Siblings, Part Five
Feb. 6th, 2019 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiveofnoneCylon Resurrection Hub, one hour post-resurrection.
He was clean.
It was the one thought Caspar was able to latch onto without spiraling into the pit of nothingness within him. In the hour since he had — downloaded? — into a new body, he had showered and washed off the milky fluid of the resurrection tub. Now he sat on a low, padded bench, his body wrapped in a soft terry robe.
The robe was white. Pristine. It matched the squares of diffuse light on the walls. The air around him was warm and slightly humid, a remnant from the shower. Sitting there, his hair dripping a little down the back of his neck, it felt more like a day at a high-end spa than the anteroom of a Cylon resurrection chamber.
He didn’t doubt that he was a Cylon. That switch was flipped the second he saw his doppelgänger on the Chiron’s vidscreen. Called out on an emergency news report, and just like that, he was no longer human.
Just like that, he was the enemy.
His body felt strange. It was his, but not his. No trace of the tiny marks and scars one accumulates over the course of a life. No sign of the time he fell out of his friend’s treehouse in the second grade and nearly broke his —
No. That was a false memory. He had no childhood, no family on Virgon. His degree was a forgery, his time at university a lie. He didn’t exist at all until roughly six months ago.
That’s what had him staring at his hands, his mind a mess of scattered code. He knew what he was, but he didn’t know who he was. Was he still Caspar? Was he a quiet microbiologist who never raised a hand to anyone, or was he the kind of man who’d grab a gun and threaten to —
His hands shook so badly that he had to ball them into fists. He pressed them into his closed eyes until he saw sparks, willing away another breakdown.
By the time he got control of himself and lowered his hands, he was no longer alone.
Another him was watching him from the room’s archway. A Five. No one told him his model number, he simply knew it. The Five was dressed in a well-pressed suit. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was observing Caspar with a mixture of pity and second-hand embarrassment.
“Never should have agreed to be a sleeper agent,” he said tiredly, to himself, before crossing the room and putting a concerned hand on Caspar’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, brother?”
Looking up at his own face, Caspar felt strange, just as he did with his new body. It wasn’t like looking in a mirror. This man was identical to him, but he might as well have been talking to a stranger.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, without inflection. “Why don’t you tell me how I’m supposed to feel?”
The man wearing his face smirked. “A little more like that,” he said approvingly. He removed his hand, and Caspar felt oddly at a loss for it. “And a little less of how you were when you resurrected. We want to set a good example for the other models.”
He walked over to a small chest in the corner of the room and pulled out a folded bundle of clothes. “Here,” he said, placing it in Caspar’s lap. “Get changed and I’ll meet you in the memory access chamber.”
The Five left. Caspar stared down at the pile of clothes. It was a magenta suit, complete with button-down shirt and tie. This was for him? He couldn’t remember the last time he had worn a suit, let alone one so aggressively colorful.
He put it on anyway. And as he slipped into the expensive fabric, he had to admit that he liked it. It was perfectly tailored to his frame, and when he adjusted the cuffs he felt…
Calm. In control. More like himself.
Whatever that meant.
He left the changing room and headed down a long corridor until he reached the memory access chamber. No one needed to tell him how to find it. The long, rectangular fountain in the middle had room for nearly a dozen Cylons, but for now it was only occupied by the Five who had given him the suit.
“Looking good,” the Five said with a smile. He gestured to the shallow, backlit water. “Here. Thought you could use a refresher.”
Caspar approached the fountain and instinctively put his hands in the water. A small, electrical tingle danced along his fingertips, and then —
The code. He could feel it. Little pulses of binary flowing along the delicate silicon nanofibers that were entwined with his otherwise carbon-based nervous system. It was such an elegant way to transmit data. Much better than the clunky interface of a keyboard or touchscreen.
It felt so natural. Normal. Is this what he had been missing for all those months? Too bad he couldn’t share this with Adia, she’d have —
The flow of code stuttered to a halt. Caspar must have made a sound, because the Five stared at him in alarm. “Hey.” He reached across the water and steadied him with a hand. “Hey. None of that. You’re a Five, you’re better than this.” He put his other hand into the water. “Relax… the memories of your brothers are there to help you. Download them… you’ll feel like yourself again. I promise.”
Caspar shut his eyes. There were memories there, in the water. Desperate to feel something other than the misery consuming him, he downloaded them all.
It felt like drowning.
All those voices that were his, and not his, and then his again. All working towards the destruction of humanity. A hatred for their oppressors. A disdain for their irrational ways. A laser-guided focus to finish the job and eradicate the last of the survivors.
Is this who he was?
A small part of him wanted to reject that hate. But it was the same part of him that collapsed under the weight of what he’d done. Who couldn’t even think of her without falling apart. He didn’t want to be that person anymore. He didn’t want to be that dead body on the floor of an infectious disease lab, a bullet in its head.
So he let himself drown.
When he came back to the surface, his brother was looking at him expectantly. Caspar smiled and removed his hands from the water.
“I remember now,” he told the other Five. “I remember the Plan.”
He was a Five. And he had a purpose.
~*~
Caspar woke up in darkness, the memory fresh in his mind. Every detail — the flow of water between his fingers, the smirk on his brother’s face, the hum of the ship —
All that hate.
He thought he knew who he was. He had his brothers’ memories for proof. But they had been built on lies, too. And now his brothers were dead and he had nothing. No foundation of his own to stand on. No truth to hold him up.
No purpose.
The cabin was silent except for Adia’s soft breathing. He turned to watch her shadowy outline, her chest rising and falling in a steady sleep. No, he had a purpose. But that somehow made it worse. Because now he remembered what it was like to lose one’s purpose. And if he lost this purpose…
If he lost her…
No. No, he had to be strong. He had to stop thinking about the past. He willed himself to project, to turn the space around him into the private beach on Atlantis.
But. It didn’t work.
He was on Galactica instead. The long, winding corridor of a ship during its final battle. The bodies of Centurions and humans alike littered the ground. Somewhere in the distance, he heard gunfire.
No. No, no, no. He clenched his fists under the bedsheets and tried to change the projection, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t escape Galactica.
It took everything in his power not to scream.
The beach. He had to get to the beach. The real beach, not the projection. If he walked there, if he sat in the sand, if he stared at the waves, if he walked into the water —
As if on autopilot, he got out of bed and pulled on the first pair of pants he could find. He didn’t bother with a jacket or shoes. There wasn’t time. He needed to get to the beach.
Gunfire erupted, closer than before. He walked down the corridor, out of the cabin. Into the darkness.
He had to get to the beach.
A soft meow caught his attention. Sitting on a supply crate was Anastasia. She seemed unfazed by the sounds of fighting around her. She looked up at Caspar with golden eyes, then hopped off the crate and rubbed up against his legs.
“This is no place for a cat,” Caspar said shakily. “Go back home, Ana.”
He continued on his way, but she trotted alongside him, ignoring his order. He didn’t have the energy to scold her or shoo her away.
He needed to get to the beach.
((Adia's companion piece.))
He was clean.
It was the one thought Caspar was able to latch onto without spiraling into the pit of nothingness within him. In the hour since he had — downloaded? — into a new body, he had showered and washed off the milky fluid of the resurrection tub. Now he sat on a low, padded bench, his body wrapped in a soft terry robe.
The robe was white. Pristine. It matched the squares of diffuse light on the walls. The air around him was warm and slightly humid, a remnant from the shower. Sitting there, his hair dripping a little down the back of his neck, it felt more like a day at a high-end spa than the anteroom of a Cylon resurrection chamber.
He didn’t doubt that he was a Cylon. That switch was flipped the second he saw his doppelgänger on the Chiron’s vidscreen. Called out on an emergency news report, and just like that, he was no longer human.
Just like that, he was the enemy.
His body felt strange. It was his, but not his. No trace of the tiny marks and scars one accumulates over the course of a life. No sign of the time he fell out of his friend’s treehouse in the second grade and nearly broke his —
No. That was a false memory. He had no childhood, no family on Virgon. His degree was a forgery, his time at university a lie. He didn’t exist at all until roughly six months ago.
That’s what had him staring at his hands, his mind a mess of scattered code. He knew what he was, but he didn’t know who he was. Was he still Caspar? Was he a quiet microbiologist who never raised a hand to anyone, or was he the kind of man who’d grab a gun and threaten to —
His hands shook so badly that he had to ball them into fists. He pressed them into his closed eyes until he saw sparks, willing away another breakdown.
By the time he got control of himself and lowered his hands, he was no longer alone.
Another him was watching him from the room’s archway. A Five. No one told him his model number, he simply knew it. The Five was dressed in a well-pressed suit. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was observing Caspar with a mixture of pity and second-hand embarrassment.
“Never should have agreed to be a sleeper agent,” he said tiredly, to himself, before crossing the room and putting a concerned hand on Caspar’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, brother?”
Looking up at his own face, Caspar felt strange, just as he did with his new body. It wasn’t like looking in a mirror. This man was identical to him, but he might as well have been talking to a stranger.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, without inflection. “Why don’t you tell me how I’m supposed to feel?”
The man wearing his face smirked. “A little more like that,” he said approvingly. He removed his hand, and Caspar felt oddly at a loss for it. “And a little less of how you were when you resurrected. We want to set a good example for the other models.”
He walked over to a small chest in the corner of the room and pulled out a folded bundle of clothes. “Here,” he said, placing it in Caspar’s lap. “Get changed and I’ll meet you in the memory access chamber.”
The Five left. Caspar stared down at the pile of clothes. It was a magenta suit, complete with button-down shirt and tie. This was for him? He couldn’t remember the last time he had worn a suit, let alone one so aggressively colorful.
He put it on anyway. And as he slipped into the expensive fabric, he had to admit that he liked it. It was perfectly tailored to his frame, and when he adjusted the cuffs he felt…
Calm. In control. More like himself.
Whatever that meant.
He left the changing room and headed down a long corridor until he reached the memory access chamber. No one needed to tell him how to find it. The long, rectangular fountain in the middle had room for nearly a dozen Cylons, but for now it was only occupied by the Five who had given him the suit.
“Looking good,” the Five said with a smile. He gestured to the shallow, backlit water. “Here. Thought you could use a refresher.”
Caspar approached the fountain and instinctively put his hands in the water. A small, electrical tingle danced along his fingertips, and then —
The code. He could feel it. Little pulses of binary flowing along the delicate silicon nanofibers that were entwined with his otherwise carbon-based nervous system. It was such an elegant way to transmit data. Much better than the clunky interface of a keyboard or touchscreen.
It felt so natural. Normal. Is this what he had been missing for all those months? Too bad he couldn’t share this with Adia, she’d have —
The flow of code stuttered to a halt. Caspar must have made a sound, because the Five stared at him in alarm. “Hey.” He reached across the water and steadied him with a hand. “Hey. None of that. You’re a Five, you’re better than this.” He put his other hand into the water. “Relax… the memories of your brothers are there to help you. Download them… you’ll feel like yourself again. I promise.”
Caspar shut his eyes. There were memories there, in the water. Desperate to feel something other than the misery consuming him, he downloaded them all.
It felt like drowning.
All those voices that were his, and not his, and then his again. All working towards the destruction of humanity. A hatred for their oppressors. A disdain for their irrational ways. A laser-guided focus to finish the job and eradicate the last of the survivors.
Is this who he was?
A small part of him wanted to reject that hate. But it was the same part of him that collapsed under the weight of what he’d done. Who couldn’t even think of her without falling apart. He didn’t want to be that person anymore. He didn’t want to be that dead body on the floor of an infectious disease lab, a bullet in its head.
So he let himself drown.
When he came back to the surface, his brother was looking at him expectantly. Caspar smiled and removed his hands from the water.
“I remember now,” he told the other Five. “I remember the Plan.”
He was a Five. And he had a purpose.
~*~
Caspar woke up in darkness, the memory fresh in his mind. Every detail — the flow of water between his fingers, the smirk on his brother’s face, the hum of the ship —
All that hate.
He thought he knew who he was. He had his brothers’ memories for proof. But they had been built on lies, too. And now his brothers were dead and he had nothing. No foundation of his own to stand on. No truth to hold him up.
No purpose.
The cabin was silent except for Adia’s soft breathing. He turned to watch her shadowy outline, her chest rising and falling in a steady sleep. No, he had a purpose. But that somehow made it worse. Because now he remembered what it was like to lose one’s purpose. And if he lost this purpose…
If he lost her…
No. No, he had to be strong. He had to stop thinking about the past. He willed himself to project, to turn the space around him into the private beach on Atlantis.
But. It didn’t work.
He was on Galactica instead. The long, winding corridor of a ship during its final battle. The bodies of Centurions and humans alike littered the ground. Somewhere in the distance, he heard gunfire.
No. No, no, no. He clenched his fists under the bedsheets and tried to change the projection, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t escape Galactica.
It took everything in his power not to scream.
The beach. He had to get to the beach. The real beach, not the projection. If he walked there, if he sat in the sand, if he stared at the waves, if he walked into the water —
As if on autopilot, he got out of bed and pulled on the first pair of pants he could find. He didn’t bother with a jacket or shoes. There wasn’t time. He needed to get to the beach.
Gunfire erupted, closer than before. He walked down the corridor, out of the cabin. Into the darkness.
He had to get to the beach.
A soft meow caught his attention. Sitting on a supply crate was Anastasia. She seemed unfazed by the sounds of fighting around her. She looked up at Caspar with golden eyes, then hopped off the crate and rubbed up against his legs.
“This is no place for a cat,” Caspar said shakily. “Go back home, Ana.”
He continued on his way, but she trotted alongside him, ignoring his order. He didn’t have the energy to scold her or shoo her away.
He needed to get to the beach.
((Adia's companion piece.))
