"They say the mind bends and twists in order to deal with the horrors of life. Sometimes it bends so much, it snaps in two."- Anon.
"The def...wait a minute, the defense mainframes?"
The realization landed in his stomach with a sickening crunch. This woman wasn't lying about being a machine. A Cylon. And he had given her...and he had...
"What exactly are you saying?"
"Come on Gaius."
He couldn't handle it. His mouth gaped open.
"The communications frequencies..."
That meant...
"Deployment schedules..."
She knew everything.
"Unlimited access to every database."
He couldn't handle it. He stood up, paced. He took a deep breath, tried to get himself together. First step, he told himself, is to make sure she can't be traced back to me.
"Wait a minute...I had NOTHING to do with this," he told her. He half believed it. "You know I had nothing to do with this."
The woman, the blonde continues smiling, stood.
"You have an amazing capacity for self-deception, Gaius. How do you do that?"
She was honestly curious. He was beginning to believe her, beginning to believe that she was in fact a Cylon.
"How many people know?... about me specifically, that I'm involved?"
"And even now as the fate of your ENTIRE world hangs in the balance, all you can think about is how this affects you."
Gaius was in full fight-or-flight mode. He barely heard the woman's word, a picture of being dragged before a pockmarked wall playing and replaying in his mind.
"Do you have any idea what they'll do to me if they find out?"
"They'd probably charge you with treason."
She understood. Sort of. He could die for letting her into the mainframes.
"Treason is punishable by the death penalty!... this is unbelievable."
Something in his mind clicked. Lord Abizigal had been charged with treason, but a lawyer saved his life. A lawyer. A lawyer is what I need. He went for the phone, started to dial.
"What are you doing?"
"Phoning my attorney"
"That won't be neccessary"
He stopped a second. Had she informed on him? Mathias was an old friend, supremely skilled. It didn't matter.
"Nahh, he'll know what to do. He'll sort this out. He's the best in the business."
"It won't be neccessary. Because in a few hours, no one will be left to charge you with anything."
He hung up the phone as cold terror sliced through the hot panic.
"What exactly are you saying?"
"Humanity's children... are returning home. Today."
She spoke, and suddenly his tiny, Baltar-centered universe shattered.
BSGBSGBSGBSG
Baltar was covered in blood. The woman, the Cylon...she was dead. She was a mess of shredded meat and several exceptionally large splatters of blood. He could smell burning. He stood, looking at his expensive house. The surreal, distant specter of a mushroom cloud blotted out the sun as he looked around the shredded living room.
He had destroyed the world.
He stood up, trying to wipe the bigger chunks of his lover off himself. His mind turned over. He had to escape. He changed as best he could, walked out the door. He locked it behind himself- for what reason, he didn't know. He just had to leave.