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jazoriah · 3 years

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Chaos and Clockwork

Here is my ZR secret santa for @wubbelwubbwubb .

Thank you for setting this up, @runnerzero

Title: Chaos and Clockwork

Length: 2970 words

Pairing: Amelia/Five

Rating: Teenplus

Summary: Some thoughts on the predictability of life.

The world is chaos.

Runner Five knows this. She learned when her carefully constructed life was brought crashing down by a delivery guy with a cough. Small events escalate and however hard you try to drive the course of events you cannot know where you will be in a day, a month, a year.

Beyond that, she is pretty sure the destination is obvious. All threads lead in a single direction.

All she can do is run, and hope that her influence is enough to keep the people around her above water.

And you know, most of the time she’s pretty good at it! Even with all her mistakes, all the moments that haunt her, she knows that Abel is a safer place because of what she does. She runs, she retrieves, she investigates. She draws the zombies to her and away from the pulsing heart of her community. Runner Five rides the chaos, and her family rides with her.

But even the most resilient, adaptable runner can be blindsided on a mission. Little details have consequences. Little events, like the fizzle of a wire in a wall, which blows a fuse, which shuts down the heavy electronic doors in the abandoned military base, which traps three exhausted runners in a corridor that is slowly, inevitably filling with smoke.

Four reaches the metal door and slaps her hands on it in disbelief.

“Are you kidding me?” she shouts.

Peter jogs to the control panel, tapping at the buttons insistently to no effect.

“Veronica, what’s going on?”

A tinny voice pipes up in their headsets.

“I’ve lost contact with the door system. It’s completely shut down.”

“It’s all wired into the mainframe right? Can’t you just reboot?”

“There is no connection point for me to access. There must be a hardware fault.”

“Can’t you do something?” asks Jodie, determinedly scanning the area.

“Not with that door. I’ll see if I can clear you a way in the other direction.”

Five’s head shoots up, and she and Peter lock eyes.

“You mean,” says Peter, “the way that’s full of zombies? And fire? And zombies on fire?”

“There is a twenty-two per cent chance that I can draw the zombies to the other end of the complex with strategic broadcasts. You will have to crawl through some of the rooms to avoid smoke inhalation. There is a one hundred per cent chance that staying in this corridor will cause Runner Five and Runner Four to asphyxiate within twelve minutes.”

“Right! Hot-zom-dodging it is!” declares Peter. Beside him, Five lets out a choking cough and lowers herself to the ground to avoid the worst of the smoke.

The three of them crawl back to the door they had entered. They can faintly hear the pulsing tones of Veronica’s broadcasts, but the scratching of undead fingers against the metal does not cease.

“It’s not working,” says Jodie.

Five blinks grit from her eyes, pulling her backpack off her shoulder and desperately scrounging in case there were any of Steve’s explosives that she might have missed. She bites her lip in frustration and tries to breath shallowly, fighting off a coughing fit.

Peter’s eyes are watering and she can see Jodie scrunching her brow against a growing headache.

“The tones are not working,” says Veronica, unnecessarily. “I cannot draw them away. But if you can get past them there is another exit on the left that will bring you to the southwest hills.”

Five grits her teeth, closing her eyes in a moment of impotent frustration. Then she nods, and swings her bag onto her back. Jodie rolls herself onto the balls of her feet, falling into the stance of a sprinter at the starting block.

Peter glares at the door, and says, “Hug the wall on the left and keep me between you and the zoms. I’ll keep you shielded as best I can.”

Five frowns, but can see that it is the only real course of action. She wonders what it must be like for your life to become one long, unending shriek of self-sacrifice. She feels for him, but it makes sense. It always does.

“Door opening in three.”

Five coughs, tensing her body.

“Two”

She closes her eyes for a single moment.

“On –“

“Hold your horses, traumatic trio,” cuts in a new voice on comms. Jodie trips forward as her launch is aborted half way through.

“What?”

“Honestly, I leave you to your own devices and you decide to throw yourself directly into a field of flaming corpses.”

“Amelia??” gasps Peter.

“Who else would be saving you precious freckled hides?” comes the gleeful reply. “Now, I’m going to need you to stay up the far end of that corridor so this itty bitty explosion doesn’t cut you to bits.”

Five blinks twice, then curls back into herself, hands thrown over her head. Peter stretches himself so that his body covers as much of the other runners as possible.

“Honestly,” says Amelia, almost chastising, “what would you all do without me?”

The door explodes.

Everything is clockwork.

Amelia knows this. She has always known it.

People are ultimately predictable objects. With the right influences, the right leverage, objects can be manipulated in a myriad of useful ways.

So could businesses. So could markets. With enough forward planning, so could entire societies.

It wasn’t that she didn’t value the people she interacted with. It was just that she did not hold with the romanticised mystery that other people assigned to them. The world was not an open system to glide through and hope for the best. It was a finely tuned machine. You can admire the cogs and gears and even enjoy their company, but if you can point them in the direction that suits you and get something out of it, then why the hell wouldn’t you?

She will admit that the apocalypse was not something she could control, but experts had been warning for years about the various risks to society and it was not in her nature to leave things to chance. Within a month of the outbreak, she had a supply chain of biscuits, tampons and condoms stretching along the west coast. Within two, she had secured a high position in the newly established Ministry.

Since then, it had not been quite smooth sailing. As it turned out, that Ministry was not where she saw herself long term and there had been a pesky few machine parts that kept getting gummed up in the works.

Take these three idiots for example. Give them a room with nothing but a chair and a candle and they would somehow unearth a conspiracy to enslave all mankind and immediately get marked for death by the local sociopath and his pet murderbot.

Five is the worst. Stubborn and righteous in all the wrong ways with a sacrificial streak that is barely made up for by that incredible arse. Honestly, the woman would run over a field of needles if it kept her precious Abel residents from a papercut. And she’d hold her head high like a bloody fallen angel the whole way. Moron.

Which is of course why Amelia’s lovely afternoon had to be interrupted again.

She had been enjoying an Irish coffee with rather more Irish than is strictly recommended when her home network alerted her to a movement in the scrubs to the West. She brought up the camera feed from that area and saw the three musketeers heading into the abandoned base up there.

Interesting. She had long since picked that base clean of anything useful. What could they be after? Was their information out of date or had she missed something?

She thought for a moment, then smirked, rolling her shoulders til she heard her back crack.

Worth checking it out, she decided, and gathers some supplies.

Now she finds herself tuned in to a broadcast that is sounding increasingly bleak. Veronica is trying desperately to draw zombies away from one of the doors so that three can escape after the other door shut down completely. It does not seem to be working, and all three are preparing to run straight out into a flaming hoard. Of course.

It’s just as Peter is offering to be torn to pieces to protect them that she decides it’s time to make her presence known. She does carefully wait for the moment of maximum drama.

“Hold your horses, traumatic trio,” she drawls, delighting at the gasped responses and what sounds like one of them falling over in shock.

The shocked replies tickle her as she bends down to place det-cord around the frame of the door. She gleefully chastises them before giving a warning to step back. She takes five long steps herself.

“Honestly, what would you all do without me?” she says, and hits the detonator.

The door spasms in its position as a long line of heat blasts around its edges. It shudders in place for a moment before falling backwards, slamming to the ground.

An ocean of smoke pours through the opening and up towards the ceiling. Following it, the room belches out three bedraggled runners, all clutching a hand to their face and coughing.

“Really now, I thought you knew better than to go into a fortified base without adequate explosives.”

“We… used them all,” says Peter between hacks. “More zombies than we thought.”

“Hence the massive fire,” Jodie sasses, turning to lead the way out of the building.

“Hm, yeeees,” agrees Amelia, taking in Five’s forlorn form as she slowly straightens, controlling her breathing. Five catches her looking and raises an eyebrow.

“Good plan that,” continues Amelia, not looking away. Five flips her the bird and stalks past, swaying her hips in a way that Amelia is sure cannot be intentional but is the most enticing thing she’s seen in weeks. Amelia dawdles so she can keep looking.

The four of them emerge into the sunlight and Amelia sees some of the tension drain from Five’s shoulders. Despite herself, she feels her smirk softening into an actual smile.

She feels a nudge at her shoulder, and finds that Peter is watching her.

“Good timing, that,” he says. “What brought you here in the nick of time?”

He is searching her face, and she realises he is trying to figure out if she was there for the same reason as them.

She looks at him innocently, which unfortunately for her has become a warning sign to him and anyone who has known her more than a few weeks.

“I was in the neighbourhood,” she says with a shrug. “My network told me you might be about to get yourself killed again.”

“Some network,” comments Peter.

“Fortune favours the prepared, dear man.”

Peter rolls his eyes. They come to an open space with enough trees that the exhausted runners can sit with their backs leaned against them for support. Amelia happily sprawls in the grass with her weight back on her elbows. She watches them as they recover, Peter letting his head drop back against the trunk as he breathes, Jodie fastidiously sorting out the remaining material in her pack, and Five discretely scanning the other two for injuries.

Amelia looks to Peter and Jodie to see if they have noticed. Neither seem to realise that they are being mother-henned without even being spoken to. She smiles to herself softly and looks back to Five, only to find her eyes scanning Amelia this time, carefully cataloguing any scratches and bruises she can see.

Five’s eyes snap up to hers the moment she realises she is being observed. Amelia raises an eyebrow and Five cocks an unimpressed chin at her in challenge. Amelia’s face splits into a predatory grin, which she at least partially puts on to hide the small bubble of warmth in her belly at being the subject of Five’s concern. She may flirt and fantasise, but she is not a simpleton. Five is far too straight-laced and good to reciprocate, and Amelia is not in the business of forcing the issue. Instead, she shoots her a wink and watches as Five rolls her eyes and drags herself to her feet.

“Home time?” says Peter with a groan.

“I need a forty-minute shower,” says Jodie, standing with legs that only shake for a moment before steadying.

“I trust you won’t mind if a join you part of the way,” announces Amelia. Jodie looks at her in disbelief, but Five just shakes her head with an unsurprised quirk of the lips.

“Why?” asks Peter suspiciously.

Amelia rolls her shoulders back and stretches like a cat.

“I just saved all your lives! Perhaps I just want to make sure you all make it home okay.”

“Sure,” says Jodie, rolling her eyes. “Whatever, just don’t be a pain.”

“How dare you suggest such a thing,” she says with glee.

The three start to walk in front of her, and as she watches she notices a piece of paper sticking out of Five’s back pocket. It had clearly been tucked in there hastily. Probably something from the base.

She nonchalantly quickens her pace until she is shoulder to shoulder with Five.

“You three do seem to have a talent for finding trouble.”

Five rolls her eyes but makes no sound of disagreement.

“Honestly, if you are running low on explosives I can set you up with a wonderful deal. All the det cord and napalm you can carry. Though you probably shouldn’t. Much. Napalm is a tricky beast.”

Five says nothing, though the babbling does seem to help her relax. The tension slowly starts to bleed out of her shoulders.

“In future, “ Amelia continues, “you really should contact me if you need to infiltrate any more bases. I have more intel than any other source on this side of the mountains, and I can tell you when you’re about to get baked to a crisp. Seriously, why would you go in without backup?”

Five is listening, and a part of her actually seems to be considering her words.

“Keep in mind in future. We’d all rather not lose the great Runner Five of Abel Township. Half of England would cry.”

Five scoffs at this. Amelia carefully adjusts her gate to slightly smaller slower steps. Not enough to indicate an injury. Not even enough to be particularly noticeable. Five, ever the gentlewoman, automatically adjusts her pace to match.

“I’m not kidding,” continues Amelia. “You would not believe how they wax poetic about you. It makes me think of Batman. You know, that whole thing about a symbol being more powerful than a person. You really should be careful what you risk.”

Amelia tosses her hair and sees that Five is staring at her, confused and a little curious. She smiles warmly back.

“It’s really rather sweet. All these people finding hope in an intrepid runner. But you do need to consider what is worth risking your life for. What on Earth could have been worth today’s fiasco?”

Five’s eyes have begun to narrow, and Amelia tosses her hair.

“Seriously,” she says lightly. “What was the point? If you tell me, I can help. Think of all those chil-“

Amelia chokes on her last word as Five drops her back, grabs her by the shoulder, and slams her against the trunk of a tree.

Amelia blinks in shock, staring back at Five’s intense eyes, at the sharp line formed between her brows as they draw together. Five’s breath is soft against her skin.

“Enough,” says Five, her voice low. Amelia lets out a tiny puff of air at the sound. Five hardly ever speaks. Almost never. It is a quirk that makes her harder to read than most. The result of trauma, or perhaps personal preference, whatever it is, it takes a lot for Five to break her silence.

And Amelia had made it happen.

“Oh sorry, dear. Did I overstep? I assure you it was never my intention to invade your boundaries.”

She shifts meaningfully against Five, whose frown begins to fade. She stares at Amelia’s face, and Amelia wonders what she sees. Are her cheeks pink? Are her pupils blown? For once, she has no idea what she looks like.

Five looks at her, softly but thoughtfully, and with one hand gently runs her fingers through Amelia’s hair, letting the strands curl around her digits. Amelia’s breath stammers, and Five looks her in the eyes.

“Go,” she says, and softly steps back. She picks up her bag, swings in up to her shoulder, and looks back to Amelia, still leant against the tree. “And thank you.”

Amelia nods back, pulling her composure back over herself, and Five turns on one heal, running to join her friends who had strayed quite far ahead.

Amelia places a hand over her heart feeling light and tight all at once. Perhaps Five was not so straight-laced as she had thought. Or straight, for that matter.

She waits another minute to make sure the runners are out of sight, before lifting her other hand to see the white paper clutched in it. Pickpocketing may be a touch crass but it did serve her well, and no one could say she was bad at multi-tasking.

She delicately unfolded the paper and inspected the contents. There were three words, hastily scrawled in what Amelia assumed must be Five’s weirdly loopy handwriting.

“Fuck off Amelia.”

Amelia let out a great huff of laughter and crumpled the paper in her hand. She let her head fall back against the wood and felt great, glorious giggles overtaking her.

That little…

She turned in the direction that the runners had gone and smiled in admiration and excitement for a new challenge.

Perhaps a little chaos might not be a bad thing.

#ZR Secret Santa #zrs5 spoilers #amelia/5

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