Archive of Our Own ^beta

Rain chilled him, the torrential drops coating CT-7567 in as much water as the black-top street. Each sloshing sheet of water from the downpour drowned out the soft noise of his whirring internal biotechs. A horn blared as he slipped slightly onto the road before he jumped back onto the thinning sidewalk. Water was seeping out of his shoes, making his false skin feel damp through his socks. He ducked beneath the open lid of a dumpster, curling his knees to his chest in an effort to rest. With luck, he could regain some sense of calm. Wide, deep brown eyes followed the trails of lights around him. Brilliant magentas and greens and blues seared his vision from where he looked ahead. Out in the distance were the towering skyscrapers he had run from, lights all warm red and yellow, but no less blinding. 

Loneliness was not a feeling he was familiar with. In fact, it took him some time to recognize it as he rested his head against the cool metal of the dumpster. People walked by none the wiser to his presence. Or, if they did notice, they simply didn’t care. What was another street urchin? Growing up surrounded by his brothers, CT-7567 was so unused to the absolute emptiness he felt as each pair of legs walked by him. Before sitting, he hadn’t had a chance to even notice the feeling. He was too busy running, too busy guessing at places to go. Without a guide, he had decided to flee as far as he could from the place he once called home. All that had gotten him was lost and tucked under garbage for shelter. 

A chill ran through him; the tight blacks he had worn around the facility barely offered any form of protection from the cool rainstorm. Stenches of wet trash and sewage seemed to cling to him the longer he stayed put. But what else could he do? There was nowhere he could go when he was lost in a place so unfamiliar.

He had no idea where he was. 

The city name was Coruscant– that much he knew, but he didn’t know the streets or the people. He couldn’t tell you how to get uptown from where he was. And he was really only guessing that he was downtown. In the whispers he exchanged with Cody only days ago, the neon deluge seemed to be The Undercity that his rescuer described. Logic was his only solace as he tried to stay calm. Reason could make all the fears go away, certainly.

Everything was so dizzying . There were signs in aurebesh, which he could read, but they made little sense to him. Street names and road signs that mixed with the overwhelmingly dark, storm-riddled sky that was so different from the brightly lit halls of the Kaminoan Replicant Division tower. Even the neon hues burned at his eyes with caustic sting. The KRD was a place starkly devoid of life, but filled to the brim with replicants. Out here, everything was breathing and pounding and screeching all at once until it felt like CT-7567’s head might explode. Hiding beneath a dumpster, horrid as the stench may be, seemed his only solace. 

His hand curled into itself. Stubby nails pressed deep against the flesh of his palms. Cody should have been here. Keeli should have been here. How was he supposed to manage this on his own without either of them? A shuddered breath rocked his chest, pushing into his throat and out his mouth. Pressure pushed at his eyes as he tried to steady his breathing. All he had to do was not thinking about Cody and Keeli, trapped in order to set him free. Condensation spun into fog in front of him. Memories danced in the tired haze of his eyes.

“You’ll need names,” Cody told them. He had snuck in again, donning white guard armor that always stood out starkly against the black of their room. 

“I have one,” CT-5555 said, “It’s Fives!” 

CT-7567 watched Cody’s ever-serious lips turn into a warm smile that lit up the room as though the human was a sun, “I know, vod’ika. I mean the rest of you. Do you have any ideas?” 

“I like Tup,” murmured CT-5385 from where he sat cross legged on his bunk. With his fingers he tapped the wall, “Like that. Tup.” 

Admittedly, CT-7567 didn’t get it, but that was not unusual for his youngest brother. Even years after he was brought online, he had a spark to him that the Kaminoans could not squash. Once he could get his hands on pads and styluses, even archaic pens and pencils, CT-5385 drew or wrote or scribbled as much as one person could. Teardrops were his speciality. The Kaminoans attempted to curb his desire by providing paint, allowing his little brother to decorate the gray walls of their room. One wall had a window done in expert finger-paint.

It had not worked and CT-5385 only became more insatiable to create more art. Instead, the Kaminoans had taken away the supplies. Uniformity. Conformity. Even their murals were washed away. Each of them had a role to play when their time came. Not that any of them knew what that was. CT-7567 imagined his and CT-7543’s time was fast approaching. 

Gone were their youthful baby faces. Every day, the twins looked more and more like the replicants they saw in the hallway. Every day, they looked more like Cody . Namely, he supposed, they looked more like Cody's father Jango, whom all replicants had been based on for some time now. CT-7567 didn't know how long. Seeing faces that he would one day be identical to was all he had ever known. On the rare occasion they were let out of their room.

“Tup suits you,” Cody said kindly, making the newly named replicant beam with delight. He looked toward CT-7567 and CT-7543, “What about you two?” 

All of this was for the two oldest replicants in the room, after all. Cody had found them, separated from the other replicants. Their purpose unknown, but ticking ever closer, like an unseen bomb. After all, for some reason the group of them were special.

None of them had known that until Cody. They hadn’t even thought to question why they were not with the rest of their kind. Other replicants were not allowed to talk to them. They only ever really saw a handful, in passing, usually on guard duty. It wasn’t until Cody, pretending to be a guard, found them that they realized that they were different. No other replicants could do what they did. They could age . 

Motorcycle engines roared by him, snapping CT-7567 awake. His eyes tried to adjust, watching the blur of oranges lights speed past him. One of the motorcycles zipped right next to his dumpster, splashing him with stagnant rain water. Liquid shot up into his nose, making him cough, his body tensing up as he fought through trying to get the water out. 

Another motorcycle roared near him, stopping in the middle of the road. This one was a deep blue, its metal glimmering beneath the neon lights. Unlike the other bikes, this one was sleek and uniform, not cobbled together with rusted metal. It even had a rounded windshield, meant to protect its rider. Chest heaving, CT-7567 looked up at said motorcyclist as he heard the kickstand pop open, making him realize the rain had stopped. 

“And stay out!” the rider snapped. He shifted a pair of riding goggles to the top of his head, making his tiny ponytail of curly dirty blond locks shift ever slightly. He wore a black leather jacket, puffed out in some areas, but fitted around his middle. The accents that ran down its sleeves were a dark red that reminded him of dried blood. 

Several more blue motorcycles, these ones looking as cobbled together as the other group’s, though all sporting a matching blue to the leader’s. CT-7567 could only assume this was their leader seeing as he had the nicest of  the bikes and stayed toward the front of the pack, but he doubted his instincts were wrong. None of them even dared to pull up next to him. 

“Um, Anakin?” one of them said suddenly. 

CT-7567 turned to look at the speaker… It was a girl, she was young with dark skin with some mottled patches of lighter skin all about her face. Her hair was tied into two tightly braided pigtails with blue and white hair threaded through each braid. She was younger than the leader, by a handful of years. Her eyes spoke wonder, but also concern, trained on the replicant cowering beneath the dumpster. His arms shook as he pushed himself up a little.

The leader– Anakin, he reminded himself– then looked at him, his black boots trampling puddles underneath as he walked toward CT-7567. After a second, Anakin squatted down to look him in the eyes. Blue. Anakin’s eyes were so blue , but he didn’t have something to compare it to. They were a natural blue, not like the searing streetlights of the Undercity or the deep metallic of the bikes. CT-7567 had only ever seen pictures of the sky, but those washed out images didn’t seem quite right either.

“You alright?” Anakin asked him, head cocking slightly before his eyebrows furrowed, “...What’s your name?” 

What was his name? He had never managed to pick one. His buzzed blond hair was most likely what kept him from being immediately recognizable as a replicant. The Kaminoans had always called it a mutation in his code, but had kept him alive for reasons he didn’t know. Whatever his mysterious purpose was, he assumed. The nature of it had never really mattered as much as the escape from whatever they had planned for him.

  “Keeli,” his twin said not long after Cody had left, “I think I’m going to use Keeli.” 

“Why Keeli?” asked CT-6922. He was CT-5– Tup’s older twin. Of the five of them, four had been made in sets of twins. Only Fives had been made by himself. He didn’t pretend to understand why the Kaminoans made the choices that they did.

Prior to Cody, none of them even knew of the roles the other replicants played. Used, Cody had said. All of them were used. Getting guard duty at the KRD facility was apparently a blessing compared to how some other replicants were leased, shipped out, and treated. What purpose could they have for a replicant who could age?

Oblivious to his twin’s thoughts, Keeli shrugged, “Liked the sound of it. Keeli. Rolls off the tongue.” 

“More like slides,” CT-7567 teased. A smirk curled on Keeli’s face and the two knocked their shoulders together at the same time. Amid the laughter that calmed the storm in his brain, that silenced his focus on the whirring click of biotechs, he asked, “What about me? Should I pick something similar? Feeli, maybe?” 

Keeli wrinkled his nose, “No, I don’t like Feeli.” 

“All of our names should be different, I think,” said Fives, “Since we’re all different.” 

According to Cody, many replicants picked names for themselves before they even had left the facility. Of course they hadn’t known that. All of them knew so little of what was just on the other side of their door, much less beyond the tower. Outside of the guards, and the occasional peek into the mess hall, they had been isolated. They weren’t meant to know as much as they did. Fives was already mischievous and Cody sneaking into their room weeks ago had sealed the fact that they would no longer be obedient. 

CT-6922 pulled his legs up to his chest, “I don’t see why we need names anyway.”

“Because we have numbers ,” hissed Fives, “And that’s no way to live.” 

If he was honest, CT-7567 understood his little brother’s apprehension. If he was CT-6922’s age, he would be hesitant to leave too. Trusting the Kaminoans always was the easy path. Unfortunately, he had run out of time to walk the easy path. With luck, if he were to stick by his creators, he would end up doing something mundane. Maybe he would just be meant to be a caretaker of some kind, able to relate to children because he had been one. But the Kaminoans rarely made things so comfortable. He and Keeli had to get out of there– freedom was in their grasp. 

“Hey? Can you talk?” asked Anakin, waving a hand in front of  CT-7567’s face. 

Staring up into the face of the young human, it did feel like something had stolen his voice away. Without Cody, he didn’t know who he could trust. He wasn’t even supposed to be this far into The Undercity. Somehow, he had missed the collection of apartment flats, somewhere on the edge of uptown, where the Fetts lived entirely. Worse off, he wasn’t sure he could make it back. 

He hoped Cody had managed to avoid the guards. Or, if he hadn't, that they didn’t realize he was not a replicant. Cody had always been good at impersonating them. His would-be brother said it was because the replicants were people, but his golden brown eyes always got distant when he talked about it, as if he were hiding something, locked beneath his soul. CT-7567 sought an answer the could not find with a voice he could not use. Did he look like how Cody did in those moments?

Anakin frowned, blue eyes narrowing down on him, “...Are you a replicant?”  

“He’s too young,” remarked one of the riders. This one was a young man, of average height but with a sharp, long face that sported deep, sunken in cheeks. He had a head of hair so black that it seemed to absorb the blue light around them. However, it was his eyes that caught his attention. They were modded to be bright red, casting a glow around his stern face and gazing right through CT-7567, “Replicants are built to resemble humans of twenty-five years to thirty-five years of age. He looks your age.”

Your age? How old was this guy? 

“In any case, if he was a replicant, we should turn him in to the police,” he added, “They pay well for rogue replicants.” 

CT-7567’s fingers dug into the black top, scratching up the top of his pads. His stomach puckered into him as his body tensed, readying himself to bolt. Uptown might be more heavily policed, but he could at least attempt to find the Fetts there. 

Anakin waved his hand dismissively, “We are not turning anyone into the cops, Thrawn. Replicant or not.” 

He blinked as the tension seeped out of his body. Before he could stop himself, he asked, “Why?” 

A wry smile pulled up onto Anakin’s face until he looked positively giddy. It reminded him of Fives, just a little bit, when he was about to get in trouble. By all means, such an expression should have induced more fear in him. Instead, the familiarity of it brought him comfort. Whoever this Anakin was, he truly meant him no harm. 

“He can talk!” exclaimed Anakin, he offered CT-7567 a hand, “Did you say why?” 

“Mmm,” he hummed in the affirmative, his voice feeling lost to him again. When Anakin spoke, he ate up the air around him until all eyes were on him. 

“Because it’s the right thing,” he replied, offering his hand more insistently. 

Soaked through, he stared at Anakin’s hand. Without help, he could easily be caught by someone not as understanding. Still, it was risky to trust a stranger. He could be lying for all CT-7567 knew. Loneliness settled into his heart again, pure emptiness clawing straight through his chest. All his life he had had Keeli. He didn’t like this sensation, this being alone. 

He took Anakin’s head and said, “CT-7567.” 

“He is a replicant,” murmured Thrawn, surprised. 

Anakin cocked his head, “Don’t you replicants usually give yourselves names? CT-7567 is kind of a mouthful.”

He shrugged, looking toward the wet blacktop, “Haven’t thought of one yet.”

“Well, we’ll help you,” Anakin told him, dragging him by the hand over to his bike, “Come on, I know a place you can stay. You can ride with me.” 

Part of CT-7567 still wanted to run. Uptown was who knew how far away, but that meant the Fetts were too. If Cody and Keeli managed to escape, that was where they would be. Yet, there was no guarantee that they got out. In fact, it was very likely that they didn’t. But he also didn’t think that he could get out of Anakin’s hold. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to.    

He slipped onto the bike behind Anakin, wrapping his arms around the other’s waist. His legs clenched around the leather and metal of the machine as he felt his center of gravity tested. Beneath him, he could feel the engine of the bike purring. How did Anakin ride this thing? How did any of them? 

Behind them, the others started up their bikes, the engines roaring loudly to life. He imagined the noise would have made CT-6922 jump. That particular brother was unfortunately easy to frighten. Inside his chest, his heart twisted painfully. While he was out here, Keeli, Cody, and his little brothers were still trapped within the confines of the KRD.

And he was about to take a joyride through The Undercity. 

His arms tightened slightly. Beneath his arms, he could feel Anakin laugh. However, he couldn’t hear him. Engines were powerful noise-blockers. For a moment, he wondered if this really was the right decision. All of that quickly left his mind in order to focus on holding onto Anakin and the bike as they took off down the streets of The Undercity. 

Sirens blared until his ears bled, red lights making his eyes squint. How? This plan was supposed to be airtight! CT-7567 was halfway into the chute that dropped down into the waste disposal area. The vat of chemicals used to dissolve any trash was shut for another three minutes so that he could walk across it and then out the sewer tunnels until a ladder to the street could be reached. 

With Keeli and Cody. 

Instead, he watched Keeli grab his hands, “Get out! I’ll be okay!” 

In the distance, he could hear the shouts of guards, the stomping of their armored boots as they pounded down the hall. His heart echoed the rhythm. Keeli squeezed his hands. Above them, the door to the chute was starting to close. Someone had overridden the timing to close it manually. Each second, it became clear that someone not already half-inside would not be able to climb in after him. 

Keeli squeezed his hands again, bruises blooming on his synthetic skin. His muscles screamed in protest, forcing his fingers off the ledge of the chute. His eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen. Despite everything, CT-7567 watched Keeli smile, trying to comfort his scared younger twin. 

And then Keeli’s hands were gone and he was tumbling down the chute alone. 

They were called the 501st. CT-7567 had learned that pretty soon after they had parked in an abandoned mechanic shop. Outside, a broken neon sign read Shmi’s , the glass fractured and the light was out completely. Anakin had called the place their home base , revealing inside a glorified parking garage for their bikes along with an old-fashioned mini-fridge that was all silver with hard edges that contained discolored take-out containers and lines of soda. It was cleaned, one of the girls assured him, they just reused the containers.

There were little makeshift machines strewn about– a half-broken contraption Anakin called a foosball table, a cabinet-like box with faded colors of a UFO next to some shadowy creature and yellow text with lines so faded that he couldn’t make out what the words originally were, and several boxes of tools plus a million disjointed bike parts. Boxy computers, most of them off, but a few with pixelated green screens lit the room.

All of them were eager to learn about him , but CT-7567 only gave what few details he needed in order to satisfy them. He had escaped the KRD via the sewer system, aged for a reason he did not know, had only his CT number, and nary a friend in the world. There was a novel of escape that he could tell them, but it still felt too raw to recount. Thinking about it would only make him more worried about Cody and Keeli. Would they see through Cody’s disguise? Would they decommission Keeli? Reprogram him? Would his brother be the brother he remembered? How had they been caught?

“Seven-Five is still a mouthful,” huffed Aayla, bringing CT-7567 out of his thoughts, “Besides, Ani, he should pick his name.” 

They had taught him about themselves as well. There was Anakin, of course, their fearless leader who had built that bike he rode with scrap metal and determination. His little sister Ahsoka with the white and blue hair in her braids. Aayla seemed to be Anakin’s second, a tall woman, older than even Thrawn, with dark skin and braids that went down to her hips. Among them were two blue implants connected to her scalp that allowed her to plug into computers. She said her brother Quinlan had helped her put them in. There was one other girl who called herself Barriss and sported a diamond pattern across her cheeks and nose which marked her as a Mirilian. The Kaminoans hadn’t taught him and his brothers much outside of how to spot them for their tattoos. Barriss wore all black including a headscarf that reflected an intricate pattern of geometric shapes one could only see under the right light. 

She called herself a hacktivist which CT-7567 figured was the normal word for what the Kaminoans called ‘computer-based terrorists’. If the Longnecks didn’t like her, then Barriss was good in his books. 

The other two were Thrawn, the red-eyed young man who stayed quiet unless he had something smart to say, but wore a perpetual frown. And Kitster. CT-7567 didn’t really know what to make of Kitster with his goofy smile and snorted laughter and calling everything ‘wizard’. When he had asked what that meant, Kitster told him it meant cool. To which Thrawn had quickly corrected that it meant cool to exclusively Kitster. 

All of them were outcasts, to some extent or another. Except, perhaps, Thrawn who had thrown his lot in with the 501st biker gang anyway. They were close, knitted together like one cohesive blanket. Part of him was intimidated to be among such a tightly wound unit… Yet they treated him as nothing short of one of their own. Probably because Anakin did. 

“Okay, well it’s better than nothing,” huffed Anakin, “Unless you thought up a real name?” 

“Not yet,” he replied, accepting the temporary designation, “Seven-Five works. I have a brother called Fives.” It seemed strange to accept Seven-Five when Keeli’s number also started with a CT-75, but he supposed it was better than nothing if they didn’t want to use his full number that badly. 

“Why is he called Fives?” asked Ahsoka, voice laced with pure curiosity, braids shifting as she tilted her head to look at him.

“He’s CT-5555,” he told her, plainly. Ahsoka asked a lot of questions, almost as many as Anakin did.

Kitster snorted, “I’d be Fives too.”  

Thrawn shifted, red eyes trained on him, “And he… ages like you?” 

“Yes,” Seven-Five replied, although his voice nearly didn’t start the reply. 

Thrawn was very interested in the fact that he could age. It set his teeth on edge, feeling as though he should bare them at the young man like a cornered predator. Just because he was a lost, scared, unique replicant didn’t mean he couldn’t bite. Before he could, Anakin shot Thrawn a serious look, eyebrows raised and lips pouted in a firm line. He scoffed, leaving it at that. 

Perhaps that was why they all stuck with Anakin. Without words, he spoke. Silence that bummed with remarkable kindness while speaking law. Thrawn was not to ask him for any information he was not willing to give freely. Or, perhaps, Thrawn was to stop asking about the aging thing. Truthfully, Seven-Five had not worked out all of Anakin’s nuances.

“How about Ceet?” asked Anakin, immediately changing the subject. 

Seven-Five wrinkled his nose as he frowned, “I don’t like Ceet.” 

“Ceet sucks,” agreed Ahsoka. 

He glanced at her and she gave him a wide, toothy grin. For a moment, he saw Fives sharing a smile with him instead. They would have been friends, he thought. Maybe one day, if they were lucky they would be. If they were lucky… The plan had always been to get other Fetts involved to rescue the younger ones rather than risk implicating them in the escape. Patience was supposed to be their enemy, not the circumstance of their escape. A sigh escaped him after he smiled at her before resting his forehead on his knees. He let his mind focus on his biotech, its soft whirr consoling him with its ever present reminder that he truly was not fully human.

“Hey,” he heard Anakin say, feeling the other’s hand gently touch his knee, “You need to sleep, yeah? Even replicants need sleep.” 

Lifting his eyes revealed Anakin’s blue ones staring down at him, wide and soft at the edges. A comforting smile was gifted to the young replicant as Anakin rested his other hand on his knee. Against his will, Seven-Five’s heart flip-flopped in his chest. He had to fight a shudder– it had never done that before. Was he okay? Did he need some sort of maintenance he no longer had access to? Or was this one of the ways he reflected a human? Cody hadn’t finished teaching him all the ins and outs. 

But Cody had always said he was human; synthetic skin and organs had never mattered to the man who had asked to be his brother. From what he could tell, that didn’t matter to Anakin either. 

He nodded, but instead said, “I’ll be fine.” 

“We’ll set up the bed for you,” Anakin squeezed his knees and his heart flipped again, “The pit door is broken so we cleaned it out. It’s the perfect place to put a bed.” 

By pit, he realized, Anakin meant the working bay that mechanics were meant to stand in when the car was over a hole. Sure enough, they produced a firm mattress, no worse than the bunk he had back at the KRD, and a quilt made of an array of different colors, kept in a trunk to keep them from fading. It was soft to the touch. 

He let his fingers drag over it, each stitch soft beneath them. There was no color in the KRD tower. Most everything was a bright, eye-searing white or a washed out gray. The first color Seven-Five had seen was his hair in a mirror– a peculiar mutation of the code that made up his synthetic DNA. His brothers all sported the basic replicant dark brown. Every other color came with Tup’s adventures into art. He found that he longed to look over at a wall to see drawings, but was met with the stormcloud gray walls of the pit. 

It was a different gray than the one in the tower, more dark and full of depth, but it didn’t stop it from being gray. In comparison, the blanket was a gradient of many colors– reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, violets, and some colors Seven-Five couldn’t place between that laid between basic blue and violet. A few of the yarns glistened when the incandescent lights that hung on wires in the roof of the pit swung over them. Such a simple thing… Yet, it took his breath away. 

Was it okay to sleep in someone’s art?

“Are you sure I can use this?” he asked Anakin, lifting it back toward him. 

Anakin nodded, gently pressing on Seven-Five’s hand through the quilt,  “Of course. It’s what it’s here for.” 

He nibbled absently on his lip, “But it’s so beautiful. I’d hate to ruin it.” 

“That quilt has been through a lot,” Anakin explained, “I promise it will be okay.” 

As he spoke, Anakin’s eyes went misty. Seven-Five watched him move, head turning to look away. There was something about this place. All of them lived elsewhere, but this felt like a home. Or, at least, what he imagined a home felt like when Cody described how he lived with his fathers and brothers. How Seven-Five and the others could be part of the family one day too. Even if they didn’t live here now, someone had lived in this shop once before him. All he could do was silently wonder who.  Something about the look in Anakin told him it was better not to question him right now. Memories were a powerful drug. 

There was a loud swish from their door. The five replicants snapped their heads up in unison. Bright white radiance poured in from the hall. Lights out had been an hour prior, but CT-5385 had been having trouble sleeping. Instead of letting him suffer alone, the five had clustered together in the center. CT-7543 had invented a rhyming game where once he reached the end, whoever’s foot was tapped had to pull it back from the circle. Being out of bed past curfew was strictly against the rules.

Once, it was just CT-7543 and CT-7567, living alone in this room and never daring to even risk an ounce of disobedience. It was CT-5555– who always insisted his brothers call him ‘Fives’– who had discovered a weak link among Kaminoans; whoever was watching their cameras at night only did it every hour on the hour for about five minutes. So long as one of them kept track of time, they could do as they liked. 

It was CT-6922 who had a talent for that. On occasion, they would get caught out of bed, but once CT-6922 and CT-5385 had decanted and were old enough to join them, it became clear that the former had an excellent cap on how much time had passed even though their room lacked a clock. 

Instead of  Tuan We, Nala Se, or any of the other Kaminoans, a replicant in bright white plastoid armor ducked into their room. The door slid shut behind him with a whoosh . All of them tensed in unison, but CT-7567 immediately put an arm in front of his brothers, unsure why this guard had entered. More to his surprise, the guard slid off his helmet to reveal, as expected, another replicant underneath. Or so they had assumed.

“Are you the replicants of Project Sun?” 

“Who are you?” snapped CT-7567, narrowing his eyes down on the intruder. 

The replicant put his hands up in a sign of surrender, shaking his head, “Easy, easy. My name is Cody Fett. I’m from outside. I’m here to help you.”

Life went on. Seven-Five didn’t think that it would be possible to continue to trek along the pathways of living without his brothers, but he was doing it. No matter how anxious he got, he had to keep going so that one day, if they were still alive, he could get them out of the KRD and into the world outside. And they had to be alive. He felt it. 

The 501st brought him clothes and helped him stock the minifridge. All of them, even Thrawn, had decided to make sure he had everything he needed. Abandoned mechanic shop or not, Shmi’s had become his home. Anakin assured him that no one would bother them there. Technically, though he did not elaborate how, the 501st owned the building. It was not about to get bulldozed or taken over any time soon, which meant that Seven-Five was safe from prying eyes. 

Anakin and Ahsoka even took it a step further– they started helping him build his own bike. At first, he was skeptical, but it was Anakin who pressed the idea that they could sneak into uptown via traffic, sticking to alleys in order to spy on the KRD. 

“Why do you want to spy on the KRD?” asked Seven-Five, after Anakin had wheeled over the shoddy remains of a busted bike that he had scrapped some months ago. 

“For you,” Anakin said, shrugging, “And your brothers. They don’t deserve to be stuck in that tower until they get sold to the highest bidder.” He spat out the last few words like he had eaten rotten food. It sent a chill down Seven-Five’s spine for a second before he took in the rest of what Anakin had said.

For a moment, Seven-Five marveled at him, “You want to rescue them.”

“Of course.”

Like saying that was nothing. Maybe to Anakin it was– wanting to save a replicant’s family was as clear as the window glass in the KDR, the kind that Seven-Five used to peer through to the mess hall to see the life he was not allowed to have. When he would watch all the other replicants he was not allowed to know for fleeting moments. Fate was not necessarily something he believed in, but it was certainly serendipity that it was Anakin who found him and not someone else. One of the Fetts would have been the best case scenario, but if it meant rescuing his brothers, Seven-Five was glad to have Anakin and his 501st. Maybe fate was the wrong word; maybe Anakin was just a miracle. 

None of the replicants within the project knew it was called Project Sun. That was what Cody had called them. Details were sparse, but Cody’s younger brother Echo had managed to datamine the name. There was nothing else though. Just a name. 

The five of them were named for a star that they had only seen in holographic photos.

There was little comfort with that fact. It left CT-7567 awake when he should be sleeping, accompanied only by the sounds of his own body. None of them snored. Replicants had been designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. He would close his eyes tight, picture the sun and wonder what it meant to him. Cody had tried to explain that sometimes projects had meaningless names, but his instincts told him otherwise. Project Sun… How could he know so little about what had brought him and his siblings to be? 

Thrawn was the one who first mentioned the empathy tests. Even though most replicants now looked like Jango Fett, an arrest still came with an empathy test. Sneaking into uptown ran a high risk of being arrested. Gangs ran the streets of The Undercity. Law was survival of the fittest. Whoever the weakest gang was got caught by the slim amount of officers willing to deal with the cesspool of crime. Rogue replicants were a different story. 

If Seven-Five came back as an unregistered replicant, not leased to any owner or company, he’d be arrested and taken back to the KRD. Part of that was almost appealing to him– it was an easy way into his former home to retrieve his brothers. Yet, it also ran the risk of him being totally decommissioned for running away. Only Anakin and Ahsoka, who visited him the most frequently at the shop without the others, had any idea what Project Sun was. The others just knew Seven-Five could age.

“I could attempt to conduct a facsimile of one,” Thrawn said, “The modifications to my eyes permit it. Thus, we could train you to simulate empathy enough to trick a test.” 

“What is that going to help?” asked Aayla, crossing her arms, “Even if he does pass, surely they can tell he’s not one of Fett’s kids.” 

Thrawn shook his head, “Untrue. The Fetts were once the prominent dynasty of Mandalore. To be more specific, it was the Mereel family of which the Fetts are a part of through Jango. He has a number of closely related family members who Seven-Five could pretend to be.” 

“I don’t know any of the other Fetts,” Seven-Five explained, hating to repeat something that Thrawn himself had told him a hundred times, “Just Cody.”

“The blond hair throws it off,” Anakin reminded them, “Plus he’s too young. We didn’t even realize it at first. The only cop who might not assume he’s some distant Fett relation would be that guy who arrested all of The Lasat gang.” 

They had told Seven-Five about that particular “tragedy” early on into meeting him. All of the gangs were fighting over the territory left behind by the missing Lasat. Only one of their younger members remained. Anakin had offered him a place with the 501st, but the man had denied him. Apparently, he was too loyal to the gang that he saw as his family, even if he couldn’t go as far as to help them. Each member had been shipped off to prisons around the Republic or even to Luna Max. 

Growing up, the Kaminoans had taught Seven-Five their version of how the world worked. Prisoners who were well and truly evil got sent to Luna Maximum Security Prison on the dark side of the moon. Hearing about the Lasat, who had held their territory with a fair, but iron-strong grip, Rex had to wonder how many people in Luna Max were just trying to survive. What other lies had the Kaminoans told him about the world he now lived in? Seven-Five wrapped his arms around his legs. 

“I think he has empathy anyway,” he heard Anakin huff, “Look at how much he wants to rescue his brothers. You don’t get that without empathy.” 

When they had first met, Cody had said much the same thing. No matter what others might think or the replicants had been told, they were more human than the people who made them would ever want to admit. And if they were human, that meant the way they were treated was akin to slavery. He let his head drop to his knees as he let out a sigh in tandem with a click inside his head. 

All he wanted to do was save his brothers. They needed him to rescue them. Each day he worried more that Keeli had been decommissioned or Cody had been found out. Ahsoka had told him to take heart because they hadn’t heard any news. Outing one of Fett’s sons as a rebel would have made headlines. Papers would have spun it to make a warning out of him and knock Fett down a peg, but they still would have seen it. Seven-Five had to take solace in that. 

“It still couldn’t hurt,” he finally said, moving his head up to look at them, “Just in case.” 

  Cody cupped his cheek, staring down at CT-7567 as he tried to explain the life that was awaiting the replicant. His hand dropped, squeezing the replicant’s shoulder before pulling him into a tight embrace. They didn’t have much time for such mushy sentimentality. He wondered briefly if such a thought was what made him a replicant instead of a human. 

Thoughts of that plagued him in the days leading up to their escape. What if they got caught out in the city and given empathy tests? He didn’t know if he trusted what Cody said enough to pass. All his life he had been told that he was real in the sense that he was physical, but to be real was not to be human. Each whirr of his biotechs had told him that.  

Clearly, his “older brother” wanted to savor a good luck hug before they started their escape attempt. CT-7567 wanted to run. He wanted his feet to carry him out of this building… But he also wanted to take his three little brothers with them. Such a group might attract attention. Splitting them up into two waves had its own dangers, but they had decided the benefit of showing Keeli and CT-7567 to Jango outweighed that risk. 

“We need to get going,” he murmured, squeezing Cody back. 

Cody nodded, “I know. We’re gonna make it out, I promise. And then, we’ll find you a real good name.” The young replicant snorted slightly before peeling himself away to smile at Keeli who stood at the door. He and Cody had also shared a brief hug as well before taking up his post. CT-7567 smiled at his twin. The one Keeli gave him back barely reached his ears which made a twisting pain shoot through CT-7567’s chest. 

Ahsoka clapped her hands, “Princey.” 

Seven-Five watched Anakin shake his head from where he was leaning forward his bike’s seat, a set of slate gray square binoculars pressed to his face. They were older tech that Anakin had souped up to zoom more like a camera. Seven-Five and Aayla each had their own pair while Thrawn stood at the front, his red eyes casting a sharp glow in the darkened alley as he glared up at the KRD Tower. 

“He’s not a synth-pet, Snips.”

“You think of something better,” she snapped, “Or give me the binoculars.”

Anakin scoffed, “Not on your life. Keep watch.” 

“Sleamo,” he heard Ahsoka mutter under her breath. Seven-Five looked away for just a second to give her a sympathetic glance. He knew how much she wanted to help. However, her best use right now was as a guard with Kitster while Bariss worked on getting a read on the building’s security. Their hacktivist stayed utterly silently outside of some tapping at a datapad screen as she researched the building. 

Before leaving, she had bemoaned not knowing Echo Fett. She had insisted that he probably had a handle somewhere, but most hacktivists remained anonymous for their safety. Still, just as many liked to brag. They had surmised that Echo must play it safe as no one had logged hacking directly into the KRD on any of the underground sites she frequented. She had hoped that finding him might also lead Seven-Five to the family he was originally supposed to reach. 

Would they even accept him without Cody? He didn’t like to think about that. 

“What about Milo?” offered Kitster. 

“Also a synth-pet name,” huffed Anakin, “Guys, stake-outs are supposed to be quiet.” 

Seven-Five chuckled, “It’s fine.” The talking between the two on guard as they tried to give him the perfect name was a welcome distraction from his thoughts. 

They had been at this for three nights now. Over a month had passed since Seven-Five had first met them. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. It felt like only yesterday. Once his bike had been running the way Anakin wanted it, Seven-Five had spent a few nights learning how to ride. Then they began to stalk the alleys of uptown as secretly as possible, scoping out the tower and keeping eyes peeled for anyone who might actually be a Fett and not a replicant. The latter could hardly be done with any amount of effectiveness. Personal replicants were popular among uptown residents, almost as popular as they were in the Undercity for labor or… ‘pleasure’, as Anakin had put it. 

When he had, his face had scrunched up in disgust, his voice wanting to get the word out of his mouth so badly that it could have been toxic. Despite it being his people they were talking about, Seven-Five had reached over and squeezed Anakin’s hand. The other had smiled at him warmly making that recurring flip-flop in his systems reappear. Ever since he met Anakin, the symptom came and went, but all internal scans gave him healthy read-outs.

“Okay, what about Alp–”

BWOOP! 

Seven-Five’s body went rigid as if it were coated in ice. Blue and red lights flashed against the metal of the buildings that they stood between. In the corner of his eye, he watched Bariss slide her datapad into her shirt, leaning forward once the deed was done to brace her handles. Anakin lowered his binoculars to rest at his chest from the thin chain he had put them on to swap them with his riding goggles. Slowly, he picked up his feet, placing them on the bike. Seven-Five did that same. 

Legally, anyone was allowed to come uptown. However, there was a litany of laws that was meant to keep the population of the Undercity out. In reality, their only crime was that they existed and didn’t live in the towering sky-rises in the warm glow of the lights. But the cops would call it loitering. The 501st had been teaching him the way the world actually worked, picking up where Cody had left off.  

“What are you Undercity punks doing here?” asked an officer in tandem with the door of his car closing. 

“NOW!” ordered Anakin in a shout. 

Each of the bikes roared to life sounding like a pack of lions as each one took off down the alleyway into the labyrinth of Uptown’s alleys. He supposed that they had been lucky to have gone three nights with no officers locating them. Now, it was a race back to the Undercity and the safety of their abandoned mechanic shop. Instead of flip-flopping, his synthetic heart just pounded in harmony with the usual soft noises of his internal biotech. 

Perhaps that was why people like Cody and Anakin thought of synthetic humans as fully human. When in the face of danger, even they felt fear. To fear, it seemed, was to be human. One only needs to know when they were the prey in order to feel so. 

His teeth clacked together as he grit them against the wind, his eyes narrowing tightly. What he wouldn’t give for a pair of goggles like Anakin’s now. Red and blue still danced behind them, the blare of sirens chasing after them in a cacophony of sound that bounced off the walls of the alleys. For a moment, his bike wobbled as he remembered the blaring sirens of the KRD. He saw Cody’s face as he looked back before telling the twins to climb into the chute. He saw Keeli’s face as his twin dug into his hands in order to throw him down, down, down… He saw the red lighting up the pitch black chute until the door closed completely and he was alone. 

Without realizing it, he wobbled again, further to the side. Once, he had seen Anakin lean that far only to quickly pull himself up. Seven-Five attempted to push himself up against the wind. Instead, he felt his bike fly forward, away from his body. There was no time to brace himself. All he could do was hit the pavement, tumbling in circles as the cop vehicle swerved in order to keep from hitting him. He was grateful that it was one of the more current models without wheels, able to hover high above his prone form.

“SEVEN!” he heard Anakin yell over the roar of bike engines.

Wheels that he didn’t think would come pulled up next to his fallen body. He looked up at the other nervously, but Anakin’s hate was all directed at the officers. The one glance he did spare to Seven-Five was soft, making his guilt melt into the pavement. Still, he didn’t dare pick himself up lest the officer thought he had a weapon. Good things never did last. 

“Did you think up a name?” Cody asked, quietly leading them along emptied hallways of the KRD that he had never seen before. That he was never meant to see. 

He shook his head, “There are no good ones…” His siblings had spent hours the night before bouncing bad name after bad name at CT-7576 until he was certain that he would never find one that fit him. 

Cody ran a hand over his head and pulled him into a quick hug. Warmth spread through him quickly, so fast that he felt as though he might melt into the man who made himself the replicants’ older brother. He wished it had lasted long enough for him to put his arms around Cody, clinging to him until all his fear had seeped out. This hug was different from the long, time consuming one they shared before; he wanted to cling to this one more. But it ended too quickly and its position as memory began to settle in. 

“You’ll think one up,” Cody assured him in a whisper, “When you need it most or least expect it. Your name will find you.” 

Sickly shades of green seeped in through the windows of the station. Seven-Five swore under his breath, letting his head tap gently against the cool metal of the wall. Two thick handcuffs forced his arms in front of him. Each of the 501st were led one by one out of the cell by an officer to speak to one higher up the food chain. Anakin had done his best to comfort him. This event was hardly their first arrest, even if it was Seven-Five’s own. There was apparently a cop who tended to go easy on them and Anakin had seen him come in not long after they were arrested. 

Anakin squeezed his wrist. They were always taken at different times, according to him. One arrest might see Anakin go first, last, or somewhere in the middle, but be completely different the next. Anxiety bubbled in his chest as he counted down until only he and Anakin were left in the holding cell. He knew the KRD leased to the police. If there was a replicant here, they might realize he was one of them, however unusual he was for one. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” Anakin whispered to him, voice as level as a gentle stream, “Just tell the cop what we talked about and they’ll let you out without thinking twice.” 

Seven-Five was to make up a name and say that he was a refugee from Mandalore who had fallen in with the 501st when he had arrived in Coruscant, penniless and without identification. Most refugees ended up in the Undercity anyway. Hopefully, Seven-Five would get nothing more than a slap on the wrist and an ID with whatever name he managed to concoct. If not, the others would have to rescue him from a deportation ship back to Mandalore. 

An officer came up to the duraglass sliding door, tapping something to the keypad in order to slide the door open. The tightly uniformed man grimaced at them, “Skywalker, you’re up next.” 

Anakin let out a brilliant smile, “Sure thing, sir.” He stood, turning to wink at Seven-Five. Without words, he promised that his friend would be okay. Yet, Seven-Five had trouble believing him. And this was all his fault…

“If it were up to me,” the officer sneered, grabbing Anakin’s cuffs roughly, “I’d make a real example outta you.” 

“Good thing it’s not up to you,” Anakin replied, light and teasing.

Those words earned him a slap. Its crack echoed through the halls of the station, turning Seven-Five’s fluids to ice. Anger seemed to light up Anakin’s eyes for a second. He kept his eyes trained on him, seeing if Anakin might retaliate. Slamming the cuffs down on someone’s head would bring the officer down quickly, but there were others with guns all around them. Instead, he watched Anakin lick his lips before straightening himself, going quietly but with his head held high toward the office. 

Seven-Five didn’t know how long he sat there. At some point, he pulled his legs to his chest, staring out the clear door as he watched people move past, seemingly unaware or unconcerned by his presence in the cell. Replicants weren’t supposed to be able to get sick, but he felt as though he might vomit up everything within him from food to maintenance fluid. He closed his eyes, squeezing his eyelids tight as he focused on the sounds of his biotech whirring its usual tune inside his mind. 

“Hey!” a gruff voice snapped, “Get up! You’re next, Mando scum.”

Mando scum…

Remembering how Anakin stood against the slap, Seven-Five stood with his head high and shoulders back. This officer, different from the last, would not frighten him. Police were no more monsters than the KRD. Seven-Five was a survivor. He would make Cody and his siblings proud. Despite that, he pressed his teeth so tightly against each other, they might have cracked had they been real bone. 

All of the station was painted in that greenish hue that the Undercity made. Swamps were clearer than the entire building. In order to combat his fear, Seven-Five dug his nails into the palm of his hand. There was no music or talking as he was led, just the gentle tick of analog clocks on the walls and the steps of his and the officers’ feet. Was this what it was like to be taken to a decommissioning? Humidity evacuated his throat at the thought, leaving it cracked and dry. 

He was led to a room with a thick black duraplast mesh over the small window. The officer tapped his wrist against the keypad next to the door. The metal door slid open just enough for the officer to tug himself and Seven-Five through. As he was pulled in, he tried to observe as much as he could. Finally, he caught the name on the placard. 

Deputy Chief Grievous . 

Good. Thank the little gods, as Cody once said. That had been the name Anakin had told him.

The officer shoved him roughly down into a chair, his behind going sore as he hit the metal. Much to his chagrin, he hadn’t been able to stifle the gasp that escaped him at the movement. His lungs shook as they took in all the air. The noise seemed to catch Grievous' attention, his head snapping up from a datapad. 

White was the first word that came to Seven-Five’s mind. Everything about Grievous was bone white, like a skeleton. Except, he realized, what was exposed on the man was not bone, but a matte metal. All of Grievous’ skin was replaced with it, even on his face where a pair of sunken in, yellowed, but undeniably human eyes looked down at him. When Grievous moved, he clicked– more than his skin, his bone and maybe even his muscles had been upgraded with metallic enhancements. 

Grievous was a technomancer , he realized. While Seven-Five was a completely synthetic human, stitched together by Kaminoan scientists with biotech, Grievous had chosen to look like this. Every part of him was kitted out meant to enhance his natural performance; it was even possible he might be able to hook up to computers like Aayla could with her hair attachments. Seven-Five let his eyes scan him quickly, trying to determine the purpose of Grievous’ upgrades. Physicality seemed the most likely. As an officer, one would crave the necessity of greater strength or agility. Maybe both. 

“Seven,” Grievous said, voice raspy and thick in a way that reminded him of when he had hit the ground. As if the deputy chief were gargling the street that Seven-Five had landed on. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Seven,” Grievous repeated, clearly unamused, “That’s the name Skywalker called when you fell.” 

“Yes,” he nodded, “My surname.” Well, that was one name resolved. At least he wouldn’t have to try to use Fett . 

“Right,” the deputy chief nodded and slid a finger down the datapad, “No facial records for you. Do you want to tell me why that is?” 

That was the moment that Seven-Five realized that Grievous’ mouth didn’t move when he talked. A mask had locked itself, stationary, over his mouth. It didn’t even bother to shift with his words. One might mistake Grievous for a droid with how much of him had been totally replaced. He tried his best not to stare at the unnerving lack of movement nor the sickly eyes that bore into him whenever they looked up. 

“I’m a refugee from Mandalore. I managed to escape, but my family didn’t make it,” he explained, pulling on every word Anakin had told him to say, “They had all my ID. I had to sneak into the city. The 501st helped me out.” 

Grievous sighed, metallic and whistling, “Bad idea… But I suppose I can give you an ID.” 

“Sir!” said the officer behind him, shaking the chair, “He should be shipped back to Mandalore… Or given a test.” 

Grievous glared, “Don’t question my choices. Coruscant slime, Mando slime; it’s all the same. He’ll end up volunteering for Venus in a few years time, just you watch. Besides, he’s blond and too young for replicant age. You see it in people who don’t even look like replicants. You want to talk back, bring it to Rampart.” 

“...Fine, sir.” 

Relief rested on his shoulders, his chest wanting to deflate. Indifference had saved him. One need only look closely at him to realize that he could not pass an empathy test– try as he and Thrawn had to emulate a real one– or that he should be sent away. But Grievous thought Seven-Five was nothing more than shit on his shoe. If he even had shoes. He fought the urge to duck to look under the desk to see if the deputy chief had replaced his feet for enhancements. 

Grievous’ joints clicked louder than the keyboard under his fingers, the thick squares pressing into an opaque screen that Seven-Five couldn’t see. It felt like his eardrums might burst from the sudden influx of noise. How did he live in such a body? The clicking inside him was enough when the world was too quiet. It was even soothing; the noise being part of him. Even if he was human to Cody and Anakin, that noise reminded him that he was made of biotech, moving in a union of false flesh and soft machine. 

“First name,” huffed Grievous. It wasn’t a question. 

His dry throat went sticky as he fought for words. He just needed a name. A real name. It didn’t have to be the name he would really go by. Anakin had told him that. Yet, it felt like he needed to choose one now . Otherwise, if this happened again, what would the police think of him having a new nickname? Nothing… Nothing probably. 

“ First name ,” Grievous repeated, fingers tapping sharply against the metal desk. Seven-Five did his best to ignore the noise– Noise. A smile fought its way onto his face.

“Rex,” he said, “Rex Seven.” 

In his head, he listened to the whrr-ex click of his biotech. His name had always been with him. All he had ever had to do was listen to himself rather than everyone around him. Laughter tried to fight its way to him, but he kept it down. All he could imagine was finally getting to tell Cody and his siblings that he had finally, finally found his name.

Everything passed quickly after that. Rex had finished some more questions for Grievous before being uncuffed and led out of the station. Roughly shoved down the steps by the officer, Rex felt more like he was flying than stumbling down concrete stairs. Even then, he couldn’t stop smiling. Two hands caught his shoulders before he could hit the sidewalk. He looked up to see Anakin, blue eyes scanning him over with worry. 

His lips tingled. One day, he would figure out what that meant. 

“What has you so happy?” asked Anakin, righting him up, “You can’t be that happy we got off easy.” Their bikes wouldn’t be released until the next day, which clearly had their leader tired and frustrated. 

He smiled even wider until his cheeks hurt, “I picked my name.” 

Anakin’s eyes lit up as he let out a whoop, shaking the replicant’s shoulders, “What is it? What did you pick?”

He licked his lips, eager to say his name out loud again, “Rex.” 

“Rex?” asked Ahsoka, leaning to look at him, “Where did you get Rex ?” 

How could one explain the very nature of themselves? It seemed simple to him to choose it, but… A natborn might not understand why he would choose the noise that his own body made. Instead, he just shrugged at her. 

“It’s part of me.” 

“Well, I like it!” exclaimed Anakin, clapping Rex on the back.

 The words made his cheeks flush. So much of him was made to be human despite how much the KRD would insist he wasn’t. It made him think of Cody. Of Keeli. Of Fives. Of Tup and CT-6922. One day, they would all be outside the walls of KRD. They would live in the rain of the Undercity, in its neon and chill, hiding out in their homes. Or they would enjoy the warm lights of uptown, telling their story to Jango Fett. Families waited for them on either side of town. But Rex knew which one he would choose, even if it might make Cody sad.

But they were still his family . Nothing would change that. If he could pick a name, then he could find them. No news was better than bad news. They had already made progress scoping out the KRD tower. Now, they just had to change their angle. Instead of going straight for the source, they could find the Fetts or even a rogue replicant willing to aid them. Anything was better than nothing, but Rex felt he could do anything with Anakin and the others at his side.- 

The 501st was a part of him now, willing to get arrested for his sake. When they could have abandoned him, Anakin and the others had come for him so he didn’t have to face it all alone. Peace settled over him as he pulled Anakin into a warm embrace. The leader didn’t fight it, wrapping his arms back around Rex, chin resting on his head. He squeezed Rex tight until the replicant felt as though he might merge with him until no one was sure where the replicant began and the human ended. 

It didn’t matter who was who. Not really. They were each part of each other. One by one members of the 501st joined in the hug until they were all one unit, one family. Trust and love and hope all threaded together like a quilt. Maybe they were mismatched, but they were together, shining as brilliantly as a rainbow of color. And if they were together, they could do anything. Street urchins stuck together anyway.