Sorry about the wait between updates and for how short the installments have been.
First it was work. Then writer's block. Then I was so sick that I couldn't even get out of bed.
I don't know if any of you have ever been bedridden before, but unless you've got someone to pamper you (preferably a Jamie Bamber clone or the real deal), I wouldn't recommend it.
Lee sat across from his Cylon prisoner in a room that had been emptied specifically for the purpose of interrogating her. There was nothing but two chairs in the middle.
He sat in one and Caprica sat-shackled in heavy chains and bolted to the floor-in the other.
Four marines (still all female) stood in the corners, their weapons gripped tightly in their hands. They were all aware of the kind of strength Cylons were capable of and were more than ready to take a shot if Caprica so much as stretched her legs while still in chains.
A camera stood to the side, focused on the Cylon's face and recording every word she said.
Lee didn't say much beyond the initial question: "Why are you here?" Caprica seemed to have a lot to say.
Although mostly it was just a long stream of philosophical musings and very little in the way of hard information that could be used to their advantage in future engagements with the enemy.
"I believed that God had a plan…" Caprica had begun. "But the problem is none of us know what God's plan is."
"We did what God asked us to do. We created what we needed in order to achieve it and we completed our task. But what did God want us to do afterwards? We were left with barren, empty worlds with no idea on what to do with them. Everything we did seemed like crude pathetic facsimiles of how things used to be."
Lee kept his face neutral as he imagined what the Cylons could have tried to do with the remains of a dozen planets with millennia of written history between them.
"And no Cylon knew just how pathetic our attempts were like I did. Because I spent so long living among you. I saw just how rich human existence could be."
Caprica shifted slightly in her seat, causing the metal of her chains to jingle. The noise almost seemed to echo in the empty room.
"We don't have names, or families. We have numbers, shared by an entire series of models that look exactly the same-I was unique in that I had any sort of designation beyond 'Six'."
The Cylon's expression was a mixture of self-disgust and wistfulness. Lee's brows furrowed subtly as he tried to interpret her change in emotions as she kept on speaking.
"We don't know death. We don't know sacrifice. You destroy our bodies, we merely resurrect in a new one. You. You humans take the limited time that is given to you and drive yourselves to achieve as much as you can before that time runs out. Yet, you will willingly give all of that up, even your own lives, if it means that another will live."
Caprica turned thoughtful as she remembered how the humans had reacted to the arrival of the Cylons on New Caprica.
"Humans. When an outside force comes in you all band together to face it. We Cylons splinter at the slightest hint that things are not going according to plan."
Lee tilted his head and leaned back in his chair. "What do you mean?"
"Everything is so compartmentalized so that none of us know much beyond what we need to complete our objectives. And after our purposes are fulfilled, we simply continue…existing. Maybe that's why New Caprica was such a failure. It wasn't part of the 'plan.' It wasn't my objective or that of the Sharon Valerii who helped me."
"And what was your objective?" Lee asked, not expecting the shackled woman before him to give him an actual straight answer, especially after the speech he just heard.
Their eyes met, and Lee had to repress a shiver at the intense look in Caprica's eyes.
"I was to get close to Gauius Baltar so that I could get access to his Command Navigation Program. I tampered with it so that we could shut down your battlestars and fighters during the first invasion."
That shiver Lee had been holding back traveled up his spine as he realized that he was sitting across from the Cylon who was probably single-handedly responsible for the deaths of billions. The shakes continued as his emotions shifted from horror to rage and he resisted the urge to fling himself across the gap between him and Caprica.
It would be so easy.
He'd just have to squeeze…
Lee tightly squeezed his hands into fists and shoved down hard on his knees as he stood up. "We're done for today."
He turned and ordered the corporal standing behind him as the muscles in his jaw twitched. "Take her back to her cell."
The marine snapped to attention and crisply barked out, "Yes sir!"
Lee walked out as the marines began securing Caprica's restraints and prepared to escort her back to the brig.
I'll be honest and say that I threw in Lee's musings on the gods at the last minute not knowing the sort of reaction I'd get. And in real life, the whole idea just fizzled like Kara's anger did in the story. I did try to write out the conversation that so many of you wanted but I just couldn't get it to work. So I'm sorry to disappoint, but Kara's little speech in the last chapter is about as far as we're going with this.