Mason's next conscious though was that her whole body was shaking violently. She lashed out with her fists and was satisfied to connect with something. That would show the Cylons! Just because she was unconscious didn't mean Mason Thrace could be tossed around.
"Mason! Would you fraking wake up and stop hitting me?"
The sound of Isabel's voice jarred her eyes open. The younger girl hovered over Mason, looking as if she had just run a marathon. "How the frak did you get here?" Mason asked. "Don't tell me you saved our asses?"
Isabel's eyes nervously shifted to look at something on her right before coming back to rest on Mason. "Not exactly."
Mason's eyes focused up at the ceiling above her. The last thing she could recall was being outside with Boomer holding a gun to her head and Brody lying bleeding…
The memories of what had happened suddenly returned, and Mason's heart dropped. Ignoring the pain in her head, she pulled herself up off the ground. "Where's Brody? He was right here with me two seconds ago. Where is he?"
Isabel grabbed Mason's shoulders and pushed her against the wall. "Settle down. He's right over there."
Mason whipped her head around to see that Isabel was telling the truth. Brody was propped up against one wall of what appeared to be a brig cell. She didn't know how they had gotten there or why Isabel was with them, nor did she care. The only thing that mattered was that her best friend was near her and he was still breathing. Gritting her teeth, she crawled until she was next to him. "Brody?" she whispered, reaching out a hand out to make sure he was real.
His eyes slowly opened, and he gave her a small smile. "Hi."
Tears pooled in her eyes when she noticed the pain in his eyes. He was hurting, and they were stuck in a cell that probably had a thousand toasters guarding it. Mason knew this was all her fault, but she didn't have time for guilt right now. That would come later. When they got out of their prison. "Are you okay?"
"The bleeding stopped a few hours ago," Isabel offered from where she stood. "The Cylons took him away for a little while. I think they stitched him up."
"You didn't check?" Mason hissed. Her hands went to the spot on his shirt that had been soaked through with blood. When she pulled it back, she was happy to see that there were carefully sewn stitches where there should have been a bullet hole. "Why would they patch you up?" she mused, more to herself than anything.
"Maybe they think he's important," Isabel said, answering for Brody who had closed his eyes again.
"Could you give us a second?" Mason snapped.
Isabel froze in the middle of walking over to where the two pilots sat. She glared at Mason but went to the opposite side of the cell without another word.
"Brody. You need to wake up," she said urgently. "I'm going to get us out of here."
"No, you're not," he argued. "We're pretty much in lockdown, Mason. They're being awful careful with us. We're important to them, and I think it has something to do with her. The Cylons seem to be in awe of her."
"I don't care about the fraking toasters right now! I need you to tell me that you can push the pain aside long enough to get out of here. There are people counting on us."
"Oh, now you worry about the people depending on us?"
"Shut up."
Brody let out a small laugh. "You can't even be nice to me when I'm dying."
Mason felt all the blood drain from her face with his feeble attempt at humor. He almost sounded like he believed what he was saying. "You are not dying, you melodramatic idiot. They shot you in the shoulder. People get shot in the shoulder all the time and it doesn't kill them."
"It still hurt," he muttered.
"Oh, Brody," Mason said as the tears started to pour down her face. "You need to stop doing this to me."
"Doing what?"
"Pretending like you can just go away and I'll be fine with it." Her right hand gripped his tightly as her left hand reached out to brush the side of his face. "I need you by my side if we're going to get this done. I can't do it alone."
"You have Isabel."
"She's not the same as you. Frak! I don't even know if I can trust Little Miss Secrets over there."
Brody pulled his hand from hers as he reached to brush the tears away from her cheeks. She tried to move away, but he wasn't having it. "I'm not going to die on you, Mason," he said, his voice soft. "I promise. We just need to wait a few hours. Then I'll be right by your side when we bust out of here."
"I'm holding you to that," Mason said as she rested her cheek against his palm. For a second, she thought that he might try to kiss her again and the thought filled her heart with both hope and dread.
They were close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his lips when the cell door slid open with a bang. Mason jumped away from Brody and watched in awe as the Cylon model known as Leoben Conoy stepped in and set a tray of bread down onto the floor. The toaster never took his eyes off Isabel. Mason waited for the thing to start bowing at her feet.
"Would you mother frakers stop staring at me?" Isabel yelled before turning to look out the small window.
The Cylon looked like it wanted to say something but held back. Mason watched as he kicked the tray of food onto the dirty ground and left their cell. "That was smart," she whispered to Brody.
"She's probably new to this whole prison thing."
"And we're aren't?"
"We had the stories from our parents. Gives us a little advantage."
"Whatever," Mason said, standing up. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go interrogate the liar over there because you got yourself shot and can't do it."
"All in my master plan," Brody sang as Mason made her way over to stand in front of Isabel. The more familiar sound of Brody's joking tone lightened her heart. She clung to that little bit of normalcy in their current mess.
She had been scared at first by how tired Brody had looked even though it made sense in the context of what they had just gone through. The fact that he had returned to his usual state of banter made her feel like he might actually be all right.
With that hope firmly planet in her mind, she turned her attention to Isabel. They had only known her a few days, but Mason had observed enough to know she was acting strange. The feisty little pain in the ass they had found in that museum would not have slunk off to the opposite corner of the cell to give Mason and Brody some private time. She would have pestered them and butted in on their private moment.
Mason watched Isabel for few seconds as she tried to push her concerns for their plight out of her mind. The girl didn't tear her eyes away from the window, almost as if she knew what was about to happen. Mason decided to start nice. "So, do you have any clue what's going on?"
"No."
"You don't know anything?"
"Not a thing."
All right then. Clearly Isabel wasn't feeling particularly chatty so maybe nice wasn't the right approach. "Listen. I don't know you that well, and I've given you a lot of leeway when it comes to being a complete burden to Brody and me. This whole sudden pouting thing though? Not really helping me keep the calm. So I suggest, if you still want to use those fingers, stop lying and start explaining to me why the Cylons seem to be treating you like a golden goddess."
Isabel still didn't turn from the window. Mason's threats were apparently starting to lose their effect.
"Mason! Don't do anything stupid," Brody called from where he lay on the floor.
"Like what?" she asked before grabbing a fistful of Isabel's hair and throwing her to the ground. Isabel had no time to react, let alone defend herself, as Mason straddled the fallen girl and rammed her fist into Isabel's face. Making sure to keep Isabel's arms pinned, Mason gripped her throat tightly and leaned in to whisper, "If you want me to stop, you'll explain what you're lying about and why. Now."
"I didn't want you to hurt me. That's why I lied, you fraking bitch," Isabel hissed, tasting the blood in her mouth.
"Well, your plan didn't work very well, did it?"
"Get off her, Mason," Brody insisted as he pulled himself to his feet. "She's not the enemy.
"How do you know that?" Mason demanded even as she slid herself off the other girl.
"She's in this cell with us, isn't she?"
"That doesn't mean anything," Isabel whispered as she sat up and rubbed her jaw. "Where the hell did you learn to punch like that?"
"My mother," Mason answered shortly. "Start talking before I show you my killer left hook."
"Fine. Do you want the back story or the punch line?"
"Hit me with the hard stuff, kid. As you can tell, I don't have much in the way of patience."
"I'm who you're looking for. You came to this planet to find someone, and I'm her."
"No," Mason said shaking her head as she desperately looked at Brody for support. "She can't be."
"Why not?" Isabel asked. "Because I lied to you? Because I made up some story about a happy little family? Because I look and act like you when I've been raised by the machines? Or is it because I want off this planet as badly as you do?"
"All of the above." Mason shook her head. "You're not her, kid. They've been feeding you fairy tales."
"Let her talk before you doubt her," Brody said, shuffling over to stand next to Mason. "Tell us the truth now because I won't be able to stop her again."
"I don't remember my mother at all. I barely remember my father. He disappeared when I was too young to know what was happening. Some blonde-haired woman found me and told me that she was supposed to take care of me. Feed me some bullshit about Helo having left me behind for her to find. Fraking Cylon bitch."
Mason didn't give her any reaction, but she found herself wondering why Isabel was swearing so much all of the sudden. She hadn't uttered so much as a single frak since they had found each other, and now she was spouting swear words like a Picon sailor. It was just plain odd.
"It took me until my ninth birthday to realize that there was something wrong. I finally noticed that the people who were raising me never got older, that they didn't really act as I knew they ought to and that they were cold to me most of the time."
"Raised by Cylons. That had to be interesting," Brody joked, earning a glare from Mason.
"I escaped when I was eleven. Though in truth, I'm not sure if it was an escape so much as they just let me go. Whatever they were trying to find out from me, I didn't know"
"The location of Earth," Mason explained. "That's what they wanted."
"I know that now. I've seen firsthand what these people could do, but it's so hard to accept. They gave me food and shelter. They kept me alive when I had no one."
"So you figure you owe them?" Mason asked. "I have news for you, little girl. They are using you. As soon as they figure out how to get what they want, they will kill you. You are the one thing that could destroy everything they've ever planned. That makes you expendable."
"You think I don't know that?" Isabel said sharply. "That's exactly why I'm never going to give it them."
Mason's eyes went wide, and she heard Brody's breath catch beside her as they both realized what Isabel had just let slip. "You know how to get to Earth."
Isabel paused for a few seconds, realizing the slip of the tongue she had just made. She nodded her head slowly. "I've just been waiting until I could get away from the Cylons, until I could find myself a ship."
"Which I conveniently gave you," Mason groaned. "Why didn't you just take off when we got airborne?" she asked.
"I don't know. I meant to. Then I heard you and Brody joking over the comms, and I thought about why you were here and what had happened to all those people who died that day on Galactica." She shrugged. "I can't help but feel responsible for that."
"You didn't even know who your mother was," Brody reminded her, stepping forward to place his hand gently on her shoulder. "The guilt isn't yours to bear."
"That doesn't make it any easier," Isabel said, pulling away from him. "Look. I just want to get off this fraking hellhole of a planet. I didn't lie to you about that."
"How are we supposed to trust you? You could be working with the Cylons. You already said that you feel grateful to them." Mason looked the girl in front of her up and down. "Frak. For all we know, you are a Cylon."
"Gods! You're never going to believe me, are you?"
"No," Mason spit, glaring at her. "Never."
Isabel narrowed her eyes, absorbing the message Mason was trying to give her, and then Mason watched helplessly as something finally slipped in Isabel's face. The girl, who had looked so wounded and frightened only seconds earlier, stood up a little straighter and pushed her shoulders back while raising her chin. The tears that had been pooling in her eyes suddenly disappeared, and she cocked her head to the side to study the two people in front of her. "Isn't that a chance you're willing to take? You've been on this planet far too long, Mason. I know. I've been watching you the whole time. You haven't exactly been quiet. It really intrigued us to watch you. You were just so… so human. It was something we haven't seen in a long time."
Mason unconsciously reached out to grasp Brody's hand as Isabel kept talking. "Something's wrong with her," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
Brody glanced at his best friend in confusion before turning to stare at their cellmate. "Isabel?"
"Is that her name?" Isabel asked as her face broke into a large grin. "We always wondered."
"I don't understand," Mason choked out. "You can't be what I think you are."
"Trust your instincts, Mason. They seem to have kept you alive for over a year now."
"I don't understand," Mason repeated, still shaking her head.
"We've been tracking her ten times longer than we have watched you. We've been trying to figure out why she ran from us. We even went as far as to create my model just to get into her head. It took quite a while to get it to the point that no one could tell us apart from the real thing. It obviously worked in the end. By the way, excellent job figuring it out."
"You realize what this means?" Mason said to Brody, squeezing his hand in excitement.
Understanding dawned in his eyes. "She's out there somewhere!"
"Yes, she is." Mason could feel the Cylon's confusion, and it made her want to laugh. These toasters would never understand that they couldn't break her. They had been trying for as long as she could remember. They had thrown everything they possibly could at her, but none of it worked.
She was unbreakable.
"You two are full of such hope. It's truly astonishing," the Cylon said, laughing as she pulled a gun from her jacket pocket. "It's too bad you have to die."
Mason was about to push Brody out of the Cylon's way when the window exploded with the sound of gunfire. She felt Brody's arms around her, pulling her to the ground and shielding her as the gunfire seemed to go on forever. Pieces of shattered glass rained down on them.
But just as quickly as it started, everything stopped and the silence was deafening.
"What the frak?" Mason whispered as Brody rolled off her and pulled her up. "Are you hit?"
"No. You?"
"No. Thanks to my convenient body shield." She reached out to smack him upside the head. "What were you thinking, Brody Adama? You could have been shot!"
Brody was about to reply when a familiar voice cut them off. "Would you two stop flirting long enough for me to get you out of here?"
Mason twisted around to stare at Isabel crouched on the empty window ledge. "You're a Cylon!" she exclaimed, pushing Brody behind her.
"No," Isabel said with a laugh. She pointed at the body on the ground. "That is a Cylon. See the vacant expression on her face because she's dead? Surefire sign that she's not me. Besides, I can't be a Cylon. I'm your ticket to the thirteenth colony, remember?"
Isabel's sarcastic tone registered somewhere deep inside Mason, and her brain began to race, putting together all the pieces of the puzzle they had collected on Caprica. "It was you in the museum, and you were the one we took back to the apartment. You asked a lot of questions. I remember thinking that it was odd."
"I had to make sure you weren't Cylons before I told you who I was," Isabel said as she hopped into the cell. "Actually, I guess I never really did that. Seems like I let the Cylons do my dirty work. Oops."
"I don't get it," Brody said. He alternated looks between the two women in the cell. "What the frak is going on?" When no one answered, he directed his next question at Isabel. "Why are you not a Cylon?" The next one was for Mason. "And why are you not killing her?"
"He got shot," Mason said to Isabel as if that was explanation enough.
"I see that." Isabel nodded at Brody's shoulder before her eyes fell on Mason's hand. Mason was painfully aware of the blood caked on them. "What happened to you?"
"I kicked your ass a few minutes ago."
"Nice."
"Could you two stop acting like nothing happened and tell me why I shouldn't be killing her right now?"
"She's not a Cylon," Mason said.
"I'm not a Cylon." Isabel repeated, reaching down to pick up the dead toaster's gun and hand it to Brody. "You two picked me up at the Delphi Museum a few days back. I've been trying to figure out what the frak was up with you ever since. This morning, I decided that you really were my ticket off this planet so I was going to help you out with your little plan. I figured we'd get about halfway into the city before having to pull back. Mason told me that was what usually happened."
Brody gave his friend an dirty look.
Mason shrugged. "The kid had a lot of questions."
"You didn't have to answer them," he pointed out. Before Mason could start arguing with him, he covered her mouth with his hand and turned to Isabel. "Keep explaining."
"Your Viper got shot down, Brody, and Mason went after you. I finished off the squadron of Raiders, just as I said I was going to, before landing by your ships. You were gone. It's taken me hours to figure out where they brought you which brings us to the present moment."
Brody narrowed his eyes. "How do we know you're not another copy?"
"It's her," Mason said. "This kid has been reminding me of myself since the second we stumbled upon her. This is Helo's daughter, all right."
"You're sure?"
"I would know, wouldn't I?"
Isabel watched as Brody and Mason shared a secret, knowing look. "Someone want to clue me in?" she asked.
Mason turned to smile at her. "I wish I could have told you this under better circumstances, but the reason you remind me of myself is because you're my sister, Isabel."
Isabel's eyes widened as she shook her head and took a few steps back. "No. That can't be."
"Well, you're my half-sister. I wasn't lucky enough to have a Cylon mommy. My human mother never told me for sure, but I know that my father was Lieutenant Karl Agathon, known to most of the Fleet as just Helo. He hated his first name."
"Helo?"
"There are a lot of things that I never told anyone about." Brody cleared his throat. "Except for Brody and our parents, no one knew that I had any idea of who my father was."
"I don't understand. You're older than I am. How could Helo have fathered you and still come to Caprica to find my mother?"
"Well, the first time Helo came back to the Fleet was two years after he was abandoned on Caprica during the Cylon attacks. During his time here, he never once ran into any of the copies that were your mother. He had no clue what danger he had put himself in by returning to the Fleet. The Cylon traitor had been slowly killing off important people of the Fleet for more than a year and a half by that point."
"But why would he have left Galactica to come back to this dump?"
"The Fleet wasn't the same as he remembered, and the things he had gone through on Caprica distanced him from everyone that he had known before. He promised some of the survivors here that he would return for them, so when the President wouldn't sanction a rescue mission, he stole a Raptor."
"He came back for the Resistance?"
"Yeah. I think if he had known my mother was pregnant, he wouldn't have." Mason shrugged. "But he didn't know, and no one can change that. He came back to Caprica, and that's when he stumbled upon your mother. He thought Galactica sent her as part of the rescue team originally denied him. And this is where things get hazy for all of us. Obviously, you were born and he chose to stay on Caprica. Something went wrong. I don't know what, but he came back to the Fleet again. Maybe he figured out that Boomer wasn't who she claimed to be. No one knows. He came back, though, and it was too late. The Fleet-" The emotions Mason was dredging up were overwhelming her, and her voice caught in her throat.
"He returned in the middle of Galactica's destruction," Brody filled in, picking up where Mason had stopped. "Mason's mother ran into him as she was ushering the children to the hangar bay. She told him what was happening, and Helo went after Boomer."
"He felt responsible for what she had done," Mason added. "I think that's where you and I get our amazing sense of irrational guilt."
"This is too much to take right now. We can deal with this later," Isabel said, biting down on her lip so her emotions wouldn't take over. She needed to keep her head clear if she was going to get off this planet. "We have to leave right now. The Cylons will realize what's happened any second, and we have a job to do. According to you, there are children out there depending on all three of us." Isabel gave them a grin before shooting out the lock on the cell door.
"Well, we found you. And I'm sure we can steal a few ships without anyone noticing," Mason said, ticking it off on her fingers. "What else is there?" she asked.
"We need to find a port into the Cylon mainframe. It's time to work on fulfilling my destiny."
Brody and Mason stumbled after the girl, both secure in their belief that she was who she said. And even if she wasn't, Isabel had risked her life to break them out of the brig. That had to count for something.