Colonel Tigh made a trip to the lab after a shower, nap, and a meal. Cottle used the phone to relay the good news about Commander Adama – the recovery outpaced the schedule.
Sharon had laid her head down in front of the computer keyboard. She was sleeping, as best as she could with the bright overhead lighting beaming down on her position.
Tigh stopped for a moment, trying to be quiet. He tried to imagine what it was like to find out you were designed to be an instrument of genocide. Sharon went for five straight days when the Cylons were jumping in on the Fleet, and no one thought better of it. He made a mental note to check all the records of that time, to see if anyone else had superb endurance and to move them to the front of the testing line.
"Sir," Sharon said as she snapped to alertness. "I found a couple things that may interest you."
"You could have called…"
"I was tired, Colonel. Baltar was intentionally slowing down the process. I completed four tests in under 15 minutes."
"And?"
"You were negative, Commander Adama was negative, Captain Adama was negative, and I was positive. We can do some more control tests, but I think it's working again."
Tigh thought for a moment. "What about Gaeta? I'll send up a sample from his corpse."
"I didn't think about that, sir," Sharon said. "Bring it up and I'll run it through. The process is basically automated anyway."
A few minutes passed before one of Doc Cottle's assistants delivered a vial of blood to Sharon. She placed the vial into one of the centrifuges and began the testing. Five minutes passed, and the computer screen showed red. With the success, Tigh headed for the launch bay and headed to Colonial One.
Tigh ordered the Raptor to dock while the two MkII Vipers flew cover around the President's spacecraft. Tom Zarek was seated comfortably in his office, just a few corridors from the President's reception area.
"Representative Zarek," Tigh said formally, supported by four large Marine guards, "we'd like you to come to Galactica and submit a blood sample for Cylon testing."
"Excuse me?" Zarek asked. "I don't believe I'll do that."
"It's not a request," the Colonel reiterated.
"You can't order me…"
"Take him," Tigh ordered the guards. "Two of you clear the way back to the Raptor. If any of the President's people get in the way, make sure they regret their decision…"
"There will be no resistance," a female voice said from the doorway. President Roslin stood in the door. "Tom, we have all submitted samples. I expect nothing less from you."
"Madame President, I have to protest the intrusion…"
"Continue your operation, Colonel. I trust Adama is recovering?"
"He is, I will pass along your concern to him."
The guards manhandled Zarek and shackled his hands and feet. They dragged the man, literally kicking and screaming, to the Raptor, where they secured him into one of the seats. When Zarek continued babbling, Tigh ordered his mouth taped shut.
Tigh used the wireless to tell Galactica to have a corpsman waiting in the landing bay to take a blood sample from Zarek. As soon as the sample filled the vial, Tigh sent Zarek to the secondary brig, while ordering the guards to make sure the representative was quiet during the trip.
"Here," Tigh said, handing the sample to Sharon, "run it now."
"Who is it?"
"Let's do this one blind and find out."
"Have it your way," Sharon said as she began the test.
Tigh stood nervously behind Sharon as she typed a few commands into the computer. "Where'd you learn how to use the program?"
"Baltar wrote out all the instructions, as if he was setting it up to be used by someone else. He added a line to the program, telling the computer to count to 100 every time it did a step of the test. That slowed things down to Baltar's pace."
"How'd you find it?"
"The programming language isn't foreign to me. I did have a little computer class at the Colonial Service Academy. And I attended, unlike most pilots who hung out on the flight line."
Tigh chuckled to himself. He knew how pilots acted at that school. "It's red," he said, noting the results on the screen.
"Who is it?"
"Let's take a walk, shall we," Tigh said, inviting Sharon to go with him to chat with Zarek.
Sharon smiled. "It was Zarek, wasn't it?"
"Oh, yeah," Tigh said. "Now that bastard pays."
The pair, escorted by four guards, walked briskly to the secondary brig. Four more guards stood around the door to insure no harm would come to the prisoner. Tigh knew the test was correct as soon as Zarek looked at Sharon – the look on the man's face expressed anger so intense Tigh had not seen it among his crew after the destruction of Caprica.
"Well, that answers one question," Tigh said. "Eleven, right?"
"And now you know," Zarek said. "Thanks to that defect, no doubt."
Zarek stared at Sharon. Tigh looked between the two of them, watching a battle of eyes. After at least two minutes, Zarek shook his head in disgust, while Sharon smiled.
"Cylons can influence people," Sharon explained. "It's not telepathy, but more like a really strong charismatic influence. His doesn't work on me."
"You bitch, you cut yourself off!" Zarek yelled. "God will be displeased with you."
"Frak God," Sharon said as she walked up to the bars. "Frak all of you. God wanted to make his own race, and he made it. We're better than the Centurions, we have our own will, our own desires. You can play all the games you want, but when it's all over, I'm not a slave to God anymore. You are, you're stuck in a cage."
"A modified cage," Tigh said as he looked up into the ceiling. "If one runs a certain amount of current through the bars, it makes an effective shield against specific forms of radiation, including radio. Your raiders can jump in and try to…"
"God will have no mercy on your soul," Zarek said quietly.
"I don't need his mercy. Come to think of it, I don't want it. You'll need mercy when these people get their hands on you. And I don't mind being a part of it… I was bred to be, what did they say, an instrument of destruction. I'll be like a boomerang. I'll be home soon," Sharon said evilly. She winked at Zarek, who charged the bars and tried to grab Sharon.
Sharon took one step towards the bars, grabbed Zarek's arm at the elbow, held it steady, and used the bars to snap the Cylon's arm at its shoulder. Zarek fell to the floor in pain.
"Don't ever doubt whose side I'm on, Colonel. And Zarek, why don't you put in a call to God to fix your arm. I'm sure he'll be right along to take care of it."