The Sugar Cone
Author: Manipulator
Rating: T
Word Count: 1795
Characters: Boomer
Spoilers: "Valley of Darkness"
Disclaimer: The characters and trademarks featured are property of Universal, etc.
Summary: What happened to Boomer, in her cell, when the cylons stormed the ship.
Author's Notes: I thought it seriously weakened the episode that Boomer was not featured at all. This is one way I felt this could have been addressed. I rarely write fanfic, but I'm working on a companion piece to this as well. This has also been posted at Ragnar Anchorage, Galactica Actual, and Hidden Elysium.
Sharon, when she was a little girl, loved one flavor of ice cream, called rainbow swirl. She could only find it at one ice cream stand, in a park, in Caprica City. There was no memory of how it tasted, nor the park itself. She just recalled that she had this experience. She couldn't even tell you if it was a cake or sugar cone.
A broad-shouldered, blond marine paced outside her cell, sometimes his eyes met hers, but always darted back to the floor, when she returned his glare. His gloved fingers flexed near his rifle's trigger guard.
iSomething's happening/i Sharon thought, as she flexed her jaw.
Raising her cuffed hands, she touched the bandage taped to her cheek. Her fingertip came away a little red. Tigh should have finished the job. He didn't have any feelings that would cloud his duty to do the right thing. Not like the Chief, who caved into his love, cleaned up her messes.
Not like me. If I could've done it right the first time, The old man wouldn't be on his deathbed.
Since she got her wings, her needs had gotten progressively simpler. Dreams of glory and medals gave way to a time when she and Galen could leave the fleet behind, build their own future. Finally, she just wanted life to end. Sharon rested her head against the wall, and shut her eyes. In the darkness, tinged red by the lights overhead, she could still see them, her. Copies.
iWe love you Sharon./i
They were naked, guileless as newborns, each one's eyes filled with such love. Something stirred inside then, buried deep, wanted to feel that again. Even when she armed the nuke, they loved her.
"Sir? Sir? Yes sir!"
Her eyes snapped open to see the corpsman, white-faced and sweating. His free hand touched his headset's earbud.
Sharon fought a wave of dizziness, rising.
"What's happening," she asked him.
"Shut the frak up," he snarled through clenched teeth, still listening.
"Sir," he ignored her again, spoke into the headset. "Sir that-that'll leave the prisoner unguarded and--" He paused. His rifle hand trembled a little.
"Yes sir, I'm on it."
His jaw slackened as beads of perspiration rolled down his face. Far away, metal screamed and twisted.
The marine sneered.
"Looks like your buddies are here. Tryin' to blow the ship. 'Sokay. They won't get far. Sorry."
He turned to leave, the floor shook again, lights flickered. His chest heaved with uneven breaths. He gave her one last glare, before he left the brig.
Sharon's eyes stung and her vision blurred. She slid along the cold steel floor into a corner, against the bars, pressed her face against trembling hands.
"Chief. . ."
White-hot pain stabbed inside her head, and everything was black before she could scream. Suddenly, she was in the middle of her cell, twisted in agony. The stabbing in her head, her mind, returned. This time she did hear herself scream, as her fingers pulled at her hair. Sharon's eyes clenched shut, and once again, all was dark.
Eyelids peeled open. The scent of metal and stale sweat still permeated her senses, but now blades of grass wafted against her boots, in a breeze she could not feel. There were no handcuffs, but she could not force her wrists apart. Their iron weight was felt, but not seen.
"Oh shit."
Her stomach clenched in a knot, as she shivered, closed her eyes again, shook her head. Then she felt ground under her, and she could smell an unmistakable spring. Strands of hair tickled her cheeks as they yielded to fresh air gliding over her skin. Sharon saw and felt her unbound hands, her pristine flight suit. She flexed her jaw, touched the place where her wound should be, and felt nothing but her unblemished face.
She sat on the greenest lawn she had ever seen. Benches interspersed along a brick path, and, squinting against the sun, she saw the towering skyscrapers of Caprica City.
"This isn't real," she heard herself say, turning around, hearing birds, seeing trees, and, in the shade of one, an ice cream stand.
A young man, wearing a white apron smiled at her as she approached, scoop in hand.
"Good afternoon, Miss," he said, grinning. "Or should I say Lieutenant? What can I getcha?"
"Oh gods," Sharon said. "This definitely isn't real." She circled the man behind the counter. "You're not real. I'm just crazy."
iA crazy toaster assassin./i
The ice cream man just shrugged and dug his scoop into a container, and plopped a multi-colored clump onto a sugar cone.
"You look like a rainbow swirl kinda lady," he said holding the cone out. "That'll be a cubit."
"What? I--"
"I got it," Sharon heard a familiar voice say behind her.
Her blood chilled as a woman with black hair, spilling down over her shoulders, and light brown skin, just like hers, wearing a white sundress, handed the man a cubit, took the cone.
Sharon watched her own eyes narrow, her mouth form a warm smile. It was her, but not quite. There were no blonde highlights streaking hair that reached down to the small of her back. Sharon's hair had not been that long since…she was a little girl?
"Go on," this copy said. "It's okay, take it. We need to talk, Sharon."
iWe love you Sharon./i
The pilot swatted the cone away, and it collapsed in a lump of mush, melting in rivulets over the pavement.
"Get the frak away from me," Sharon said, backing up, slowly, expecting a swarm of herself to appear again. "Get out of my head!"
A splatter of ice cream dripped from her hand, and she absently licked it, never taking her eyes away from the copy, who tilted her head quizzically.
Yes, it was how rainbow swirl was supposed to taste--a mix of every artificial fruit flavor known to man. She remembered.
"Sharon we--"
"How did you know? How could you--"
"Sharon! We don't have much time. You have to listen to me. Please!"
Of course they would know. They made her.
They sat on a bench now, and Sharon couldn't help but look at herself, in crisp white, with a face that carried none of the weight she felt in her own heart.
"What's happening on Galactica," Sharon asked her, the candy-sweet aftertaste still in her mouth.
"Centurions have stormed the ship. They're going to destroy it."
"Oh my gods. I have to do something I--"
The copy placed a hand on her shoulder. Deep down, Sharon found this comforting, somehow.
"You can't. They won't listen to you, Sharon."
"But--"
"But nothing. The humans want you dead. And the centurions have orders to kill you on sight. They are here because of you."
"And what are you here for?"
The copy pursed her lips, eyes shifting to one side. "Let me try to explain."
Sharon wanted to chop this knockoff in the throat, make her cut out this meandering head- trip, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Something beyond memory and experience, beyond shared appearance made those notions, at their core, wrong. She nodded for her to go on.
"You were right. None of this is real. You are receiving a feed from one of the centurions onboard. Some of your model wanted me here to be with you. I'm an AI construct as much like one of you as I can be. A centurion's mind can't hold the entire consciousness of another cylon."
"With me for what?"
The copy paused. Eyes filled with sadness, she cradled Sharon's face in both hands, and Sharon let her.
"Because they didn't want you to die alone."
"What?"
Sharon jerked her copy's hands away, stood with fists clenched.
"This is supposed to comfort me? Cylons have souls now? Show me a Cylon who gives a frak about anything but killing what stands in their way?"
"Don't you ever look in the mirror, Sharon? You volunteered for this. It was your idea. They weren't sure if the implanted memories would hold, or if you would wake up fully. You didn't. You're broken, but still you carried out your mission as best you could. You did so much, but when you destroyed the basestar--"
"When I did my damn job!"
The copy rose, shook her head. "You killed your own. They hoped by then you would wake up, return to the fold, but you didn't. Now, you have to be destroyed when there is minimal chance your consciousness will find another host. You deserve so much more, but you left them with no choice."
Sharon's, eyes blurred with tears. The anger that fueled her, was gone, and she slumped to her knees, stopping herself at the last moment, from sobbing into her hands. The AI knelt by her, smoothing out her dress.
"All the humanoid models have their own special traits. Checks and balances, to counteract group think. Yours was a capacity for empathy and love. It was the love you hold inside that made you take out this mission. Even when, in your mind, you were human, your love for the man Tyrol was born of what you hold inside. It is your greatest gift, but it was your undoing."
Shaking hands pressed against moist eyes, and Sharon felt her copy's arms envelop her, and all she wanted to do--what she did--was rest her head against her bosom, and let herself feel a comfort she never wanted.
"Shh," the copy whispered in Sharon's ear, as she smoothed her hair and gently rocked her. "It is in god's hands now. And he is a just and merciful god. When it comes, it won't hurt."
"I, I don't want to die, " Sharon cried, feeling the salt-sting of her tears in the corners of her mouth. "I don't--"
White pain returned, piercing the center of her mind, maybe even her soul. The strong comfort of her clone's embrace, the sun, aroma of spring was gone, replaced by black.
Lt. Sharon Valerii awoke, face down against steel. Her cuffed hands were drawn up tightly against her, and the familiar ache in her jaw, the tug of the bandage against her skin returned.
She sat up, and saw her guard had returned, any trace of fear was now gone, replaced with a ruddy-faced glow and a rueful grin.
"Whatcha lookin' so down for, Lieutenant Toaster?"
Sharon could not let her eyes meet his. She just curled up and hugged herself, the taste of rainbow swirl lingering on her tongue.