== Part 3 – Breaking News ==
Every year since the Cylons had abandoned their attack plans on the Colonies, the Cylons that elected to stay behind met every year. Ostensibly, it was to keep each other apprised of any important intelligence and any signs that they might be discovered by Colonial intelligence. But that had quickly changed to being pure social gatherings where the Cylons would catch each other up on how their lives and human loved ones were doing. The human weren't looking for Cylons that looked like humans after all and had no reason to suspect such a thing even existed... outside a few fanciful stories that were clearly fiction of course.
Still, some care had to be taken, because even unsuspecting humans would realize something was amiss if a bunch of duplicates of the same people started congregating in the same location. To that end, only one representative of each model physically attended the meeting; the rest attended virtually via a custom encrypted video chat network that no human intelligence agency had any hope of cracking. It wasn't quite the same thing as a proper Cylon network, but it was the closest thing they could build on the current Colonial information network and still remain hidden.
"Sorry, I'm late," Gina said as she breezed into the meeting room. "For someone who's supposed to be very busy running the government, Helena would not let me off the phone. Did I miss anything?"
"Just the usual," George, the sole Number One left in the Twelve Colonies, replied. Unlike pretty much every other One that Gina could remember, George was incredibly relaxed and easy going, jovial even compared to his uptight, cynical brothers. But then, none of the Cylons who stayed behind fit their model stereotypes anymore. "Sharon's laying into Ron again about his show.
"Ah," Gina said, understanding. Ron was a Seven who had made it big in Caprica's entertainment industry, producing a number of hits shows popular throughout the Colonies. His last show was also popular, but it hit the stay behind Cylons uncomfortably close to home because its premise was, "What if the Cylons had attacked the Colonies on the day the Battlestar Galactica was being retired?" It didn't help that Ron had used the actual attack plans that the Cylons had scrapped as the basis of the initial invasion.
"...and I don't care if you changed all the names of the characters," Sharon was saying angrily to Ron. "Every single one of the old crew that I've talked to recognizes who the character representing them is. My own family keeps making jokes about me being a Cylon. Hell, when I told them I was coming here to meet some 'old friends', they told me to say hi to the other Cylons for them!"
Gina remembered Helena venting about that same TV show. It didn't take long for journalists and her political opponents to figure out who the "crazed Admiral of the Pegasus" would have really been and the opposition media to use that to paint her as some sort of monster. The only reason no one had sued Ron for defamation was because of the fig leaf of changing everyone's names. Quite frankly, that whole story line had creeped Gina out because she couldn't be sure that Helena wouldn't react that way if the attack had gone forward as planned.
"Hey, Sharon, have you watched the latest seasons?" Simon, a Four, asked.
"No, I don't watch that show anymore," Sharon replied. "It makes everyone I know into unlikable assholes." She looked around at every Cylon present, and realization dawned on her. "What happened?"
"Seems your husband has been outed as a Cylon," Simon told her with laugh.
"What? That's ridiculous!" Sharon exclaimed. She turned back to Ron, still angry. "Galen's not a Cylon! You should know better!"
"I am so so sorry," Ron replied apologetically. "But I'm not the only one making the show. The suits just want more grim darkness piled on, the other writers do their own thing. And honestly? I kinda ran out of story ideas around the Pegasus arc and now my people are just putting in whatever random crap comes to mind. They actually have a dart board with the cast's faces on it titled, 'Who are we making a Cylon today?'" He sighed. "All I wanted to do was make a show about how humans and Cylons weren't so different from each other."
A few of the Cylons present laughed, mostly because they either weren't in the show or that their characters had such minor parts that they didn't worry about anyone calling them a Cylon. Sharon and Gina remained unamused, because they - or their models at least - were much more prominent than the others.
"Oh, come on you two, lighten up," George told Sharon and Gina. "No one takes that show seriously. As long as you don't outright admit to being a Cylon, no one's going to believe you're a Cylon. Hell, you could tell everyone you're a Cylon and no one would believe you! They'd think you're joking, or just gone crazy."
"Actually," Gina interrupted, "that might not hold true for much longer."
All conversation among the Cylons stopped, including the virtual ones. Gina could feel everyone's attention focusing on her.
"Helena has told me that the government has figured out where our brothers and sisters have gone to,' Gina continued. "She didn't give any details, but she's going to make a public announcement about it later this week. She also told me that the military is putting together an expedition to wherever it is the others went to."
"And if they go there, and see human models," Simon said slowly, "they're going to start looking for them here."
"If they see a Six, they're going to recognize her right away," a Six said over chat from her own apartment. "I get enough ribbing from my boyfriend because I look like Gina 'I pose on the cover of every gossip magazine' Caine here. Almost every human in the Colonies knows what she looks like! Can you all just imagine how everyone's going to react if they find out that the President's wife is a Cylon?"
"We don't need to imagine," Sharon said grimly. "Thanks to Ron here, we already have the worst case scenario laid out in front of us."
"Yes," Gina agreed. "I really really don't want to see how accurate Ron's show really is, but we need to start making preparations for exactly that worst case scenario."