guys to read it!!!
Bellamy watching Octavia kill Pike
Lyra as Octavia fucking murders Pike
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