[Resurrection Hub, Cavil's Lab]

The idea was revolutionary, brilliant even, and in fact, his very own. Building a compliant Roslin model was easy: simply replace her brain with one of a more docile subject.

Cavil observed Roslin strand 39 in her resurrection tub.

Her eyes were still closed, but she lay down differently than the models that worked on a Roslin operating system. Even unconscious this new strand stretched out as if lying down was an unnatural thing to do.

Which it was, of course, for the centurion brain that operated this body.

Not a promising beginning.

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[Galactica's brig]

Gaius's eyes roamed her body. She was younger and more stunningly beautiful than he remembered, more stunningly beautiful, in fact, than a human could possibly be. Had she always had those superb legs or had aesthetic enhancements been added in the process of duplicating her? Had someone added a little bit of Six here and there?

And then those boobs. Gaius swallowed. Perfection had been added to this model. The Cylons had outdone themselves. Her prison outfit didn't do her justice at all. If only he could find an excuse to ask her to undress. Maybe some scientific research, he was a doctor after all. People undressed for doctors without hesitation, didn't they? But what pretext? What research?

Then again, he was the President of the Colonies, and she was a mere prisoner. Maybe he could simply order Roslin to undress. Compared to Cain's treatment of Six that was a benign demand to make of a Cylon. Yes, maybe he could simply order it. Though, only when the Commander wasn't anywhere nearby. Gaius was not sure how the brusque military leader would respond to this new version of his lover - he had incarcerated her after all - but he'd have to be a geriatric case to not appreciate the flawlessness of this young body.

Roslin winked at him.

His private Six, in a figure-hugging red dress, pulled at his sleeve. "Gaius!"

Gaius brushed her hand away, his attention on Roslin. Had she just winked?

"Gaius," Six insisted.

"What?!" He turned towards her, exasperated.

She pulled him away from the bed Roslin sat on, and shoved him towards the far of corner.

"Hey!" he protested.

"She sees me," Six said.

"Nonsense, no one sees you. You do not exist." He turned back to the bed.

"She blinked at me," Six maintained. "She sees me!"

"Don't be ridiculous, she winked at me."

Six snorted.

"Women do wink at me, you know," Gaius huffed. He moved his hand through his hair to accentuate his superior features. "They do."

"Laura Roslin," Six said with quiet conviction, "wouldn't wink at you, even if you were the last man in the Fleet."

Gaius felt affronted and taken aback - until he realized the implications. "You are right, this is not Laura Roslin," he retook himself; "this is a Cylon copy, and she winked at me."

Six rolled her eyes. "Shall we ask her?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Gaius said tersely. "What would I say? 'Did you wink at this figment of my imagination?' That'll be the day."

"I'll do the asking." Six said evenly.

Gaius stared at her, and then laughed relieved. "Of course, dear. Please, be my guest."

.

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[Observation Room]

From his post behind the view screen, Bill had seen Baltar drool over Laura, until it had become almost impossible not to order the marines in to forcefully remove either Baltar or Laura from the brig. The President had walked away from Laura just in time to go talk to himself in the corner of the cell, his back towards the prisoner.

Bill rubbed his eyes, his impatience with the incoherent intellectual reaching new levels, his irritation mounting. The only consolation he had, was that the man blocked Zarek from occupying the position of President, and thus saved Bill from that far shoddier partnership.

He saw Baltar walk back to Laura's cot and studying her silently.

"Yes, I can see you," Laura said.

Baltar turned white and staggered back.

"That's impossible!" he stammered.

Bill considered rescuing Laura from the man again. Did he actually believe himself to be invisible? No wonder he wandered mindlessly through the corridors, watching the bulkheads grow wings.

Bill pressed the 'record' button and sat back. A little leverage over Baltar may go a long way.

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[Galactica's Brig]

"Shouldn't I be able to see you?"

Roslin blinked at the Six and frowned. She had been stumped by Baltar's audacity to openly consort with a Six on board of Galactica. Before he entered with the Six in tow, she'd been stewing about his Cylon alliances and about his potential collaborative presidential policies, not about invisible Cylons he'd smuggled aboard the one ship the whole fleet depended upon for protection.

"No one else does," Baltar insisted. He sat down in the chair Bill often used.

"Really?" She tried to hide her alarm and failed. A stealth Six changed everything. Why hadn't she heard of this at the Hub? How could she have been too preoccupied with killing herself to miss this vital piece of information?

This sexy red clad vamp certainly was different from the straitlaced and indignant Godfrey woman that had visited Galactica to accuse Baltar. Was she his Cylon advisor, the brain behind his policies? Laura could see how the Six had the president wound around her delicate fingers.

"How come no one sees you?"

"Well, I can, obviously," Baltar said. "And now you can too." He let it linger while his eyes caressed her form. "We must be connected somehow."

Even without Six's eye roll, Laura saw Baltar's mind slither into the possibilities of threesomes. She shuddered. She was a prisoner. What policies had the President developed regarding skin jobs?

The Six chortled. "He thought," she smirked, "that I was a figment of his imagination."

"Well, what are you?" Laura asked.

"I'm an angel from God sent to guide him and you."

Yeah right, Laura thought. And why would the inventor of the Cylons want to send a personal messenger to a human genius? Brotherly love between masterminds? Hardly plausible.

"Are you a Cylon too, then?" she asked him. One of the structural flaws of Baltar's Cylon Detector had been that it would never have exposed Baltar himself, even if it had worked.

She had expected a flat-out denial, but he shrugged and glanced up at the Six. "I don't know. Sometimes I hope I am."

The Six wrapped herself around Baltar. "Of course we are connected," she assured him, pressing her breast against his face.

Baltar, distracted by Caprica's nipple brushing his cheek, absentmindedly stroked the long leg the blonde was offering him. His gaze never left Laura.

"Never mind her," Six said, turning Baltar's head towards her breast. "She is on the side of the angels now, too."

Baltar looked up at the sumptuous woman that loomed over him, smoothing her body against his side. "She is?" he asked like a child looking for reassurance.

"Of course she is." Six soothingly stroked his hair. He closed his eyes, a regal pet receiving the patting he deserved.

Laura sat back. Baltar gazing dreamily into nothingness had become a familiar sight in the last year of her life. Adding this woman to that picture changed the entire significance of it. Had she been there all along? Had he gotten away with cuddling her in public ever since the Exodus?

"Do you want us to call you Thirteen?" The Six disentangled herself from Baltar, settled herself next to Laura on the cot and stroked Laura's knee. "Or do you prefer a different name? You are, after all, the first of your model to make it to the human fleet. Quite a milestone for the Thirteens. The Ones will be pleased."

"What are Cavil's plans with my model?" Laura asked. If the Six knew what was happening on the Hub, maybe she knew this too.

"Don't you know?" Baltar asked.

"Should I?" Laura addressed the Six.

"You are clearly not a sleeper model. So I thought that …." Baltar's voice trailed off.

"I don't know my programming," Laura said. The thought of being programmed and having no control filled her with dismay. "Maybe I have no mission?" she added hopefully.

Six looked skeptical. "It would be unlike the Ones, not to try to get the most out of a single copy."

"How can I find out for sure?" Laura asked.

"Do you feel any strange urges?" Baltar said.

Six sniggered. Baltar cast her an exasperated look.

"Other than to kill myself?" Laura said. "Hardly."

"Hardly?"

She looked away. She was not about to confess to this half-witted genius that she wanted to hold Bill in her arms until that desperate and vulnerable look had left his face.

"I am a danger to the Fleet." Maybe the President of the Colonies could grant her death, even when Bill refused it.

Baltar frowned, assessing her in puzzlement, when suddenly he drew back a bit. "You want to reclaim the presidency!"

Of course he would think about himself first. "I am not that Laura Roslin," she said jadedly.

"Ah," he relaxed against the stealth Six. Dangers to the Fleet apparently were secondary to him losing his presidency.

Maybe his self-interest was the opening she needed. "Though people keep regarding me as her," she pushed.

"Well you do look like her," he agreed, eying her licentiously. "Somewhat."

"I don't want to be a risk for your presidency."

She had his attention now. "What do you propose?" he asked.

"Let me destroy this copy."

"You mean, kill yourself, is that what you ask of me, to kill yourself?" There crept a hint of alarm in his voice.

The Six forced Baltar's head towards her so that she could look him in the eye.

"What would your constituents think," she said, "when they find out you murdered their former president?"

"I will not do the murdering," he exclaimed. "Or will I?" He looked helplessly from one woman to the other. "I most definitely don't want that."

"No," Laura said.

"Yes," Six said. "That is what talk wireless will make of it. The President is not even able to protect prisoners; how can he protect the Fleet?"

"No," Bill said.

Laura hadn't seen him enter, but there he was, moving towards the seated president.

"Indeed," Baltar whispered, shrinking under Bill's hard gaze. "Of course not." He stood and staggered away from the military leader. "I order you to keep this prisoner safe in her cell, Commander. Do not let her out of here. She is a danger to the Fleet."

"You order?" Bill asked slowly.

"I mean, it would be better for everyone if this prisoner is kept in isolation," Baltar floundered. "Don't you agree, Commander?"

"I do," said Bill. "Visiting hours are over, Mister President."

Bill cast a disparaging look at Laura, pressed his lips together to express his opinion about her latest antics and left, not quite pushing the President before him.

The Six trailed them at a leisurely pace and turned at the door to wave at Laura.

"See you."

Laura wondered what the agenda of the stealth Six was. Bill most obviously could not see her.