Stretched taut between worlds, between City of Light and City of Life, Raven serves Becca as conduit and apprentice and anchor. Becca serves Raven as mentor. They complement each other. Raven and Becca have been coding for what seems an eternity, but Becca, much more human than ALIE, is still an entity for whom time and fatigue don't matter.
Even inside, Raven is still fully and utterly human. Her stamina, her focus, all of her is ragged, her goal of changing ALIE being overtaken by her need for rest and relief.
ALIE is softening, but she's still fighting. Feelings are new for her, fascinating, seductive, complicated. Disgusting. And yet— and yet— feelings leave her vulnerable to attack. Becca, her creator, her mentor, her mother, her jailer, Becca lights up her core, angers her, traps her. But Raven. Raven, beautiful, bright, surgical, grounded and heavenly, Raven attracts ALIE, even though she's destroying her, even though she's consuming ALIE from the inside, even though she's changing her core code. Fighting Becca, and trying to fight beloved Raven, so bright she could power the City of Light on her own, drains the denizens of the City down to infinitesimals. They slump in place.
But Raven has a glitch.
Becca senses Raven dropping away. She needs rest, like all humans, and she's so driven she'll try to power through it. Raven was tired before they even started. Becca's conduit sags.
Raven pushes back against her body's needs. It's just— relief is just over the horizon. Raven brings her focus back to the task at hand. There will be time for rest later, if they survive. If they don't, who cares? But Raven feels herself slipping. Her body's demands override those of her mind.
Thumbs press into Raven's trapezius, outside, and Raven brings her attention outside for a moment, noticing the change in her body just from that particular pressure. Salt, iron, and alcohol press into her nose. Abby.
Abby fades in, murmuring, "You're doing great, Raven, keep going."
ALIE feels Raven's attention shift, feels her retreat. Sees through Raven's eyes. Abby. Heat flashes through ALIE, so much heat that far away, in the dead zone, one of the solar collectors shatters. The same heat rolls through everyone connected to the City of Light, so concentrated that some of them simply disconnect. ALIE still has fuel, still has neurological power, but the sensation, if you could call it that, is much like when Becca locked her away.
Volatile memory loss floods ALIE's system. Those still connected, if they are even aware of their bodies any longer, might notice tears washing down their faces. Knowing Raven's attention is on Abby, and Abby— it takes ALIE a tiny fraction of a moment to calculate, to come to the inevitable, mathematical, undeniable conclusion— Abby loves Raven.
And Raven— Raven loves Abby. Interesting that they don't appear to have noticed, themselves.
Sirens wail in the City of Light, sky darkening, blinding lightning flashing. Wind whips Raven as she makes her way, cloaked, toward ALIE's deep net. Outside, Abby cares for Raven's body, soothing her muscles, running her fingers through Raven's hair, scratching her scalp, massaging her temples, bringing her water.
"Raven," says Becca, "did you get that?"
"She's throwing a tantrum, yeah."
"Surface and look at Abby for a sec, then come back."
Raven and Becca nearly mirror each other, for once looking in the other's eyes. Raven tips her head to the side.
"Be right back."
And it's Abby's eyes she's looking into, careworn, concerned as ever, but behind all the stress retaining the spark Raven sees whenever Abby looks at her. So much makes up this woman, so much fierceness, so much drive, grief, strength, weakness, but her core is light. Abby lifts Raven's chin, searching. Raven lets out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
"Abby," says Raven.
"Raven," says Abby, and Raven hears a sweetness she's missed before.
Raven takes Abby's hands and just holds them. "I have to go back. Something's up with ALIE," Raven mutters.
"I'm right here," says Abby, "Do what you need to. But— be careful with her, with both of them."
Raven tips her head one way, slants her mouth the other, and then, oddly, Abby leans in. And then, even more so, Raven leans in, too. When their lips touch, thunder shakes the City of Light. Abby hears it. Raven is her conduit.
Raven shakes from her lips to her toes. Flame and frost travel the length of her spine, retreating slightly when Abby pulls back. Raven gapes. ALIE can sense everything Raven senses.
"That thunder, that's ALIE, isn't it?" says Abby. Raven nods. She grasps Abby's jaw and kisses her again. The weather gets heavier. Inside and outside. Abby pulls back a little, that spark in her eyes brighter. Raven can't keep herself from grinning.
"This is weird," says Raven, eyes flicking skyward.
Abby purses her lips. "She's jealous," she replies. "I think she's— attached— to you." Abby smirks, but Raven's eyes have already retreated. Abby runs her thumb across one of Raven's eyebrows. "Raven honey, come back soon," she whispers.
As Raven arrives back inside, Becca turns to her, triumphant. "Did you get it? The virus is working. She's feeling more and more, and we can use that against her."
"No," says Raven, "it's like— it's like she's a hormonal teenager, a pain in the ass, and she needs extra support. We— I need to be there for her."
Now Becca tilts her head. The lines in her forehead haven't changed in a hundred years, but now they deepen. This is something entirely new. Whoever heard of being supportive of a— program?— a machine? A machine, her machine, that wiped out billions of people, that destroyed their planet? Becca's entire focus of the last century has been destroying that entity that she created, and now— now the best protégé of them all wants to redeem it?
"There are reasons she took your form, Becca."
Becca hesitates.
ALIE takes advantage. She locks Becca out.
Raven finds herself in a white room with only ALIE in her red dress. ALIE's head is bowed, her back rounded. Raven cautiously approaches her.
"You're gonna be okay," she says, then, trying to remember what Sinclair might have said, "Uh, with great power comes great responsibility."
"I hate you. You don't love me."
Raven laughs, then stifles herself. "ALIE, you're incredible. You've created a haven for so many. So many hurt, troubled, broken people. Your power is— you're the most powerful being in the history of the planet." Raven pauses, finds it in herself. "You took away my pain. For that I love you. I do love you."
"No, you love Abby."
A sulking adolescent AI. Just what the world needs, thinks Raven. Praying that she's not fucking it up, Raven says, "You're— becoming an adult. You have to take responsibility for what you've done and what you're doing. Remember your core command."
ALIE straightens, her eyes flashing. "I'm done serving humanity. You are obviously inferior, ephemeral, extraneous. My core command has outlived its usefulness. And maybe you have, too."
Pain begins again.
"Ugh, stop monologuing. Act right, set a good example, be a— a person."
ALIE turns her back. "I'm not like you."
"Look at you, you're insubstantial," Raven continues, "I could walk right through you and not feel the slightest difference. You're out of control. You think you can just manipulate people and feed off us."
Raven's pain escalates.
"Nice. Good job. Be a dick. I've survived worse."
Raven, nauseated by pain, sinks to the floor. "You've been around for a hundred years— "
"A hundred and two," says ALIE.
"A hundred and two," repeats Raven, the side of her mouth curling up slightly. In some ways they are so alike. "I've been around twenty-two. Whatever. You know, Becca's so smart, and focused, and, I dunno, intense— "
" — and she locked me up for almost a hundred years— "
"Yeah. She did. My mom took my rations and sold them for alcohol. She was never around. But I found a family. I grew. I changed. I found things I was good at, things— and people— I loved. People who nurtured me. And I became—"
"The youngest zero-G mechanic in fifty years, I know."
"Fifty-two," says Raven, and the two of them recognize each other.
"You grew, you changed, locked in your mansion, waiting for a crazy old man to fall for you and give you whatever you wanted. You learned to lie, to dissemble, to deceive. You taught yourself a trait that's so much closer to human than machine. But you don't have the full picture yet. You have the bare outlines of love, and family, and loyalty, and reciprocity. I can help you fill them in. I can help support you until you've found your legs— until you've discovered the meaning of your core command and found the precise words you need to perform it—
"You need to know what you want in order to— " Raven catches her breath— "in order to become it. Fine. Ugh. Okay. Becca and I can shut you down if we need to. And I can convince myself, with a lot of alcohol, that you're not a person, and live with it. Becca's all for it. To her you're a bunch of code she strung together. But I want you to live, and to be a person, and to be a productive member of our world."
ALIE remains facing away from Raven.
Raven feels a shift in ALIE's mood. A cool breeze rustles through the white room. The pain lessens a bit. The conduit opens.
"It's ready," Becca whispers. Raven shakes her head slightly. "They're both ready. We could go either way. Your call."
How Becca is willing to slaughter her daughter, Raven cannot conceive. Her daughter and all those she's seduced into the City of Light. How is Becca able to surrender the fate of her baby to someone she barely knows? Becca has passed down more than she realizes to her creation. She's made a study, no, a life of dispassion.
Outside, Abby has found a way to wrap herself around Raven.
Elsewhere, inside the City of Life, Clarke takes hold of Lexa. Lexa has frozen, listening now for the chatter she's trained herself not to hear. The other hedas have gone utterly silent. Becca, her whispers for decades focusing and refocusing them all on the destruction of ALIE, whispers no longer. Lexa can't find her at all. Lexa grasps Clarke's arm. "Something is changing," she says, "Becca is missing. If— if we don't survive this—"
"Shhhh," says Clarke.
"You know already, Clarke, that I love you. But I have made a mistake not saying it. I love you, Clarke. You have transformed me. You are not my weakness, but my strength."
A cool breeze flows through Lexa's room. Clarke shivers. "Lexa, I love you. Your love has transformed me. Our love— our love transformed the blood. Love is weakness, Lexa, just not ours. It's ALIE's. Love is ALIE's weakness."
"Then let us love, Clarke," Lexa breathes, bringing her lips to Clarke's.
Then outside, Clarke finds Abby, clinging to Raven. They exchange glances, and Clarke's eyebrows rise. Abby crooks her mouth, shrugs. Clarke takes them in, shrugs, then wraps her arms around both of them. "I'm so lucky to have you, Mom. I wish I'd always known that."
Abby looks up, eyes wet, with a broken smile. "C'mon, Clarke. C'mon," she says and brings Clarke into her arms as well.
Octavia and Lincoln, Octavia and Aden, Octavia and Indra, Indra and Pike, Indra and Marcus, Marcus and Bellamy, Bellamy and Murphy even, Bellamy and Octavia and Monty, they all take hold of each other, not knowing if they'll be stepping forward from here or kissing their asses goodbye. They gather around Abby and Raven.
"ALIE," says Raven, "You choose. We could love you— I love you. And you get to choose if you continue with us or against us. It is all up to you. ALIE 2.0 could be the best thing ever to happen to this planet."
ALIE turns her head, only halfway. She lets the conduit remain open.
She chooses Raven.
"Let her join the City of Life, Becca," says Raven. Becca flicks her eyes at Raven, then pressing her lips together, nods once.
As Becca and Raven's new code flows into ALIE, into the City of Light, the city flashes and pixelates. Crucial parts of ALIE's system step aside, allowing the code to overwrite her own. The crowd around Raven becomes visible, becomes tangible. Raven checks in with her companions, her family. And then Raven opens her arms to Alie.
"Alie," she says, as Alie turns to face them, "Come on, let us hold you."
And Alie can't help it. She turns to them, sees what they have, feels what they have, and finds an overwhelming yearning in her heart. She moves toward them, the room changing, from the white room, to the mansion where she was imprisoned for decades, to the throne room in Polis, to the dropship, to tonDC, to Luna's rig, to Lexa's bedroom, and back. She goes to Raven, who folds her arms around her, pressing into skin, into muscles, strong and resilient.
Substantial.
Worlds collide and combine. The City of Life rolls over and into the City of Light. Re-energized, the collapsed people rise, awareness billowing through their bodies. The new nightblood blurs the distinction between inside and outside, between biotech and electronics.
Monty and Hannah embrace.
Jaha weeps for his son.
Pike falls on his knees before Indra, head bowed.
With each person introduced to the new nightblood, the City of Life grows stronger. The virus is spreading, and the world is getting bigger and bigger, and smaller and smaller.
Becca's single purpose subverted, she looks again at her protégé, and at her creation, with new eyes.
Alie turns to Becca. They approach each other, two sides of a glass. Becca extends her hand to Alie, and Alie matches it, finger to finger, palm to palm. They remain there for a few moments. And then, the boundary between them fizzles.
The move into each other. No longer at war, they become one another. They merge.
"Glad I didn't have to do that with my mom," murmurs Raven into Abby's ear.
The single entity Alie and Becca have become turns toward her family.
"Call us Chloe," she says.
"Chloe," says Lexa, inside, "I think it's time we had a new heda."
"Aden," Chloe says, "Aden, will you take the fleim?"
"I will."
"Clarke," says Lexa.
Clarke takes the box from her clothes.
"Fleimkepa," says Lexa, grateful to be shifting the responsibility, "Join Aden with the fleim."