| Every Last One |
| Summary: | Madilyn visits the Two and gets some bad but expected news. |
| Date: | 24 Jun 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | None |
| Players: |
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| Officer's Brig - Deck 6 - Battlestar Cerberus |
| These pair of cells are roomier than one might expect. Each one is provided individual access by a door at the front, located on the other side of the room from the hatch. Each one essentially an armored glass cage, this area is walked and guarded by Marines day and night. Privacy not being a huge concern for prisoners, inside the cell is a single bunk and toilet in full view with nothing else. All visitors must sign-in with the Marine at the desk. Cameras are located at the entrance and on the cell itself, everything recorded onto disk in the Security Hub. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #483 |
The Cylon lounges tonight. The copy of the Two is laying, shoes off, on his cot in the brig that has become his 'quarters' of sorts during his time on Cerberus. He's alone, his Eleven companion and the human woman they brought kept in a different area. Dressed in what was probably a fine well-tailored gray suit a year ago, though it's been through some wear-and-tear. Still, he tried to dress to impress for this little mission. A pair of MPs guard his cell, frisking anyone who enters for excess weaponry or other contraband. While there hasn't precisely been a parade of crew and civilians through here, more than a few have been curious enough to come question, spit at, or just stare the Cylon. The Two waits for the next. Lounging. And whistling. The tune vaguely resembles a Caprican pop song that was popular about ten years ago. The sort that still gets an annoying amount of wireless play on adult contemporary stations. While the actual song is upbeat and annoying peppy, he whistles it slowly and in a drawn-out manner that makes it sound rather melancholy.
There's a creak and a squeal when the hatch to this part of the brig opens. Out of sight, one more visitor enters and is subjected to the scrutiny of the guards on duty, maybe a little more casual about their job than they might otherwise be. The reason for their somewhat cursory inspection becomes evident, as the Marine CO makes her first visit to see the prisoners in person here in the brig.
Unlike the last weeks, drawn out and made miserable by light and irregularly sleep, manifested in a slightly less-than-precise appearance, today Madilyn appears without so much as a hair out-of-place. Pulled back tight, it shines as much as Fleet-issue shampoo will allow. The uniform is clean and pressed, and every button, pin, and buckle shines. The boots are laced tight and neatly bloused, and her sidearm is even freshly cleaned and firmly holstered.
She just stands there, outside the cell, watching and not saying anything. Thought not particularly familiar with the former pilot, the face is at least familiar in passing.
"Here we are." The whistling stops upon Madilyn's entrance, and the Cylon sits up. And stands, coming to lean against the wall near the bullet-proof glass in front of his cell. "Hello there…" Eyes narrow. And then he makes a finger-gun sign at Madilyn, which ends in a triumphant snap. "Cavanaugh! That's the ticket. Madilyn Cavanaugh. Charmed." His accent is pure Caprican. "You can call me Eames. Or 'Two.' Or…whatever it is you like. This is auspicious, this is. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
His familiarity and total nonchalance comes as a surprise to Madilyn, and she stiffens her posture as a result. Before she speaks, she takes a deep breath in and out through her nose. "Well, Eames, I'm afraid you have me at quite the disadvantage. While you might know me - or at least, believe that you know me - I'm afraid I know next to nothing about you. Not even your…brother, I suppose you'd call him. We were never close, nor did we speak much at all."
"Can't say I know you," the Cylon replies. "I know a blurb from your personnel file. But that's not a person, is it?" At mention of his brother, he snorts a laugh. "McQueen, you mean. That tosser. Had a couple pilots come by and just stare at me earlier. One of them tried to put his fist through the glass at my jaw. Bruised his knuckles, I think. Poor bastard." He winces. "Poor bastards the both of them. He wanted to *be* one of you, you know. Human. I think he half-convinced himself he was Trevor Cairn McQueen from Leonis. That's a flaw in our line, right there. The Twelves think we're broken. Each one of us too much our own parts, no cohesive line. Well, if we are, I'd rather be broken than made into the monsters those frakkers are."
"We agree on at least one point, then. They are monsters, and though I've only seen a fraction of what's been done with my own eyes, even I can see that." She pauses a moment, the consequences of coming to talk without a plan or goal. Just to talk and listen to what these Cylons have to say. "If he thought he was McQueen, then who do you believe yourself to be, Eames? I'm not even sure if that's your first or last name."
"Well, it's neither, is it, there's the bitch of it," the Cylon replies with a rueful smirk. Though it seems aimed at himself rather than Madilyn. "It's a fiction. It's a fairy story, implanted in my mind to make me an effective agent of destruction. For a long time I thought it was real, too. That *is* the bitch. Some of us are like that, you know. Sleep-walkers. Don't know what he frak we are until we're 'activated' for our mission then…well, we find out when we come to in a tub of goo and our fellow Cylons congratulate us on completing our 'glorious mission.' Well. If you want to know. Before I woke up in the goo I thought I was a man named Cormac Eames. Lived in Delphi. Had a loft downtown. Worked in the mayor's office. Nothing too flashy, just a flack who wrote press briefs and…had an upclose view of the way the city worked. I'm told it came in handy when they were marking locations. What to bomb, what they wanted to save to 'colonize' later, after everyone was dead. Went back to my loft after the dust settled, after we controlled the planet, and I knew what I was. Nothing but rubble." He shrugs. "If I was poetical, like my sweet Yazdah, I'd say that's a sort of metaphor, but that's probably bullshit."
Through the description, Madilyn stands tall and straight, but at the conclusion, she allows herself to slump a little. She was, admittedly, hoping for the best but expecting the worst, and it seems that is the worst. "Delphi, of course. A Cap City too, obviously. But colonization, you say? You blew up our cities, you murdered everyone living, working, and visiting there, and then you intend to just take up after them and go about your lives, such as they are?"
"It might be something metaphorical to you and yours, but…if you've seen my personnel file," Madilyn interjects, changing subjects mid-sentence. "You've seen that I had a life there. A family. This was a career for me, as much to spite my parents as it was to be part of something bigger. This job saved me, and it cursed me. It frakking cursed me more than you can ever imagine," she says with a sigh, shading her eyes with the palm of her hand and stretching her fingers to rub her temples.
"A husband and two children. Yes, I've read it," Eames replies, clearing his throat roughly. "I'd say I'm sorry but what good would that do? Not a damn thing. I could tell you I had a girl, when I thought I was human, with sandy hair and great tits. She's rubble now, too. Your children aren't on Gemenon, Madilyn." And there is an apology in his tone as he says that. "I did check the names in the files, before I came here. Cross-referenced. When my brothers and I decided that…well…that we didn't see eye to eye with the party line anymore…we started taking humans off the inner colonies and back to Gemenon. Managed to get hundreds off Caprica. Not your kids and not my girl, though, so maybe it doesn't matter so much in the end. But look, all I've got is what's in the file. If you've got other names you're looking for…friends, family from mum's side…ask and I'll tell you. There are just thousands left, so isn't a large census to remember."
If her posture has slumped before, it nearly collapses now. Her head hangs with her chin nearly touching her chest, her back hunched, knees bent as she stoops a bit and hides her face. "Like I said. Cursed. After hearing the reports that the destruction wasn't as complete on Caprica, that it was mostly outside the cities, with occupation forces moving in, I had the tiniest sliver of hope. Not much, but like a sliver under the fingernail, it was enough of an electric spark to keep going. Now…now it's just this frakking job for which I continue to feel more and more overtaken by. Not caught up in, but literally consumed, drowning. My stamina's running out, and I don't know what to do to get out. Aside from something drastic."
Eames turns away from Madilyn when she stoops. As if to give her some measure of privacy. Or perhaps keep her from seeing his own face. "Brother Solon, the priest bloke on Gemenon, thinks there's a home for you lot out there. Thinks the folk on this ship can help him find the road to it. Road back to Kobol. Which he thinks is habitable for you lot. For us? I don't know what'll become of the Elevens or my brothers when all this is over. I think there're answers in Gemenon for us, too. I think…our gods, what we call God…it all seems to me as if it came from the same place. And if we can find that, find the key to what we are…maybe that's what'll save us. Well. I don't expect you to care about that after all we've done. Just know that we're trying to undig the same mystery down there, though we won't be going to the same place if we unlock it. There are still people alive, Madilyn Cavanaugh. More down on Gemenon. I know nothing my brothers and I did after the bombs drop can erase us being part of dropping them in the first place. But you've still got a job to do for them, if you're willing. Help find them a home. Maybe one for yourself, too."
"I had a home! I had a family, godsdamnit! And you…you took that away. And now…now you come here, acting contrite, acting remorseful! You wave your white flags and take in some humans and don't kill them for once and say 'look at us, look at how decent and kind we can be!' But you're still just a Cylon, only now, you've made yourself out to look like us, to con yourself into thinking like us." While she talks, her words and volume swell up and down, louder as she starts, then trailing off as she moves from rage to seething hate. She's looking up now, and makes no attempt to hide the red and puffiness around her eyes, or the tears there. "Do you know how many times I've thought about putting a bullet through my frakking head, so I could forget all of this? Do you know how much of a release that would be? Do you want to know what always keeps me from doing it?" she asks him at barely more than a whisper. In fact, she has to press herself right up close to that bulletproof glass and speak through one of those little air holes to be heard.
The man - or what looks like a man - his posture stiffens at that. "Maybe. Maybe I have just conned myself. Maybe we are…flawed, like the Twelves say we are. And this is all a giant…mistake. Well. If this is the death of me, better you than a Three or a Twelve, at least. Least you've got some right to it." He turns slowly about, to look Madilyn in the eye. Standing near enough to hear her whisper. "What's that, then?" It's whispered as well. Probably too low for the recorders in the security cameras to catch.
"The knowledge that I'm still alive enough to kill every last frakking Cylon I see, until I run out of bullets or the life bleeds from me. I wasn't a hateful woman, Eames; I was a soldier of peace. Your kind made me into one." That said, she stands back up, straightens up, sets her jaw, and wipes her cheeks. "Once, I condemned a woman for her actions against a previous Cylon prisoner. She's the reason we installed this glass, you know. But now, I understand how she felt. I thank you for the information regarding my family, such as it is," Madilyn says, turning her back on the man, wiping her cheeks once more, and preparing to take her leave.
"Fair enough," Eames says wearily, letting out a heavy breath as Madilyn turns to go. "Look. I wish I could've told you different about your family. If there's anyone else you want to ask about…friends, whatever…I don't know what your Commanders will decide. Maybe you lot'll advise them just to put us all out an airlock. Couldn't call you unjust for it. Anyhow, I don't know if you'll ever get a look at the faces down on Gemenon, but I'll make a list for you lot of the names of those down there. I don't draw pretty pictures like the Eleven, but I do as I can. Never did find anyone I'd known on Caprica, when I thought I was human. Kept going back, but I never did. They were my friends and I helped kill them. So…can't say you'd be wrong, really. Well. Thanks for coming by."
Maybe she deliberately gives him the cold shoulder, or maybe not. Maybe she just doesn't have much more to say, not even good-bye. The only indication she hears him is a nod that could just as easily be to one of the guards. Without another spoken word, Madilyn makes for the hatch. It takes her at least until she gets out into the hall before she slides her back down against a wall and finally lets the tears that were building for a while flow, curled in a ball outside the brig. And there she'll stay for some time.