| Conspiracy Theory |
| Summary: | Sawyer brings another crazy theory to Kincaid, driven by their recent bout of paranoia. |
| Date: | 03 April 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | None. |
| Players: |
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| Enlisted Marine Berths - Deck 6 - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Designed specifically to house a small Marine contingent, this berthing is one of the smallest on the ship. The bunks are arranged in standard formation in the classic over-under configuration and lockers dividing each one. However, the lockers here are a bit larger than most elsewhere on the ship to accommodate the bulky combat gear associated with the security details of the crew that lives here. Tables are spread out for use through the area with their standard allotment of chairs. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #401 |
Kincaid has a big stack of files on one of the common-area tables around here, manila folders that look like they're personnel files. That is, perhaps, because they ARE personnel files. Why he's doing this work here rather than his desk in the Security Hub is uncertain. But he's managed to be deep enough in though that no one has attempted to sit with him or approach him. At least not yet. His steno pad is sitting next to him and he's scribbling notes as he finds things.
Cue a blonde who's not afraid to interrupt anyone's work, let alone that of Daniel Kincaid. Her heels herald her approach through the hatch, because no one in their right mind would wear the impractical footwear on a Battlestar but a headstrong civilian. Sawyer's carrying folders of her own, and she shifts them to clutch to her chest as she picks a corner of the table and scoots partway up onto it's top. "You look…suspicious."
"It's probably because of the suspicious company I keep, Sawyer." Danny doesn't even look up. "Cigs and lighter are in the top breast pocket of my over-shirt, which is laying on my bunk." He doesn't even go through the ritual of offering her one. He must be really deep in thought. But finally he glances her way. "What's up?"
"I just had something to give you, but I suppose it could wait." Sawyer's voice takes on a sing-song quality while she holds the folder between two hands and makes it dance with a little wobble-wobble maneuver on her knee. "It's not important," Cue added 3D effect of her holding it out to Kincaid, then pulling it back, and repeating, "Or anything. I mean, for me to walk all the way down here and brave running into Gunnery Sergeant Constin, just to bring you this." The offer of a cigarette can wait. For now.
Kincaid might normally be a calm and cool detective. He might normally be a cop. But here's Sawyer with a folder, and she's offering it to him. Even better, she's making him want the folder. His fingers make a grabby motion, just before it's pulled away. Here. Mine. "You can have two cigarettes." Horse-trading begins.
"You don't need to barter, Danny. All I want is your attention for five minutes." Undivided with his work, more importantly. Sawyer retains possession of the folder as she slides off the edge of the table and pulls over a chair to sit next to Kincaid. "All this…conspiracy theory has got me thinking about something else that's been bugging me. It could be nothing, it could be coincidence, but lately I'm not really a fan of coincidence." The journalist isn't drawing out the suspense, she's giving an introduction to what lies in that tempting, oh-so-tempting, folder.
"All right." Danny — though it takes something of a Herculean effort — tears his eyes away from his folders and up to his best friend. "I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what's something and what's nothing. What's on your mind?" His eyes are now half between her and half between the folder she holds. It's a step up/.
Sawyer stretches her arm out on the back of Danny's chair, the other sliding the folder on top of his current work and flipping it open. "The first photos are pictures I took on Leonis." The spraypaint on the wall are three hashmarks, graffiti that was spread all over the city. "These are stills taken from the gun cam footage of the swarms." Where each Raider is marked with a definite 'III' pattern.
"Uh-huh." Kincaid looks at the two photos. He can see the obvious link, but allows Sawyer to go on, glancing up to her to see if there is more.
"The man behind the 'three' on Leonis made it off the rock with us, Danny. His name is Doctor Raymond Barron who was the counselman for District Three of Kythera, and he used it as his trademark to cordon off his 'territory' from other gangs of survivors. Shortly after we found his group, the Cylons attacked and destroyed his hideout and his people were forced to come with us if they wanted to get off the planet. Why then? Why that moment? They had been thriving undiscovered by Cylon squads for months before we got there. Could the possibility be that the Cylons needed Barron to come with us. Like I said, it may be nothing, I may be buying into this paranoia. It may be the 'three' of the Swarms was even related to the particular model of skinjob that is certainly not Barron if the description of the identified Three is any indication." Sawyer looks up to Kincaid, searching for the inevitable 'you're crazy' expression.
"Maybe the three doesn't refer to him. Maybe it refers to someone he's summoning, or — someone he is reaching out to. Maybe he doesn't even realize the link. Maybe he's doing it unconsciously." Kincaid isn't looking at her like she's crazy. Instead, he's spinning ideas, trying to draw connections with her. "Maybe he's a sleeper agent?" He phrases that as a question, glancing up from the folder and to her. As if to say 'am I crazy, too?'
"You think they have such things? Sleeper agents? I guess…we shouldn't put anything past them." Sawyer's lips worry back and forth against each other, as if she were spreading lipgloss, though she's wearing none. It's a pensive gesture while she thinks that over. Unfortunately, it also triggers a nicotine fit and the blonde slips to her feet to go in search of the aforementioned cigarette he offered. "The re-occurrence of the number is just sticking in my craw." Sawyer lowers herself to sit on Kincaid's mattress by virtue of a hand hooked on the metal support bar above her head, crossing her legs at the knee once she's situated her skirt. And then it's on to rummaging in his shirt for the required implements. "Like serpents, sparrows, and nine, ten, twelve and thirteen."
<FS3> Kincaid rolls Alertness: Good Success.
"Well. You know what they say. Everything happens in threes. Three's a crowd. It's in our language, too. Three. Three. Three." Kincaid is thinking out loud still. "Twelve colonies. I don't know. I'm not a priest. I'm a political reporter. I —" His voice trails off, his air passes through his lips. "But this Barron, huh?"
Sawyer's a little distracted as she finishes tucking a piece of folded paper into his shirt pocket. Quite sneaky when she wants to be, the blonde is seriously off her game. "Hmm?" She shifts back to face him, now plucking two cigarettes from the pack like that little transaction never occurred at all. Sawyer offers him a sweet smile before putting them both between her lips and lighting them with his lighter. That done, she plucks one out to offer it to him, inverting it so the filter is presented first. "This Barron." She confirms. It's a wild theory, and she knows it.
Wild, perhaps, but what theory is too wild these days? He takes the cigarette from her hands and places it between his lips. "Well, not that I'm exactly sure how one investigates if someone is a sleeper agent — but." He nods. "We'll need to look into it. It's good stuff, Sawyer. It's not crazy. Nothing's too crazy these days."
"Well. Not that I want to be a proponent to the Areion's devious ways, but you told me yourself they can use their technology to suss out if someone is a skinjob or not. Of course, we'd need a lot more proof then just a wild hair up my ass. But think about it, Danny." Sawyer takes a vicious drag, her gestures now a little agitated. "If you're marking your territory so that other gangs know to stay away. Wouldn't it also be like a big glowing arrow to Cylon search squads that says 'survivors right here, come and annihilate us'? And yet…they didn't. Not until we arrived on the scene."
"Only problem is that Constin and Corrath now want to put the testing on hold because of —" Kincaid pauses. "Because of the other things that have been going on. By the way, my hunch was right. Vandenberg got some out-of-court information on Abbot that changed her mind about her verdict. Stuff about how he was on a list going around before the tape showed up. Information about the Marine fireteam that got killed during his arrest. It swayed her." Tit-for-tat on this little exchange of information. "But yeah. I'm thinking about it, Sawyer. It's a hell of a coincidence."
"That whole Abbot debacle makes me sick to my stomach." Sawyer seems relieved she doesn't have to press for what the 'because' was, after that lesson in the laundry room with him not long ago. When the time is right, he tells her. "The bitch of it is, he was willing to die because it would be easier for the fleet. It would be easier to swallow that he was a traitor, than it would be for us to deal with the fall out of a mutiny." She waves her hand impatiently, trying to ward off that rising bile in her throat. Finally, she extends her hand to Kincaid as a request for him to aid her in getting to her feet.
Kincaid takes Sawyer's hand and serves as a weight so that she can get to her feet. "I know," he says. "I know. I was the one who talked him into going to trial. So. I know." He's not lecturing her but rather sharing her anguish. "Vandenberg got the info on her computer; someone hacked into it. I'm going to have Dekker come in, take a look at it. If it's the spooks from across the hall, he's just about the only person that can go toe-to-toe with them and find someone. And." He gestures with his cigarette to his folders. "I'm looking through the jurors bios and the security teams. There was no bug in the jury room unless someone lied about the daily sweeps. So either someone on the inside told them or someone on the security team was on their side." And that's what Danny was working on when she came in. "But hey. Sawyer?" Before you go.
Sawyer slips to her feet during his explanation of the trial and the swaying of the jury. She's paying attention, of course, but by the time he says 'Sawyer?' she's wrapped her arms around him in a sudden hug; holding him tight in a way that bespeaks she needs the hug more than she's offering one to him. So when her answering, "Hmm?" comes, it's right by his ear as her head is on his shoulder.
Kincaid isn't quite so dense as to miss the signs here. Sure, he's dense. But he's not that dense. So he hugs her back tightly, pressing her against him. Big hug. Danny's here. Danny's not going anywhere. "The reason I tell you all this stuff and risk getting put in front of a firing squad for it? Because — more than anyone else left in the human race, I know you'll do the right thing. Sure, you might be young and foolish in some ways and make some bad choices. For one, you're not madly in love with me." A beat and he pulls away from her ever-so-slightly, so he can look her in the eyes. "But I know you'll make sure the right thing happens. And I can't trust Constin to do that or Corrath or even Pewter. So. I just wanted to let you know that."
When Daniel pulls back to look her in the eye, Sawyer gives him a sad smile and touches his cheek with her palm. "I'm scared." She admits quietly. "Part of which is fear of letting you down. I'm not sure what the right thing is anymore. All I can do is follow my gut. I can't promise I'll do right. But I can promise I'll try." Her thumb brushes his cheek, "I do love you, Danny. It might not be the way you wish it was, but in my own little way? I do love you." As a friend. As a brother. And then after a quick kiss on the cheek, she's slipping away for the hatch.