pulse - team human (allison/scott + danny/ethan) - AU - 2/4
---
“When the pulse hit, my mom was up there,” Stiles says. “She was a pilot.”
“You’re half?” Danny asks, and Stiles shakes his head.
“No, she was human. There were a couple of recon shuttles in orbit.”
“Collateral.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
They’re in a sim, their backs to a burnt out car as they wait for orders.
“I saw an old photo of a protest once, back before we left the system, that just said ‘shit is fucked up and bullshit’,” Danny says, and that makes Stiles laugh - really laugh - throw his head back against the car.
When the sim finally drops, after they’ve both been hit, the woman in charge of their squad leaves them standing in an empty wire frame room.
“You’re only human,” Morrell says, like they haven’t heard that a thousand times before. “You need to think faster.”
Stiles just sighs, long and low, and Danny watches him out of the corner of his eye and sees frayed edges.
---
Allison is born human. Lydia is born human. Stiles, Danny, so many of their friends growing up, all born human.
Scott is born h+. So is Ethan. So are thousands of others who were left to die in orbit after the pulse was sent out from a desperate humanity.
(The lucky ones were in a low enough orbit that they ended up falling back to earth, burning up in atmo or smashed to a pulp on the surface of the earth. The lucky ones weren’t the majority.)
“We use old school tech here,” Morrell tells them the first day they’re drafted. Everyone knows that. “The pulse means we rely on analogue and manual and hand-to-hand.”
Allison has been raised to do this, so she excels. She goes through the motions. She makes friends with Lydia and Stiles and Danny and they go running in the evenings, after dinner, as the sun is dying on the horizon.
“This war is a lot of sitting around,” Stiles huffs one night, when they’re sitting on the track infield.
“Wars always are,” Allison says, twisting grass between her fingers.
They’re shipped out the next day to go find an h+ stronghold. All they find is a burning town, with a man roped to a tree on the outskirts, one of the standard issues combat knives sticking out of his forehead.
“That right there,” Morrell says, “is a warning.”
“Drama queens,” Stiles mutters, and Allison can’t help the small grin.
They take the man down, flies buzzing around their heads, their hands tacky with mostly dry blood, and bury him in a shallow grave.
His tag chip has been dug out of his neck, so they don’t know his name, but he was human.
---
“Do you know where the h+ live now?” Chris asks her one night, when he’s sitting on her bed and she’s working on schoolwork, papers spread out across her bed.
“Obviously,” Allison says, because the government is crappy at keeping secrets, especially when her parents are both government contractors.
“Good,” Chris says, and moves to stand. “Watch the news tonight.”
“I will,” Allison says.
“And take your knives out of the tree out back.”
(They’d been there since the night her mother died, when her blood was on Allison’s hands.)
She goes to collect them later, after the sun has set, and then sneaks out of the yard, texting Scott as they go.
She meets him in front of an electronics store, in front of a plate glass window and dozens of TVs, like in an old movie, and they watch the news, hand in hand.
Allison wants to scream, wants to punch something, wants to draw blood and wants to never see another drop of blood at the same time, and Scott just squeezes her hand tighter as they watch an EMP take out the h+ colony in orbit.
“I think…” Scott takes a deep breath. “I think that can kill some people. If they’re older. More machine.”
It can, and it does.
(Allison has nightmares about it killing Scott, over and over and over again, even in the dark after she’s drafted and Lydia is there to curl around her and press a hand over her heart.)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 10:07 pm (UTC)---
“When the pulse hit, my mom was up there,” Stiles says. “She was a pilot.”
“You’re half?” Danny asks, and Stiles shakes his head.
“No, she was human. There were a couple of recon shuttles in orbit.”
“Collateral.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
They’re in a sim, their backs to a burnt out car as they wait for orders.
“I saw an old photo of a protest once, back before we left the system, that just said ‘shit is fucked up and bullshit’,” Danny
says, and that makes Stiles laugh - really laugh - throw his head back against the car.
“Pretty much,” Stiles says, grinning. “Pretty fucking much.”
When the sim finally drops, after they’ve both been hit, the woman in charge of their squad leaves them standing in an
empty wire frame room.
“You’re only human,” Morrell says, like they haven’t heard that a thousand times before. “You need to think faster.”
Stiles just sighs, long and low, and Danny watches him out of the corner of his eye and sees frayed edges.
---
Allison is born human. Lydia is born human. Stiles, Danny, so many of their friends growing up, all born human.
Scott is born h+. So is Ethan. So are thousands of others who were left to die in orbit after the pulse was sent out from a
desperate humanity.
(The lucky ones were in a low enough orbit that they ended up falling back to earth, burning up in atmo or smashed to a
pulp on the surface of the earth. The lucky ones weren’t the majority.)
“We use old school tech here,” Morrell tells them the first day they’re drafted. Everyone knows that. “The pulse means we
rely on analogue and manual and hand-to-hand.”
Allison has been raised to do this, so she excels. She goes through the motions. She makes friends with Lydia and Stiles
and Danny and they go running in the evenings, after dinner, as the sun is dying on the horizon.
“This war is a lot of sitting around,” Stiles huffs one night, when they’re sitting on the track infield.
“Wars always are,” Allison says, twisting grass between her fingers.
They’re shipped out the next day to go find an h+ stronghold. All they find is a burning town, with a man roped to a tree on
the outskirts, one of the standard issues combat knives sticking out of his forehead.
“That right there,” Morrell says, “is a warning.”
“Drama queens,” Stiles mutters, and Allison can’t help the small grin.
They take the man down, flies buzzing around their heads, their hands tacky with mostly dry blood, and bury him in a
shallow grave.
His tag chip has been dug out of his neck, so they don’t know his name, but he was human.
---
“Do you know where the h+ live now?” Chris asks her one night, when he’s sitting on her bed and she’s working on
schoolwork, papers spread out across her bed.
“Obviously,” Allison says, because the government is crappy at keeping secrets, especially when her parents are both
government contractors.
“Good,” Chris says, and moves to stand. “Watch the news tonight.”
“I will,” Allison says.
“And take your knives out of the tree out back.”
(They’d been there since the night her mother died, when her blood was on Allison’s hands.)
She goes to collect them later, after the sun has set, and then sneaks out of the yard, texting Scott as they go.
She meets him in front of an electronics store, in front of a plate glass window and dozens of TVs, like in an old movie, and
they watch the news, hand in hand.
Allison wants to scream, wants to punch something, wants to draw blood and wants to never see another drop of blood at
the same time, and Scott just squeezes her hand tighter as they watch an EMP take out the h+ colony in orbit.
“I think…” Scott takes a deep breath. “I think that can kill some people. If they’re older. More machine.”
It can, and it does.
(Allison has nightmares about it killing Scott, over and over and over again, even in the dark after she’s drafted and Lydia is
there to curl around her and press a hand over her heart.)