Humans Challenge 2019

getting this in under a year since the prompt was issued, whaaat! skills!

•••

Of all the places she ever thought she’d be meeting Neha for lunch... well, actually, the prison canteen probably isn’t right at the bottom of the list, had probably crept a few places up once fears surrounding the synth effort started getting more real, but it’s certainly not what Laura had envisioned when she’d met the woman for the first time. When the formidable QC had been weighing Niska’s life in the balance and staring them down from one end of a long, narrow table, she had been only an obstacle, an opposer. An enemy, even.

Not an ally or a coconspirator and certainly not a friend.

But here they are. Crammed together, knees almost touching under the narrow metal of the lunch table which is considerably smaller than anything you’d find in a court room, even an impromptu one set up for a trial in a holding compound.

“How’s things?” Laura asks, and it’s mostly a joke because ‘things’ have been at a uniform low since they got here and don’t tend to vary, but it’s a ritual both are grateful for, this pretence at a normal, human conversation. It’s a touchstone.

“Same old,” Neha replies. Her hair is cropped close to her head and it sharpens her features, had at first made Laura feel like she was mates with the prison’s hardest axe-murderer, not a lawyer sent down for dolly-coddling. “You?”

“Oh, yeah. Thriving, me.” Laura nods at Neha’s bowl. “How’s your soggy brown thing?”

“Living up to its promise. What about your bowl of... grey?”

“About the same.” Prison food is nothing to write home about, as they say. When Laura gets the chance to contact the outside world, she leaves it out. “Do you realise this is day one hundred? They’ll be letting us in the clubs soon.”

“You mean you’re not in a gang already?” Neha quips. “I’m in five. No, I hadn’t noticed. What, have you been scratching a tally into your bedpost?”

“No.” Laura grins. “The wall behind it. Although between you and me, I might have missed a couple.”

“Fat lot of good you are as a calendrist.”

“That a word, is it?”

“I think so.” Neha wrinkles her nose. “Maybe I made it up. It’s hard to get intelligent conversation round here, which is why I make do with you.”

“Mmm. Likewise.”

For a few moments they eat, and Laura can’t believe that one hundred days in she’s actually scraping the last bit of the grey off the side of the bowl instead of pushing it aside half-emptied. Funny how your expectations can shrink. “You’re not bad, though, Ney. A hundred or so days with you is better than a hundred or so days with just a wall for company. Less notches on you, for a start.”

“Only just.” Neha smiles. “Happy day one hundred, then. Here’s to a swift appeal.”

‘Humans’ challenge 2019 > Fusion 

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A/N: For the fusion prompt, I wrote a ‘Humans’ / ‘Star Wars’ crossover, with Max and Leo co-piloting a ship you might recognise. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, hope you don’t mind – I’m a massive fangirl of both, so it’s definitely done with love :)

…

Max wrenched back the controls of the shaking ship while Leo growled gruffly. They had several fighters on their tail and only a hair’s breadth of a gap to whisk the Falcon through before they were lost for good.

Max closed his eyes momentarily and prayed to a doubtful god. This unorthodox means of escape was in no pilot training manual he’d ever read, but it miraculously worked, for they were suddenly shooting through the narrow aperture and in the channel, the few fighters that had managed to follow strafing them with continuous fire.

‘Status.’ A commanding female voice emanated from the dash.

Leo glanced at Max in sympathy and uttered one syllable: ‘Nisk.’ 

‘We have suffered 62% damage to the left flank and in excess of two-thirds on the right. Current destruction estimate: considerable. Additionally, we are still subject to attack. Ask me again when we’re safely on the ground.’ Max was struggling to maintain his calm, so he briefly looked to Fred’s photo that he’d tacked by the controls.

His brother. Fred always knew what to do. Fred had fixed their engine and flown them out of an organic stronghold with no loss of confidence or composure. Fred was his template: his guiding light.

Leo, who’d been plotting their course, urged him with a hope-filled voice: ‘C’mon Maxie. Home’s in sight. We’re almost there.’

Max flew by the Asimov constellation with the makeshift landing lights of the synth camp dotted down below, anti-guns primed to ward off any organic fighters. He swerved and then banked to derail their attackers, as much as the damaged craft would allow. Leo, swayed by the movement of the ship, tipped into the controls and swore grievously.

Max knew: he would not fail. He could not fail. Holding on steadily, hands clasped tight to steer, he dipped, tired engines whining and metal screeching in complaint. He heard a stream of fire scream past their viewing shield incredibly close. Focus, Max. Focus.

Landing was an inelegant dance of juddering, creaking and straining; several pieces of the ship’s body blistered or bent. But at least they were back safely on the ground. Max slid out of the pilot’s seat, smoothly synth-like, while his jolted co-pilot climbed sorely from the cockpit.

‘Maxie?’

‘Yes, Leo?’

‘Next time, remind me to wear a double seatbelt, OK?’

Max chuckled. ‘Certainly, Leo. That flip into hyperspace was unprecedented.’

‘Max… most of the adventure we just had was unprecedented. Jedi synths?! I mean, what in the galaxy was that?’

Walking (and hobbling) down the gangplank of the Falcon, the pair of space explorers met with a most pleasant sight – not their Commander, but a far more gracious presence.

‘Princess Mia!’

‘Gentlemen,’ Mia half-bowed. ‘I see you have returned with the vessel only just intact.’

‘Well, we tried…’ protested Max, although he was beginning to beam.

‘We tried to junk her, but she was so damaged that…’ continued Leo, his face creasing into a smile.

‘Humans’ challenge 2019 > Rebellion

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A/N: Follows on from the Leotilda fics ‘Love Thy Father’ and ‘Sleepless’ (It’s also helpful if you’ve read the Max ficlet ‘Hope’ … so that’s just me and Joni reading this one then ;’))

…

A petrol station toilet wasn’t the best place to pray. The walls were messily scrawled with criss-crossed graffiti, the hopeful #PeaceForMia partially scrawled over by #HumansFirst. There was a single purple eye hovering over the hashtags, watching balefully.

A sign carrying the logo of the Rainbow Coalition was tacked to the cubicle door. It depicted a human-synth couple embracing, next to the slogan ‘ALL human beings deserve their freedom.’ Mattie looked up, registered the words, but wondered about their meaning.

Freedom for human beings? Yes. Not all, not by a long way. But still: yes. Freedom for anything outside that organic human norm? Currently, no.

And what about anything completely new?

It was beyond human experience. It was off the edge of the map, the unsurveyed edges frayed and torn: rivers running into uncharted seas.

But this cluster of cells within her was growing daily; forming into a curled-up ball of life with features composed in miniature and hands reaching in protective space. Humanity hadn’t made laws for her child. Leo’s child. Their child. It hadn’t made laws for what was to come.

As she prayed – to who? To Mia? – to keep their baby safe, she raised her eyes, and that was when she saw it. The sign… in the corner, far above the rest. There it was, this time in daylight. Unmistakeable; no longer fleeing or obscure. Stamped with the paler colour of the budding flower, surrounded by bright leaves that looked like flames. The exact same sign they’d captured on her phone. And it was underscored by text.

mmmmh I dropped the ball on this challenge in a Big Way but here, I return

•••

Max leaned up against the doorway of the shed, watching his older brother work in silent awe. His awe was silent principally because he had been told that he could watch as long as he didn’t make too much noise. Max was not going to take any chances.

The fox was evidently very weak, because it had stopped the pitiful mewling sounds and now seemed scarcely aware that Fred was there at all. Max, in an effort to be Useful, had searched the grounds for some corydalis root, having read that you could use it as a sedative, but there was none to be found. Probably this was a good thing, because the book had said that it was difficult to judge how much of the plant to administer to a wild animal. For now, he had resolved to watch, and be poised to help if he was asked.

His patience was rewarded when Fred looked up and said, “Max. Pass me another swab?”

Eagerly, Max did so, and upon taking it Fred said, “Thanks,” and then, “I didn’t mean you couldn’t talk at all.”

Max smiled. He didn’t particularly have anything to say.

“There.” Fred leaned back from his work, surveying the fox’s wound from a slightly greater distance. “I’m going to leave it to settle for now. In three hours, we should see some progress.”

Fred stood up, but Max stayed where he had knelt to pass him the swab. He was looking at the fox’s leg. Although Fred’s handiwork was perfectly neat and the stitches so small they would be invisible to organic human eyes, the damage still looked bad. The limb was out of shape; the bones had been all but crushed in the trap.

“Do you think he will walk again?” Max asked.

“Yes,” said Fred. “Father would never have set the challenge if he thought it was impossible.”

Max wasn’t entirely sure about that, although if anybody asked, he wouldn’t be able to explain why. Still, it wasn’t often that Fred was wrong and he was right. Fred had been here much longer, and must know their Father better.

“Let’s go,” Fred said. “I want to see Leo.”

Max stood up, taking one last look at the fox. He wasn’t entirely thrilled about the idea of going to look at Leo again. He didn’t like to see him lying there, wired up in their Father’s laboratory, only breathing because a machine did it for him. It just made Max feel more certain that they had lost him.

Fred, on the other hand, was almost always peering around the door, and on the brief occasions when they saw their Father, he would ask unending questions about Leo’s progress. Max nursed a secret suspicion that Fred’s work with the fox was partly a bid to prove his worth as a potential assistant. Here, too, Max had doubts. Not even Mia was permitted to stay long in the lab. Their Father worked alone. More likely the fox was intended as a distraction for Fred, not a test he was supposed to pass.

‘Humans’ challenge 2019 > Wedding / Time Travel / Paradise

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Gifs by the amazing @likeafantasy, with thanks

A/N: The Elysian Fields (also called Elysium) was the final resting place for good souls in Greek mythology.

…

The last time they had held hands like this was at their wedding. It was a fingers twined, souls tight, never let me go knot. Back then, a human-synth union was unprecedented: yet it gave them the freedom to make it exactly what they wanted. Their vows did not have to say to honour, to obey; and Astrid had quirked a smile with the boldness of Niska’s promise: ‘I will be with you always; forever’ because such a thing was impossible.

That was before they visited V-Lysian Fields; and before Eve became their saviour in a future as yet unknown. 

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A/N: Follows on from the Leotilda ficlet ‘Love Thy Father’

…

Being sleepless was like attempting to make the world become a perfect HD image while it pixellated, blurred and broke apart. Her eyes stared, unblinking, with the effort.

In her second trimester, being awake was Mattie’s all-too-permanent state. Sleepless with worry about Leo, about the baby, about their tiny family; about every single one of their wider tribe. From careless, to responsible: when did she get to be this grown-up?