Maura Henriette Franklin (birth name Maura Singleton) is a doctor who specializes in the human brain and one of the first women to study medicine in England. Forthright and mysterious, with a fascinating background, Maura boards the Kerberos, sights set for New York, where she hopes to find her missing brother and practice medicine, something she couldn't do in England at the time. However, Maura soon realizes that everything she's experienced since boarding the ship isn't real and that she and the other passengers have been trapped in a simulation.
Biography[]
Finding the boy[]
Maura awakens on the Kerberos after having a dream in which she confronts her father for the disappearance of her brother, who went missing four months ago, at the same time of the Prometheus. Maura rehearses her persona, reciting her name and place of birth before entering the dining room, where she offers her skill to Krester, who came seeking medical help for his pregnant sister. After saving Tove and her baby, Maura begins to have flashes of images in her head and rushes back to the upper deck, where she learns that the Kerberos has been receiving the same signal, coordinates to be specific, possibly from the Prometheus. And so when the captain announces his plan to change course and find the missing ship, Maura offers to join him onboard in case anyone needs medical attention. However, the only person they find is a young boy locked inside a cabinet, with a small pyramid shaped object in his hand.[1]
Maura has decided to take the boy in and watch over him as he sleeps. She leaves the room briefly, and when she returns, she finds Daniel trying to get into her cabin. She then inquires with the boy about the other passengers from the Prometheus, but he remains silent. After sharing a story from her childhood and saving him from Eyk's wrath, Maura pleads with the boy to tell her anything he may know, and she becomes even more curious after discovering a triangle on his neck, but he doesn't respond.[2]
When the Kerberos to forced to come to a halt due to the thick fog, Maura and Eyk decide to use this opportunity to go back over onto the Prometheus, where they discover the logbook is missing and that the captain's cabin on this ship also has a tiled shaft, similar to Eyk's, but the shaft leads nowhere. So, the two of them head down to the engine room, where they search the furnaces, looking through the rubble, as she suspects that someone may have burned the bodies of the other passengers.[3]
Protecting the boy[]
After Franz stages a mutiny and locks the captain away, he orders his men to take Maura back to her room and lock her inside. However, as they arrive at her cabin door, the mutineers have gathered, suspecting that the boy is responsible for the recent string of unexplainable deaths. They take her key and enter the cabin in search of the boy, who is hiding in a tiled shaft under Maura's bed and doesn't make his location known until the mutineers have left. Locked inside the room, the boy uses a green bug to unlock the door and lead them to the captain. However, they're found by the mutineers, who the boy turns himself over to willingly, only to later be thrown overboard by Iben, who Maura races across the deck to try and stop but is too late. Maura and the others retreat to the dining room, from where the boy emerges out of a cabinet despite having been thrown overboard moments earlier.[4]
Maura has another frightening dream; she's at the Mental Hospital being strapped down and injected with an unknown substance by her father before waking up on the floor of the Kerberos' dining room, next to Daniel, who reveals that they locked the boy back in the cabinet. Despite the objections from the other passengers, Maura attempts to free the boy, at which point, someone opens fire. However, times freezes, and the boy comes from out the cabinet with the pyramid. Maura asks the boy what's happening, but he doesn't say a word. Instead, he grabs a notepad and writes down "they are listening." He then pulls Maura close and whispers in her ear that he can't tell her and that she'll have to ask the Creator. Maura then follows the boy down the tiled shaft, where he uses a green bug to open a pathway into Maura's memory.
Maura enters the mental hospital and is confronted by her father, who asks where did she hide it, but she asks him where her brother is, to which he replies that she's not asking the right questions. Suddenly, she's being restrained as the syringe is injected into her neck. Maura wakes up back in her room on the Kerberos and runs into Eyk, who demands answers. To Eyk, Maura reveals her true identity and that Henry Singleton, the man who bought the ships, is her father. She suspects that everything that's happened to them has been some kind of experiment. She also reveals that her brother has now been missing for four months, the same amount of time that the Prometheus has been missing. Maura then finds a green bug on the table and uses it to create a door into Eyk's memory after going down his shaft. The two of them then return to the ship and discuss the dying passengers who are jumping overboard; Maura comes to the conclusion that they aren't dying at all and that they're in some kind of dream, which she believes that she found out about before but her father made her forget.[5]
Searching for the boy[]
Maura and Eyk go down her tiled shaft, where she saw the boy last. They enter the examination room of the Mental Hospital, where Maura reveals that her father built the building after her mom got sick, and they discover the hull of the Kerberos on the other side of the window. The same is true for the entire landscape. At some point, they notice a black virus growing throughout the building, which Daniel, who has followed them, warns them against touching. Suspecting that he's working for Maura's father, Eyk holds him at gunpoint, only for Daniel to disarm him and use some kind of device to send Eyk back to his own memory. However, Maura then grabs the gun and forces Daniel into the exam room, where she locks him in. She then flees the hospital and calls out to her father, certain that he's watching her. In a fit of anger, she throws her gun, and it cracks the invisible wall in front of her, with Maura now realizing that her vast landscape isn't as vast as she initially thought it to be. She then proceeds to peel off the metal plating posing as background, unveiling the ship's hull.[6]
Learning the truth[]
Maura returns to the Kerberos in search of the captain. Her first stop is the bridge, where she finds Virginia dying from an infection. However, she has to continue her search for Eyk, who may be back in his memory. Maura climbs down Eyk's shaft and searches for him at his old family house, where she is confronted by his dead wife, Sara. Maura returns to the Kerberos and discovers not only another tiled shaft under Daniel's bed, over a dozen photos of herself and Daniel, as well as the boy, leading her to remember forgotten memories. She is eventually joined by Daniel, who reveals that the boy is their son and that they're all trapped in a simulation. He tells Maura that she has to remember and wake up, or else her consciousness will be trapped forever. They're shutting down the simulation and the override code is the only way out before everything restarts, though only Maura knows of its location. In the simulation, the code can be any object, including a key, leading Maura to realize she's had the code with her all along, locked inside her necklace.
Maura and Daniel enter the infirmary, where he uses his device to reprogram the simulation. After they're all wiped out, the simulation will restart again, but this time it will be different. Daniel intends to anchor himself and Maura to it, so they'll go through the same port to buy them more time. This simulation has happened dozens of times before. Every simulation runs eight days, but none of the ships have ever made it to their destination. It's an endless loop. Maura and Daniel then enter her cabin to discover that her tiled shaft has been closed off. Henry speaks to them over the PA system and says that everyone on the ship will eventually die and take part in the next simulation. However, Henry believes he can end it and wants the key. In return, he'll give them back their son. Daniel has a plan, but he needs Maura to trust him. He hands Maura her wedding ring and tells her never to forget that he loves her, before taking off.[7]
Waking up from the simulation[]
With the simulation having restarted, the Kerberos is sent to the archives, where Maura reunites with Eyk. To him, and the remaining passengers, she reveals that Daniel is her husband, the boy is her son, and that they're all inside a simulation. However, no one except Eyk believes her. So while they search for a way off, she and Eyk look for her father, but since her tiled shaft has been closed off, she uses Daniel's and discovers that all the memories are connected, using hidden pathways, which leads them to Maura's memory. They enter the hospital, where they are confronted by Sebastian, who uses his device to kill Eyk and take Maura to her father, who retrieves the key from her before taking Maura back to the hospital, where he reveals that she's the Creator, trapping them all in this simulation and then injects her with the black substance to make her forget.
Maura awakens outside the hospital and climbs down into Elliot's bunker, where she is reunited with Daniel, who reveals that the simulation didn't restart. They're currently in the first simulation they ever created. Objects in the simulation are just manifestations of codes. So he exchanged their values and reprogrammed them so that instead of the black syringe taking her back to the Kerberos and making her forget, it brought her to their first simulation, where he also switched the pyramids. The one her father has no longer works, same for the key. Elliot's toy pyramid is the new one, and her wedding ring is the new key. Daniel also shockingly reveals that her brother has been controlling everything, not her father. Maura has to leave now and stop Ciaran before he realizes what's been done. So she places her ring inside the pyramid and awakens from the simulation on a spaceship in the year 2099. A message then appears on the computer that reads "Project Prometheus," with 1,423 passengers and 550 crewmen on the day of October 19, 2099. The message is from her brother, who welcomes her back to reality.[8]