02: Video

[itstopped]

[Felix is sitting for this one, his lower body hidden, but the sharp-eyed might notice that his crutch is nowhere in sight. His uniform is also gone for good (for now). He's at the long metal table in his barracks, and the surface is absolutely covered with wires, cables, microchips... It looks like he's dismantled an entire fleet's worth of communicators.

He seems a little annoyed about it.]

Does anyone have a spare computer they could lend me? Or even just a motherboard and a serial port connector cable.

[Private to Dr. McCoy]

I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now, Doc. I... thank you, really. It's a big improvement.

[Private to Sarah Connor]

You said you're Gaius's Warden, didn't you? We should talk sometime.

Comments

[itstopped]

[Well, it's not like he doesn't agree, but this is the first time anyone's agreed with him.]

No. No, I didn't.

You don't really seem like the other Wardens.

[truth_is_cold]

I'll take that as a compliment.

It may be only that I was an inmate for longer than I've been a warden. And my "redemption" came at the hands of an inmate as well.

[itstopped]

Really. Do tell. [No, seriously: this is the most interested he's been in anything a warden's had to say since he got here.]

[truth_is_cold]

She decided to take hostages, determined that we all had parasites in our brains. Most of what she was saying when she was holding a gun to my head were things that I said myself at one time.

I experienced a moment of inspired introspection. I didn't even realized I'd graduated as I had no warden at the time to inform me.

[itstopped]

[There's a lot of information packed into a few terse sentences, and Felix takes a quiet moment to process. It all still sounds like so much hokum, but he's at least slightly inclined to take it more seriously, coming from a previous inmate.]

And... how long were you here before that happened?

[truth_is_cold]

Months. From February to October. And it was terrible. [He's not going to lie.]

If I had more choices to go or people to return to, I would have left when I graduated.

[itstopped]

They told me when I got here that I could go to another world...? [He frowns, because, wow, he also has absolutely nowhere to go if that's not the case.]

I'm not especially spoiled for choices, either. [The implication in his voice being that there is no way he's going to follow in Rhade's footsteps, if he graduates.]

[truth_is_cold]

You can. Several have.

[He doesn't blame him. Rhade just happened to have people he was hung up on, on Nietzscheans are strange individualists that despise being alone.] I considered some myself. But there were regulations against genetic engineering in many that would deprive me of rights in many of those universes.

[itstopped]

Genetic engineering.

[Why does every person he meets here that seems to be halfway decent and intelligent wind up being some kind of nightmare alien creature?

It may have something to do with the fact that nonhuman = nightmare alien creature in his mind, of course.]

[truth_is_cold]

My ancestors were, yes. Most of the human subspecies in my universe are products of it.

[Boat is full of nightmare alien creatures, sadly.]

[itstopped]

And you... are human? [He's trying to stay impassive, but he can't keep a small note of hope out of his voice.]

[truth_is_cold]

Essentially. I'm homo sapiens invictus. Nietzschean. Another subspecies.

[He still wants to be proud of his people and what he is. He tries to remember there are still Nietzscheans out there like the Tarazed Nietzscheans. If there weren't, he'd be (and has been) just as harsh as Gaeta.

But he raises his arm to show his boneblades.] This is a mutation exclusive to my subspecies.

[itstopped]

[Disappointed xenophobe is disappointed and xenophobic!] I see. Very interesting.

[Gods, it really is half the frakking ship, isn't it? More than half, even, it seems, aliens and subspecies and whatever Time Lords are and other non-humans, and it's pretty hard not to pre-judge based on his limited but quite extreme experience with the subject.

On the other hand... it's not that he exactly has much faith in the workings of this ship (or any ship, anymore), but it's starting to dawn on him that he's silently committed himself to hating over half the population. People who aren't giving him much of a reason to (well, the Time Lords, maybe).

And besides...]

...But you are... you're mostly human. [Not, for example, a machine that really really looks like one.]

[truth_is_cold]

Don't worry. I'm not anything that eats people or even kills for fun. The latter is more than some humans can say.

[He can tell there's some nervousness, but after Harper he can't blame Gaeta at all. Harper saw his world destroyed by Nietzscheans. Why should he have any love of them. He doesn't know or can't say what Gaeta's been through, and even if he hasn't met another race before they can be nerve-wracking.]

But I'm made of the same genes and cells, yes.

[itstopped]

That's not as reassuring as you might think it is. [Not when Cylons can't even be genetically tested for, and not when Cylons can reproduce.

But Rhade's not entirely wrong, he knows. Not that he knows any humans who are actively worse than the Cylons, but there are Kara Thrace some like Kara Thrace who take just as much pleasure or are just as blind to themselves as the toasters are. So he takes this in quietly, and after a moment, returns with:]

But you killed someone? To get here, I mean.

[It's completely an assumption, but the way Rhade said it -- not for fun -- has him wondering.]

[truth_is_cold]

I made decisions that I thought were for the greater good regardless of the people that would be affected by them. Even after I switched sides, and tried to rebuild what I destroyed. I thought I was right.

[itstopped]

[Well, that's interesting.]

And you've since changed your mind.

[truth_is_cold]

I have. Little else has changed.

[itstopped]

But that... led you to graduate? That decision?

[truth_is_cold]

Yes, that's what graduated me. It's difficult to reconcile something necessary with something that's wrong.

[itstopped]

[Well, that definitely seems to strike a chord with him. He stares at the screen for a moment, clearly a bit nonplussed-- then abruptly clears his throat and looks away.]

Well, you've given me something to think about, Mr... it was... what did you say your name was?

[truth_is_cold]

Rhade. Gaheris Rhade.

Good luck with your motherboard. [He still doesn't mind too much what the inmates do, because inmates knew things that wardens didn't frequently.]

[itstopped]

Felix. Thank you. [And now he's going to have a good think. :c]