AN: Sorry this is so angsty at the beginning. What can you do.
Title: Neural Networks
Word Count: 1206
Written by: Gloss
Summary: Kept in the dark his whole life, an angsty character is thrown into the past and introduced to a group of bloodthirsty, genre-savvy (but in terms of the humor side of this), terrorists who don't know what to do with him. Sorry, they prefer the term 'rebels'. Dystopian AU. Time Travel.
Chapter One: Go Big or Go Home
My first thought was 'What could possibly go wrong?'
-Zadi
"Don't do this," I pleaded with my mother. I looked into her eyes, begging silently as well as out loud. Hers were clouded, dead. "Please, please." Her face was shaking and I knew she really, truly didn't want to do this. But I also knew, from all the fights I've had with her in the past, that I wasn't going to convince her. I never did.
And I guess, if she really went through with this… I'd never have the chance to again. A little part of me doubted that she would.
"My little shadow…" she murmured, "I'm sorry." She wasn't. If she was really sorry… she wouldn't have done this...
And she shoved me into the machine that had made my life hell for the past 12 years. The doubt I was feeling before disappeared immediately.
It locked, automatically. I knew this well, and yet I still tried to get out. I banged on the walls, each wall twice, three times, six.
I heard an engine, and the smell of metal, and bleach filled my nostrils. It gave me a headache, but then I already had one. I started screaming, muttering, or maybe I was already doing that and I just noticed.
"No no no mom please no I don't want to do this why are you-!"
She stayed silent. Just like always. She could never bring herself to speak up. In that moment, I hated her more than anything. What made her think she could do this? How dare she ruin my life? How dare she raise me up like this and make me think I loved her? When it all would lead back to this stupid, stupid mistake.
I knew I was about to die. The machine started up… There was pain, and then nothing.
I thought I was dead. My life had flashed before my eyes, just like they always said in the movies.
Mom and dad, working together, building and calculating, me to the side "helping" them by bringing food and drinks.
Dad, yelling at me, mom gripping his arm tightly.
My first girlfriend. My first boyfriend,
Hell, freezing over.
Me, screaming at my own parents in front of everyone. Spilling secrets so illegal I should have been arrested on the spot.
Screaming, crying. Perfect storms.
My father, dead. Mother, crying.
Finally, today.
It was a bad day. It was always a bad day, and it would never, ever be a good one. The shit that happened… That was even still happening... The echoes still haunt me every day. And they ruin every one of my days. Well, mine and everyone else's. It's times like these, thinking about it, where I realize that I'm selfish.
Here I am, moping about it every day. It was so much worse for everyone. I shouldn't waste the time I have, thinking about myself. I should be thinking about how to help! How to save people… How to stop this cancer from growing...
Every day, 1/50th of the population dies. I know this. It can be anyone, in any place. It's our punishment. The punishment for being humans. We fucked something up, so bad I don't want to speak of it. It's taboo.
I've lost some people, everyone has.
Dad, dad is gone. Mom's never really gotten over it, but today… I got a call. All of our living relatives… aren't really 'living' per se. They're kind of dead. Overnight.
I guess that was her tipping point… She snapped.
She shoved me into the time machine, and I fell back in time. She, and dad, back when he was alive, wanted to be able to fix the human race. They were brilliant, talented scientists. Funded by the government. They made me for that purpose. I found out the day my father died that I'm not really human.
I'm just an experiment.
I was falling through time. I Felt nothing, and Knew everything. I Felt everything, and Knew nothing. This I knew would happen, as I've dreamed of it before. I think they were actually engineered simulations, meant so my parents could see what I'd do. I think there's a lot of missing memories like that. My parents just told me stories to fill in the blanks.
I wonder if I'll succeed. I'm obviously not dead. Perhaps I'll fulfill my purpose and I can go back. Maybe in another future, my parents will accept who I am, and we can live without fear.
I know this is likely to never happen. I know, thanks to science, how time works. It's not like that. It's likely that I'll die on arrival to wherever I'm going. I never really liked History, but that might have been because of the harsh censors my parents put on… well, everything. What was the point of liking something you can't have?
There was none. But my mother, she was a smart woman. It was likely she sent me back exactly where I was supposed to go. It's equally as likely that she sent me to my death, which I guess was the same thing.
I wondered what it would be like. The past, that is. I was sort of impatient to just get there already.
And then I did. And I regretted it immediately.
I fell onto hard concrete. Every cell of my body seemed to ache. I had the best idea, right then: to stand up.
I fell immediately. I felt that, right then and there was the best possible place to empty the contents of my stomach. Tears started to fall again. It was a waste of water, and it was making me feel worse. It was stupid. I felt so stupid, and used, and I wanted to die. What was the point of me being here?
I started to panic. What if I ruined everything? What if I destroyed the timeline? What if the gods of time erased me from existence? I wanted to die, didn't I? So what was the point of worrying… But what if? What if it turned out that I actually did want to live? What if I was necessary to time but then I ruined it? What if I got stuck in a time loop? What if… What if…
My breathing was rapid, sweat trickling down my face like the drops were racing each other. That was a funny thought. It was a waste of water, again. I started laughing, sobbing in between. What if I just up and died of dehydration? Wouldn't that be something…?
"What's going on here?" I heard someone shout, and flinched. It was too loud, and my head too sensitive. My hands pressed against my head tightly, and I began to sob even louder.
This was it. I was dead. I looked up, and all I saw was the blurry shape of a person. Colors. Heliotrope and black.
"What the fuck is that," They said, much more quietly. My breathing stuttered, and I looked up at this person, years from the past. Probably their whole family was dead. They were years older than me.
They lifted my chin and stared, while my vision started to correct itself, adjusting. Brown eyes, dark short hair.
"Hi," I rasped out.