February 23, 2150

Bellamy shifted in his seat, his hands strapped to the aluminum table in front of him. He'd been sitting in the chair for what felt like hours, but without a clock, or a watch, there was no way of knowing how long he'd been stuck in this position. And that Sergeant Carver's constant in-your face barrage of questions certainly didn't make things better. He silently was just glad not to have been shot on sight, the image of the guard bleeding out on the deck of the rig still fresh in his mind. To his right he heard muffled voices, two, maybe three, if he had to guess, just beyond the heavy plate door. The thick metal deadened most of the words so he tried to get comfortable, assuming one or both of whoever was at the door would be in momentarily.

Rod, Jarin, and Luna stopped just outside the makeshift holding cell. Jarin quickly flipped through Sam's notes while Luna and Rod discussed the events of the previous night.

"So your guard just rushed you?"

Luna shook her head at Rod's question. "Not at me, at the Flame."

Rod was still a little confused. "The Flame?"

"My people view The Flame as a symbol of leadership. We believe it holds the spirits of all the past Commanders, imparting their wisdom and knowledge on the current Commander. How this blonde woman-"

"Clarke" Jarin quickly interjected. "That's what Sam said her name is."

Luna continued. "How this 'Clarke' came to possess The Flame is an intriguing question. I fear something terrible has happened on the mainland. Especially if they were desperate enough to try to find me, of all people."

Jaring flipped the notebook closed and nodded to Rod. "I'm ready." He turned to Luna. "He's the last one to interrogate. After this we should have a better idea about what's going on out there."

Rod opened the door, pushing it in to let Jarin pass, the latter noticing their quasi-prisoner attempt to sit up straight as he crossed the gap toward the table in the middle of the room. He let the notebook drop the table, the impact drawing the attention of the interrogation subject. Jarin slowly slid out his own chair, pulling out his knife as he sat down. Carefully, he place the knife on the table, and slid his chair along the ground toward the table. He looked up to see the subject's eyes were still on the knife when he started talking.

"Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the sergeant's questioning earlier. Carver can be a bit overzealous at times, just a tad too aggressive, but it's those qualities that make me quite glad he's my sergeant. Thankfully, based on the information gathered from your friends I'm confident his more physical tactics won't be necessary today, provided you tell me what I want to know."

Bellamy was trying to reconcile the knife and the more conciliatory tone of his latest questioner. "And what do you want, exactly?"

"Oh I'll be get to that in a minute." Jarin leaned back, propping his feet up on the table. "For now, I want to talk about you. I know you're name is Bellamy Blake. I know you and your friends until about 5 months actually lived in space, which I gotta say is pretty cool. And I know you've been heavily involved in actions both with, and against, the people your friends refer to as 'grounders'. By all accounts, you and your people have been through hell these last few months. Which makes this particular standoff puzzling to me."

Bellamy was not a fan of this man assuming that he knew everything about him. "And why's that?"

"Because your friends seem to very pragmatic people. Or maybe they're just stubborn and that's how it comes across to most people. But we're pretty obviously not most people. We have guns, we're not afraid to use them, as you saw last night, and what's more, we know exactly what you're friend Clarke came on board with last night." That seemed to get through to Bellamy. Jarin saw the shocked look on his face and kept digging. "We know about ALIE, and the second version her creator was working toward. Our current working hypothesis is that the chip your blonde friend was carrying is that second version and that it's been helping shape the 'Grounder' civilization for over 90 years." Jarin picked up the knife, leaning forward across the table. "But what I don't know is why you have it. We know Luna is dead because there isn't any other way you could have gotten it, but that doesn't tell me a damn thing about what you plan to do with it."

Bellamy yanked on the restraints, frustrated that at feeling of literally being chained to a table. "We have the damn thing because the new Commander is a bloodthirsty bitch who cuts off children's heads in their sleep. Oh, and the AI that blew up the damn planet is trying to kill us because it's the only thing in the world that can stop her. If Luna takes the Flame then we might find a way to kill the bitch and save the world!" Bellamy ended his rant in a huff, staring his captor, flinching when the knife slashed toward his hands. He looked up incredulously when his questioner cut the ties around his wrists.

Jarin, for his part, looked down and shrugged. "What? You want to save the world, I want to save the world, and our enemy wants to end it. I think that puts us on the same page, don't you?"

Jarin put his knife back in it's sheath along the left side of his belt and pounded on the door, which was promptly swung open by Lopez.

Jarin motioned for the still seated Bellamy to join him. "Well let's go man. The rest of your friends are already on their way."

Bellamy stood up. "On their way where?"

Jarin shared a bemused look with Rod before answering. "Honestly, I don't think you'd believe me if I told you. So let's go take an elevator ride."

Five minutes later Jarin, Rod and Bellamy stood in the elevator as the doors closed. Bellamy waited a moment before breaking the silent tension. "So where exactly are you guys from? You don't exactly look like any Grounders we've come across."

Rod looked down at Bellamy, his deep voice bellowing a single word. "Florida."

"Like, actual Florida?"

Another single word passed Rod's lips. "Yep."

Bellamy lapsed in a stunned bit a silence until his ears popped. He used his pinky to dig in this ear to try to deal with the uncomfortable sensation, looking sideways at Jarin. "How far down are we going?"

Jarin opened his mouth to answers, but stopped, trying to remember what Jenn had said. "You know, I don't think I actually remembered if Jenn told me. We were a little busy doing other things last time few times we were down here as I recall."

When the elevator slowed to a stop the doors soon parted, allowing the trio to walk toward the group huddled around the main console in the center. As they came up the VI was just starting to explain her function to the motley crew of Outpost soldiers, Grounder guards and station survivors.

"My designation is E.R.I.N, or Educational Robotic Interface Network." Jarin watched as Bellmay slowly approached the hologram, standing on it's pedestal above the crowd. He figured that he'd probably had the same look on his face the first time Jenn booted the program up for him all those months ago. The blue and black streaks on the humanoid body reminded him of something straight out of one of the old video games his father had been such a fan of playing. Looking over the group of people he turned his attention back to the VI.

"My function is to provide the children of humanity's future with historical data on the world in the event of a catastrophic civilization collapse, such as the one that occurred on May 10, 2052. My records have been updated with further information beyond that point by key members of the United States government, including the president, before she and the rest of the Cabinet succumbed to starvation after 2.64 years of survival inside this bunker." Staring straight ahead the VI spoke to no one in particular, issuing its most basic command prompt. "What would you like to discuss?"

The light from the hologram kicked off, momentarily plunging the room into darkness before Jarin spotted Jenn bringing up the lights that ringed the platform. She caught his glance and laughed, bringing the attention of the room to her. "The mood lighting is probably my favorite thing about this place. I would have killed to see the meeting where that one got pitched to the president." When she stepped into the light to fill them in the VI system Bellamy gasped audibly. Jenn looked at him quizzically until she realized what had freaked him out. "Right, you must be Bellamy." She came around the circle to bridge a bit of the distance gap between the two. "Apparently, we're second cousins."

Bellamy looked at Octavia and then back to Jenn. "What? How?"

Jenn looked at Jarin, not sure how much detail she should get into with people they'd only just met. He held up a hand, indicating he'd take things to start, and take the responsibility if command was going to get pissy about leaking intel.

"How much do you, or any on the stations, know about the program that resulted in the 13 stations?"

The station survivors looked at each other and shrugged before Clarke answered for the group, drawing a derisive group from the taller one Jarin guessed was Jasper. "Not much. There wasn't a lot in the computers about the immediate timeline up until the nuclear bombs fell."

Jarin nodded. "That's because they didn't want you to know. By 2135 most of NASA's operations were being jointly run by the government and private corporations. But since the companies fronted the money, they called the shots. As twisted as it is, the people behind the U.S. station programs viewed the whole thing as one big science experiment. While the rest of the world's nations launched a satellite more out of desperation than any real plan to survive a nuclear apocalypse," Jarin paused to circle around the group. "the U.S., on the other hand, after having helped screen the other nation's volunteers for genetic radiation immunity, instituted a massive program to screen their own population and begin moving as many as possible to government facilities across the country. The two largest centers were under the Denver International Airport and at Cape Canaveral, the launch site for both U.S. satellites. Our group is from the latter location. But our group was divided into three test groups that had no contact, and no knowledge of, the other groups due to some scientifically creative project organizers. One team to watch and monitor Polaris, the other to monitor the civilian satellite and the third group would actually go up in space."

Clarke quickly cut in. "But even if they kept our existence secret from each other you clearly knew about us after the bombs fell. So why didn't you contact us?"

"For starters, we didn't know how. After the bombs fell, all hell broke loose underground. The two ground crews eventually realized they weren't alone. So that kind of upset some things. Once it all settled down our grandparents realized that nuclear shockwaves had totally fried the primary and secondary communications arrays on the surface. And since we didn't have the power to attempt contact on the main radio relay all we could do was monitor with ground telescopes and track any falling pods with radar. By the time we had enough equipment and working systems the stations had merged, and were using an entirely new set of communications protocols. Our weak signal didn't reach you."

Bellamy wasn't entirely convinced. "Well that's all supremely interesting, mind explaining why she," He pointed at Jenn. "looks exactly like Octavia's and my grandmother?"

Jenn took back over, looking back and forth between Bellamy and Octavia. "Did either of you two know your grandmother was a twin?" While Octavia nodded, Bellamy shook his head. Jenn continued to explain. "Well, as the lieutenant said, the whole program was a big science experiment. And there are few things scientists liked more than having twins in a social experiment. Your grandmother, Jennifer, who I'm named after, went into to space, while her sister, my grandmother Elyse, stayed on the ground."

Bellamy looked stunned at the revelation, compounded by the fact that it seemed to barely faze his sister. Jenn picked up on the visual exchange between them. "Not to pry, but is your sister ok? The whole cousin thing just kind of bounced off her when we figured it out."

He shook his head. "No. She lost someone very close to her."

"Oh."

Jenn let the silence grow until Luna appeared behind the group, her entrance masked by the mini-lecture Jarin had been giving.

"I believe the history lesson is over." The whole group turned to face her as she spoke. Even standing beside a taller man in Jarin, she commanded the room. "It's time to discuss to discuss our enemy."

Clarke stepped forward expectantly. "Does that mean you'll accept the Flame?"

Luna eyed her for a moment before delivering her answer. "No."

"What?" Clarke eye's widened, clearly shocked at the woman's answer. "Why not?"

For her part, Luna stayed as level headed as ever. "My people came to this place because they were tired of the bloodshed, the mindless killing. That has not changed. The only thing capable of changing my mind would be-"

"But the world will end if you do nothing!" Clarke was certainly not willing to give up.

Jarin raised a hand to cut her off. "I don't think I'd go quite that far." He looked over to Jenn. "Don't suppose you got anything for us to work with?"

"Actually, I do." Jenn punched in a series of commands on the console, bringing up a display of The Flame. "I took some scans from the device Clarke was carrying when she arrived. It's a remarkable piece of technology. Based on what these four have told me about how the AI out there is infecting people with silicon chips, and the quasi-autopsy I managed on the infected guard, I think I may have a way to switch off the chips."

Jarin tore his eyes away from the display of the second AI. "How?"

"You remember that part of our mission was to try to find any technology we could salvage in Andrews Air Force Base?" Seeing him nod she continued. "Well, one of the things on the manifest are a whole wing of prototype railguns, just like the ones on the Gerald Ford back home. And since they're powered by one hell of an electro-magnet, I should be able to rig up an EMP canopy that would take any chip in range permanently off-line. As far as killing the AI itself, that's gonna be a git trickier."

Clarke spoke up as the specialist trailed off. "We might have something, well more like a someone, who can help with that. She's back in Arkadia"

Now it was Rod's turn to get his bearings. "Arkadia?"

The lanky kid hanging the back chimed in. "That's the name of our camp. I'm not such a big fan of the name."

Jarin turned to Rod. "Go round up the team and get 'em down here." Once Rod headed toward the elevator the lieutenant turned back to the group. "Time for my guys to get back to doing our job. We're gonna go get what we need from Andrews, pick up the rest of the station survivors, and then go kick all the asses. And by that I mean knock 'em out, kill an AI, and save the world. So no pressure."

A/N: And now we're gonna get to the good stuff. Everyone's on the same page and the endgame is set. Not gonna lie, I had a lot of this story sketched out pretty much right before and after we met Luna on the show, knowing that since the rig was in the opening credits they main cast would eventually get there. So some of the end game of the show is going to line up a bit with this story, but I think the twist on the end I have in mind is worth it. Please review!