DISCLAIMER: "Battlestar Galactica," the characters, and situations depicted are the property of Ron Moore, David Eick, SciFi, R&D TV, Sky TV, and USA Cable Entertainment LLC. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Genesis" was put up for the December 6 slot in the Dead of Winter Calendar down at The Shatterstorm Productions web-site.
Beta: Many thanks to selenay_x for beta duty. She beta'ed on such short notice and I love her for it (she's a goddess). Thank you also to Julie Levin Russo. Theories on her vblog regarding the Cylon god, her story "The Map" and discussions on archive were used copiously.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Genesis
By AsianScaper
In the beginning…
She was one of the more beautiful pieces, walking with Number Eight at an inspection bay. Her hands examined grain, took it into fists and poured it to the ground, imagining the human mouths it would feed. She dipped her fingers into cold metal and judged if its quality met Cylon specifications.
Light clambered from high windows and through the open bay doors. With the light came confusing smells of roasting animal-life (Six thought it was some form of communion, taking flesh into flesh) and the aroma of active humans who sweated into miasmas of body odor, sat down and imposed (fragmented, imperfect) memory into their children.
Six and Eight traveled slowly between the crates, studying the things that fed the human and Cylon world.
"Do you think I'm weak?"
"What makes you say that?"
Sharon looked at her askance. Fraternizing with Gaius Baltar could have been considered a lack (corruption) in code but Six knew that Sharon's inward glance into her experience with the Galactica crew gave Eight a very different perspective.
Six said, "I'm drawn to power but there are those who seemingly have none to wield; they elude observation but…they decide the fates of us all."
Sharon only nodded and they continued their inspection as the sun traveled very slowly to its zenith, shattering the cold.
Six was not prepared for the sudden rain of fire that pulled Eight and her apart and rammed their bodies against the walls. Explosions began to rip through the bay and centurions moved to protect them. But metal and unwavering loyalty did nothing to keep the fire at bay.
Is there a Resurrection Ship nearby?
Of course there was. She saw three human figures make a run for the exits, perpetrators of the sabotage. She took note of their faces and their names before limbs blew apart in a second explosion; she held on to Eight's hand and to all vestiges of this Six's life.
On the second day…
The nightmares began at the very moment of her resurrection. Naked, she wandered around the Resurrection ship's numberless (incoherent) corridors in a terrified haze before a copy of her took her by the shoulders and calmed her.
The Sixes whispered into her ear, guided her, deposited her in canopied beds of silk and entrusted her to Morpheus' realm. But in sleep, she found herself at the shore of an ancient river, with eyeless Charon gripping his oar while he waited for Six to board his boat, to pay him the fare.
I'll be dead in a thousand light years thank you thank you
Genesis turns to its source…
She woke with one of the Sixes by her side, stroking her temple and telling her, "Ssssh. You will have your peace when God wills it."
When she found the hybrid in its tank for the first (thousandth) time, guided there by some invisible force, Six took refuge in a different river, where it ran white like milk and embraced its daughters. She dipped her hands in the fluid that ensconced the hybrid and fell asleep with one hand in the hybrid-world and another against the cold metal of the floor.
…Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo
and love no more end of line.
On the third day…
The tour was her usual function. She took two centurion escorts and made the rounds at a tent neighborhood.
There were informants, secret police: humans she admired for their ability to want the Cylon peace.
There were senior officers from the Galactica who were careful to keep apart from each other lest they be suspected of destabilizing the current government.
There were children, who fascinated her. They danced around her regardless of who she was while their parents showed their contempt for her and dragged them away.
There was the school teacher who pushed the children's little limbs from her tent with indulgent smiles. Laura Roslin was no different now than she was before, holding office over hoards of tiny, pink humans.
Six gestured for the centurions to keep their positions as she followed Laura Roslin into her tent after all the children had fled into the joys of the afternoon.
Six pushed the tent flaps aside, noticing that three familiar figures –Colonel Tigh, Chief Tyrol, and a man named Anders –slipped out through a back entrance. Before she could signal her centurions to arrest the men, hands grabbed her, pulled her further inside. Soft, pliant lips pressed against her own and Six had her own, surprising response as her mouth parted and allowed the stranger passage; up until she discovered the surging blaze of auburn hair in her hands, the green eyes, the slightly shorter stature.
"What are you doing?" Six demanded.
Laura Roslin did not look fazed and her voice was sultry; her face was flushed and this caused an unfamiliar heat to radiate from Six's center. "Oh, quit playing."
Roslin put a hand on Six's cheek. When Six realized Roslin's disconcerting breath on her lips again, she pushed the woman away.
Two protons expelled at each coupling site creates the mode of force…
Roslin frowned, her eyes turning cold, as her hands fell to her sides and thoughts flitted across her face.
Six cocked her head sideways, choosing to quell her outrage to see if she could glean any clues from this very strange behavior. It did not take long for Laura Roslin to process her thoughts because her next words had a tone of irony, as though she had been cheated by a twisted act of fate.
"Oh my gods." Laura Roslin put up a hand, as though to ward off whatever Six had to say. Or to ward Six off herself.
There was a very long pause as Roslin studied the Cylon with confusion that burst in every facet of her: how she backed up a few paces, how she touched her lips in reminiscence, how she frowned at the idiocy of her actions. Up until it registered that Cylons generally capitalized on emotional transparency.
Roslin's green eyes stabbed Six's gaze. "By the gods, if you come near me again, I promise I will do everything in my power to destroy you."
The school teacher paused, allowing her words to sink in before turning away and leaving Six in the middle of the makeshift classroom.
On the fourth day…
She buried her face into her hands. She was three days old and instead of orienting herself to the duties of the Six she had replaced (she was), she felt deeply unsettled. She was less than willing to take another walk around the tent city.
A copy of her sat complacently by her side, reading a report. Another attempt at sabotage. Three dead, it said.
"I have a problem."
"We all do, in this place," the other Six said.
"I have a problem with remembering." The other Six slowly put the report down, and rethinking her actions, began to read again. Six could almost smell the other's fear but she continued, "It must be a gift; something God gave me to serve his purpose."
"Yes. Yes, that's what it is."
On the fifth day…
In a tireless quest for silence, for some form of tranquility in the aftermath of dreams (nightmares), she followed the smell of incense, dashed her boots purposefully in the mud and entered a temple that circumvented all the noise from outside.
Once inside, she found herself kneeling, staring at the bronze idols, at the awning of elaborate tapestries that cradled them. What little light there was came from candles and from sunlight that gently decanted down from the splits in the tent's canvas.
The carpet was of Saggitarion workmanship, depicting the heavens and the Colonies' symbols in a circular design that faded into light and darkness under the shades of the tent. She found it strange that so many lived in squalor while their idols sat with incorrigible apathy –luxury and comfort –on the altar.
…the agony exquisite the colors run the path of ashes…
"Give me peace."
"I doubt that whatever deity you're praying to, would." The sound of sandalwood beads. The voice of familiar kisses. Hidden in the darkness as she gathered her loose sari to herself.
"What would you know of peace?" Six spat. "It is all we desire."
"Peace, at best, is temporary no matter what your kind thinks. We –rather I –am not as naïve as machines, who walk around with removable brains."
"And what is it to you what we think?"
Six could hear the beads roll pensively against each other as the woman replied, "So much more than I would have initially." Roslin chuckled with self-derision. "If it weren't for you."
"Was there…"
"Anything between us?" Roslin opened her mouth. To laugh, to cry Six did not know because she stopped in the middle of the movement and considered her with the gravity of a woman who knew the price to be paid for her next words. "I am told that your entire life passes you by when you're faced with your own mortality. Shall we try it again?"
On the sixth day…
Six was examining crates with Eight when it happened. The world burst in a kaleidoscope of violent oranges and whites as explosions wracked the open bay. Sharon lay beside her, eyes open, downloading her consciousness to a nearby Resurrection ship as her body decayed in fire.
Like her, Six collapsed, died, slept the eternal sleep if only for a moment as the nightmare (dream) turned into a vision. She flew on the wings of a messenger to the arms of God.
The Basestar filled her, amniotic and warm and streaming with all-thought. The flow of data burst from its banks, an inundation of theft and want that surrendered all its knowledge. In this –in it all –she found the saturation of memory.
…reduction occurs stepwise though the essence is all one end of line.
On the seventh day…
Resurrection was nigh; it was a moment before wakefulness.
Laura and unwarranted kindness.
Two of Galactica's officers dragged Six's attackers to the side, telling them off with warnings of reprisal if they touched Six again.
"What are you doing?" she asked their leader. She was surprised as the woman wiped the blood from Six's lips.
"Helping you," Laura said. "Get up. Make sure you have escorts with you the next time. We don't take kindly to Cylons here but I am adverse to acts of…rape, in whatever form."
Laura and the forbidden.
"And if they find out?"
"Then they can frak themselves."
But not before Six frakked the un-appointed leader of the resistance, pulling at pleasure with tongue and lips and teeth.
Laura and love.
"You shouldn't say it. It would doom us both."
"It would only doom me."
Laura kissed Six fiercely, "It will never alter, never change. Never."
"Oh my love, don't make promises you cannot keep."
Laura and the sacrifice of two dozen Cylon figureheads, her own people.
"What did you do?"
"Ended your suffering," Six replied. "The entire complex was in ruins before they could sign the execution order."
"I thought Eights were the only weak models."
"Apparently, Sixes are too."
Laura and remembering.
Six was dying; she felt consciousness slipping into a stream that pushed upwards into the heavens.
"They would delete everything," Laura said, horrified.
"No. We never forget," Six replied. She lay in Laura's arms, her words shooting in and out of coherency.
Her own people had executed her and copies of Six stared complacently from a distance, allowing the exchange by some lateral show of kindness. "There will be those of me who will carry other pieces. We are individuals, not copies. God may choose for me to remember."
Laura sobbed, "By the gods, I'll make you remember."
And on the first day…
These memories were snippets, and they were accessed in the tubes of non-being.
At the end of the line, where eternity nursed its expanse, these memories were stolen/kept/destroyed by God. After all, He said, Laura Roslin will not serve her purpose in the neurons of Six's brain. Laura Roslin was an angel of death, a variant that corrupted coding.
…atrophy don't ask me how…
Six sank into the lineless boundary where God ended and the Cylon began. Her hands struck out from the liquid, out from the tank into coldness, and into the air breathed by mortals.
In that world, visions were absent. There were nightmares. And forgetfulness.
The End