Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

The Unwanted Offspring

Simon Powell got off the transport wondering if this was a joke, despite the fact that the president's chief of staff, Dan Tanner, had personally told him of what had happened and asked him to come with him. He wondered what the media who covered the Kentucky Wildcats would say if they knew why he was here. He just thanked God that he was a single guy, because he already had enough people who were scratching their heads over this trip.

He was glad that Babylon 5 was fairly empty as he exited the arrival gate. Living in Lexington was being in a fishbowl constantly, with the pressure to perform from the fans, university boosters, alumni, administrators, students, and media always hounding him. His life was scrutinized in the state of Kentucky more closely than that of the governor, who criticized him harshly after they had lost in the Southeastern Conference tournament to the University of Georgia in Atlanta.. So whatever this deal with "cloning" was, he was going to make this most of this impromptu and unexpected vacation.

He'd been here before, years ago when he was a player at UK. Babylon 5 had a tournament organized in 2259, and Kentucky was one of eight teams invited to participate. He was a freshman then, highly regarded as he had been selected "Mr. Basketball" in the state of Virginia during his senior year of high school as well as one of the top ten recruits in American. Coach Landy Tarlton saw him as the key piece to the Wildcats' hopes for a national championship.

Powell remembered beating Missouri and Syracuse, but losing to Texas in the finals. Tarlton hadn't wanted to take the trip, but administrators forced him to because the university president was a friend with EA President William Morgan Clark. They came back home, only to have the NCAA tournament cancelled because of the martial law declaration the following March. He also remembered seeing Captain John Sheridan there at the games, looking uncomfortable as he tried to fit in wearing his dress uniform. He never would have thought the man would turn the universe upside down within a year.

He lost his sophomore year to martial law, so he redshirted and it paid off as Clark was overthrown just in time for the season to start again. Kentucky played two weeks after Clark shot himself and the Wildcats thrashed Clark's alma mater, the University of Indiana, 76-48, in a game televised around the world. They won the national championship that season, beating Duke 81-75 in Chicago for the school's thirty-third title.

UK won it again in his senior year, and he went onto the NBA for a brief career that ended abruptly when he blew out his knee. He became an assistant coach at UK and then ascended to the head coaching position a decade later when Coach Brad Fowler was killed in a skimmer accident.

An Asian woman wearing a military uniform in the Zocolo met him, and she smiled as she recognized him. "I know you! You coach Kentucky, don't you?"

He sighed and said, "Yes, I do. You have me at a disadvantage, Ms…"

The woman laughed and said, "It's Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Valerii, and you bastards beat us in the regional finals last year. If the Sooners had shown up to play that day, you guys would have been the ones going home and we would have been going to the Final Four!" Simon was used to such encounters, and it was nice to talk some hoops as the woman took him to the meeting.

"Coach Powell? Good, you've arrived! We can get started!" said Admiral Rissen. Powell was still trying to get his bearings as he sat down beside a blonde haired woman who seemed to have not slept in two days. He whispered to her, "So what's this about?"

"It's best to let them tell you, because it's very complicated. It's quite a dozy!", she said as she drained her cup of coffee, getting up to refill her cup.

He looked around and immediately noticed Senator Clarissa Cally. He'd voted for her party in the last election, and had heard rumors in the media that she was considering running for the consortium presidency if Ellis Harlan decided to seek another term as the American senator in the EA Congress. She had a no-nonsense air about her that made her well respected inside the Washington beltway, and a serious contender for the Progressive Conservative nomination in 2084. She sat there looking impatient.

He spied an older male with a gray haired buzz cut who looked to be mad as hell. Seated next to him was a younger man with his hands behind his back, who talked to the buzz cut man and kept looking at him from across the table. Simon recognized that he had been spotted as UK's basketball coach and hoped that they wouldn't get sidetracked on hoops discussion when he wanted to get this over with and head back home.

"Good afternoon. As you know, you were asked to come here because the president needed to inform you of something." Rissen stated, who then went into the Cylons and such. "Understand that by coming that you are legally bound not to share this information with anyone unless otherwise directed by the president. Any questions?"

Senator Cally stated the obvious, "When can we see our copies?"

"Soon. We are trying to interrogate them but haven't had much luck. By seeing the originals on which they were based, we hope to find a way to get them to cooperate." The admiral went on, but Simon lost track of things as he wondered how in the hell they had been able to get his DNA and make a copy of him. He snapped back to attention when a picture came up on the screen of a striking blonde woman, and he knew her the second he saw her.

"This woman is a telepath known as Talia Winters, who used to work in the Psi Corps when it existed. Do any of you know of her and have you seen her before?"

Simon's hand shot up, for what reason he didn't even know. "Yes, Admiral, I have."

Rissen asked, "How do you know her?"

"Because I slept with her about fifteen years ago, when I was an assistant coach at Kentucky. I had just broken up with my girlfriend and was out at a local bar looking to get drunk. The woman laid me instead. I woke up the next morning and she was gone, and I haven't seen her again until right now."

"Well, that solves the problem of how she came about your DNA sample. Anyone else?" With the exceptions of Valerii and Doral, the others had seen her before. Cally remembered seeing her before being assaulted during the telepath war and being held hostage until some rogues freed her during a raid.

William Keikeya drained his cup of coffee and said, "Yeah, I remember that bitch! I shagged her in my Malibu pad and still have the fingernail marks in my back! Damn what a lay!" He chuckled, much to the annoyance of Felix Gaeta, who sat beside him.

"Look, I saw her and she seduced me. I don't know what that's got to do with anything, because for all I know, this could be some plot to get rid of me! Maybe it was because of that article I wrote not too long ago about the president and all the time he spends out of view of the public!" Gaeta said as his voice got shriller.

"This is no grand conspiracy on our part, or at least this government's part. If you'll come this way, you'll be able to see your copies." The admiral stomped off, and it seemed to Simon that he was glad to be out of there, which made him think that they had not had an enjoyable conversation waiting for him.

When the doorway opened and he walked inside, he saw himself, but fifteen years earlier. The copy of him stood up and stared at him. "Who are you?" he said, and Simon replied, "I'm Simon Powell, head coach of the University of Kentucky Wildcats. Who the hell are you?"

"Simon Powell. I was a Cylon caretaker on Caprica, in charge of disposing bodies in Adephia! Are you another Cylon?"

"No. I'm a Wildcat. At least you're not from Louisville!" He sat down as the interrogator began his session with the Simon copy.

When William Keikeya saw the younger Billy, he exploded, "How the hell is that me? Look at how meek and mild he is! By God, when I was his age, I was shagging every blonde bimbo starlet in Hollywood!" Billy looked at him with an expression of pure shock. This wasn't the copy found on Caprica, but the former presidential aide to Laura Roslin. He had been arrested and told he was a Cylon, which so shocked the president that she had fainted and fell to the floor. He had tried to go to her, but the officers grabbed onto him and dragged him away. William Keikeya went on a rant, threatening to sue everyone in sight for this invasion of privacy, while the younger Billy sat there and wondered how he hadn't know he was a Cylon.

The others had similar reactions of shock, but the biggest one came later as the Independence arrived and brought in Gina. She was still barely responding, and could not speak. They brought Dr. Shelly Godfrey into the medlab facility where Gina was housed, and the man next to her in a suit looked at her in utter shock. Dr. Stephen Franklin was with her, and escorted her inside.

She looked her over, having studied her chart earlier. "From the scans, it doesn't seem like she had any neural damage to her spine or skull, so it's clearly a psychological condition that's affecting her." She turned to Dr. Gaius Baltar and asked him, "Has she given you any response at all?"

Baltar managed to compose himself and say, "Only to eat and drink, and then to defecate. She's made some grunts, but that's been about all."

Six looked at her with wonder, not saying a word, with only Baltar aware of her presence. She walked around the table and across from Dr. Godfrey, who went running a scanner over her body. She then put her fingers to raise Gina's chin, and Gina uttered the first words she'd said since being brutally attacked: "Mommy?"

Shelly held her nerve, pushing down the mental image of her kids in her mind. "What's the matter, child?"

"They beat me! I don't know what I did, but they beat me! They said I killed a lot of people!" Gina said and broke down and cried.

Shelly patted her on the head and spoke to her softly as she questioned her further. Gina hadn't realized what she'd done, having been a simple dockhand in a military shipyard. Shelly had been briefed as to the story on Gina and managed to get more out of her than Baltar had in days of therapy. She told Gina that she would be back and Franklin handed her a sedative to inject Gina with. "If I didn't know any better, I think she's regressed into some childhood memories implanted in her. I'll see if I can stay here and help bring her out some more. Dr. Pachnar can handle the First Lady in my stead."

Franklin and Shelly left, leaving Baltar and Six alone with Gina. "Mother?" Six said, with a smile and tears in her eyes. "Mother" Baltar repeated, with shock in his. "Mommy!" Gina said, in a fetal position on the bed, sucking her thumb.

"So now that they've met each other, what do we do now?" Franklin asked of Hollifield.

"We let those who want to go home do so, and we keep the ones here who want to stay. Godfrey's already made plans to stay to help Gina, and my sister-in-law has volunteered to stay to help with the reporter version of her. Conoy and Doral have also said they would if the medical center would agree to it, so that shouldn't be a problem." Hollifield replied.

"And the rest?" Garibaldi added, as he sat on the table of Hollifield's former office on Babylon 5, which he had used during the Drakh plague when he was vice president.

"William Keikeya wants to go back and sue everybody, but he wants to stay now that I offered him first dibs at the rights to write a screenplay about all of this. No way in hell he'll do that as long as I'm alive, but what kind of politician would I be if I didn't make promises that I wouldn't keep?" Garibaldi and Franklin chuckled along with Sheridan, who was also in the room. "Gaeta considers this some sort of plot I have against him, even though I haven't seen him in twenty years when we stormed the White House to get rid of Clark's flunkies during your attack on Earth, John. Valance, Dais, and Ross have opted to go back home to their families, and they've allowed for a telepath to erase their memories so they can forget the whole thing."

"What about Coach Powell?" Sheridan asked.

"He has to get back to Lexington, since Midnight Madness is in a few weeks. He'll keep the secret and help us out if we need him. Granted, I hate asking someone from UK from a favor, but he is good even if his school sucks at basketball."

Hollifield ended the meeting a short time later and was about to get on a transport back home when Valerii came running up to him. "Mr. President! Roslin's condition has worsened! We need you in medlab!" Hollifield ordered the transport to stand down and raced back to medlab to see what he could do for his Colonial counterpart.