PILOT (part 2)

ALICE - DROPSHIP

When she woke up, Alice was tightly strapped by thick orange security belts against the wall. The dropship was full with a lot of young people, some of them were only kids. The metal box was shaking furiously, the noise on the outside was deafening. Her head was spinning furiously. Alice slowly put her hand up to her forehead. Her long red hair was sticking to her skin, covering an open wound.

"You have a real nasty cut," a voice to her left side above the noise.

She slowly tilted her head to the side and a big smile brightens on her face.

"O !" she let out. "I didn't know you were sent here too."

The black haired girl awkwardly threw her arms around the other girl.

"I'm so happy to see you Ali!" the girl squeaked.

Octavia Blake, her best friend since they'd been locked up together a few years ago for the exact same reason: being born. Her mother and older brother managed to hide her in the floor of their residence for 14 years since her birth before being discovered, and like Alice's mother before, Mrs. Blake had been floated.

"At least we're not alone anymore," Alice said smiling weakly. "We're in this shit together.

A sudden jolt of the dropship caused a slight squeak from me and my head violently hit the hard metal plate behind me.

"What the hell was that?" Octavia wondered.

"The atmosphere, I think," Alice said rubbing the back of her head.

The screens surrounding them suddenly turned on, letting Chancellor Jaha's face appears.

"Prisoners of the Ark, hear me now. You've been given a second chance, and as your chancellor, it's my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. 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."

Yep, that's me, that's always have been me, the expandable twin, the one that can easily put by side and be forgotten.

"Your dead is a dick, Well," one of the boys said causing the laughter of many others.

Wait! Did he said, Wells?! Like in Wells Jaha? The Chancellor's son?! Alice looked up. In fact, he has strapped in a seat a few feets away. What the hell was he doing here? Alice remembered him from the time before she'd been locked up. He was one of her sister's friends. He, Lizzie and their other friend Clarke Griffin used to hang out together all the time. The golden trio, the favored.

In the meantime, Jaha had continued his speech.

"Those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean."

What a crime, being born.

"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 three hundred people for up to two years."

A few seats away, one of the kids had loosened himself from his seat and started to float in the dropship, due to the weightlessness.

"Spacewalk bandit strikes again," one of the delinquents cheered.

A few others started to laugh.

"Whoo! Go, Finn!" a girl whistled.

Alice looked up to see a boy with mid-length brown hair floating above their heads.

"Check it out," the boy said leaning at the high of Wells, sitting in his seat. "Your dad floated me, after all."

"You should strap in before the parachutes deploy," the African American advised but in the meantime, two others had strapped out and started to float as high as possible.

"Hey, you two, stay put if you want to live!" a blond girl next to Wells called.

Alice recognized her immediately as Clarke Griffin, another one of her sister's friends. What had she done to end up here too? A sudden even more brutal jolt of the dropship made the three flyers fall hard on the floor.

"Stay in your seats!" Clarke called to some other delinquents who had strapped out.

The dropship started to shake like hell. Alice quickly put her hands around her head to protect herself from the impact with the wall. People were shouting. They heard the loud machine noise grow even louder and than the crash.

MARCUS – THE ARK, CONTROL ROOM

Since the launching of the dropship, Kane and other members of the council had joined the control room of the Ark to follow the progression of the engine in the space. In front of them, a hundred screens showing the vitals of the prisoners sent down, transmitted by the wristband they were equipped with. Kane stood on a platform, the arm crossed on his chest, the face closed. It was the only way to make her survive. Or so he tried to convince himself.

"Kane!" a feminine voice called behind his back making him turn.

Callie, one of the other counselors make her entrance in the control room. She was probably coming to announce the dissatisfaction of the families of the 100. They aren't stupid, they probably saw the dropship being launched and came to ask for an explanation.

"Not now," he threw at her before turning back to Jacapo Sinclair, the chief engineer. "What are we looking at?"

"Total system failure, that's what we're looking at," the man explained. "All we know for sure is that they were of course when we lost contact, so..."

"Tell me about the communications," Kane interrupted.

"Other than the telemetry from their wristbands, we got nothing… No audio, no video, no computer link. Everything that we programmed in to help them is gone. They're on their own," Sinclair continued.

Kane swallowed hard. What had he done? He'd send Alice to certain death.

ELIZABETH - THE DROPSHIP

Tightly fastened in her seat, Elizabeth didn't dare to move a finger. Her hands were holding onto the armrest of her seat during the entire fall and she kept her eyes firmly closed. The noise was unbearable and she felt a strong pressure on her ears. And suddenly, everything stopped. The machine had stopped.

"We've landed," a voice next to her said quietly.

Slowly, Elizabeth opened her eyes. Bellamy was sitting to her right directly looking at her.

"You're okay?" he asked.

The blonde just nodded, unsure what to say. The buckles of their seatbelts suddenly clicked all open at the same time.

"Come on, we have to get out of her," Bellamy added straightening up and holding out his arm for her.

Standing up, Elizabeth felt slightly dizzy but she let herself be dragged along.

"The outer door is on the lower level," someone called to the mass. "Let's go!"

Together they reached the exit of the drop followed by some people coming down the latter from the upper levels.

"Hey, just back it up, guys!" Bellamy shouted as he turned to the control panel to manually open the door.

"Stop," a voice called from the bottom of the latter, a voice that Elizabeth immediately recognized.

"Clarke?" she whispered barely realizing that her friend was down there.

The blonde forced oneself through the crowd to reach the door.

"The air could be toxic," she added.

At that moment, she recognized Elizabeth standing next to him and she noticed her with a questioning look.

"If the air is toxic, we're all dead, anyway," Bellamy retorted.

"Bellamy?" a small voice called from behind the crowd.

Everybody turned toward the voice. A girl around 16 made her way through the mass. People were whispering on her path.

"That's the girl who hid under the floor," someone mumbled.

"My God, look how big you are," Bellamy said looking at her with an open mouth before letting her throw her arms around her and hugging her tightly.

"What the hell are you wearing?" she questioned. "A guards uniform?"

"I borrowed it to get o the dropship. Someone has got to keep an eye on you," her brother added laughing and taking her one more time in his arms.

A weak sad smile appeared on Elizabeth's lips. It was the kind of relationship she had with Alice before everything went south. And she was really missing it.

"Where's your wristband?" Clarke suddenly interrupted.

"Do you mid?" the younger Blake sibling said violently turning to the blonde. "I haven't seen my brother in a year."

The crowd started to mumble and whisper again.

"No one has a brother!" a male delinquent called loudly.

"That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor," a girl added.

Octavia saw red and wanted to throw herself on the couple but Bellamy holds her back in time.

"Octavia no," he whispered to her ear.

And at that moment, a red-haired walked through the crowd, raising even more whisper and talking. Elizabeth froze. It was her sister. Finally, after nearly 10 years, she has last seen her. Alice hadn't seen her yet, she was walking straight to the two Blake siblings but Lizzie was standing in Bellamy's shadow.

"Let's give them something else to remember you by," the red-haired said to her the younger girl.

"Yeah? Like what?" Octavia countered.

"Like being the first person on the ground in hundred years," Alice added smiling.

Octavia nodded. Bellamy reached toward the panel and grabbed the hand gear. The door opened in a dull sound and the entire space was suddenly flooded by bright light. Getting accustomed to the light, Elizabeth looked around her. Octavia was slowly walking the bridge down, deeply breathing in. That's when she also noticed it, the air was pure, fresh and one could breathe much better. The younger Blake jumped down on the ground before shouting out:

"We're back bitches!"

And everybody started to cheer, running out of the dropship. Everybody was staring outside, in awe, amazed, shouting their happiness. Everyone but a certain red-haired girl. Alice had her eyes set on her sister, incomprehension painted in her eyes. What the hell was she doing here?

"Alice," Elizabeth called her.

But the girl just shook her head and walked to the back of the dropship just ignoring her twin.

ALICE - EARTH

Alice stayed in the back while all the other delinquents got out of the dropship into the fresh air. Elizabeth was here. The reason why she's been in the Skybox all that time was on Earth with her. It took her a moment to swallow the fact that her twin managed to follow her down here. What the hell was she doing here? Was it another mad and twisted plan of their father? Was he even filled up with the fact that she was down there?

She noticed that the dropship was now completely empty. Joyous yelling was heard from the outside. The teens were probably celebrating their arrival on Earth. But she wasn't really in the mood for celebration. Walking to the opening, she noticed the others having fun, her sister with a big dreamy smile painted on her face, standing on the side with her blonde best-friend. Alice never got quite well along Clarke Griffin. She was one of the few people aware of the Kane's situation, together with her parents and Jake and Abby and Lizzie's other best friend Wells, chancellor Jaha's son. Everything used to be just right at the time. The two sisters managed to never be outside of their residence at the same time. Nobody suspected anything since the twins look a lot like each other. It was well organized and went well. Until that stupid day.

8-year-old Lizzie went out of the residence as she perfectly knew that it was her sister's turn. She went to a concert with Clarke and Wells where her parents were. But in the meantime, Alice had got caught stealing some ration for a poor family. Some guard had caught her and interrupted the show to denounce her. He made her go up on the stage and at that moment the entire room became silent.

FLASHBACK

THE ARK

Marcus Kane had stood up as he saw his daughter standing up there. The glimpse of the audience moved alternately between Alice firmly held by the guard on the stage and Elizabeth trying to hide behind her mother. And everybody seems like they weren't completely understanding what was happening in front of their eyes. Marcus Kane, the one who always strictly followed the laws and took special care to make everyone respect them, had broken one of the most important and crucial law in effect on the Ark by hiding the fact that his wife had given birth to more than one child. Chancellor Jaha suddenly stood up and requested the entire Kane family to follow him outside from the room. Marcus, Helena, and Lizzie were taken to his office, while Alice got temporarily locked in a cell in juvie.

MARCUS - CHANCELLOR'S OFFICE

"Are you completely out of your mind?" the chancellor burst out as he ordered the guards to wait outside. "Why didn't you told me anything?"

"Have you seen their reaction?" Marcus tried but Jaha continued.

"I totally understand them," he said letting himself fall back into his chair. "The rules we try to put into practice should work for everyone. There isn't a place for privileged on the Ark."

Helena who had been silent since the beginning of the maintenance stood up from the corner where she was sitting with Lizzie who had fallen asleep and came to stand next to her husband.

"What would you have done if Gabrielle had given birth to twins? If Wells had had a brother or a sister? Tell me Thelonious, what would you've done?"

Marcus laid a hand on his wife's shoulder to comfort her. Tears had appeared in the woman's eyes.

"The doctors didn't detect that I was bearing twins. When the girls are born we didn't have another choice than to hide them. Please, I beg you Thelonious, try to understand that if we had had another solution, be sure that we would have taken it."

Jaha seems thoughtful.

"The Council will have to decide what to do in that special situation," he said

Alice stayed her cell for hours, without seeing anybody, not knowing what was happening outside, not knowing what was gonna happen to her family.

MARCUS - THE ARK, PUBLIC SPACE

Later on, the four members of the Kane family were standing in front of the entire council on the public space of the Ark.

"The Council has adjudicated on the case and has come to a judgment," one of the men said.

Abby was standing back in the row, her face closed, emotionless.

On the other side, Marcus was standing close to Helena, an arm firmly wrapped around her waist, Alice's small hand slid in his own. He looked down to his daughters. Elizabeth had her arms thrown around her mother's leg and was crying silently. On his other side was standing Alice, standing straight, no emotion on her face. She was looking straight to a point in front of her.

"In accordance with the laws in practice on the state of the Ark, saying that a couple can't have more than one child, Helena Marie Kane we sentence you hereby to death with immediate effects."

Marcus shook his head.

"No, you can't do that!" he screamed out as two guards approached from behind and grabbed his wife's arms.

"The execution will proceed tomorrow at first light," the counselor added.

"Mommy!" Alice cried out loudly, letting go of her father's hand and running toward her mother.

But another guard grabbed her by the waist and lifted her from the ground.

"Alice!" Elizabeth small voice called desperately.

"Hush child!" one of the other guards barked at her.

In the meantime, the counselor on the stage continued.

"Marcus Kane, as one of the parent, we'll hereby demand you to choose between the two, which one shall live with you."

"Marcus please, don't do that," Helena cried out trying to break free from the grip of the guards.

Marcus looked up to Jaha. The man standing at one end of the row nodded. They had an agreement and so, Alice would be safe. It was the only possible way.

FLASHBACK END