closed.

[strove]

WHO: Clarke Griffin, Markus, and Connor—a musical trio coming soon to your eyeballs!
WHERE: One of New Amsterdam's sky parks.
WHEN: September 15th
WHAT: AI talks, sadness.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Talk of death, dysphoria, and references to violence (most likely). I'll update if anything else becomes relevant.

[Someone could make a very salient point that Clarke avoids the meeting with Connor, but that isn't the case. It only seems that way, which offers her some anxiety over the subject that has nothing to do with Lexa. At least it's not anxiety directly related to Lexa herself—a first when it comes to this subject.

No, she puts it off because she wants to have a better grip on the city itself. She wants to have a job lined up, and an idea of where she's going. Somewhere. Anywhere. Stability in one part of her life would make things easier in another part.

The fact of the matter is that it works out okay. Markus turns up, and when he does, Clarke realizes she can help both of them with her experiences. They may not directly translate. Hell, they may not translate at all, but it's important that she shares it so they can grasp what some scientists (or a single scientist: Becca) had been able to accomplish.

She sends both Connor and Markus the agreed upon meeting location through a message, and says she'll show up with lunch. After previously considering pho, she ends up at a sandwich shop next store. Though pho would have worked for all of their delicate stomachs, she had it explained to her that it wouldn't be a good picnic food. Like, at all. So, okay. Sandwiches it is (and it's not like she's had a lot of those in her life).

Clarke shows up with the food in a cloth bag that's also holding a blanket, since she wants this to look like a picnic. Even if picnics are also new. Look, post-apocalypse Earth is rough. Connor and Markus are bound to learn this today.

She looks around for the two of them, and when she spots them, she motions them over to her.]

Comments

[cyberlife]

(reaches back to trace the scar where his implant lies, avoiding eye contact while he listens. they suffered so much; both of them, the people he has come to appreciate and wishes he could protect. the story's difficult to take in for so many reasons, hearing the hurt in clarke's voice and consequently in markus' — he can tell because he was designed to read others, find faults and weaknesses, study them and unravel how they're feeling without feeling himself. and it terrifies him, because it could've been him. in a violently opposing role, facing down the rest of his species with grim obeisance paid to cyberlife.

he doesn't liken himself to ALIE — maybe markus does, maybe markus is wondering what his life would be like without the support he received from his family and friends — but he does liken himself to the kind of monster she is. albeit a free one, doing whatever she thinks is right for the world. it strikes a chord.

so connor pushes it down and away.)

If the humans here have subsisted for hundreds of years with these chips, then I doubt they'll be a liability. With the exception of our secure conversations being compromised by the government, which seems to be an eventuality... let's just say I'm satisfied that our meeting's here and not performed remotely. (honestly, if anyone caught wind of any of this they'd all be incarcerated or worse.

not something he wants to think about right now, when they have so many other headaches to discuss beforehand.)

None of this explains the bodies, but it seems relevant to note that transferring consciousness and individual thought through the implants would've been made far easier considering our minds consisted of code. If ALIE could upload human minds then androids' would be elementary. I could do that, even if nothing I've experienced comes close to what's happening to me — to us — now... who can say, when we're in such early stages of our investigations...?

Eventually we'll find the answer, no matter how unacceptable it may prove to be.

[strove]

No, I don't think the implants are a threat. I just think that they might be a means to an end. If there were some way to transfer your minds to an identical body—well, what I'm saying is that it's viable. It doesn't explain the genetic engineering inherent in such a thing. But it touches on everything else. [Those first days were terrifying for Clarke. Before she understood the full implementation of the implants, they seemed terrifying. They seemed like a problem that was going to come to pass. They seemed like a certain issue. Now, she knows the truth of it. The reality is that they have some answers thanks to Becca and ALIE, and she can pass them on.

That's not all, however.

There's the matter of ALIE 2.0.

Clarke takes a bite of her food before she goes on, swallowing it down. Pacing herself. This will be hard.]

But there's more. [Said without sounding like an Oxyclean commercial.]

Becca went into space to make it so that none of her systems were threatened by ALIE. This was a hundred years before I was even born—[or just about]—and she wanted to try to find a way to further her study. To do this, she created ALIE 2.0. As a program, it was meant to interface with humanity's needs. It was supposed to just be a program, but circumstances forced her down to Earth. To make it into a chip like the ones that worked as a key to the City of Light. This chip ended up as the ... heart of a society on Earth after it burned. [After Praimfaya.] Passed down from leader to leader, their minds were uploaded onto this, and enhanced. Offered wisdom. It came with a cost, though. The fact that your mind could feel less like your own. That you could feel these commanders waging war against your choices in your head when you slept.

[Clarke looks away at this point, eyes half-lidded. Her throat is tight.]

I knew the last commander intimately, and I saw her ... later. After she passed. She was in the City of Light and changed, but still her. She was meant to go on to guide her predecessor, but things didn't go as planned. But in that way, Lexa ... and those that came before her ... ALIE 2.0 allowed her to both be human and AI, merging the two together.

[This is yet another thing Raven would be far better at explaining. Clarke doesn't look back at either Markus or Connor. The creases at the corner of her mouth show her personal self-control. Like it or not, she's one step away from tears. That's just the way it is when Lexa is an undeniable factor.]

[saviorexe]

[A way to blur the lines between human and AI — though the circumstances didn’t exactly align neatly to what’s happened to himself and Connor, it’s hard to miss the parallel. Two individuals caught between two worlds, and if not for how staunchly Markus believed himself to still be an android, it would be easy to fall into a deep, suffocating mire of existential crises.

Markus waits for her to finish, eyes drawn directly to her expression. The way her voice strains, the tautness that draws itself across her expression as relates to them the story of her last commander. It’s a telltale effort of exerting the strength of self-control, and Markus recognizes it because it reminds him, in some ways, of himself. Of some things that simply can’t be shown in the presence of others, because portraying strength and steadiness is, and always will be, paramount.

A careful moment to draw up words, a straightforward way of enunciating them, though his intonation has gone softer by barely measurable degrees.]

A vehicle to house human consciousness. [ALIE 2.0, it seemed, was less an AI with a consciousness and more that, a means of interfacing.] A means of transfer. I can see the relevance to our current situation, but at the same time… these neural implants, I don’t know if they’re capable of anything similar. They’re no different than what the natives have; modifying one to host the whole of my experiences, my memories, everything… I don’t know how feasible that is.

[A pause.]

But maybe something else was used. We can’t know. If none of us remember just how we arrived here, what was done to our bodies—

[Markus’ jaw tightens, but he forces it to relax. He finally moves to unwrap his sandwich, belatedly realizing that maybe he should actually eat during a picnic.]

Everything’s theorizing right now. But I still appreciate you telling us all of this, Clarke. Even if parts of it are... difficult.

[cyberlife]

I don't feel as though I've... merged into who I am now. As unhelpful as that is, maybe it has some relevance. My mind's unchanged.

(clarke's visibly upset and it ruffles the androids, caught by the throat of their empathy. connor has difficulty wrangling the emotion when his ability's already keeping his fear sequestered in an empty corner of his brain, but manages to avoid making it worse by showing it. that doesn't mean she can't hear it, the apology in his voice when he speaks.

markus opens a sandwich, influencing connor to take a bite of his own.)

Talking it over and exchanging theories is useful, even if it's all conjecture. (said after he's swallowed, eye contact broken to stare down at the crusts he's peeling away.

the texture's strange, but the bulk of it's tasty. plain, simple, and easy to eat.)

The fact that you're willing to go so far to help us, despite having a background that shines such a poor light on artificial intelligence, is more than enough right now. Allies are vital and we have one in you. That's obvious now.

[strove]

I know that it goes both ways. [They're each other's allies. Some callous part of her wishes to leave it at that, but Clarke knows that she craves the friends and people she can count on from before. Without her people, she really just has Bellamy and Murphy. The former of which is from a time when they had barely reconciled, and the latter doesn't even remember pumping a heart to keep her alive. It's not something she's keen to wave in his face.

So, she'll need more. She's known it from day one. She just has to be less ... pragmatic in how she mentally presents it. And more honest. Direct. Human—which could be ironic, considering.]

For what it's worth, I know that the previous commanders helped Lexa. They helped her gain knowledge that she may not have had before, and she was said to be the best at ... utilizing the Flame. [A beat.] That's ALIE 2.0. What her people called it. [There's a tight-lipped smile there.]

And even ALIE herself hoped to help humanity. It was just that her imperative wasn't ... [Good? She trails off.]

Which is to say—I was a little put off at first. I won't lie. But I believe you're both sincere in wanting answers, and that you'll help the rest of us find ours. As for what I've told you, it may not be immediately relevant, but if they somehow found out about Becca and her technology in the time I've lost ...

[It could be something. Clarke isn't certain. She doesn't have the Flame, and didn't before she came here. None of the three who have arrived did. It was kept with Octavia down in the bunker, safe with those who knew they'd keep watch over it until a time may come when they needed it again.

If they needed it. Clarke has her doubts about that.]

[saviorexe]

[“A little put off.”

Markus can’t help himself, it comes out before he can stop it. A short exhale of air, an almost-scoff, if not for how it’s entwined with something akin to dry humor. A little put off, Clarke says, like that would be enough to bother them after all the information she’s offered them. After being willing to meet with them, to engage in their company. After personally speaking with him the first day that he arrived in the safehouse, lost, confused, exhausted, struggling to understand.

She’s given them the time of day, have put trust in their open palms; that’s more than what many humans would ever dream of doing back home. Already, she speaks to them as people, looks at them as individuals with their own minds, their own set of opinions and advice to give.

Clarke doesn’t know the weight of that. The importance of it, to Markus. How can she?]

I choose to trust you, Clarke. We both do. [He’s sure he can speak for Connor on this alone. The look he gives her is earnest.] And if you give that trust to us in return, we’ll not mishandle it.

[This, to Markus, is spoken like a promise.]

Right now, that’s all we have between us. We don’t know what our captors know, what advantages they have over us. And so, going forward, I want to suggest that we all continue working closely together. Sharing information. Asking each other questions. Becoming steadfast allies.

[cyberlife]

You're forthcoming, that's more trustworthy than the alternative. If you'd lied, I would've been "a little put off" too.

(both androids consider it something amusing in a very skewed way, sinking into the relieved sort of tension-breaker the conversation needs. all three of them have faced similar yet fundamentally unique turning points in their lives and to think it's all because of that inconvenient but seductive will to live. to thrive and build a future so others can too.

just one more mislabelled thing trying to be a person trying to stay alive... and going about it the wrong way.

connor swallows another mouthful of his sandwich and lets his head bob along with what markus is saying.)

I wish that... more humans were as willing to reevaluate their opinions. Like you. (he doesn't say it lightly, even after seeing such a hopeful future for their species back home — there's still an entire world left to convince and if everyone was this open to facing unknowns as clarke they'd have far less of a struggle on their hands.) You can rely on us to be there, Clarke, whatever the circumstance.

[strove]

[Becoming steadfast allies. The words aren't empty or shallow, as far as Clarke is concerned. They mean everything, and they strike her as something that she almost doesn't deserve. When she set out to make allies here, it was meant to be a distant, conditional thing. A means to an end. She hoped to view it almost like a political alliance, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Once, her mother told her not to feel responsible for everyone, but she can't seem to shake the part where she develops her own people.

Even those who are new. Who came here and found themselves lost. Then again, she had been willing to accept Lexa's people as her own for a time, as long as they could accept her first.]

I stand by my people. It may be too soon to call this an arrangement like that, but I can see it heading that way. [It's sincere and honest. Her friends are her people. It's why she stood by and protected Roan, and even deceived everyone so that she could almost take on the Flame to become the next commander. (Again.) Disrespect of traditions meant nothing if she could keep people from going at each other's throats.]

And as obscene as ALIE's actions were, she had an imperative to help. I can ... at least sympathize with that much. [A hint, however unwitting, that Clarke is capable of some rather terrible things.]

Thank you. I mean it. I wasn't sure if I was going to make friends here, or even if I could. It means a lot.