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apocalypsosSpoilers until the end of the episodes shown on UPN (*grumblegrumble* Bloody UPN ...), and a little fudging of what might have happened if the series had continued. *sniffle* I miss my dead nanite-injected show.
A Great and Noble Quest
See, the thing is, you're a prototype now.
Like it or not, you are the first of many. It wasn't like it wasn't going to be like this anyway, the government working all of the nanites' kinks out on you before they start filling their soldiers full of them, but now it's a matter of keeping people alive. You've been a prototype for more than a year, but it's never been more obvious than the day they drop you in the middle of the National Mall, tell you to walk back to the base near the Mexican border, and fly off.
No winter coat. No food. No human company, and no way of contacting anyone.
Gee, thanks, guys, you think, and start walking.
Yes, it's cold -- twenty below zero when they shoved you out of the helicopter -- but the nanites fend off frostbite as best they can, and you run through Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes in your head from start to finish, as many as you can. It doesn't accomplish much, but it distracts you from the cold and the thought of Sarah Michelle Gellar in a tank top would warm up any red-blooded heterosexual guy.
You walk to NSA headquarters first out of some vain hope you'll find some way to contact the base, but no dice. They won't make it that easy for you, and just for fun, only the top floor isn't below the ice and all of the windows have shattered from the cold.
It was ninety degrees in the Washington metropolitan area three weekends ago. You're really starting to forget what that felt like.
Then you walk to Kyle's place, hoping maybe to find some evidence your partner managed to escape before the flood and ensuing deep freeze. It takes you a half hour of wandering the snow and orienting yourself with the taller buildings to realize you're standing right above where Kyle's home used to be. It occurs to you that it's not out of line to assume Kyle was in it when the flood waters came.
You go rob some clothes and whatever food you can find from a high-rise hotel so you won't think of Kyle drowning in his own bedroom.
Lou lived in a taller condominium complex. You hike over there, but all you can think about is how you're supposed to be halfway to Tennessee by now. You climb through a bashed-in window and climb what's left of the stairwell up to Lou's apartment, and bust down the door with a far-too-light kick.
There's a human form frozen to the floor in the hallway. You assume it's a looter but refuse to look close enough to confirm it.
You go downstairs to ice level and throw up in the stairwell, because all you can think of are your own frantic goodbyes to the others as you and Diane were escorted away by armed guards.
I am government property, you think harshly, and you throw up again in some stranger's frozen kitchen sink.
What you realize halfway to where Diane's place used to be is that you're probably supposed to be in Arkansas or something by now, and your fingertips should be frostbitten but aren't, and you can probably wander the Washington area until you're blue in the face, although that might be not quite as literal a cliche as it might have been before the nanites. You've been shot. You've fallen off buildings. You once hung onto the underside of a truck for over two hours. You survived exposure to deadly poisonous gas.
It's possible you may never freeze to death.
But that's kind of the point of this whole exercise, isn't it?
You get to Diane's, and you're hoping you'll find a souvenir of her old life to bring back to her. It sounds stupid when you think about it, but then you get this noble vision of carrying back a token for a beautiful damsel, and suddenly it sounds reasonable. And then you think of Diane, months from now, injecting people with nanites to keep the human race from dying away painfully in another ice age it brought on itself, and you picture her pausing to pick up a battered plastic Boggle piece or a cracked picture frame with some random family picture in it.
In your mind, she smiles, for whatever it's worth.
After that, you search for hours. When you find nothing, you start digging.
Far earlier than you expect, you find something, a snow-crusted stuffed monkey with black button eyes staring gratefully up at you. This isn't Diane's, which you know as soon as you see it, because you've got Diane's apartment practically memorized and this wasn't in it. But it's cute, and it makes you smile, and between the crusty patches of snow are blue tufts of fake fur that are the only flashes of true color you've seen in days. In short, it reminds you of Diane, bright and funny and amazing.
Part of you is almost tempted to walk to Akron, even though it would take you days to get there and you're probably supposed to be wandering around Dallas by now. But you doubt your parents are still alive, and in your mind, Jerry is frozen into some grotesque chilled statue somewhere. When you sleep, the image of your dead little brother haunts your dreams, and when it happens out here, you wake up bathed in sweat that freezes instantly to your skin.
Nevertheless, you still don't have frostbite.
You are a prototype, and if the absence of hypothermia is any sign, you're a damn good one.
But wrapped inside a knapsack you scavenge off a corpse is a dirty, ice-encrusted toy monkey that says you are a hero, in whatever small way you can be, and what carries you onward towards the south isn't the overworked nanites or the desperate desire for warmth and real food.
It's the anticipation of a smile on the face of the only person left in the world who means anything to you, and with that, you walk twice as fast towards home.
See, the thing is, you're a prototype now.
Like it or not, you are the first of many. It wasn't like it wasn't going to be like this anyway, the government working all of the nanites' kinks out on you before they start filling their soldiers full of them, but now it's a matter of keeping people alive. You've been a prototype for more than a year, but it's never been more obvious than the day they drop you in the middle of the National Mall, tell you to walk back to the base near the Mexican border, and fly off.
No winter coat. No food. No human company, and no way of contacting anyone.
Gee, thanks, guys, you think, and start walking.
Yes, it's cold -- twenty below zero when they shoved you out of the helicopter -- but the nanites fend off frostbite as best they can, and you run through Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes in your head from start to finish, as many as you can. It doesn't accomplish much, but it distracts you from the cold and the thought of Sarah Michelle Gellar in a tank top would warm up any red-blooded heterosexual guy.
You walk to NSA headquarters first out of some vain hope you'll find some way to contact the base, but no dice. They won't make it that easy for you, and just for fun, only the top floor isn't below the ice and all of the windows have shattered from the cold.
It was ninety degrees in the Washington metropolitan area three weekends ago. You're really starting to forget what that felt like.
Then you walk to Kyle's place, hoping maybe to find some evidence your partner managed to escape before the flood and ensuing deep freeze. It takes you a half hour of wandering the snow and orienting yourself with the taller buildings to realize you're standing right above where Kyle's home used to be. It occurs to you that it's not out of line to assume Kyle was in it when the flood waters came.
You go rob some clothes and whatever food you can find from a high-rise hotel so you won't think of Kyle drowning in his own bedroom.
Lou lived in a taller condominium complex. You hike over there, but all you can think about is how you're supposed to be halfway to Tennessee by now. You climb through a bashed-in window and climb what's left of the stairwell up to Lou's apartment, and bust down the door with a far-too-light kick.
There's a human form frozen to the floor in the hallway. You assume it's a looter but refuse to look close enough to confirm it.
You go downstairs to ice level and throw up in the stairwell, because all you can think of are your own frantic goodbyes to the others as you and Diane were escorted away by armed guards.
I am government property, you think harshly, and you throw up again in some stranger's frozen kitchen sink.
What you realize halfway to where Diane's place used to be is that you're probably supposed to be in Arkansas or something by now, and your fingertips should be frostbitten but aren't, and you can probably wander the Washington area until you're blue in the face, although that might be not quite as literal a cliche as it might have been before the nanites. You've been shot. You've fallen off buildings. You once hung onto the underside of a truck for over two hours. You survived exposure to deadly poisonous gas.
It's possible you may never freeze to death.
But that's kind of the point of this whole exercise, isn't it?
You get to Diane's, and you're hoping you'll find a souvenir of her old life to bring back to her. It sounds stupid when you think about it, but then you get this noble vision of carrying back a token for a beautiful damsel, and suddenly it sounds reasonable. And then you think of Diane, months from now, injecting people with nanites to keep the human race from dying away painfully in another ice age it brought on itself, and you picture her pausing to pick up a battered plastic Boggle piece or a cracked picture frame with some random family picture in it.
In your mind, she smiles, for whatever it's worth.
After that, you search for hours. When you find nothing, you start digging.
Far earlier than you expect, you find something, a snow-crusted stuffed monkey with black button eyes staring gratefully up at you. This isn't Diane's, which you know as soon as you see it, because you've got Diane's apartment practically memorized and this wasn't in it. But it's cute, and it makes you smile, and between the crusty patches of snow are blue tufts of fake fur that are the only flashes of true color you've seen in days. In short, it reminds you of Diane, bright and funny and amazing.
Part of you is almost tempted to walk to Akron, even though it would take you days to get there and you're probably supposed to be wandering around Dallas by now. But you doubt your parents are still alive, and in your mind, Jerry is frozen into some grotesque chilled statue somewhere. When you sleep, the image of your dead little brother haunts your dreams, and when it happens out here, you wake up bathed in sweat that freezes instantly to your skin.
Nevertheless, you still don't have frostbite.
You are a prototype, and if the absence of hypothermia is any sign, you're a damn good one.
But wrapped inside a knapsack you scavenge off a corpse is a dirty, ice-encrusted toy monkey that says you are a hero, in whatever small way you can be, and what carries you onward towards the south isn't the overworked nanites or the desperate desire for warmth and real food.
It's the anticipation of a smile on the face of the only person left in the world who means anything to you, and with that, you walk twice as fast towards home.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 01:43 pm (UTC)And the last line made me sigh hugely. :)
*worships Sky One for showing the last four episodes of Jake 2.0 in the UK*
no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 08:05 pm (UTC)And, er ... I did write another Jake fic, if you want to read it. It's an X-Men crossover.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 02:28 pm (UTC)Ooh! *reads* And there was me thinking I'd never want any other OTP but Jake/Diane... *waves Jake/Rogue flag*
Write more! :)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-23 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-26 01:03 am (UTC)'cos we get Sky One over here, who will be showing the last few episodes, and if you want I could get my husband to put them on a dvd/video cd/server for download.
Would you be interested?
no subject
Date: 2004-05-27 06:09 pm (UTC)*bounces around the room like a Tigger on crack, then snuggles you until you pop*
no subject
Date: 2004-05-29 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-10 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-03 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-04 02:16 am (UTC)