SYNTH is a gorgeous Everlark fan fiction in which Katniss is an android called KTNS-12, manufactured in a lab by Genius Scientist Beetee and Junior Scientist Peeta, the latest effort by humans to develop a weapon that will help them win a war against — well, it’s not clear who exactly they’re fighting against, but anyway the humans are holed up underground in bunkers, and it seems they are very reduced in number. KTNS-12 is the first prototype that succeeds in walking, talking, fighting, etc., and Peeta made her. Yes, he made her, coddled her from a clump of cells in a petri dish to a full-grown, gorgeous woman.
Faster than you can say “Pygmalion and Galatea,” KTNS-12 begins following Junior Scientist Peeta around like a baby chick (She even begins climbing into his bed at one point, and no one thinks to stop her). Nurturing Peeta is so adorable, and Beetee expounds his theory of “imprinting” (since Peeta talked to Katniss’s cells and coaxed them into growing, his voice has imprinted on KTNS-12. Oh this is just too ADORBS!)
KTNS-12 has an anomaly: she has feelings. She knows she has been bred to be a fighting machine (Again self wonders why the scientists bothered to make a gendered fighting machine, even with reproductive parts. Wouldn’t that seem like such a waste of time, since they’re not supposed to procreate, anyway. Or — are they? DUN DUN DUN!) and she’s deathly afraid that these feelings are going to cause them to recycle her parts. When a dastardly team of scientists led by Dr. Cato and Dr. Gloss do all kinds of experiments on her (such as, tightening C-clamps on all her digits until the skin splits), she has to pretend she isn’t afraid, but she thinks Gloss knows. Because every day, he schedules more vivisection and . . .
The last self read of Synth was way way back in the beginning of the year. Six months ago. Two chapters dropped, and the end of the second chapter was quite a cliff-y: Katniss being taken to a lab (with no Junior Scientist Peeta present!) where horrible Dr. Cato and Dr. Gloss are waiting with awful sharp surgical instruments and C-clamps.
For over six months Synth followers like self were forced to imagine the most horrible atrocities perpetrated on KTNS-12. Paging Junior Scientist Peeta! Emergency! Paging Junior Scientist Peeta! Your immediate presence is required to save KTNS-12!
MILD SPOILERS!
Finally, yesterday, followers were put out of their agony: Chapter 3 dropped. Evil Cato and Gloss clamp KTNS-12 down on a table and slowly up the pressure on all her limbs until finally, finally, KTNS-12 does feel something: “It’s a sensation like dark is a color. There really isn’t anything there, but it’s far too real to be nothing.”
AARGH!
Horrible! Just horrible!
Puke! Barf! NO!!!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 