I of course do not own The 100 or any of its characters.
One
The steady hum of the ship's engine lulled her back into consciousness. It was a low and rumbling sound, a familiar sound, which seemed to envelope her with an indescribable warmth. For a few moments she could almost pretend that she was back in her father's old mechanic shop on Mecha, working alongside him on one of the many broken machines that found their ways into his possession. Although she hadn't inherited the tinkering talent when she was surrounded by the sound of sputtering machinery and grinding gears, breathing in the scent of metal and fuel, and covered from head to toe in oil and grime, she'd never been happier.
But that was before.
Reality hit her in the face like a dash of icy water, sending chills down her spine. The sounds that surrounded her -the whirring and humming of machinery, mixed with that of several overlapping voices- were entirely foreign. She wasn't back in the shop surrounded by the mechanics she'd grown up with. She wasn't listening to the sounds of her father's latest project coming to life. And she sure as hell wasn't anywhere close to home.
Dark eyes slowly fluttered open as consciousness took root in her body. It felt like a swarm of bees had invaded her body and were buzzing around in her head, jumbling up her thoughts and making it hard to focus on any one thing. Her vision was blurry, unfocused and she had to shut her eyes once more in order to gather her bearings. There was a dull throbbing in her temples which made it difficult to collect her thoughts. She took several deep breaths before opening her eyes again hesitantly.
Things slowly came into focus as her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room. The first thing she realized was that she wasn't in a room exactly, but rather a dropship. Larger than an escape pod, but smaller than an actual space station. And that meant that she was no longer in the Skybox. She had woken up that morning in her cell, but everything after that was foggy. She had no recollection of leaving, nor did she know just how she had come to be on the dropship, surrounded by dozens of other teens who were all echoing her concerns aloud.
She made to move, only to find herself jerked backwards and pressed into a seat. What the hell? Panicked, she looked down, noticing the harness for the first time. It was buckled around her chest, strapping her into one of the many straight-backed seats that lined the dropship's interior. Each and every seat around her was taken, holding a teenager who was strapped in similarly. Most of them were awake and talking amongst themselves, their voices a dull roar in the back of her mind. Others were still limp in their seats, blissfully oblivious.
Slender fingers twitched by her side and the girl spent a few moments clenching and unclenching her hands into fists. Her limbs felt heavy in the beginning, no doubt the result of a sedative wearing off. After a few moments she had regained control of her fingers and toes, which wiggled against the confines of her combat boots. Everything was in working order, which was a very good sign.
Now, she wondered to herself. What's going on here?
Memories of that morning slowly came back to her as the fuzziness in her mind began to ebb away bit by bit. She could remember waking up in the Skybox, the Ark's prison station, in the cell that had been her home for the last six months. Mercury had been visible through the skylight above her cot. The guards had come in early, earlier than she was used to, armed and accompanied by the last person she had wanted to see.
"Prisoner 098, face the wall."
"Good morning to you, too." She said, chuckling bitterly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
She sat up on the bed and turned to face them, her piercing gaze narrowed defiantly as she looked at the three of them in turn. She was disappointed by who stood in the doorway of her cell, but a bemused sort smile crept onto her face.
"Face the wall." Repeated the guard, a stocky young man that she'd never seen before. He must have been a new recruit.
"I don't think I will." She stood up and lazily strolled towards the three of them. They didn't scare her, nor did any other authority figure. Not here, not now. They weren't anything more than glorified bullies who pushed around the weaker citizens of the Ark.
"Now, prisoner." Repeated the older guard closest to her. He had dark skin and dark eyes, which were void of any emotion.
"Prisoner?" She barked out a laugh. "Really, Dave? You've known me since I was thirteen years old."
"Basillissa." The smaller, distinctly female guard frowned at her pleadingly. "Please."
She was thinner than the girl, Basillissa, remembered. Her hair was longer, grey intertwining with the inky locks that were pulled away from her face and coiled into a tight knot at the base of her neck. There were worry lines on the older woman's face, the faintest trace of crow's feet around her eyes.
"Mom." Basillissa greeted coolly. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Is it time for my execution already?"
Her mother winced.
"Basillissa." The dark-skinned guard, Dave, gentled his voice. "It's just protocol."
"You mightn't have noticed, Dave, but I don't give a damn about protocol."
She'd always had a defiant streak. A lot of the teenagers on the Ark did, especially those from the lower class stations. And while Basillissa lived on Alpha -the unofficially leading station- she'd never fit in with the well-bred Arkians that lived there. She preferred the hard working lifestyle to that of the pampered. Her mother had been from Alpha, her father from Mecha, and Basillissa had always favored the latter. Maybe that's why she'd strived so hard to prove herself. Maybe that's why she had ended up in the Skybox.
Even in the face of her inevitable death, she couldn't bring herself to plead. She couldn't bring herself to fear them. She knew what was going to happen next. She had heard countless prisoners get dragged out of their cells and down the hallway leading to the airlock, which had been nicknamed 'death row' by the other inmates. There was no changing her fate. What would be the point of giving them the satisfaction of finally submitting?
The younger guard's hand twitched towards his shock baton. Dave, officially known as Chief Miller, reached out and cut him off. He shook his head slightly before turning his attention back towards Basillissa, who was watching all of them with a look of boredom. An ill disguised attempt to hide her curiosity.
"Don't make this harder than it has to be." Said Dave.
"I must have gotten my days mixed up." Basillissa said, as if she hadn't heard him. "I was under the impression that my birthday wasn't for a few more weeks."
"It's not." Her mother said. "You're still seventeen."
"Then the laws have changed?"
"No." Dave shook his head. "The laws are still in effect."
"I see." She nodded slowly, thoughtful. "Then I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
She barely noticed it, the slight incline of the chief's head. One moment they were all standing there and in the next the younger guard had lurched forward to grab her by the arm. There was a sharp clanking sound of metal on metal as he clasped a bracelet around her wrist. It wasn't a normal bracelet; it had receptors that buried themselves into the flesh on her arm.
"Ow! What the hell?" She complained, yanking her arm back towards her body. There was a searing pain where the bracelet cut into her skin. She eyed it suspiciously. For the first time fear began to creep slowly along her spine. "What is this?"
"You need to dress." Her mother shoved a pile of folded clothes into her arms. Basillissa was surprised to see that they were clothes taken from her very own closet. "Quickly."
"Why?" She asked, not able to put the pieces together.
"You can dress yourself or we can do it for you." Snapped the younger guard, who was looking anxiously at his watch. "Your choice."
She'd gotten dressed, reluctantly, in a pair of jeans and a grey tank top. They'd given her a floral-and-camo-print army jacket to pull on over it, and a pair of black combat boots.
"Now are you going to tell me what the hell is going on here?" She asked, zipping up the front of the jacket. "Am I being floated or not?"
"Not."
That definitely wasn't the answer she had been expecting. Everyone knew that once a person turned eighteen on the Ark, they were held accountable for their crimes. Violation of any of the laws meant execution. If the Chancellor had to bend a few laws and murder a few seventeen year olds, she wouldn't have put it past him. Were they lying to her, or was she really not going to be floated earlier than planned?
"I…I don't understand."
"Earth." Said the younger guard. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, easily concealable object. It was a syringe, filled with an amber-colored liquid. "You're going to Earth."
There was a sharp prick as the needle was embedded in her neck. The liquid slowly flowed through the tube and into her neck. It immediately began to take effect, causing her eyes to droop and her body to feel awkward and heavy. Her knees buckled and she fell forward, into the waiting arms of one of the guards.
She couldn't be certain, but she thought she heard her mother's voice saying 'I love you' for the last time.
Once more Basillissa shifted in her seat. Her hands came around to the front and began to fumble with the bulky buckle at her chest. Her fingers felt numb, as if she weren't quite in control of them yet, and it took a few tries before she could grip the harness correctly. She wasn't thinking of anything other than getting out of the ship. She couldn't leave. As much as she hated the Ark, there was one person she cared for on it; her father. Leaving without saying goodbye to him wasn't an option.
If only she could get out of the dropship…then she could find a vent, and make her way through the system. She'd spent far too many years using the ventilation system to her advantage not to put those skills to good use if she could. Six months in the slammer hadn't altered her memory; she still knew the route like the back of her hand.
Why wasn't the damn buckle loosening?
Just as she made to undo the restraints, an arm shot out and stopped her.
"Don't." Warned the girl to her right in a soft but serious tone, her grip tightening. "They've got guards stationed at every exit."
Surprised, Basillissa looked up at the female questioningly. She was a lanky thing, with big hazel eyes and dark hair that fell in waves down her back. Although she looked decidedly nervous -and frankly a little pissed off- there was a firmness in her gaze that actually made the girl reconsider and drop her hands from the buckle.
Upon further inspection of her surroundings, she realized that there were guards stationed at every exit. They were all armed, of course, not only with the standard shock batons, but with guns holstered at their hips. Whatever was going on was important, and standing off with the guards right now wouldn't be a good idea.
She turned her attention back to the dark haired girl and said, "What's your name?"
"Octavia." Said the girl. "Octavia Blake."
Octavia Blake, the girl they found living under the floors.
The words came to her mind as if on reflex. Aurora Blake, a woman Basillissa vaguely knew from spending her days wandering throughout the stations, had given birth to a second child. Having more than one child on the Ark was strictly against the rules and for breaking those rules, she'd been floated. No one knew how Octavia had managed to survive seventeen years under the floorboards of their little factory station apartment, but they'd arrested her for it without hesitation. It was such a rare occurrence that very few people didn't know the story.
"And who are you?" Octavia asked, her tone almost accusatory as she watched Basillissa with narrowed eyes, as if she could somehow guess exactly what the other girl was thinking about.
"Uh…"
She didn't think that the appropriate response would be, hi my name's Basillissa Vincetti, renowned fugitive guilty of both thievery and treason. It's nice to meet you.
Then again, they were all convicts here, weren't they?
"Is that a hard one?" Those hazel eyes narrowed bemusedly. "You need a minute?"
"Basil. My name's Basil." She said finally, offering a smile that was rusty at best and a grimace at worst.
"Nice to meet you, Basil." Said Octavia with a wry smile. "Now sit back and get comfortable, because none of us is getting off of this ship alive."
"So it's true." Basil swallowed thickly. "They're sending us to Earth."
"That's what they say."
"And you're okay with this?"
"Better than being stuck here." Octavia shrugged.
"Yeah, but Earth is inhabitable." Basil pointed out with a frown. "The radiation will kill us."
"As far as I see it, we're already dead." Octavia shrugged once more. "Living on borrowed time. Either we rot in our cells until our eighteenth birthdays and get floated, or we go down to Earth and try to salvage what's left of our miserable lives."
"Who's to say we'll even survive the landing?" Challenged Basil, more because she wanted to hear what the girl had to say than because she actually cared about having a debate. Octavia was right; either way they were pretty screwed. "And if we do, who's to say we'll survive even one day on the ground?"
"Who cares about surviving?" Octavia flashed her a wicked grin. "I wanna live."
Before Basil could think of a satisfactory retort, the engine was suddenly roaring. The doors had been sealed off and the dropship was getting ready to depart. The floor beneath their feet began to vibrate, and several of the others cried out in either fear or excitement. They all felt the small drop as the ship was released into space.
Suddenly, the big screen on the other side of the dropship suddenly came to life. Roughly the size of a small television, the screen showed their chancellor, Chancellor Jaha, sitting at a table.
"Prisoners of The Ark, hear me now." Said the Chancellor in his quiet, but firm voice. "You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself."
Basil had to bite her tongue to keep from calling out, as some of the other prisoners were. It was no secret that she had never cared for the Chancellor. Not many people did. She didn't agree with the way life was run on the Ark, as she had proven by getting arrested for treason. Any society that could murder innocent people for crimes as insignificant as those on the Ark was a society that she would never have respect for.
"We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."
Expendable. Had her skin not been so tough, Basil might have been offended by this remark. It was strange to think that one hundred children could be expendable. And they were children, ranging in age from maybe thirteen years old to seventeen years old. They were being sent by the government to a planet that might very well be full of toxic radiation. In what world was any of this deemed acceptable?
"What an asshole." Muttered Octavia, rolling her eyes.
"He would make it sound like some sort of privilege." Agreed Basil with a frown. "'You've been given a second chance.' We weren't even given a choice."
"Your crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean."
These words caught Basil's attention and for the first time she felt the slightest glimmer of hope. In the back of her mind, she couldn't help but to ask, what if? What if they did somehow make it down to Earth? What if they did survive? What if the rest of the Ark joined them? What if they were pardoned and were able to reunite with their families?
We'd be free, she realized.
The thought was completely foreign to her. Basil couldn't recall a time in her life when she had ever been truly free. From the moment she was born she'd been held to a certain standard, not only from the Ark but from her family as well. Everyone expected her to be this perfect little prodigy, the daughter of a well-respected engineer and a high-ranking policewoman. They'd wanted her to go to school and get recruited for Medical or Go-Sci, two of the best fields on the Ark. They pushed and they pushed and they pushed her, until she was interning for Doctor Griffin, the Ark's go-to doctor. And then they pushed her some more.
Basil didn't know why she was drawn to stealing. Maybe because it was something she could control, a small act of defiance that no one would have expected from her. And in the beginning it was innocent enough. She would take an old medical book from the library and conveniently forget to return it, or she'd 'borrow' some of the tools from the shop and stash them away beneath her bed, never to be seen again. It started out with small things, things easily replaceable that no one would ever miss.
Over the course of several years she'd gotten roped into working for the black market after trying to sell a handful of painkillers she'd taken from the lab. Nygel, the ringleader of the organization, always had work that needed to be done. It started off as small-scale jobs, collecting odds and end pieces from Mecha or Factory Station. As Basil proved herself worthy, her work load increased until she was in over her head with no way -and no desire- to get out. Eventually Nygel was sending her all over the Ark, into rooms only accessible by the ventilation systems or locked down with special key codes that she had to pick from the pockets of her parents' friends. Basil was the go-to girl when they needed someone stealthy and with a taste for trouble.
She didn't regret getting involved with the wrong crowd. Out of all the memorable things in her life, that was the one she regretted the least. She had loved working under the table. She'd felt like some sort of super-secret agent, climbing in and out of the vents, picking peoples' pockets, and making sketchy trades in dark corners of the common rooms. Finally, she'd found something she was good at; thievery. And she'd gained a lot of friends in low places, as well as a lot of respect, during those days. The only thing she regretted was getting caught. Nygel couldn't be trusted and Basil had known this going into things. Her parents had always warned her about getting involved with people like that. But somehow she never thought that she would be double-crossed. She was Nygel's right-hand woman, she should have been safer than the rest of them. She had been arrogant, she'd thought herself too important to be let go. And that arrogance had been her downfall.
She'd never been free before, to do what she wanted when she wanted. The thought was as terrifying as it was tempting.
"The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain 300 people for up to two years."
The Chancellor was at it again, but he wasn't the one that pulled Basil away from her thoughts. Her attention was caught by a shaggy-haired male who had unbuckled his harness and was floating along one of the rows of seats. Apparently they were in zero-gravity, because he effortlessly lay suspended in midair, grinning as he was showered with catcalls and compliments from the other passengers.
Finn Collins, she suddenly realized, as she listened to the conversation taking place just a few feet away from her. Spacewalker, they called him. He was the one who had gotten arrested for going on an unauthorized spacewalk. It had burned up a whole month's worth of oxygen. Basil remembered because his girlfriend, Raven, occasionally did jobs for Nygel when she was in a bind.
You learned quite a bit of information when you were involved with the right -or wrong- sort of people.
And the girl, the blonde, was Clarke Griffin. She was the daughter of the doctor that Basil had been interning with. In fact, the two of them had been interning together. Their conversations had never really gone farther than the appropriate dosage of medicine, but from what Basil could remember the girl had seemed really driven to be a doctor. Right up until she had been arrested for treason and thrown into solitary confinement only six months before Basil was.
And then there was Wells Jaha, who everyone knew. He was the son of the Chancellor. And if the title wasn't enough to make people hate him, the similarities between himself and his father was more than enough. He had the same mocha-colored skin tone and the same warm, brown eyes as the Chancellor. They had the same facial expressions, the same mannerisms. Basil had met the Jahas on several occasions, all of which had left a bitter taste in her mouth.
"Survival of the fittest." Said Octavia, with a small frown.
"Huh?"
"They're already being picked off." She nodded towards several other boys who had climbed out of their seats after Finn. "As soon as that gravity kicks in…"
She didn't need to finish her sentence for Basil to catch the meaning behind it.
"Hey, why don't you-"
She didn't get the chance to finish her suggestion before suddenly the dropship was plunging through space at an alarming rate. She was thrown forward, stopped only by the harness around her chest. With a sickening crack the ship lurched, and Basil had a nagging suspicion that the autopilot was no longer in control. All around them things began to creak and groan. Sparks started to fly, the result of metal on metal, and it suddenly seemed as if the whole dropship was crumbling around them.
"It's okay!" Someone called out. It might have been Wells. "It's just the Earth's atmosphere!"
That did nothing to calm the nerves of the other prisoners. Some of them were already shouting, but the real screaming began when the electricity cut out. The whole ship was plunged into total darkness, the only source of light coming from the sporadic sparks that fell from the creases where the ship was welded together. The chaos surrounding them only seemed to fuel the panic inside of the prisoners, and their voices grew louder and louder as the ship was hurtled through space.
Basil shut her eyes tight. There was something comforting about this new sort of darkness, considering it was on her terms. It made her feel less helpless than she had before, even though she was in the exact same situation.
She wouldn't have been surprised if the ship did fall to pieces around them. It was nearly a century old, after all. And the condition of the Earth's atmosphere was completely unpredictable after so many years. Her earlier fears about not surviving the landing came back to mind, and Basil clung tighter to the harness around her chest. As much as she liked to seem unaffected by the matter of life and death, she didn't want to die. No one wanted to die. She'd just grown so used to the idea that back on the Ark, she thought she was ready to accept her fate.
Now, she wasn't so sure.
"It's just an old ship!" Came Clarke's voice. "Give it a minute."
Almost as soon as she said that, the lights came back on. They only lasted for a few moments before they began to flicker rapidly, sending out bright spurts of light before plunging them all into darkness again. Basil could just barely make out the tight-lipped expression on Octavia's pale face. When she turned her head to the other side, the seat there was empty. The boy had been one of the ones who tried to follow Finn, only he hadn't made it back into his harness before they hit the Earth's atmosphere.
Survival of the fittest.
Suddenly something shifted, and they began to slow. Basil heard murmurs about parachutes deploying, and she guessed that was the cause. They were still falling, just at a slightly slower pace than they had been before. The ship seemed to settle some, stopping its swaying motion, but Basil knew that no one was controlling it anymore. This was gravity taking its toll and now the ship was going to fall wherever science wanted it to fall.
The next few minutes were agonizingly slow. The screams subsided and an eerie silence, interrupted only by the occasional whimper, fell over the crowd. Basil knew that they were all wondering whether or not these moments were going to be their last. If they were, she hoped the death would be quick. At least when a person got floated their deaths happened instantaneously. Dying on impact was preferable to slowly bleeding out in the ruins of a wrecked dropship. Or maybe the radiation would get to them first.
She supposed it didn't really matter, though, because as Octavia said, they were all living on borrowed time anyways.
Just when Basil began to wonder if they were going to spend the rest of their short lives tumbling through space, the dropship came to a sudden stop. There was a muted thudding noise as the base of the ship landed, and then all was still. A few tense moments were spent in silence as they all tried to figure out whether or not they were still alive. And then, the silence was broken by the sound of dozens of seatbelts clicking furiously.
Basil's hands went to her harness and this time she felt entirely in control of her body. She undid the straps with little difficulty and then rose into a standing position. She wobbled slightly, and had the oddest sensation of feeling seasick. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly and her knees buckled, causing the girl to sit down in her seat once more.
"You alright?" Octavia was undoing her own straps and looking over at Basil curiously.
"Yeah." She nodded and took a deep breath. "Rough landing, eh?"
"But we made it."
Octavia stood up and then, after a moment of contemplation, extended her hand. Basil looked up at her with furrowed brows. What was this, an act of friendship? Or did she think Basil was too weak to make it out of the ship on her own? She had half a mind to decline the offer, but after a second thought she took the outstretched hand and pulled herself to her feet.
"Thanks."
Octavia said nothing as she dropped Basil's hand and then began to make her way towards the ladder that led to the lower floor. There was a small crowd that had gathered around the hatch separating the two floors. Octavia and Basil took up the rear of the group, having been seated in the chairs that were the furthest away.
When Basil glanced over her shoulder, she had to stifle a gasp. Laying in a pool of blood was one of the young guys who had climbed out of their seats before the gravity kicked in. He'd hit his head on the side of the ship, and lay at an awkward angle, draped across a few of the empty seats. Basil didn't have to question whether or not he was alive, because there was no way anyone could have survived that drop unless they were safely strapped in.
For a moment, she thought about telling someone, thought about calling for help. But what was the point? The guy was dead and she didn't think he was the only one. There was nothing they could do to help him now. It was the first time she'd ever seen a real dead body. People died every day on the Ark, but their bodies were always released into space, never to be seen again. She was surprised by how sympathetic she felt. Life and death had never meant anything on the Ark, after all. But she thought that maybe it should mean something on the ground.
What would they do with the bodies? She'd read in a book that people used to bury their dead, as a sign of respect or something. Maybe that's what they would wind up doing with the ones who hadn't made it to the ground. Bury them, mark their graves, and start living like the people who walked the Earth before them.
"You coming?" Octavia had begun to descend the ladder, and was watching Basil curiously.
"Yeah."
Basil moved forward and began to slowly climb down the ladder. The dead boy was still fresh in her mind, haunting her thoughts. If only he had kept his harness on. Then he wouldn't have died, and they would still be the one hundred, not the ninety-nine. Or the ninety-eight; she didn't know how many people had followed in Finn's misguided footsteps.
It was strange the effect the ground was already having on her. She didn't want things to be like they had been, up on the Ark. She didn't want to live in constant fear, nor did she want to be ruled by an unjust government. Then again, she'd never wanted those things…maybe the ground wasn't changing her. Maybe it was just shedding a ray of hope on changes that had been needing to take place for years.
When she finally came to the base of the ladder, Basil found herself greeted by an argument that dragged her out of her thoughts. Clarke Griffin was facing off with a tall, dark-haired stranger who was wearing a guard's uniform. They were talking about opening the doors, and whether or not it was a good idea. Immediately Basil tensed, wondering how and why a guard had remained on the dropship after their departure, and how this was going to affect their lives on the ground.
"Bellamy?"
Octavia was staring at the stranger with wide eyes. After a few brief moments of standing in shock, she took off at a run. The stranger, looking not quite as surprised as he was relieved, caught her in a tight embrace. It only took a few moments for Basil to piece things together, but she had always been quick on her feet. The similarities between the two of them were striking; there was only one conclusion.
"Look how big you've gotten." The man, Bellamy, said quietly, stroking his thumb across her cheek in an intimate gesture that sent a pang of longing through Basil.
"Do you mind?" Octavia asked, glaring at those who tried to crowd around them. "I haven't seen my brother in over a year."
Shouts rang out as everyone else finally figured out who she was. That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found under the floors! People were murmuring among themselves and crowding closer, trying to get a good look at her and Bellamy. Siblings were a rarity that none of them had ever seen before. Naturally, they were curious.
Octavia seemed outraged by the reminder of her arrest. She went to lunge for the crowd, but her brother pulled her back quickly. Silent, Octavia glowered at the boys in the front of the group. There was an unspoken threat in her gaze which said that they were lucky she was being restrained.
"Let's give them something else to remember you by." Suggested Bellamy, his grip on his sister tightening slightly as he pulled her away from the rest of them.
"Like what?" She grumbled, looking unimpressed and almost petulant.
"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years."
And without warning, he pulled the lever that opened the door to the dropship.