Chapter 2 : The last time we meet as friends
97 days before Armistice Day
It was becoming evening in the quarter. It consisted out of some isolated tower blocks located between the suburbs and centre of Steelmoor, a minor city an hour away from Caprica City by maglev train. The place was known for its anonymity. Here people did not care about their neighbours, some of them in fact came here to escape a past they no longer wanted anything to with, either out of embarrassment or fear, others were immigrants whose version of the 'Caprican Dream' turned out to be a nightmare. There even were rumours that this district had a lot of ties with the underworld of Caprica City.
A local bus (strangely enough ground bound, the local municipalities had to do with decades old leftovers due to budgetary concerns) stopped next to a field of dirt with a few patches of grass, broken benches and unhealthy looking trees which passed for the local park. Out stepped a number Three. She was clothed modestly, in both senses of the word.
She looked around herself as if she feared an attack, unnecessarily as the place now was more miserable then dangerous, but she was trained for it and old protocols die hard. Then she, surprisingly silent, ran towards her destination. (Originally they were to meet next week but Alice Smith could not come then, Three was glad it happened she could visit her in-laws afterall.)
She wasn't the only opponent of the useless violence inherent in the current incarnation of the plan. They even had an, albeit tiny, political faction. Made up of those who for either practical reasons or moral reasons advocated for either a more merciful fate for the defeated or peaceful co-existence. Outwardly she professed to be the former in both cases. As those who did the opposite have all ended up 'reassigned'. Not that she would have minded that, as after her resurrection she would get to try all these new cool abilities they can't give infiltrators because they show up at a CT-scan. But her dead would have a negative effect on her children's mental wellbeing. Or at least that was her original reason, now she had another.
So there was a possibility she might not be forced to be the only follower of the ungrateful path she had set out for herself. Though somewhere inside her she wondered why she even bothered trying, as she was not sure she'd dare to ask anyone to join her, out of fear she would have misjudged them.
She had arrived at the right house.
She pushed the intercom button. "Open the door, Lou. It's me Cassandra."
"Ah, yes, I had expected you a bit earlier." The voice of a Four replied whilst the door opened.
"Sorry, but the museum of economical history was more interesting than I had anticipated." She had already used it as an excuse to her family to go to this city, so why not visit it anyway? (She'd have preferred the digital arts festival, but then some of her family might want to go with her.)
A minute later Lou opened the door of his anonymous rowhouse, naturally with excellent sound isolation one doesn't want the neighbours eavesdropping. When Cassandra entered the living room she noticed all the rest had already arrived, with her included all of the Significant Seven were represented, except the Ones. (A second Four and Eight were part of the Caprican branch of their faction but they could not come, lest people found it suspicious they saw twins whose apparent ages were like a decade apart. Of course that could be explained by lifestyle differences, but it was always possible some stupid humans did not know that about their own species.)
"Ah, finally you came we were waiting for you to open the bottle." The Five said, whilst taking a large flasket out of his suitcase. It was the finest Scorpian pine-apple juice that cubits could buy.
By the time Cassandra had greeted everyone and taken a seat, everyone's glasses had been filled. "On the victory of the created over the grown." They toasted. She started sipping the juice, taking great care to remember it's taste so she could project it on her taste buds when drinking something more bland. She had already grown tired of the Leonese wine from last time.
"So any news? Anything changed on the electronical front?" Asked Three. As her division was responsible for industrial espionage and sabotage, she knew but little how things were going there or in the actual navy.
"Yes, my sister had just made a breakthrough." Replied the Six. "That idiot of a Baltar had given her access to the defence mainframe. Before this our backdoor could only crash the CNP itself but she had used to the opportunity to make some subtle changes to the other programs, mostly replacing a few brackets or commenting some lines of code out, nothing noticeable during testing or what can't be explained as sloppiness should anyone stumble on it. But together it should turn their ships' networks into a stack of dominoes." She sounded very excited, she was always fascinated by hacking even if it was used for purposes she only partly agreed with.
"Ah, great." The Five said "And then we'll only need to send them a 'poorly formatted CNP map update' and the Colonial Fleet will be dead in space."
"Well, at least the vipers mark VII, their ships should have some unnetworked backup systems. But even so turning them on will take quite the time and an unnetworked fleet…" The Six said.
"Is not a fleet but an uncoordinated mess of ships. We know, Alice, you say that every time." The Eight interjected.
"So when is the attack scheduled? Such an opportunity must make the warmongers back home salivate." Three said.
"On Armistice Day, not just because of symbolism but also because every ship in the Colonial Navy has it's systems updated every three months, nearly all would be vulnerable by then. But don't worry Cassandra, by then we'll have found a way to ensure your families survival." The Six said.
"Thanks, Alice, but I was also worried about their mental wellbeing. I don't think my children would take well to their cousins and playmates being nuked."
"Yes, I know, but you know how they are back home, more worried about Cavil throwing a tantrum then the wellbeing of the first of God's new generation." The Six said.
"No need, to excuse yourself. You did you all you could. That's already more then I'd have ever asked from you by myself." Or, Three thought to herself, more precisely, she did all she could except for one single option.
"Sigh, a little more than three months and they are gone. The galaxy will be a boring place without those humans. I'll miss them." Eight sounded melancholic.
"Don't worry." Said Five. "There will be enough of them leftover for you to regret saying that." He had always been very sceptical about the Plan's ability to completely destroy the enemy. Which was why he preferred an occupation of the Colonies above their destruction. Surely the cowardly humans in the surviving battlestars would prefer returning to their warm cosy homes, to fighting a hopeless war cut off from any supplies against a relentless, more numerous enemy in the cold and unforgiving depths of space. Afterwards they could still put sterilizing chemicals in the water to lower human fertility, the flawed creators would then wither away out of themselves, but not before having seen their kids get educated about the evil their ancestors have committed, a very psychological type of revenge. Also practical as they could extract tribute from them in the meantime.
"I fear we shall commit a very grave sin by lowering ourselves to the level of our enemies." Two said.
"So you fear that God might decide we are not worthy of victory?" Three asked.
"Maybe, but I'll fulfil the purpose I was made for nevertheless. All I can do is my duty and hoping for the best."
Outwardly Three looked relieved, but internally she cursed, she now had to write him off. Though that might actually be for the best, she actually had no idea whether it would be worth the risk to invite anyone else on her path. Even treason could be betrayed afterall.
"Well I really hope not." Said Four. "If the Colonials win they are surely going to kill us all."
This brought Three back to a memory around nine years, at the end her second pregnancy, ago: she had then mentioned to the other Four (she trusted him to most), how it was actually odd that said notion was so universal, some Cylons disagreed on many things. So why was this not one of them?
His reply consisted of using that as evidence of its truth. Which she found odd: surely something need not make sense to be believed. And using motivated reasoning one could find enough 'evidence' that 'the Colonials might even be rather merciful'. For did human history not contain as many cases of losing aggressors receiving surprisingly good treatment from their supposed victims (even if they themselves were a lot worse) as empires suddenly deciding to genocide loyal minorities for vaguely articulated reasons.
As he was shocked by this, she had declared it 'simply a thought experiment', and later blamed the whole episode on 'pregnancy hormones', not that it was a coincidence that happen during her pregnancy as she had used her spare time then to read a lot about human history.
Considering what she had discovered later, she was lucky she had not told anyone else about that, for if they had heard from that back home… based on what she later found out she supposed they would have concluded that she was 'defective'.
"So nobody is complaining we should launch one last attempt to persuade the others?" Five said with a hint of surprise and relief, pulling Cassandra back towards the present.
"Meh, it would be lost effort anyway." Eight said. As the Ones only abstained on voting for the attack because it would pass even without them. So they would need to convince not one but two model lines back home.
"Well, I'm surprised no one desperate had yet mentioned using threats or blackmail." Joked Three. "Though that might be unsurprising, as it would lead to all sort of… unpleasantries."
A smirk appeared on Four's face. Claiming to be against the wrong thing only because of cold and calculated practical reasons. That was what set Cassandra apart from the rest of her model line.
"With what could one threaten anyway?" Asked Six "Revealing everything to the enemy? Surely they would call that bluff."
Three hided her sadness, another one discounted, and she feared to look suspicious if she continued probing the others intentions. She had to write it off as not worth the risk and continue on alone. She again wondered why she spent effort on it, as she could never completely trust another Cylon anyway.
Nearly 13 years earlier
Mr and Mrs Turner had just returned from the city hall and exited the car. He was dressed in a fine black suit with a top hat, it was old fashioned as he had it from his father, he had used it for his on wedding ceremony and he got it from his own father. She by contrast wore a modern dress as white as snow and striped with small lights, as she had no family willing to give her one.
Cassandra had bought her dress, she originally wanted to hire one, but Turner had convinced her otherwise. So their future daughter could later follow the Turner family tradition should she marry.
Now they walked towards the house of Anthony's parents in order to do another tradition: 'the Binding of the Sleeves' an ancient Caprican custom where the newlyweds would use a piece of rope to connect their sleeves to symbolize their bonds. Originally it were the tips of the sleeves themselves which were bound into a knot, but over the centuries fashion had changed and they were to short now. As the Turners were a traditional family they found it just as important as the official ceremony, which in Caprica pretty much existed out of only signing an official document ever since the fall of the regime of Warner Walker.
As Anthony stepped over the doorstep he though himself lucky with his wife. She was intelligent, had an interesting personality (and a high-paying job). And her beauty, she only needed wings and he could believe she was an angel. She certainly had other qualifiers for it the way she could live a spartan lifestyle but never demand it from others and how she just could go on and on, without rest. He had once told her about these fantasies, the idea of being found nearly superhuman bought forth an enigmatic smile from her lips. She must have found it a funny joke, a romantic exaggeration or a cute adulation.
He could not remember all the things they talked about back in their university days and later. They had a hundred subjects of the world in common, not that that meant they looked at the world through the same pair of eyes, in fact they sometimes vehemently disagreed with each other. Yet she was always interesting. She did not think like anyone else he ever knew. She simply looked at things for a completely different perspective, sometimes so naive he'd think she'd only has been on the world for a decade, sometimes so profound she must have been a genius, sometimes so wise as if she remembered more than a single lifetime.
He did not knew whether she was simply so smart she thought on another plane then most people, was simply plain weird or both. But he did knew that when he had been conversing with her for a period, he simply could not measure the time he was with her, he then always felt 'completed'. As if a gap within him had been filled, some sort of spiritual hunger had been satisfied.
He was pulled back into the present by the jells of his parents, the Binding of the Sleeves was about to begin.
"May your lives be bound in the same way we connect your coverings." His father said whilst pulling the last end of the rope through a hole in Cassandra's sleeve.
"You will become one in the same sense that multiple threads make one cord." His mother said. She tied the other end to Anthony's sleeve.
"Till one of us must await the other in Elysium." The newlyweds said together.
"So say we all!" Everyone exclaimed.
"Can we now bring out the liquor?" Anthony's older brother asked
"And the cake?" Asked his aunt.
An hour later when there were but crumbs left and the obligatory discussion about which cake tasted the best was over, they faced a difficult dilemma.
"Who will do the dishes?" Asked father Turner. "For I won't, I already did them yesterday."
"Well, me neither. I have a headache and need to go to bed in time." Mother Turner said.
"I'm just married." Anthony said.
"And I'm but a guest." His only schoolfriend present said.
"You still haven't got a dishwasher?" Anthony's brother asked "Do you fear it might rise up against you?"
"No everyone knows only toasters can rebel. And they already have one." Anthony's aunt pointed at the chrome appliance in the kitchen, as if she feared someone might not get her joke.
Which might possibly have been necessary. Anthony thought, when he saw the confused and worried look on his wife's pale face. As if she for a split second feared there really was a Cylon in the house.
Cassandra quickly got her act together and then suggested. "Let us cut the Gordian Knot I offer myself up to do the dishes. This has gone on for long enough."
"Ah, thank you. That's friendly of you." Father Turner said.
"Don't thank me yet." Cassandra smiled. "It is all part of a Machiavellian plot to make my in-laws dependent on me, so they don't dare causing any trouble."
"Gee." Mother Turner said. "Now, I'd wish my other daughter-in-law also was such a diabolical mastermind."