nexus_crossings | +1 Cylon to the Nexus

+1 Cylon to the Nexus

There is a man standing near the vending machines in the Plaza, dressed in a well-tailored, peacock blue suit. He looks like he could get you an excellent rate on your second mortgage, but you'd be wise to double-check the fine print before you sign anything. As he fixes himself a cup of coffee, he glances periodically at the people who pass by, his expression perfectly neutral. Although the more astute might pick up on the way he tugs at the cuffs of his sleeves impatiently, as if wishing he were somewhere else.

Finally, he sighs. "Okay. Listen up. Adia asked me to come here because she thought it'd be good for me to make some friends, so if you see her, you can tell her that we chatted and save yourself the actual trouble. All right? I'm sure we're all very busy people."

He takes a sip from his to-go cup and grimaces. "On second thought, can anyone tell me where I can get a decent coffee around here? I can't believe she's been drinking this stuff for the past three years.."

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"You are?" Her eyes widen slightly, flaring brighter as she shifts her stance in surprise, body language mirrored in a more limited way by Ghost beside her. "Well, I didn't see that one coming! Don't get your processes in a loop, I just want to skip any awkward misunderstandings. Adia was still pretty nervous when we met her." She takes another look at him. Brown hair, sharp suit... "So, wait a second-"

"You're not... not Caspar, are you?" Ghost almost doesn't dare to ask, and yet he's the first to do so, blue optic intent on the man.

"And you really nailed that one, didn't you?" he says, but there's not as much heat in this sarcastic retort as one might expect. He's thinking about Adia again, all nervous and needing reassurance that these two robots meant her no harm. The image gnaws at him uncomfortably, and cools some of the fire in his eyes.

His gaze shifts to Ghost. "Got it in one," he replies, losing the frown. He already likes this timid little bot better.

Of course, if they know his name, then they likely know what he did, too. It wipes the smirk off his face.

Edited (some day I'll spell things right the first time) 2017-12-06 00:51 (UTC)

Blaze chuckles at his retort like it's just a joke, shrugging her plated shoulders. Apparently her armor works against sarcasm? Actually, she doesn't quite get the barb: they all know where they stand now, so mission accomplished in her book. She can take a jibe about her mislaid assumptions in good humor.

That, and it's Caspar. The Caspar. It really is. They stare at him for a second, optics widened.

"By the Light," Blaze says, enthusiasm building with each word until it overtops her surprise, "so you're the kid all the fuss was over, huh? You made it out after all! All in one piece and everything. It's good to finally meet you!"

"Likewise!" Ghost chirps, relaxing slightly as he glances at his Guardian. They both know whatever's happened, Caspar's situation is sure as hell not going to be an uncomplicated happy ending. But he's alive and free and clearly reunited with Adia, and they can both imagine just how much joy that means for their friend.

"Adia's assisted us a few times around here," Blaze goes on, approval ringing through in her voice. "More than that, she's been a true friend. And not just to us. Glad to see you two found your way back to each other."

This is not the response he anticipated. He looks from one to the other in blatant confusion. Why are they so happy to see him? Shouldn't two defenders of humanity -- shouldn't two of Adia's friends -- be at least a little disapproving?

"She told you what i did to her, right? During the war?" How can these two bots, especially Ms. Lack of Sarcasm, be anything less than disgusted by his past?

He shakes his head, as if that will help him make any better sense of this.

"She didn't know that I had survived," he says finally. "I asked to see her and I apologized. She took me back."

"She told us how you were programmed as a sleeper agent, Ghost says. Blaze sobers somewhat beside him as he speaks. "And that you killed yourself before you could be captured."

"Or cause anyone harm," Blaze adds. They're certainly likely to have a very different perspective on what Adia's told them than some of her other friends. "She told us you took her hostage too, but it didn't seem like she was holding a grudge. Now, I don't know exactly what was going on in your head. But I'll take a wild guess it was messy. Light, that whole situation- when things are that FUBARed there's no clean exit strategy. Hate to say it, but suicide was probably the best option. And we can respect that. Takes guts to do it, when you don't even know you can resurrect."

...A very, very different perspective.

"We always wondered what happened to you," Ghost says. "Adia always missed you. However you survived, it... can't have been that bad, right?"

Blaze's explanation makes quick work of his confusion, although he still seems distinctly uncomfortable about how understanding she is of the situation. "It did not take guts," he's quick to correct. "I was scared and selfish and only thinking about myself." God, it's like talking to a Centurion. "It's damn lucky that nothing worse happened, but what it did to Adia was bad enough."

He will never forgive himself that. Never.

Straightening out the cuffs of his jacket, he gives the smaller bot another look. Something about the way Ghost talks -- that hesitant, hopeful lilt -- reminds him of Adia. It softens his expression considerably. "I kept my head down and the servers running," he replies. "I tried not to think about my past. It was almost all false memories." He chuckles darkly. "Turns out my new life was full of false memories, too, but I didn't know about that until the rebellion."

"Of course you were scared." Blaze gives him a puzzled look, completely nonplussed. Guardians are much more jaded than most people when it comes to violence - especially suicide - but beyond that, the Exo's perspective gives her an awful lot of reasons to empathize with someone betrayed by their own programming. And just possibly her recent experiences in the Nightmare are weighing heavy on her mind. "Given that situation anyone in their right mind would be terrified out of their wits. I sure as hell wouldn't be thinking straight."

She shakes her head. Her tone has darkened with anger, but there's a touch of sadness to it as she keeps talking. "So maybe you didn't have some heroic gesture in mind when you acted. Doesn't matter. I don't think anyone would blame you for flat-out panicking. But unless I'm missing something, you didn't know your core directives or what damage you'd been programmed to do. It's reasonable to figure you were the primary threat to everyone's safety, Adia included. Seems to me you did the best thing you could to protect her. Even if that's not what you were thinking."

And putting anyone in that situation? That's what gets her disgust. Even if Caspar freaked out and took a bad option, why be angry at him?

"We heard about your memories being tampered with. That was... horrifying. I'm sorry." Ghost glances at his Guardian; her eyes narrow and she shakes her head again, letting out a synthetic snort. Memory: it's a sensitive subject.

"What happened during the rebellion? Did you choose to stay, or couldn't you get away? I'm sure escape would be difficult..."

Blaze's words, as sympathetic as they are, only make him look away, as if that will somehow make them unspoken. He does not want to be absolved of this particular sin. "Oh, I get blamed plenty," he retorts, his mouth twisting into a hollow smile. "By humans, naturally. It doesn't matter what I didn't do. My existence is reason enough to hate me."

If he sounds bitter about that at all, it's because he is. A Six seduces the defense codes out of Gaius Baltar and turns the Twelve Colonies into a nuclear wasteland and no one says boo to her because she's one of the "good" Cylons. It makes him wish that a One had survived the War somehow. He would have made a far better scapegoat.

"So long as we're clear that what I did wasn't an act of courage," he adds, his gaze returning to the two bots. He's not thrilled about her justifications, but he hasn't missed the anger in her voice, either. Sounds like there might be a One-like figure in her own past. "But you're right. I didn't know what I'd been programmed to do. I didn't get a choice about it, either."

Betrayed twice. By his own memories and the One who implanted them. It makes him almost appreciate Ghost's condolences. At least until the small bot asks about the rebellion, then his entire demeanor shifts. He looks away again, but his guilt this time is not so pure.

"I chose to stay." No point in denying it, he's already told Adia the whole story. "My brother was an asshole for what he did, but we were still at War. It didn't change what the humans had originally done to us." He frowns pensively, his tone softening. "By the time I learned about the Final Five and the depth of One's pettiness, it was too late for my model to correct course. At that point we were doing what we thought was best to survive." He pauses. "What they thought was best. I didn't give much of a frak at the very end."

"Hnnh." Her gaze drops as she frowns. "Wish that surprised me more. There's a lot your people don't understand." Organic and Cylon both. It's not wholly their fault, she tells herself, but it is depressing to hear. As for Caspar's own evaluation of his motives, well, she shrugs. If it makes him feel better she can accept that. (Although if he thinks that'll get him out of the Guardian's expectations in future, he's mistaken.)

It's his other judgment call that makes her metal eyebrows shoot up and the Exo blurt out, "You still thought there was a case for the war? Even after the others defected? Or- your model did." She rubs one antenna as she admits, "I never understood how that all works, sorry."

Ghost is harder to read. He's listening quietly, gaze a little downcast but letting Caspar respond without jumping in on top of his Guardian's questions.

"No shit," he deadpans. "The only people who know what really happened are either dead or disappeared. We're stuck fumbling through this new reality together."

That's not entirely true. Two of the Final Five are living on Atlantis. They've even made tentative overtures to Caspar, which he has flatly ignored. He doesn't want to know why his model was made the way it was -- not yet, anyway.

Her reaction to his decision in the War is so amazingly naive that he almost laughs. Oh, this one. A Centurion for sure. "We're all individuals, but we vote as one unit." With one notable exception, but that's irrelevant to this particular answer. "The resurrection hubs had been destroyed, finding a new way to reproduce was our only way to survive. That's what my brothers thought, anyway."

He looks over at Ghost, surprised that the bot isn't saying anything. It was his question, after all. "Were you hoping for a different answer, little guy?" he asks, more curious than sarcastic.

"Not what I was thinking of, but I know what that's like too. For what it's worth, I'd say you're better off staying focused on the future you want to make. Especially now." Although delving any further into her thoughts there would make this conversation complicated (and uncomfortable) pretty quickly. She's told herself many times that the past isn't worth digging up, but lately it's harder to justify that. If only because her past keeps escaping its grave and turning up on her doorstep.

"I suppose I was." Blaze has to mull over how she feels about Caspar's explanation; between her silence and the direct question Ghost finds he can't escape answering just by hovering quietly in her shadow. He looks up at Caspar. "

I'm kind of surprised your model chose to stay even after the others proved it was safe to defect. Although I guess the, um, humans wouldn't have been keen on rebuilding the hubs. I wouldn't have guessed that your creation method was tied to your resurrection technology, but now I think about it that does make sense.

"What were you thinking of, then?" he asks with a raised eyebrow. What sort of understanding does she think the Cylons are lacking? He's happy to leave the past behind, too, but something else that she says triggers his curiosity. "You're telling me you don't know your origin story, either?"

Get used to being disappointed, Ghost. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but a guilty turn of his stomach keeps him from saying it out loud. These are the closest beings to his kind that he's come across so far. Is it worth alienating them because of how much he likes to twist the knife on himself?

"They couldn't have even if they wanted to," he says instead. "Only the Final Five understood resurrection technology, and they had that knowledge scrambled when the Ones gave them fake memories and stuck them with the humans. That information is lost." He smirks. "It's almost like being human. I'm not saying I like it, but it's humbled my brothers and sisters. You can't help but take things a little more seriously afterwards."

"Where do you want me to start? Adia's told me about the kind of atrocities both factions committed - even if the Cylons took the lead and ran on that one. Hard to top genocide against civilian targets." Her words are blunt and matter-of-fact. "Sounds like everyone's due some lessons in empathy, too. But then I guess a lot of you really don't even understand yourselves. Not yet."

She's trying not to judge them on that beyond what individuals' crimes warrant. They didn't have outside assistance to uplift them. It's hard to fully blame people for falling into the most ancient traps in humanity's emotional and cognitive makeup - but it's also hard not to be angry at the suffering caused. It isn't Caspar's fault in particular, though, so she tries to shake it off.

"To answer your other question, no, I don't. Exos like me were built centuries back in the Golden Age, before our system went to hell in a handbasket. All the organic humans who'd know are long dead; all of us have rebooted and wiped at least once in the meantime. We've got our names, our core programming and directives, but that's... about it." Usually.

"I can imagine that. Immortality does seem to encourage some... interesting mindsets. And behaviors. And ideas of fun." He's looking at you, Blaze. "I hope you and the others aren't finding it too hard to adjust."

"I wasn't part of that," he's quick to point out. Not that he feels particularly bad about it, he just doesn't want any unpleasant rumors to get started. "I wasn't even born yet." He's not going to touch on her comment about empathy. A little of it would have gone a long way to avoiding war in the first place, but he's not going to belabor the point.

That gets an eyebrow raise. "How do the humans know to trust you, then, if no one's passed down this information? You never questioned your programming?" He pauses, frowns, and asks, "Were you created with free will, or was that something that emerged later? Because no one gave us a choice to do humanity's dirty work."

He looks from Blaze to Ghost, but doesn't miss that tactful pause in the small bot's answer. Sounds like the Guardian is a bit of a thrill-seeker. Heh. "The others are handling it well enough, but they were the ones who decided to destroy the resurrection hubs. My brothers weren't happy about it, obviously. The Ones?" He smiles sharply. "They lost their minds. They hated being biological more than any of us, so let me tell you, that was a real blow to their collective egos." His smile fades and he adds more soberly, "I think I was the only one to make peace with it, especially after I got shot. I was... really tired, y'know? I was kind of looking forward to not having to do any of that again."

"I know," she assures him, then chuckles. "We'd be having a pretty different conversation otherwise." They might have their points of difference, but at least this way they can have an actual discussion about them.

"We always had it," she's quick to answer. That aspect she can be firm on. "We were built to be soldiers, not tools or servants. We've got our programming, sure, but an Exo's will and conscience is down to them. Hell, there're plenty of us back in the City who went into civilian life. They're... you know, gardeners, engineers. Teachers. That sort of thing." She actually doesn't get how her kindred can stand to do that, but that's another issue. Maybe it says something about her.

"As for why people trust us... I mean, the short answer is 'why shouldn't they?' There's no bad blood between us. And one of the only things we do know about our programming is that we were meant to defend Earth. We did that. Or tried. We've all got the scars to prove it. We've been fighting and dying - and living - right alongside the rest of humanity for centuries. That's the longer answer."

It's a bit of a twist to the gut for both bots to hear Caspar speak of being so... resigned. Whatever the crimes many Cylons took part in, however well-deserved the Ones' collective anguish was, it's clear that the war took a a heavy toll on all the others too.

"War without end's not for everyone," Blaze remarks, giving a short nod.

Ghost glances between them before he asks Caspar, "And... now? You seem as if you've recovered well."

Well, that's fair. She is a champion to a whole mess of humans, she wouldn't look kindly on anyone who actively participated in genocide. "I doubt I'd be here in the first place," he says plainly. "For better or for worse, I'm not like my brothers. You can thank Adia for that."

He listens to her explanation with subdued interest. Comrades from the beginning, it sounds like. Even a cataclysmic loss of information couldn't shake that foundation. He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't at least a little jealous. Not that he wants a bunch of human friends... but it would make things easier for Adia.

(And himself, but he's not above lying there.)

"Civilian life." He smirks, imagining Blaze in a gardening hat. "But not you? You enjoy the fighting? What do you fight?"

The very end of the last battle in the Cylon War was not a pretty time for Caspar. If that Six hadn't found him, he would have gotten his wish. But, as soon as Ghost comments on his current state, his expression lightens. "Now? It doesn't matter what I've lost. Adia's alive, and happy, and she's taken me back. I can't ask for anything else."

"All down to her, huh? Well, as formative influences go I'd say you got lucky." Though considering the circumstances he was born into, Blaze figures he's owed something to counterbalance them.

"Heh. I live for the fighting." There's no shame in her admission. If you're called yo a path, why not embrace it? "We fight the aliens occupying our system - and the power behind them. There's a true Darkness out there in the black, Caspar. I don't know if it's a god or a warlord or some vast intangible entity, but it's consumed thousands of civilizations before us. It means to devour us all. Doesn't matter who we are or how we're made. Makes it twice as hard seeing how many other iterations of humanity are still trapped in their internal prejudices." It's a heavy thing to explain, but maybe sharing what she's learned will offer the Cylon the kind of perspective she's been wishing she could give.

Ghost can understand Caspar's sentiment, albeit from a different sort of angle. "

I think that's a very good thing to hold on to. Are you helping to build the new settlement? We haven't talked to Adia in a while, so we haven't heard how it's going.

"All down to her," he echoes as confirmation. "When I resurrected, I shed everything human about me. But I couldn't undo what she did to me." He absently adjusts his tie, unconsciously brushing a hand over his heart. "Damn right I'm lucky."

Blaze's story sounds like one of those science-fiction movies he used to enjoy watching, before his own life became a science-fiction movie. It sounds... kind of badass, if he's being honest. Who doesn't love a good fight? "Humans love fighting with one another," he says dismissively. "Even when they were at War with us, they had their own petty squabbles." He snorts. "Not that we were much better, obviously. People get along better when they have a big, bad enemy that keeps them on their toes. Maybe that's why you all get along so well."

It's a small surprise to hear that the two bots haven't seen Adia in a while, until he thinks about what's been preoccupying her attention. He clears his throat with a small cough before replying. "I'm working on the War Memorial. They don't trust me back in the lab yet." He rolls his eyes -- he might be exaggerating there, but so far as he's concerned, the manual labor he's doing is pure penance. "Atlantis is far from the shithole that was New Caprica, I can tell you that much, but if I'm not working, I spend most of the time in our cabin. You'll have to ask Adia if you want more details."

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+1 Cylon to the Nexus

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FINALLY I get back to this

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