DISCLAIMER: Battlestar Galactica and all related characters are the property of Universal Pictures and Syfy Channel and based on the series created by Glen A. Larson. No copyright infringement is intended. This work of fiction is for entertainment purposes only and no money has changed hands. The story and all original characters are the sole property of the author and may not be used or archived without permission.
Valerie woke with the dawn after a short, fitful sleep. What Caprica and Athena had to tell her kept her awake for hours after they'd disappeared again. It was because she hadn't been ready for what they had to say. She'd assumed that the next time they appeared they would appeal to her to keep Gina alive, no matter the cost, but they'd only tried to comfort her and offered their full support, leaving the decision solely to her.
She'd made that decision by the time she fell asleep, and this morning she was confident that it was the right one. Without a change of clothes she did her best to clean up when she went to the bathroom down the hall. Later she made her way to the living room and asked the agent already awake if she could have some breakfast. As the other agents roused themselves the first one went out to get everyone some food and coffee at a nearby Safeway. Everyone ate in silence, Valerie having nothing to say to the agents and the agents not sure what they were required to say to her.
With breakfast done Valerie called the doctor she'd spoken to the previous night and arranged to meet him at the hospital. The meeting was set for an hour or so later, but Valerie wanted to leave immediately, so she and her DHS entourage piled back into the car and returned to Yakima Valley Memorial.
After she'd been sitting in the waiting room for about fifteen minutes Richard Steiner showed up again. She assumed one of the agents had called him and informed him that she was back in the hospital. She didn't protest as he sat down next to her again.
"I assume you've made a decision," Steiner said.
"I have," Valerie said.
"I'd like to say one thing," Steiner said. "If you choose to keep her alive I can guarantee that the full weight of the United States government will be behind you. We will move heaven and earth to take care of her and bring her back to full health. You just need to say the word."
Valerie didn't say anything for the longest time, then said, "No...you don't know her the way I do. I think she'd be majorly pissed if I made us both beholden to the government. It's the right wing-nut in her."
Steiner blinked. "It...doesn't have to be a political decision…"
"No...you want it to be a National Security decision...which is just as bad, maybe worse. 'National Security' has affected most of our lives together. I'd like us to be free of that."
"Fine!" Steiner hissed, his impatience showing through. "I can make that happen for you. No more National Security problems intruding in your life. Just tell me what she meant when she said she was a Six."
Valerie just looked at him, sighed, and then chuckled. Well, at least she knew what to say to him today.
"Low self-esteem," Valerie said with a shrug. "I always considered her a perfect ten."
She smiled at the perplexed look on his face before getting up and heading to Gina's room, deciding to wait for the doctor at her bedside. The move also guaranteed even Mister National Security couldn't follow without Valerie's express invitation.
The feeling of triumph died hard when she got her first real look at Gina lying still in bed, with a mask over her nose and mouth that was connected by tube to a respirator, intravenous lines in her arms and bloody bandages across her chest. It was the saddest thing she'd ever seen, and it took all the strength she could muster not to break down again. Instead she brought a visitor's chair close to the bed and sat down so she could just watch Gina's face.
She looked like she was sleeping, but Valerie knew better. Sleeping Gina snored and fidgeted, and Valerie had taken a couple of years to not only get used to Gina's sleeping habits but to actually use them to put herself to sleep. She turned them from an annoyance to a comfort in her mind. The noise and the movement told her Gina was right by her side, and knowing that let her rest peacefully.
She started crying when she realized she'd never feel that sensation in bed again.
She'd gotten control of herself by the time the doctor and a few others in scrubs entered Gina's room. Valerie made small talk with the doctor briefly, then, when asked, she stated her desire to have Gina taken off life support.
The doctor made her confirm the decision twice, by voice and with her signature on a form, then had the others with him start removing leads from Gina's body and shut down the equipment. The ambient noise in the room shifted briefly to a gang of high-pitched alarms that retreated as machines were shut down one by one. Soon only the flatlined heart monitor was left. At that point, the doctor and a nurse examined the body and checked their watches.
It was 11:23 in the morning. Doctor Gina Sexton was dead.
As the medical staff cleared the room, the doctor expressed sorrow for Valerie's loss and told her a social worker would be around to discuss the disposition of the body. No autopsy would be performed. The cause of death was obvious...and had been televised.
Valerie went back out to the waiting room and found Richard Steiner still in his seat. He stood when he saw her approach. He wasn't smiling.
She stepped straight up to him and crossed her arms. "Am I under arrest or something? Because I didn't kill Gina. And I don't blame the aliens either. I blame the government, and Searing, and National Security, and everyone and everything on this planet that tried so hard to take her away from me all these years!"
Steiner just stared for a moment, tempted to mention the protective custody she was supposed to be in, but he just sighed and said, "No, Miss Ochoa, you're not under arrest. You're free to go anytime." There was no point keeping her around anymore.
"Then when I'm done here I'd like to go home."
"Of course we'll take care of that. It's the least we can do. I'm sorry for your loss, and you have the thanks of a grateful nation."
Valerie's lip quivered at that, so she turned away and went to sit down as far away from Steiner as the waiting room would allow. This time he didn't impose himself on her.
He instead approached the lead agent. "Make sure she gets all the way home. There's nothing left for us to do here." He headed for the exit.
"Back to D.C.?" The agent asked.
Steiner didn't turn back as he said, "More North…"
The trip home wasn't anywhere near as frenzied as the trip to Yakima. That suited Valerie fine. She was in no hurry to get back. She was dreading the calls she would have to make, starting with the one to Gina's mother. Doctor and Mrs. Sexton had been estranged for years, but she still deserved to know the story behind her daughter's death.
All too soon the government sedan was pulling up to her little house in the Seattle suburb. The lead agent's last act was to get out, open her door for her and help her to the curb. As soon as he was back inside the car sped off, spelling the end of Valerie's trip upstate.
She spent a minute on the curb just looking up at the house, wondering if anything momentous had happened to the place in the past day and night. Finally she got up the courage to walk up the walk, then up the steps and finally let herself in. What greeted her was nothing but an empty house.
It was the worst thing that could have happened. The quiet just served to remind her of her loss. She wouldn't hear Gina's voice, Gina's laughter, Gina's frustrated grunts, Gina's footsteps or Gina's anything ever again.
She crossed through the living room quickly, trying to avoid seeing the giant TV that Gina bought to watch Gina's Favorite Sport. She tried not to think about the sofa in front of the TV, where she and Gina used to spend evenings sharing wine or hot chocolate, depending on the events of the day.
Entering the kitchen didn't help. Now she had to see the island in the center, where she and Gina had breakfast and drank coffee and shared the morning paper. The sugar jar was sitting there, just waiting for Gina to open it up and start scooping out her usual ten pounds of sugar into her "World's Sexiest Engineer" mug, which sat by the coffee maker similarly waiting for someone who wouldn't be drinking out of it anymore.
Valerie fell back against the wall and let out a sob as she realized she'd never be able to live in this house without Gina. She would always be here in so many different ways except the most important, and Val was sure that would drive her mad.
Still, she fought the urge to run back out the front door and instead went over to the kitchen phone and starting calling people. She decided to start with the easy calls first: her family. Her parents back on Oahu expressed their deepest sympathies and promised to let her other siblings know what had happened. Valerie decided to call Teresa herself, being that she lived nearby in Tacoma. Teresa promised to come by as soon as possible, but Valerie tried to make her hold off, saying she just wanted to be alone for a while. Of course Teresa wouldn't hear of it, and of course Valerie just let big sister do what she wanted. It didn't matter.
More visits were promised when she called her friend Amelie. She and the others were at work at the moment, but Amelie promised they'd all head straight out to her place as soon as the workday was done.
Her next call was to Dwayne Powers, though she expected it to be unnecessary. She found out it wasn't after talking with him about Yakima. The other Searing people had been sequestered in the aftermath of the battle and then shipped immediately back to Renton with their HCS to figure out what went wrong. They had no idea what happened to Gina. They couldn't leave the lab right then, but Dwayne promised the whole team would attend her service whenever Valerie sent them details.
Finally, she had nobody left to call but Gina's mother, a prominent litigator in Gina's home state. When a gruff, tired-sounding woman's voice answered, Val said, "Mrs. Sexton? I-It's Valerie. Gina's girlfriend? I have something important to tell you…" She told the woman what details she knew about the events in Yakima and Gina's involvement, followed by the circumstances of her death.
There was a long silence on the other end after the news, and Valerie wondered if Mrs. Sexton had fainted or something. Finally she came back on the line, and her response chilled Valerie to the bone:
"Stupid girl. Just like her father. Never knew when to just finish the damn job and come home."
Valerie hung up as soon as she heard the line go dead, and found herself staring at the phone in shock as Mrs. Sexton's words went through her mind. Finally she made herself leave the kitchen and rush upstairs to the master bedroom. Again she was assaulted with memories of Gina, in her ratty Seahawks jersey, in her underwear, naked, sweaty, in her arms on passionate nights...the onslaught of emotion made her slump to the floor and put her head in her hands. She had to get hold of herself, had to…
...because there was one last place for her to go, and it was the one place in the house she could no longer avoid.
A minute later she levered herself up and walked slowly to Gina's office. She stopped at the door and just stood in front of it for a moment, unsure of herself. Bad as she felt entering the place when Gina was alive, it felt sacriligious to just go in now that she was gone. It couldn't be helped, though, so after taking a deep breath she opened the door.
Ironically, the room she most associated with Gina held the least number of memories, because she'd only been in it with her once. That night replayed itself in her mind, though. Here was where they met Caprica and Athena. Here they found out who they were and what they were descended from.
And here the events that led to Yakima were set in motion. The thought made her scowl.
She shook off the feeling and went straight to a panel in the floor near Gina's desk. There was a safe hidden under it. Gina kept all their important papers in it, as well as things that were part of her work. Valerie crouched down and opened the panel and entered the combination in the computerized lock.
She started removing things from the safe. Both their passports were in here, unused since they rarely left the state, much less the country. Their wills were here as well. Val took them both out and left them on Gina's desk. There were several thumb drives that probably held schematics for the Centurion. There was an envelope with cash in it. Gina had told her about this. Her reasoning was they might need getaway money someday, for whatever reason. There was supposed to be about three thousand dollars so far, and Gina had been adding a little cash from every check for years.
There was one more thing that Gina had put in that Val wasn't supposed to know about, but Val made a habit of sneaking into the office and she peeked in the safe often, so she knew. She hated guns, and made Gina swear she would never bring one into their home. Of course, Gina reasoned that Valerie wouldn't know if it was in a room Valerie was never supposed to enter.
Valerie smiled at the thought and carefully removed the Sig Sauer P227 handgun that Gina kept hidden at the bottom of the safe. (Val only knew the model because she looked it up after one of her sneak-peeks.) She didn't know if Gina had ever fired it, like at a range or something, but she was sure it was loaded, so the first thing she did was make sure the safety was on. With that done, she sat down cross-legged on the floor and rested the weapon in her lap.
Mrs. Sexton may have been overburdened with hatred, but wasn't wrong about Gina being her father's daughter. Colonel Sexton was career Air Force, a veteran of major modern wars and hundreds of covert actions, staunch Republican voter and defender of the Constitution and one of those people who thought the "right to bear arms" was a RIGHT, goddammit, and that was that. That was the way Gina had always described him, anyway, with a reverence, and over their time together Valerie soon realized that if it weren't for her sex and sexuality she could easily pass for his clone.
So Gina Sexton bought a gun for home defense, against her lover's wishes, probably because she thought asking Val's forgiveness later would be better than facing a situation where she needed a gun and didn't have one.
And Doctor Gina Sexton planned to build an army of Cylons to replace human beings on the battlefield so that human beings wouldn't be forced to die in wars started by other people.
Right or wrong, Gina Sexton was someone who thought buying and building destructive machines was a way to avoid losing people you loved.
And now she was dead, killed by destructive machines built by people who'd thought the exact same things.
Well. Valerie picked up the weapon again, being careful to keep her finger off the trigger, and carefully "unsafed" it. Now ready to fire, she held it so that she could see the finish in the gun metal - apparently Gina had cleaned it regularly.
The image triggered one last memory. They were on the couch, drunk, watching an action cop movie, and one of the bad guys put a pistol to his temple and shot himself. "That bullshit only works in movies," Gina had said, probably relaying something she learned from her Dad. "In real life, there are too many ways the shot can go wrong holding it like that, and you just end up with horrible but survivable head trauma. If you really want to shoot yourself dead, you have to put the end of the barrel to the roof of your mouth and fire up."
Valerie sighed at that memory...then did exactly that with the Sig in her hands.
It worked just the way Gina said it would.
It wasn't just darkness. It was oblivion, a terrible, deep nothingness that she could actually feel. It terrified her, and she found she'd do anything to find her way out of it.
Then oblivion was replaced with a dreamscape. She was standing in the middle of a large empty space. There was a solid floor beneath her feet, but it was obscured by a heavy mist that filled the room. The walls looked like they were made of granite rock, like a cave, but carved into them were symmetrical slits that emmitted a blood-red glow.
For a while she was all alone, then someone approached from a corridor across the room. Is that Valerie? It was. She looked beautiful. Her hair was straight and flowing behind her, and she was fully naked and smiling. Right then, nothing compared to her beauty…
...until another Valerie emerged from another corridor, then a third from the first corridor, and two more from the second, and so on until a veritbale sea of naked Valeries was standing before her, and under normal circumstances she might have considered that the most perfect sight in the universe…
...except all the naked Valeries had kind of a feral look on their faces that made her take a step back, then another when they all began to crowd closer, and finally she turned to run away...and found another crowd of naked Valeries behind her.
All at once all the Valeries lunged at her, pawing at her, grabbing her, trying to possess her all while continuing to close. Soon the weight of all those bodies began to crush her. Soon she was immobilized, caught in a vise grip, and she screamed when she felt bones breaking…
...then she was underwater, cold, swimming frantically, trying to find her way to the surface. She finally spotted light and started swimming for it, hoping against hope that she was heading up and not down.
Gina Sexton broke the surface of a small pool of cold, clear fluid and gasped for air, then screamed as she tried to catch her breath. For a few moments all she could do was gasp for air and tread water, but eventually she tried to get her bearings.
She thought she was still dreaming. The pool she was in was in the center of a large, otherwise empty space. The walls were made from fashioned metal this time, but the red glow slits were still there. There were two entrances off to the left and right, and Gina ducked down below the edge of the pool, wondering if a bunch of naked Valeries would come in and try to drown her.
Then she jumped as something unseen slithered past her toes. She put her back to the pool edge and looked into the fluid, trying to make out what was in there with her.
Then someone else emerged from the fluid with a gasp and a scream, and as this figure tried to get her bearings Gina decided if she was dreaming, she refused to ever wake up again.
She smiled and said, "Valerie?"
The figure turned her back to the pool edge and looked Gina square in the eye. the body was right, the face was right, but the look this time was haunted instead of feral.
And soon that looked changed to cautious hope. "Gina?" She said, with a weak smile.
A moment of silence and stillness passed between them, then they swam toward each other and met at the center of the pool. They tried to embrace but their naked bodies were slick with fluid and they kept slipping. This made them laugh wildly, then they cried because there was a time when they thought they'd never hear each other laugh again. Finally they found a way to hold on to each other, so they did. They hugged and they laughed and they cried and treaded water for what felt like forever…
...until Valerie saw something that made her scream in terror and drag Gina to the pool edge and hold on for dear life. It took a moment for Gina to turn enough to see what the problem was.
Approaching to opposite side of the pool was one of the alien Centurions.
Gina immediately understood, but her first order of business was to calm Valerie down. "It's okay, sweetie! It's okay…" She could feel Valerie shivering in fear, so she turned fully and said face-to-face, "It's really okay, darling. It's not going to hurt us."
"Are you crazy?" Valerie said. "Gina, one of these things killed you!"
"Actually, it was this thing," Gina said, indicating the new arrival.
"And what, he's reformed or something?" Valerie said, skeptical.
Gina chuckled and said, "You were watching what happened in Yakima, right?"
"Yeah...everybody did…"
"Do you remember when my Centurion challenged one of theirs? We thought the other Centurion was trying to disable Cy with a cyber attack, but it wasn't. It was trying to communicate, but in computer language far more advanced than we can comprehend. These Centurions don't talk, because they have some way of communicating with humanoids that's more than verbal."
"How do you know?"
"Because I was receiving the same communication. I couldn't understand it then, but when I realized that's what was happening I tried to stop the battle before it got out of hand."
"So you ran up to a bunch of alien robots and got yourself shot? Great plan. Can we discuss the merits of it while we're finding a way the fuck out of wherever we are?"
"Val, I'm telling you, he's not going to hurt us."
"How do you know?"
"Because now, for some reason, I can understand him."
Valerie was dubious. "And what's he saying?"
"He's saying, 'I'm sorry. I had no idea. Let me make it up to you.'"
The Centurion bent low and extended its hand, reaching its slender metal fingers to Gina. Gina reached back, tentatively, placing her hand in the robot's and letting it get a grip. It helped her climb out of the pool and stand on the deck. Then it reached out to Valerie. She was even more tentative, but ultimately she let it help her out as well.
As they stood shivering two more centurions walked in, one carrying towels and one robes. The first gave each of them a towel so they could dry themselves off. When they were done the other brought over the robes. They were soft, warm and comfortable and felt good on Gina and Valerie's skin.
"Feeling better now?" Gina's voice said.
"I admit it's a nice robe," Valerie started, "but I still want to know…" Then she looked at Gina and saw the surprise on her face and where she was looking. Valerie looked in that direction and saw Caprica and Athena standing nearby.
"All right," Caprica said, "now that you're here…"
Gina covered the distance in a few long strides and flattened Caprica with a powerful right hook to the jaw before she could finish the sentence.
"Caprica!" Athena crouched down next to Caprica as she recovered.
Gina turned to Valerie and said, smiling, "Sweetheart, you would be so proud of me! I prayed! I prayed harder than I ever have in my life just now! I prayed to Almighty God that this bitch, whatever she is, would be solid enough for me to hit!" Then she turned back to Caprica and hissed through her teeth, "You got me shot, you useless whore!"
Caprica just lay there with a perplexed look on her face, then she looked past Gina to Valerie.
"Don't look at me," Val said, crossing her arms. "I don't remember you trying very hard to keep me from eating Gina's gun. 'We'll be there for you, Valerie. We'll always be there!' Lying bitch. It's like you wanted us both dead for some reason."
Caprica and Athena looked at each other, then Caprica chuckled as she said, "You're right, Valerie. I wanted you both dead."
"But you're not dead," Athena said. "You're alive and well and together again."
"Wouldn't you like to know why?" Caprica added.
Valerie and Gina looked at the two Cylon Humanoids, then at each other, then Valerie shrugged. Gina rolled her eyes and helped Caprica to her feet.
"Talk," Gina said. "Why did you want us dead?"
"Because after what happened in Yakima," Caprica said, "dying was the most expedient way to get you up here."
Valerie huffed. "She's talking in riddles again!"
"Where is 'up here'?" Gina asked.
"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Athena said.
"You're on the base ship," Caprica said.
That made Gina and Valerie take another look at their surroundings. "Why in the hell would we have to die just to get on the base ship?!" Gina said.
"Haven't you people ever heard of space shuttles?" Valerie said.
Caprica closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, then she turned to Athena and said, "You win. Let's tell them everything."
Athena said to Valerie, "Remember what we said about why you were born to resemble Cylon clones?"
"Yeah. You said we were...genetic resurrections."
"Yes, exactly. Resurrections. We're talking about the same thing here, only not as in an accident of biology."
Gina winced. "So as in what then, actual resurrection?"
"Essentially," Caprica said.
Gina huffed. "You made more sense when you said me and Valerie being together was an act of God."
"Gina, work with me for a minute will you? I'm not talking about anything mystical or spiritual. For us, resurrection was a matter of technology."
"So there's some sort of resurrection machine."
"Yes."
"And I guess every base ship had one?"
"Actually none of them did until the machines decided to put it in this one."
Athena took up the narrative. "See, when the humanoid Cylons from Earth gave Colonial Cylons humanoid bodies, they also gave us a way to live past those bodies's normal lifespans. When we die, our conscious minds are uploaded into storage and downloaded into new cloned bodies. They called the process 'resurrection', though it's not magical life-after-death."
"It would have to be magic," Gina complained. "Do have any idea what kind of time and storage capacity you would need to upload the contents of a human brain into any computer?"
"Do you have any idea how much more advanced our computer technology is compared to what you're used to?" Caprica shot back.
"Okay," Valerie said, "before you two start comparing tetragigafloppies or what have you can we get back to the important part of this discussion which is you transferred our brains into clones?"
"Yep," Athena said. "Specifically, we downloaded your conscious minds into a Model Six and a Model Eight."
"You were born only one-third Cylon," Caprica said, "and today you were re-born fully Cylon."
Gina and Valerie could only look at the others and each other for the longest time, then Valerie said, "Holy shit…"
"And you couldn't have performed this miracle without killing us?" Gina said, getting back to what she felt was important.
"No," Caprica said.
"The resurrection process isn't activated until the system detects the target mind has stopped accumulating data," Athena said. "Essentially, brain death is the trigger."
"Still not seeing the need for being riddled with bullets," Gina said.
"That was unintentional…" Caprica said.
"Oh, good," Gina said, "because I was wondering…"
Caprica huffed. "Our initial plan was for there to be a peaceful first contact where it could be arranged for you two to come aboard by Heavy Raider, but since first contact ended up such an almighty cluster-frak we had to improvise."
"There fortune and a little loneliness smiled on us," Athena said. "We'd actually lost access to resurrection technology early in the Colonial War, and only partially recovered it in the aftermath of the final battle. When the machines took the base ship after we reached Earth, they'd only been on their own for a few years before they decided there were benefits to having humanoids around, so they worked to complete the recovery, set up a device on this ship and retrieved as many spare clones as they could find in Cylon space."
"Unfortunately, they didn't complete their little project in time for the general population of Cylons on this Earth to take advantage," Caprica said, "so they decided to just maintain the technology and keep the clones in stasis until the need for both rose again."
"But that was thousands of years ago," Athena said, "and of course even our technology can't last forever. The resurrection unit is the most difficult system on the ship to maintain, and most of the clones in stasis have deteriorated."
"We needed a Six and an Eight," Caprica said. "One of each survived intact. The resurrection process itself took longer than normal because the system's ability to compile neurological data has degraded."
"Define 'longer than normal'," Gina said.
Caprica shrugged. "This close to the surface of the planet the process should be almost instantaneous. As it was it took about three days."
Gina's jaw dropped. "We've been dead for three days?"
Valerie just chuckled nervously at the revelation.
"Again, missing the point," Caprica said. "You're alive now, and you're here now, where the machines need you most."
"And I still have no idea why! If everything you've said is absolutely true it's a miracle, but all you've really done is make a Cylon out of a woman born on a planet where there's no such fucking things as semi-sentient machines and faster-than-light giant space ships! What possible use could I be up here?"
"You can effect the one repair that the Centurions can't. Follow us." Caprica headed to one of the passageways with Athena following a step behind. Gina just watched for a second, then sighed, grabbed Valerie's hand and tugged her along as she followed.
They passed through a few winding, red-strip lit corridors until they came to another large open space with a pool in the center, only this pool had cables of various sizes snaking into it. When Gina and Valerie got closer they could see that there was someone floating in the center. It was a woman, one so old that her muscles had atrophied to nothing. Bones were easily discernible under pale, wrinkled skin. Her eyes were caked with cataracts, her teeth completely gone. She was speaking, but nothing could be made out because her voice was so frail and her breath so ragged. On closer inspection, Gina and Valerie realized the cables snaking into the pool were attached to her, their junctions hidden from sight by her black maillot swimsuit.
"This is a hybrid," Caprica said as they gathered around the pool. "She is literally the brain and control system of the base ship. If there's any single being that's managed to keep the machines going this long, it's her."
"Don't tell me she's a hundred and fifty thousand years old…" Gina said.
"She looks it…" Valerie muttered.
"She's not that old," Athena said, "or at least this body isn't. She's been resurrected several times since the ship first left Earth."
"Although you'd be amazed how long one hybrid body can be kept going," Caprica said. "It hasn't been that many resurrections."
"It looks like she'll need one more," Gina said, "soon."
"She's already past due," Caprica said. "Like I said, you'd be amazed how long a hybrid body can be kept going...especially with total control of the ship and its resources."
"She doesn't want to die of old age again," Athena said sadly, "so she's devoting what little energy the ship has left to her own life-support. But she's not thinking rationally, which is also a problem."
"She'd resurrect into a young body if she just let herself go," Valerie said.
"Exactly, and that has to happen if we're to have any hope of keeping the ship working."
"Well pardon my bluntness," Gina said, "but why don't you have one of your tin soldiers march in here and shoot her with his gun arm?"
"They wouldn't," Athena said. "They can't. When the new Centurions were created along with the humanoids, the machines were programmed to never kill a humanoid Cylon under any circumstance. When civil war broke out among the humanoids, both sides altered that programming so that the ban only applied to humanoid hybrids."
"It's not just the ban," Caprica said. "This particular hybrid has kept the machines alive and kicking literally for ages. They consider her some kind of messiah. They won't touch her."
"So the hybrid has to die and resurrect," Valerie said, "but she won't let herself die and the robots won't kill her. That's a strange situation all right, but I don't see…"
"Damn you…" Gina muttered.
"Excuse me?" Val said.
"Not you," Gina said, "them. Now I see. The hybrid has to die but won't let herself die, the machines need her dead but won't kill her...but I'll bet neither would interfere if one of us killed her." She turned to glare at Caprica. "That's it, isn't it?"
"Wait," Val said, "how do you know?"
"Think about it: if the machines really loved her to the point of messiah worship they wouldn't have let any of us near this room." She swept her hand around. "See any of them around?"
"Well, no, but…"
"They know she has to die to resurrect, but can't and won't take the matter into their own hands. They need someone to either reprogram them to do it or do the deed for them, and only one of the humanoid models can perform either task."
There was a long silence afterward, then Caprica said quietly, "If the hybrid resurrects, she will have her full mental ability back and will be able to make most of the major repairs herself using her self-repair systems. She will also be able to talk you through the rest of the repairs to the ship and the machines."
"No way!" Valerie said. "No fucking way!" Now she glared at Caprica. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
"I'm trying to save beings I care for…"
"By killing one of them?"
"Yes, godsdamn you! I need one more death! One more death saves hundreds of lives!"
"And saving those hundreds saves billions more," Athena said, reminding Val of their earlier conversation."
"And I still say, 'fuck you.' If it's so goddamned important why doesn't one of you do it?"
Caprica looked near tears. "Don't you think we would have if we could?"
"Valerie," Athena said "what you're seeing of us is only a fraction of our physical selves…"
"Gina clocked your girlfriend five minutes ago…" Valerie said.
"That was a fluke. It means we're solid enough for other physical objects to act on us. It doesn't automatically mean we can do the same." She shrugged. "It's complicated."
Caprica turned to Gina. "Please! You have no idea how much the human race owes these machines! I can't do this! You have to! You're a Six now! You have to!"
Caprica and Gina looked into each others eyes. A moment passed. A minute, then Gina's stance softened as she remembered her last words before dying:
I can help you! I'm a Six!
She turned to Valerie. "Sweetie, I'm gonna need you to look away. I know what to do, but I don't want you to see me do it, okay?"
"No, Gina!" Val said. "There has to be another way! Or we can just forget these people! I don't care!"
"Yes you do, geek girl. You want this to work out so you can have an interstellar starship of your very own, with robots and cyborgs and a hundred-fifty thousand years of backstory to play with."
"Not if it hurts you…"
"I'll be fine. I promise. Please just...look away."
Valerie wavered, then turned her back to the pool and buried her face in her hands.
Gina moved until she was standing behind the hybrid's head. She bent low to put her arms in position around the neck and skull and got tready to make her move. Just before her muscles flexed, the hybrid's muttering became clear enough for Gina to make out words:
"All...hail...Imperious...Leader...end...of…line…"
Valerie sobbed when she heard a wet crack coming from the direction of the pool, but she didn't move until she felt Gina's hands on her shoulders and heard Gina say in her ear, "It's over, sweetie…"
"There's more to do," Caprica said. Gina let Valerie go and went back to the pool. Valerie followed reluctantly.
"We have to disconnect all these leads," Athena said. "Follow them to where they're joined to the body and detach them." This time both Gina and Valerie complied.
When they were done, Caprica walked over to a control panel and pressed a contact. The fluid in the pool flushed down, taking the old body with it. The sight made Gina and Valerie wince. "It's ghastly, I know," Caprica said, "but the fluid has to be recycled for the new hybrid."
"How long will her resurrection take?" Gina asked.
"Not long. Her mind is backed up every few minutes and she never leaves the ship. There's no distance to cover. It all depends on how long the system takes."
A few minutes later the pool filled with fresh fluid. The humanoids looked into the pool and waited for something to appear.
"There!" Valerie said.
A dark shape formed in the center of the fluid. It got closer and closer to the surface, kicking for life, until finally another woman emerged screaming. This one was young, slim, pale and regally pretty. She was wearing the same black maillot, along with a white bathing cap.
Valerie was distressed when the woman kept screaming, but Athena didn't let her think about it. "Everything you did before, do in reverse! Her senses come with the ship!"
Valerie and Gina complied again. Both were amazed when the new hybrid calmed further every time a lead was reconnected.
Finally the hybrid lay still and stared up at the ceiling as she said her first words: "Another life to live, another death to die. The wheel goes on spinning and grinding and bringing the revolution to the people, who fight for their days and fight for their nights and go home to their loves and lose their religion. Patterns of force meet patterns of submission and dance the night away as the worlds burn."
Valerie cocked an eyebrow. "Should she still be speaking gibberish?"
"That's actually her normal mode of speech," Athena said. "We never found out why hybrids talk like that."
The voices drew the hybrid's attention to the others. "The Eights are back. The Sixes are back. Model numbers and model citizens make their moves and tell their stories and draw back their bows and where their shafts land no one knows. End of Line."
"And she's supposed to help me fix the ship?" Gina said.
"She'll relay information you need and answer your questions, but you have to wade through the rest of it," Caprica said.
"Okay, but why does a millennia-old alien cyborg speak gibberish in English?"
Caprica smirked. "She's not speaking English. You're speaking Caprican."
"I am so going to hit you again," Gina said.
"So is it over now?" Valerie said.
"It's just beginning, really," Athena said, "but the hardest part is done. You're here, you've resurrected the hybrid and you've started the ship on the road to recovery."
"Which means you don't need us for what comes next," Caprica said.
"Thanks be to God!" Gina shouted at the ceiling. It made Valerie giggle, which caused Gina to move over to her and catch her in a hug.
"I missed you so much…" Valerie said.
"Missed you more…" Gina whispered back. "...so much more…"
They held the embrace for several seconds, ignoring the others in the room. Finally Caprica cleared her throat and said, "So, if you don't have any more questions…"
"Just one," Gina said. "Where's the nearest bedroom?"
Caprica blinked, but Athena smiled and said, "The corridor on your right. Four spaces down. If you want we can show you around…"
"No thanks, we're good," Gina said. She took Valerie's hand again and pulled her along into the corridor.
"Seriously?" Caprica said. Athena giggled.
The trip to Elmendorf and Eielson Air Force Bases in Alaska had been planned weeks in advance, but the political trip would allow for an extra stop of a more covert nature.
Richard Steiner visited the two bases in full "government official" regalia, namely a three-piece suit and long dress coat. He made a perfunctory inspection and delivered a speech at each stop, all for public consumption, but at Elmendorf his flight crew reported a mechanical problem with his jet, forcing him to remain at the base until it was repaired.
He didn't stay, of course. That story was also for the public. Instead, Steiner exchanged his suit and coat for Air Force coveralls and winter gear and joined a squad of technicians and engineers aboard a V-22 Osprey transport, which took off and headed for the mountains of Alaska Range. Once in the mountains, the VTOL aircraft flew slow and close to the ground between the peaks, hoping to thwart radar looking from the west and from space.
At the halfway point between the range's ends there was a flat landing platform built next to a large opening in one of the mountains. The arrival of Steiner's transport was timed to coincide with the departure of a similar aircraft, in the hopes of further confusing things for prying eyes. The large opening closed as soon as Steiner's plane taxied inside. The interior was a moderately sized hangar storing another V-22 and several Blackhawk helicopters.
This was the headquarters of the 609th Recovery Squadron, United States Air Force. Its task was monumental, and the most classified mission in history. The 609th was responsible for recovering and analyzing any and all unidentified flying objects that crashed on US territory.
So far its security hadn't been blown, and Steiner attributed that to irony: Nobody knew about this base because all the people most interested in its mission insisted on looking for it in the wrong place.
Of course, the worst kept government secret in history was the existence of Area 51, the expanse of Nevada desert used mainly to test top secret US military aircraft. Ever since it had first been associated with UFOs it had been impossible to properly conduct its real mission. Not that the government hadn't tried. It went from denying the base's very existence to trying to debunk the famous Roswell crash to expanding the off-limits perimeter, all of which just seemed to drive conspiracy theorists to pay single-minded attention to the outpost.
The truth was Area 51 had contained alien material for maybe a day or two while the final touches had been put on the Alaska base, and then never since. Area 51 had been doing more mundane work for more than sixty years, yet if you tried to tell that truth it would just be considered part of the cover story. The sad part - at least from the UFO nuts' perspective - was that their obsession ignored the logic of the situation: Why keep a secret base in a populous continental state when there was plenty of space in one four time zones wide?
Steiner joined his traveling companions on a large cargo elevator that took them to a subbasement level, then Steiner broke away and made his way to the administration offices where he was met by Colonel Deirdre Berger, a doctor of physics and commander of the unit. Dr. Berger was a tall, solid woman with a crushing handshake. "You didn't have to come all the way up," she told Steiner. "In the grand scheme what we have now isn't much more than what we started with."
"I wanted to see the raw data," Steiner replied, "before it got sanitized in an official report."
Berger shrugged. "Then come on. We'll go right to the horse's mouth." She walked out of the office with Steiner falling in step next to her.
"I can't believe we have such thorough access to the systems," Steiner thought out loud.
"Well it took almost twenty years," Berger said, "waiting for our technological base to evolve so that we could access it. We're still running ENIAC by comparison…"
"I'll take as much we can get. I was hoping for another lead with Gina Sexton, but that didn't pan out…"
They continued down two more levels until they reached the restricted storage level. Here was the prize room, the one UFO nuts dreamed about, filled with pieces of crafts, alien technology and related artifacts. In the center of the room was the oldest prize, an almost intact craft. Steiner was always amazed by its appearance. It didn't look alien. It looked like a squat helicopter with A-10 Warthog jets instead of rotors.
There was a workstation on a table nearby the craft. The computer was tapped into the craft's systems wirelessly. Berger replaced the tech sergeant on watch and called up what she'd talked with Steiner about earlier.
"Damn, but they built these to last…" Steiner said, marveling at how old the craft was supposed to be.
Berger smirked. "This thing was in the database, too. Guess what they called it."
"Surprise me."
"It's called a 'Raptor.'"
Steiner stared at the thing, then said, "I never saw those in the show."
Berger chuckled. "Maybe Glen Larson's muse forgot to mention it."
TBC...