AN: Suicide mention in this chapter.
"He's still over there," Brash gestured to the sergeant. "Couldn't get him to stop," he apologized, "but at least he's still here, and I got the bartender to stop bringing him more."
"Thanks," Iscom said, distracted by sheer amount of glasses in front of the sergeant. Over a dozen. He was surprised that the bar had still been serving him drinks until Brash intervened. Then again, Iscom reminded himself, Badri may not be drunk at all. Or maybe only slightly drunk, he amended. He doubted any in-body system could take on that much alcohol and win. Brash waited at the table by the door while Iscom headed over to Emras's table, taking the seat across from the sergeant. Badri didn't seem to notice him until he was seated and staring right at him.
"Lita?" he muttered, looking up. "The hell are you doing here?"
Alright, so very drunk.
"I'm not Lita," Iscom insisted, not knowing who that was. "It's Iscom Rigil."
Badri squinted. "Iscom? But you're not dead," he scoffed, confusion in his voice.
"I should hope not," Iscom replied, indignant.
"They're all dead, you know," he said, sounding as matter-of-fact as he did on a mission briefing. "Lita's dead too. Me too."
"If you were dead, you wouldn't be talking to me right now," Iscom noted.
"I didn't say I was dead now," Badri insisted, "Just dead before. And dead again later. In a month. I don't see them when I die, though. Just black, black for a while, kinda gray, actually," he mused. "A very dark gray. That part doesn't hurt. The white hurts, and the waking up. And the living."
Brash was spot-on. He was completely coherent in his speech, the exact same slightly halting speech pattern that Iscom had come to recognize as a product of his biocomputers. Iscom could understand every word he said. It was when he tried to put the words in context around each other that Iscom was lost. Even knowing what he knew—and Brash didn't—about the sergeant's cybernetics and history, Iscom could still only make sense of one sentence in three. That certainly didn't stop Badri from talking, though.
"You remind me of Emras," he said. "And remind me of me."
"I do?" Iscom asked, and what Emras? he wondered, but Badri ignored him.
"I don't," he continued. "I'm not me, you're more me. Don't know who I am. What I am now. How many machines does it take to make a man?" he hummed, and gave a bark of laughter. "Forty-five percent."
His cybernetics, Iscom realized. I was right: he's talking about his cybernetics. And someone else, someone he knew before. Whoever he changed his name after. Someone else in the crash? Probably. A member of the last team he was on, before…
"Forty-five goddamn percent," Badri repeated bitterly. "You know what that means?" and continued without waiting for an answer, "Means I can be drunk out of my fucking mind and still sound sober," he spat.
At least he realizes that he's drunk, Iscom thought sarcastically.
"How much would it take before I even began to sound drunk?" the sergeant asked.
"You sound pretty drunk to me," Iscom remarked.
"You don't count; I always sound drunk to you," Badri dismissed. Which didn't entirely make sense to Iscom. Which, admittedly, kind of proved the sergeant's point.
"Why is it always me?" Badri asked, depression suddenly taking over his tone. He sounded wearier than Iscom had ever heard him. "It should've been someone else. Anyone else. It should have been Taroth," he persisted. "He had people waiting for him. Jamae, and his sister. His mom, somewhere. If I had stayed dead, I could have seen them again."
Seen who? The rest of the team? "We have a new team now," Iscom said. "You and me, and Brash and Yuo."
"Better to be dead," Badri muttered, ignoring Iscom again. "Hurts a hell of a lot less. It won't stop, the ticking, the damn ticking, over and over… Too fucking precise, too fucking empty in my own goddamn head. Dammit!" he shouted, clutching his head between his hands, pressing on his temples. "Shut up! Just stop, dammit!"
"Badri, snap out of it!" Iscom insisted as the sergeant buried his head in his arms on the table. He looked back up suddenly, and shouted something.
Something very strange, and incoherent, and certainly not in any language Iscom had heard of.
What the hell? Iscom thought, alarmed. Badri seemed unaware that he was no longer speaking in Basic. Or speaking in anything. As Iscom tried to process it, he noticed that the blue lights on the sergeant's temples now shone yellow. The angry gibberish continued for another sentence or so, as far as Iscom could judge.
"What the hell?" Iscom said aloud, echoing his own thoughts. The lights returned to blue.
Badri glared at him. "Go away," he snarled. Then his look suddenly changed, crushing depression settling over the wild rage on his face. "Oh, stars," he breathed shakily. "Just let me die. Please," he pleaded desperately.
"Not a chance," Iscom said firmly. He didn't have a chance to say anything else before the sergeant fell face-first onto the table, passing out. Iscom stared at his CO, watching the steady blue lights on each side of his head.
"Is he alright?" asked a voice from behind him. Brash.
"Just passed out," Iscom said, not looking back. "Think you could help me carry him back to his place?"
"Yeah, sure," Brash said, coming around to take the sergeant's arms.
Badri's apartment was one of the cheap one-room affairs for which "bachelor pad" would be too generous a name. Opening the door with the keycard fished out of the sergeant's pocket, however, revealed a room that looked more like a medical clinic than a home. Jars of pills, empty syringes, and a bag of fluid lay on the table, an upright IV rig was pushed haphazardly into a corner, and, more relevant to Iscom, a dialysis machine was set up on a table next to the bed.
That fucking idiot! Iscom thought, trying hard to keep his cool in front of the private. He needed to get Brash out of here. Oh shit, he needed to get Badri in dialysis. If he already has a problem with his kidneys that's so damn bad that he has to have a bloody dialysis setup in his bloody home, he shouldn't be drinking until he fucking blacks out!
"What is all of this?" Brash asked in horrified curiosity.
"Medical equipment," Iscom said vaguely, still mentally cursing Badri. Counting on Brash's uncomfortable—and purposeful, if Iscom was any judge—ignorance of the sergeant's cybernetics, he added, "He's a cyborg, remember?"
"Right," Brash said awkwardly. Bingo. The private accepted the not-explanation with no further questions, and helped Iscom get the sergeant on the bed.
"Y'think we should do… something else?" Brash asked.
"Nah," said Iscom casually, while the mental swearing picked up steam. "Just leave him. It'll be his own damn fault when he wakes up with a hangover."
Brash snorted. "That's for sure."
"I'm gonna wait for him to wake up," Iscom said, pointing at the unconscious sergeant. He collapsed into a chair as casually as he could manage. "You can go on home. See you tomorrow."
"You mean today," Brash pointed out, an exhausted smile playing on his mouth.
"Whatever," Iscom said, waving lazily. Brash walked slowly, very slowly, agonizingly slowly. As soon as Iscom heard the doors close, he shot up and out of his seat.
He headed straight for the machine on the nightstand, reaching around for the cord in the back. It was unplugged, something that was easily fixed. The machine hissed angrily to life when he found the wall socket. Iscom felt it rather accurately depicted his feelings. He pulled Badri further over on the right side of the bed: more proof that the sergeant used the machine with some regularity. Not only was it set up next to his bed, ready for use except for the power cord, but it was set up on the only side he could use it on. There was no blood to filter in the left side of his body.
Realizing the tight sleeves wouldn't roll up easily, Iscom pulled the sergeant's shirt off over his head. Underneath the shirt, his body was a patchwork. Beyond the obvious seam-scar, the fainter natural scars that Iscom had seen in the hospital, and a few additional scars that crossed his back, a web of scars too thin to be noticed casually covered all his skin to the right side of the seam. In contrast, the left side was perfectly smooth—synthskin, Iscom added. Everything to the left of that seam is artificial. The network of faint scars extended down his right arm, including a pair of short, parallel marks that had to have been left from the dialysis often does he use this thing?
Iscom made the attachments, carefully slipping the tubes into his arm, and turned the machine on. He pulled up a chair from the table, sitting back, fully intending to check the readouts, although he figured it would probably have to run for a while to clear out the alcohol in his system.
He fell asleep before the numbers came up.