Chapter 4

The Hunter and the Hunted

After the cleric left, I slept. Oh, the nightmares woke me up, but I saw all the details of them in clear circles. The same six faces, seventy-eight times, the same but not the same. Seventy-eight different people who I'd killed. I didn't dread going back to sleep any more, though. Those seventy-eight faces were my conscience, and my memorial to them. My face was in the nightmares, too: the hunter and the hunted.

I woke up in the morning tired, but it was a different kind of tired than the physical kind. Maybe calling it 'tired' was the wrong word. Maybe it was closer to resignation, acceptance of who I was and what I'd done. I was really no better than those who had attacked us, but I wasn't any worse than them, either.

Do you think there's any chance of redemption for any of us?

I took my rifle and went to get some breakfast. I had just finished, taken my bowl to be cleaned, when Sam came up to me, looking at me warily.

"I'm… not fine," I told him soberly. "But I don't think I ever will be fine again. I'm, uh, coming to grips with it, I think."

He relaxed and nodded, regarding me intently. "You look—different."

I breathed in and out slowly. "I'd like to go up on the mountain for a couple days, alone," I told him. "Is that all right? Can I take some rations?"

His expression didn't change, but I sensed his uncertainty.

"I'm the sniper," I said to him calmly. "I'll be back, but I'd like… I need a little time to think."

He nodded, reassured. "Don't forget anti-rad meds."

"I won't," I handed him my rifle. "Hold onto this for me until I get back?"

He looked at it in his hands, then back at me, and he nodded. "Take extra rations," he said. "You're too thin."

I snorted softly. "I'll never be a Pyramid player."

He smiled slightly. "You can never tell," he replied with humor.

Up on the mountain, I looked at the sky. When night fell I looked at the stars. I could see ships, far out, but I couldn't tell if they were friend or enemy. I looked at the world beneath me, around me, the smallest insects, larger mountains in the distance. I slept, and had nightmares, and slept again.

I missed the feel of my sniper's rifle in my hands. I missed the feel of the stock against my cheek.

I had this skill. It wasn't something that someone could just be trained to do, I didn't think. It needed good eyesight, patience, strength to stay motionless for long periods of time. There were probably plenty of others who had those traits, but I think there is something else that you need, something I couldn't find a name for. It feels like… an inner reservoir, a deep, quiet body of water. And you have to be able to breathe that water.

I really wished I'd taken my rifle with me. I felt incomplete without it.

When I went back to camp, I saw Sam at one of the tables under the pavilion, Jean and Dare and a few others with him. Sam was the first one who saw me, and he had my rifle with him. When I came up, he handed it to me without a word. I took it and breathed in deep, quiet water. I nodded my thanks, and sat next to Jean.

They were planning a raid, a mission, and because I was back, Sam included me in it.

Seventy-eight became eighty-one.

Seven hundred yards, eight hundred yards, a thousand yards, and eighty-one turned into eighty-two, then eighty-five, then eighty-seven, captured forever in small, clear circles. Eighty-seven in my nightmares, plus one: the hunter, me.

I'm not looking for forgiveness or understanding… maybe I just want someone to hear me.

A mission I wasn't on, something went wrong; and Sam came back with a strange story. A story of two of them who'd saved him, let him go. Sam told us all about it, the tin can in the parking garage, the bomb going off, three Cylons and the two who'd let him go… we sat around the table and listened. I cleaned my rifle as he spoke.

It didn't make sense to him.

It made sense to me. They were Cylons, but they were people, too. I'd seen them better than anyone, every detail clear in the circle of my scope.

Jean stayed with me after everyone else left, watching as I reassembled the rifle. "You're doing all right," she said.

I nodded, finishing with the rifle. She put her hand on my arm, and I glanced at her questioningly.

"You've changed," she murmured.

"Many times over," I agreed. Eighty-seven times over.

She smiled a little. "I remember how you used to look at me," she said.

I shook my head wryly. Of course she would have noticed. "That was a long time ago," I responded. Not that long in terms of months, maybe, but in terms of experience.

"You were too young, then," she said, and the way she said it made me look at her more closely.

After a moment, I said lightly, "I'm not very much older now."

"Old enough," her voice was quiet.

I studied her face. I shook my head, feeling a twinge of regret at something that could never be. "Too old by now, I think," I said as quietly.

She sighed and took her hand off my arm. "Not too old," she murmured. "Too distant."

She stood and looked down at me. I could see her face very clearly, a sharp circle, as if she was seven hundred yards away. "Good night, Dan," she said.

"Good night, Jean," I replied. She turned and walked away.

Another mission… I looked through my scope at a small clearly defined circle of the city. Cylons and tin cans, rebuilding a city that had once been ours. I wondered, if I knew them better, would I be able to tell one from another?

I was out on this one alone, 'upping the body count', Sam had said. He'd hesitated about asking me, but it was a good move, tactically. He was planning a big raid some distance away, and this would be a distraction to get the Cylons to look in the wrong direction.

Ninety-three. A brown-haired male.

My awareness was the bright clear circle, a slice of the world seven hundred yards away. I breathed deep water.

Ninety-four. One of the dark-skinned males.

Chamber a round, change focus, change aim, mentally adjust for the changing wind, barrel temperature...

I didn't hear anything, but I felt the cold round muzzle of the rifle under my left ear, under the edge of the ghillie suit's hood. I didn't move. The hunter had also been hunted.

It was almost a relief, but there was some disappointment, too. It was over now, done.

I waited.

She said, "Take your hand away from the trigger."

I took my hand away, rested my palm on the ground. I lowered my head a little, no longer looking through the scope.

"On your knees," she said. "Put your hands behind your neck. Slowly." She sounded—nervous? She took the muzzle of the rifle off my neck.

I pushed myself up to my knees, put my hands behind my neck.

"Stand up," she ordered.

I stood, and slowly started to turn to face her.

"Don't--!" she began to say.

We stared at each other. She was one of the gorgeous blonde ones, slender curves, as tall as me. Taller. She lookednervous, but she held the rifle as if she was used to it.

"You're so young!" she exclaimed involuntarily.

It was the last thing I would have expected her to say. "Sorry," I replied with irony. Why was I still alive?

She glanced very quickly at my rifle, then back at me. "Has it been you all this time?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered, watching her.

She stared at me as if I was some kind of odd creature she'd never seen before. "Aren't you hot in that?" she asked finally.

"Yes," I nodded. I probably did look like some sort of odd creature, in my camouflage. The afternoon was warm, and I'd been sweating inside the ghillie suit for hours.

"Do you have any other weapons?" she demanded.

I could probably have hidden an arsenal under the ghillie suit, but my only weapon was my rifle. I shook my head.

"Take it off—slowly!" she warned me.

I pushed the hood back, undid the fastenings, shrugged out of the top. My t-shirt was soaked with sweat; I shivered in the warm afternoon air. I untied the baggy trousers, let them fall around my ankles. The difference in temperature made me feel light-headed for a few seconds.

"Are you going to shoot me now?" I asked calmly.

"You're stronger than I would have thought," she said, staring at me.

Her words didn't make any sense to me; I was waiting for her to kill me. I wondered what it would feel like, to be shot. It was a satisfying kind of irony. A full circle. Both sides of the crosshairs. I breathed quiet water.

She didn't shoot me, though. She took me to a kind of bunker, locked me in the basement of it. It looked like it had been a small armory, barred windows high in the walls, a similarly barred window in the door. She looked in at me after she locked the door. "I'll bring you some food and water," she said.

Food and water? It was too puzzling. "I'd like my rifle," I told her. "Be careful, there's a round in the chamber."

"Your rifle," she repeated, as puzzled as I'd been at her offer of food and water.

"I'm used to it," I explained.

She shook her head slowly, and went away.

I shook my head also. As if she'd really let me have my rifle, even unloaded. I sat on the hard concrete floor and leaned in the corner and wished I had my rifle in my hands.

I fell asleep.

Nightmares woke me up later, but I was cold and stiff, too. I got up and walked back and forth, swinging my arms to get warm and loosen up; it was dark outside, I'd been asleep for three or four hours.

When she came back in the morning, she brought another female with her. One of the dark-haired beautiful ones, her skin the color of coffee with lots of cream, the way I liked coffee. She held the rifle and the blonde one had an armful of blankets, and a large bag over her shoulder. I stood with my back against the wall and watched them.

"What's your name?" I asked the dark-haired one. She had my rifle slung along her back. I looked at the rifle, then back at her face.

"Sharon," she answered. Her expression got grim and she added, "I'm an eight."

What? An eight?

"I'm a six," the blonde one said. "They call me Caprica Six. Caprica."

I rubbed my face with my palm. This was getting more and more confusing. Caprica? There were lots of… er, lots of her here. Six? Eight?

"It's what model we are," Caprica told me.

I nodded slowly. Numbers. Caprica put the bundle of blankets on the floor, and opened the bag, taking out packs of rations and a large bottle of water.

"Why haven't you killed me?" I asked, curious.

"What's your name?" Sharon questioned me.

"Dan Ellison," I told her.

"We want to talk to you," Caprica said.

I breathed in and out. "I won't tell you where the others are," I said.

She shook her head. "We don't care about that," she replied.

I didn't get any of it. They hadn't killed me, they didn't want to find out about our team. What the frak did they want?

Caprica took the rifle from Sharon, keeping it aimed at me. Sharon unslung my rifle and stepped forward to lay it across the pile of blankets, then she stepped back quickly. "It's not loaded any more," she said.

I didn't move, kept the cold wall at my back. None of this made any sense.

"We need to go," Sharon told Caprica.

The blonde model number six nodded, and they left, locking the door.

I picked up my rifle, automatically checked, but it was unloaded. It was comforting in my hands, though. I sat cross-legged with it on my thighs and opened up one of the ration packs, eating.

I was a prisoner, and I had no idea what they wanted from me. I paced. I did a bunch of sit-ups and push-ups, losing track of how many. I made a bed of the blankets they'd brought and stared at the ceiling. I did more push-ups. The day passed slowly. I sighted my rifle through the windows and remembered clear circles with people in the crosshairs.

Some time long after nightfall I fell asleep.

I heard them when they returned the next morning, and I gently laid my rifle in the middle of the bare room, backing up till I hit the far wall.

Sharon again held the rifle, but she didn't seem as nervous this morning.

"Will you talk to us?" Caprica asked.

I don't think I'd ever seen anyone as beautiful as she was. She looked different than the other sixes somehow. I thought I'd be able to tell her from the others. "About what?" I asked, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall.

Caprica took the large bag off her shoulder. "I brought you breakfast." She took a wrapped packet out of her bag and walked forward to hand it to me, then she went back to the middle of the room and sat, gracefully, just behind my rifle. Sharon crouched further back, her rifle ready.

"I still have rations left," I said. I hadn't known how long they'd leave me here, and at any rate, they'd left enough rations for two days.

Caprica smiled slightly. "You looked hungry," she said.

Since I'd come to terms with killing people, I'd been hungry a lot, but food wasn't all that plentiful, in the camp; not any more. The radiation was starting to take a toll on the animals, the game we hunted.

I opened the packet. It was a fat scrambled egg sandwich, with bacon. I hadn't smelled bacon for months. I wolfed the sandwich down and wished I had another. I wondered how long it would be until the radiation started making me sick. I'd had two days worth of the anti-rad meds in my pack, but they hadn't brought that to me. Only my rifle.

Caprica touched my rifle with her fingertips. "Will you tell us about this?" she asked.

"Nemesis," I breathed.

They both looked startled. "That's what I named her," I explained.

"Justice," Sharon said softly.

I shrugged. "That's what I thought, back when I named her," I said.

"And what do you think now?" Caprica asked, watching me.

I shook my head slowly. "I don't know, any more," I murmured.

I told them about how I'd started as a hunter, and how what I hunted had changed from game to Cylons. I told them about the significance of seven hundred yards, and the bright circles of the world I'd seen though my scope. The people I'd seen and killed in those circles. The hunter and the hunted.

"Ninety-four," I said to them. "That's how many of you I've killed. I can tell you how many of each model, if you like." Numbers. They were numbers six and eight. We only knew about six of them, and I wondered which models we hadn't seen.

"You've kept track of how many of each model you've killed?" Sharon was amazed, and appalled.

I tapped the side of my head. "I have nightmares of all of them, every night," I replied.

"Nightmares," Caprica repeated quietly.

I nodded.

"Why have you kept fighting?" Sharon asked.

I shook my head slowly. "For survival, I suppose," I said. "What else is there?"

Sharon was staring at me as if I'd said something with deeper meaning for her. Almost whispering, she said, "But does humanity deserve to survive…"

It didn't sound like a question, but I answered it anyway. "I don't know about humanity," I replied somberly. "I can only speak for myself… and I probably don't deserve to survive. But I want to, all the same."

The next morning, only Caprica came, again bringing me breakfast; two sandwiches, this time. I ate them both with my rifle at my side, but she didn't seem to care. We didn't talk much.

I started feeling sleepy and realized she'd put something in my food. I sat and leaned in the corner while she watched me. I sighed. "I'd rather you'd of shot me," I mumbled.

She shook her head. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I slid down the long dark slope into nothing. I dreamt she touched my head and said, "So young…"

I woke up and it seemed like a long time later. My head was pounding and my mouth was dry. I tried to stand, but my legs were like overcooked noodles. I rested, and fell asleep again.

The next time I woke up, I wasn't as woozy, but I still felt sick from whatever she'd given me. Shaky, I drank some water, waited, and drank more. I opened a packet of rations and slowly ate, and started to feel better.

I looked out the high windows, trying to figure out how long I'd been here. Four days at least; probably more. I tested the bars in all the windows, but they were secure, as was the barred window in the door. More out of thoroughness than with any expectation, I tested the door handle, and found it was unlocked.

Slowly, I went out, squinting in the bright afternoon sun. I had my rifle, but no ammo… but just outside the bunker was my pack. I looked around, but saw no one. I opened the pack to find it had been filled with more ration packs—and the anti-radiation med injectors. The ammo for my rifle was still there. I loaded the rifle, then injected myself, and slung the pack on my back, going to where I could see into the city.

Through the clear sharp circle of the scope, I saw nothing. No one. The city was deserted. I was tempted to go down there, but instead headed back to our camp.

No one was in the camp, either. It looked like there had been a fight… but there were no bodies.

It was as if I was the last person left alive on the planet. It was unsettling. It was like my nightmares in a way; I was the only person still alive in my nightmares.

I started having a new nightmare. In it, I turn and look and see myself aiming through the scope… the crosshairs are on my chest. I look down at the crosshairs, and back at myself in the distance. The distant me fires, but I can't hear it. I can see the round traveling through the air, see its vapor trail.

The round passes through my chest as if through water, and the water closes silently back over the void it leaves in its passage. It doesn't hurt. I breathe the water, and look at my distant self. The hunter and the hunted.