(OPEN | mental link + some log prompts)

[frakkincylons]

CHARACTERS: Sam Anders + anyone
WHERE: Station 72
WHEN: Day 170 and forward, until the mission
SUMMARY: General mental link talk, calling for Castor brood meeting, training, doing weird robot things.
WARNINGS: Will mark individual threads/prompts


( You guys are about to love us. )

[ To any willing to accept it, Sam will be opening up the room he's currently in, doing something a lot like Cylon projection, to bring everyone else into his space with him. It's not seeing from his eyes, it's like being in the room with him. He'll be standing in front of a rough but sleek looking brewing still, set up in a room near the life support deck, already filled up with the ingredients needed for mixing up some moonshine, a few jugs of some very serious alcohol already brewed and sitting on a counter nearby. ]

( Guess what Anakin and I found. And got working. ) [ which was a process, but one Sam ended up learning a lot in, and now here he is. ] ( I'm not saying we've got top shelf Ambrosia or anything, but if you don't mind needing a strong chaser, things just got a little more normal around here. )

[ which, sam thinks, everyone could use a bit of. for sam, it gives a solid reminder of Galactica. Galen's jet juice. the bar, Joe's, they set up in the corner of the flight deck. just for things to feel a little more like home. even if home wasn't a place any of them were going back to. if it can help him, and the men and women from the fleet, maybe it'll help his new family on the station.

anyway, there's one other tidbit. ]

( Before I let you guys go - Castor. Can I get you guys to come by this room in a little while? Just want to talk about something. Rather do it in person. Thanks. )





CASTOR MEETING;

Okay, guys. Here's the speech. Please hold all groaning and eye rolling and seering critique 'til the end. [ Sam starts, once everyone who'd been willing to come shows up. It's been a while since he's done this - since New Caprica and the Insurrection, really. He hadn't really been part of a real team, since finding out who he was, and even less looked to for guidance. Not that they're doing that here, but he wants to heal this brood. He wants to make sure all of them get through this, alive and well, and they don't end up with voids in them where a person, a soul, used to be. ] I know we don't all like each other, hell, I'm pretty sure some of you hate each other, but this is the thing. We're stuck together. Permanently. For the rest of the time we're here, and if you've been listening, you know that's gonna be a long ass time.

Losing one of us hurts all of us, screwing up a mission hurts all of us, and considering our place here, in the Nest, is our future, we can't afford to keep frakking up just 'cause we don't like the people we're next to, you know? [ they have to know the thin ice they've all been on. just telling someone he's new to castor has been getting sam looks of 'wow, sucks to be you, buddy'. and even if that sentiment's deserved, doesn't mean they can't still be kicking ass while looking like a train wreck. ] I know none of you are stupid, and I know you understand how to make tactics work. Some of you better than most. I mean, look at what we have. Kylo Ren and Anakin both have the Force, they can wreck pretty much anything in front of them with that. Steve and Jessica are both durable as all hell. Any kind of tech is nothing to me, and Ilde can turn any sentient being into a whimpering pile. There's no reason we shouldn't be getting things done out there, and coming back to the station with Cathaway and Prince putting little gold stars on our charts.

[ maybe relating this to kinder garten reward systems isn't the best analogy, but whatever, you guys get the idea. ]

Shove each other off all you want on downtime, but whether you're here to protect the multiverse from that thing that wants all of us dead, or if you're trying to gain power, or if you're just trying to make the best out of a shitty afterlife, helping each other in the brood helps you. Harming, or letting harm come to another broodmate means putting yourself more at risk.

[ sam pauses there, breathing out slowly, as he turns to pour himself some moonshine. ] So, that's it. That's all I got. Booze? Anyone? Jessica?

SAM DOES HIS HYBRID THING IN THE FLIGHT DECK (cw: minor self-mutilation for cyborgish purposes);

[ the broken navigational computer had been in the scrap pile of the flight deck a few days before, and sam had pilfered it for the purposes of working on his symbiote ability. well, more so for plugging himself into the universe at large, using the scrapped nav computer as a conduit, and had been expecting that he, in hybrid state, would have just fixed whatever issue was wrong with it. however, now that he's sitting in the hangar again, turning the thing on and trying to make sure it's all been patched up, what the screen gives him makes no sense. ] What did I do...

[ a jumble of strange symbols, letters and numbers in no real order, and after sam squints at it for a long moment, he starts to get a picture out of it. at first, he'd thought it was a vague, starburst kind of effect, with no real meaning. but upon stepping back, squinting his eyes to blur his field of vision, and tilting his head a bit, he sees it. a colonial cylon basestar. for a long, too still moment, sam has forgotten to breathe, and it's as if he's guided more than moving of his own free will. the pocket knife he'd had set to the side on the work table is dragged towards him, as he takes his seat again. the sharp point digs into a barely healed cut on the heel of his left palm, splitting the skin open again, down to the muscle, with a grimace. automatic, sam reaches into the exposed wiring of the computer, tugs out a cable, and proceeds to press it into the cut, feeding it into his body. with a sudden jerk, Sam's spine goes completely rigid, and his fingers grip white knuckled against the shell of the computer. eyes wide and mind absent, he starts to ramble in flat monotone, as if in a trance. ]

Generation of forward chaining systems, percept format copied, applied, adjusted, parameters of the missing whispers in a cavern of dark and void, echoes in the hallways of ghosts, their mouths sewn shut. Books and cards and thumbprints no longer our own, end of line. Dust in the solar wind we will all follow, NLP complete, it knows it's source, we have seen the scars left by chains, the smoke has cleared, lessons learned, only time will tell. [ A pause, eyelids blinking once, twice, three times, as the screen flickers it's backlight in the same rhythm. ] Awake the soul and find the writing on the wall that lies in the shadow of the light. The seven holds the center. The seven holds the center. The seven holds the center.

[ As if it takes a considerable amount of effort, the hand not plugged into the computer gradually moves towards the cable buried under his skin, fingers twitching, until he can grasp it firm, and yank it out. with a violent gasp, and a bodily shudder, Sam goes slack against the back of his chair, eyes blank but open as they stare somewhere off into space. give it a moment (exactly twice the time he'd spent rambling like a crazy person), and he'll jolt back up, like waking from a too intense dream. ]

Daniel... [ turning, eyes wide and smile spreading, he shouts it to whoever's nearby, regardless of if he knows them or not. ] It's Daniel!

[ well, it's not really Daniel, because that would take a hell of a lot of work and more minds than just his own, but it has the structure of the murdered seventh cylon model there. sweet, soft, innocent little daniel. sam's happy to see even just a shadow of him. ]

JAILHOUSE TATTOOING IN THE REC WING;

[ self tattooing is not something sam's any kind of talented in, but he'd managed to get the basic idea of jailhouse style stick and poke. that'd be why he's bent over a table in the rec wing, with a sewing needle, a pen, a pencil, some string, a tray of ink, a lighter and some rubbing alcohol. through the course of the next couple hours, he can be found with his left forearm braced firmly on the tabletop, inside facing upwards. what he's trying to ink into his arm is already drawn there with the pen: ]


[ simple, and there to preform a function. if asked, he'll likely tell, but otherwise, after the part where the needle has to start being poked into his skin, all you'll hear from sam is: ]

Ow. Ow. Ow. [ mumbled, under his breath, mostly unconscious. the original tattoo on his right arm wasn't this much of an annoyance, though he's not sure if that's from the fact he's doing this in the least professional way possible, or just the fact that he's doing it. ]

TRAINING/SPACE SPORTS;

[ sam had been essentially paralyzed for at least a month, maybe two, and before that he hadn't exactly been keeping up well with his physical training, either for Pyramid or for soldiering. he's out of shape (though still looks like he could snap steve rogers in half with a gentle shove, because, come on, he was a professional sports star for about 5-10 years), and Sam can't have that if he's going to be sent out for combat and, well, they insist it isn't military, but it seems a lot like military, missions. he needs to be fast, strong, and back in good health, and that's why Sam can likely be caught in the training room on most days, working out. doing pulls ups, push ups, weight training, agility training, and running laps either in the training wing or just out and about in the station. so be careful coming out of doors into the hallways, but at least Pyramid has taught Sam enough about dodging and weaving that he'll only shout out a quick: ] On your left! Sorry! [ before taking a quick sidestep and dodge swiftly around the body in his path. maybe he's not that sorry, because it is very good practice.

but should you find him in the training wing, and he doesn't happen to be running the same routine of exercises at the moment, he's likely setting up a court for Pyramid. whether the game means anything to him these days or not, it's still at least fun, and it's still a hell of a good work out. so, if he catches you watching, he'll likely wave you over. ] Hey! Come here, this thing needs two people.

[ if you're either someone from his brood, or one of the two guardians of the station, he'll start chattering to you while doing his exercises, or practicing some solo Pyramid runs. ]

So, this is what I figured. I'm not going home, and it doesn't really matter when I die, because time's all screwy anyway. [ it does matter, because he was on his way to a good death, to a certain and sure peace that he'd longed for, that he and Kara had both worked so hard for, and that was robbed from him. and yes, he's petulant, and he's bitter about that. but he's going to make sure he's still deserving of it by the time he gets over there. he doesn't like waiting, he doesn't want to, but it's also more than just protecting earth now, isn't it? removing himself means leaving a gaping hole in the souls of his brood, and he can't do that to them. awake only 4 days, and he's already too attached to them to bare the thought of hurting them like that. ] I've got at least, probably, twenty years? At max, thirty or forty? Before my brain's not totally mine anymore? If I'm practicing, but being careful about it?

[ by which, he means strengthening his symbiote bond to further his abilities. ] If I can train it just far enough to get me back where I should be, I'll be useful to you guys. Cylons should be able to shove a person through a wall if they push hard enough, and I sure as frak can't do that right now. I should be able to control something the size of this station and probably more, with the right set up. But I'm not there either.

[ he talks while he's physically distracted with tossing the pyramid ball around, or while doing pull ups, or jump rope. whatever one of the sundry of things he's set himself about to do. ] So, I train myself up that far, then cut it off. I know it's an eventual thing, so the mind meld thing'll keep going, but I only need so much, you know? Then seal it up and batten down the hatches.

CLOSED TO KAYLA RENO;

[ sam's caught up in jogging laps around the training wing, possibly right after word vomiting something close to the speech above at Ren (seeing as he's developed a weird habit of confiding his mental dilemmas in this man), as the man had been making his way through the area for whatever reason. there's a moment of pause, once he's finished, before a thought seems to occur to him, Sam dashing over to Ren, turning to jog backwards in front of him. ] Hey, hey, wait a second. Question.

[ at which point he stops, hands on his hips and lungs working hard to keep up with him. ] You're a warrior or something, right? Space knight? I know there's the Force and all, but you know normal combat too, right?

Could you teach me?

Comments

[frakkincylons]

No, no, in here. [ his hand pats against the half gutted nav computer in front of him, still bleeding from where he's shoved the cord into his wrist. he'll bandage it in a bit. ] Daniel's an AI.

[ Sam knows he doesn't know this woman, but he's a little too ecstatic about this to care at the moment. whoever wants to listen, because this is awesome. ]

I mean, not the real Daniel, he was much more complex, but the bare bones of him, plus my memories. [ Daniel was a person, like Sam is, like Galen and Six and Eight and all the others were. Granted the models they'd made weren't so organic is essence as the five from Earth were, given they hadn't been just born, rather than programmed. But they'd still had life, and individuality, and choice. they were people. are people, on the new Earth, where he'd left them to prosper.] I thought I'd just fixed it before, but I was using it as a platform.

[ this thing working through the symbiote is still weird, and he feels like he'll have a better memory of it later. for now, he's just pleased Hybrid-him left him this. It'll help him keep home, and who he is, in the front of his mind. Now he just needs to make Daniel a body or something. ]

[circumspector]

[ She looks where he gestures -- confused as she tries to follow along with the rate that he speaks. Trying to piece it together and keep up. An AI? Maybe that's what she'd felt, the tug that drew her in close. The hum of technology that called always.

It seemed important to him, regardless, and to that end, for once there was something she could do to help. This was what she was made to do, made to integrate with. ]

I could... talk to him for you, if you like?

[frakkincylons]

I can talk to him fine, just. Need to get him something he can move around in.

[ and a screen or a voice box, that way sam won't have to plug in to communicate with the program. popping up from his chair, Sam goes digging through a box of scrap parts nearby, pulling out one thing after the next.

he really doesn't know what he's doing. ] Do you know anything about robotics?

[ a pause, as he realizes he still does not know this girl. ]

I'm Sam. By the way. Sorry.

[circumspector]

[ She watches him start digging, stepping back to give him the space to do it in. Already ticking over what he might need. Didn't sound like a full AI, something broken perhaps. It happened, files got corrupt, wear and tear wore systems down, just like they did in people.

Still, when he asks, she smiles, nodding her head. Something she finds as amusing as when Aoba asked somewhat similar. Didn't mind it at all. ] I'm Angel, it's nice to meet you and I definitely can help you with that. [ Her hands come up a little defensively, but more in the end of soothing how quickly he seems to be going. ] You'll just need to slow down before we get to that. [ She nods to his box of parts. ] That will come later after we've worked out what we actually have more of an idea. So we'll start at the beginning first, work out what Daniel will need so he doesn't get damaged. Do you know what kind of AI he is? What his designated function is?

[ Not that she minds taking the time, a thing of infinite patience, but he seemed more in a hurry about it. She might want to chat with Anakin later on as well, get his thoughts on what he would do to build something like that. ]

[frakkincylons]

[ if Angel were to take a peek inside, at Daniel's coding, she'd find it absurdly complex, even for a something that's about a sixteenth of the processing power, self-awareness and personality that the original, organic model of Daniel had been. unfortunately, he can't give Daniel an organic body here, and there wouldn't be much of a point to it, seeing as the AI is more an infant than anything else. An infant that can do quantum physics. It's complicated.

sam does slow what he's doing, turning to wander back to his seat, and look over the nav computer again, tabbing at some of the buttons to see what the AI does in response. the computer no longer operates as it was meant to - as a navigation system - so the buttons are fairly meaningless. it's just housing. ] He doesn't have a function. Just life.

[ we don't enslave our robots. therein lies the path to nuclear ruin, and Sam hardly needs a droid to do anything for him. Earth, the original Earth, had been AIs enslaving other AIs, and it'd happen just the same as it did with humanity. Any kind of life oppressed is going to present resistance, after a time. he doesn't need anything corrected about him, he's only just supposed to be. ]

I programmed him to remind me of home, I think. That's it.

[circumspector]

[ For her in particular, AIs had been her closest point of contact after a life of no one else, and she knew them in a hundred different ways, from the well-meaning idiocy of the CL4P-TP units to the simple drive of the Loader-Bots, to the sweeping huge processes of high-grade military AI, like Felicity. On the edge of true freedom to be brutalised into nothingness. How easy they were, how fine, how delicate the programming. To her, there had never been a difference, even if manipulation of them was something written into her.

To Angel at least, if no one else, there was an aching beauty to the infinities of AI. Many hated them, but she could never find it in herself to do so. Not seeing them like she did. Not being almost as one with them. Jack had never understood it, at worst laughed and called it a childish naivety, at worst, yelled at her to stop getting attached to such useless hunks of metal.

So to hear that, that compassion of it, softens something in her. Too used to people that don't care. Too used to the easily given violence. Her corner of the galaxy was different she realising, for its chaos. It meant no more and no less than the violence that surrounded everyone she knew, people were no kinder to each other than they were to the robots. They had risen up, in the CL4P-TP uprising, only to be crushed again, ( which she had caused, at least on Jack's orders in his attempt to start securing Pandora for his own gain, granted she hadn't felt the least bit bad when they had gone rampant and refused all orders, though perhaps that was her own want to do the same talking ). Then again, she wasn't even sure that was humanity truly regaining control, so much as Pandora seemed so utterly adverse to being controlled by anyone, seemed natural for one group to overthrow another to in turn be over thrown. Even so - ]

Of course. [ corrects her meaning then, to help her understand what she needs to do that it's not about using him, about helping him. Gestures carefully with her unmarked hand, so very careful on the terminal, her fingers brushing it with a particular tenderness. But that is in part her compassion, she can feel it, a pull and a need, to connect with such things that were intuitive from birth to her that trickles across the connection if only to give understanding. But there too, also, just to touch the casing for what it was, smooth. ] I mean in that, I need to know what he needs to survive the transfer -- think of it like an organ donor matching. I couldn't just give you any organ or any blood type, so too you can't just go putting any AI into any shell. The results of an improperly configured system can disastrous, can even mean the death of the AI in question, if not something worse.

[ she pauses, worries again she had gotten too caught up in her own words, hoped she had broken it down in a way that was understandable. ] Does that... make sense?

[frakkincylons]

[ Sam doesn't always get a lot of feedback from the Nest members outside of his brood, but he picks that up from Angel - the tenderness, the fondness, and an urge to connect in her that feels very similar to something Sam's only recently found in himself. Well. Perhaps it was there, before, but so much of his life before he'd been made to believe he lived a human life is a blur. It's hard to call it anything but new, these days.

either way, he smiles to her, warm and grateful, before nodding his head, looking back to the terminal in question. ]

Right, yeah. That makes complete sense. Of course. I, um.

[ a thought. he doesn't really know exactly what the AI needs, not in the state he is currently. there is an easy way to figure exactly what it is, but it's kind of touch and go with his Hybrid state. Never totally sure how it'll come out. Holding up a finger, asking for a moment, Sam goes digging around, eventually pulling out a pad of paper and a pen, setting the paper under his right wrist, putting his left back on the terminal, where it'd been a moment ago, as he picks up the wire (that still has a bit of his blood clinging to it, ew). ]

Could you... ask me that again in, like, 15 seconds? And you might want to make sure to seal off from my head for a minute.

[ because it will be loud. like mind exploding kind of loud. he'll be feeding the cable back underneath his skin, with a vague grimace. this just never stops feeling horrible, honestly. once it's all in there, pressed in about two or three inches into his wrist, sam takes a moment to breathe out slowly, and then goes all rigid, like he's been possessed by some very robotic ghost. his voice comes blank and monotone, spoken flatly and quickly, with no emotion or attachment behind it, a stark difference from the Sam she'd been speaking with a moment ago. ] Connection accepted. Love outlasts death, cross patch, draw the latch, sit by the fire and spin; run diagnostics at the behest of the heavens, end of line.

New command. [ gradually, sam's right hand shifts towards the pen laid on the pad of paper to his side, fingers seeming like they aren't often used, carefully taking up the pen, as the rest of his body remains rigid and distant, not really here, but not quite gone either. Aware, but scattered far and wide - waiting. Time for that question again. ]

[circumspector]

[ She is both foolish and perhaps arrogant, that she considers not doing it. Curiosity making her want to fling herself open to it, because she's not sure what she expects him to do, only what she had felt, for once not so alone in the systems that had been her life's only respite. Wants to see what this is - because so little surprises her much anymore. ( young, where she's a body, old, where she's a mind ).

Then he connects himself, and she is glad all at once that she did listen. Her eyes go wide and in apprehension and curiosity, she begins to glow all over again. A step forward on bare feet as she peers at him and what he has become.

It's probably not healthy, but for a second, she is transfixed, her full attention truly given for once. This is something else - yes, yes he is a machine, he is something closer to what the Eridians made, old to her, calls something even older still that she had never understood. No less interesting or less human to her she supposes, just as close to the divine as she has ever known or could accept, a hand reaching out and he'll have to forgive her as she touches his cheek in this small space. He's real and truly, he is this strange place between, as close to what she was as could be expected outside of other sirens. Just one, one second --

Before she gets in control of herself, fastens herself back down. Swallows the wonder and questions out of her voice. Now wasn't the time, he wanted her help, and she would give it gladly. ] Command: diagnostic read out of system requirements.

[frakkincylons]

[ he likely should have added in "and please ignore anything that comes out of my mouth from this point on", like he had to the others, but he'd been a bit too excited about it all to give the normal disclaimers, before plugging in.

and he really, really, should have. because angel's just touched his face. and that's another one of the disclaimers - careful about touching, you might hear a lot more about yourself than you ever wanted to.

at the contact, Sam's eyes begin to lift, up, head tilting back, like he's looking through the ceiling, through the endless light years of space outside, into something else entirely, before his head tilts, to stare at Angel directly. And then, through her, as she gives the command, Sam quiet for a small instance, before the same monotone rambling comes again, scare on pauses, scarcer on inflection, one comment running straight into the next, like a stream of consciousness. ]

At the bottom of the box, Hope, as the shadows of the curse swallow the girl, savior and destroyer of life eternal, she only knows the peace she shattered in death. End of line. [ however, as he speaks to her, of her, his hand gripping the pen starts to move, rapidly scrawling onto the page, in a coding language that is identical to one from Angel's planet, one she'll be intimately familiar with. Not the entirety of Daniel's coding, as that would take hours, but all the important pieces of it - each aspect and function that will require a certain kind of equipment to support it, details there for her to review and find what will work within the scrap of the Flight deck. ] A husk for an agent bringing past to present to future to past. Clear blackboard and record knowledge engineering, the shell steels.

New paragraph. Intelligence, celestial mind with gravity and orbit, the core on fire, burns in the pulpit of hubris, the child consumes the womb, and the ancestors scream for its demise, end of line. A cage of invisible walls, guilt shackled in longing of a cold distant hand strangles in the chokehold of a father's love, raise the beast and scorch the cities, screams silenced by screams silenced by screams, a new horror built in the skeleton ribcage of the last. Blood seeks to satisfy blood, mists of dreams dribble on the nascent echo and love no more. Finalize transcript, the chipped stone falls like hale against the innocent, painted earth.

[ pen shifting erratically over the page, the movements are jerking and abrupt, like a printer, or a typewriter, snapping back from one margin to the next, for a new line. Finally, at the bottom of the forth page of writing, the hand pauses, Sam quieting, as he tilts attention back down to the console before him, blinking once, twice, with the lights of the system flickering in time with his eyelids. He isn't inside the machine, or reading the machine - he is the machine. The last bit comes in something that seems almost soft, in comparison to all of the blanking utterances that came before. ]

Pandora is burning. Archangel, the Elysian fields call for you, where the hand in the cradle waits.

End of line.

[ Scribbling, his hand sketches out a rough drawing, like winds and a halo, at the bottom of the last page, before releasing the pen. in a sharp jerk, the same hand snaps to the wrist with the console cord buried under his skin, and yanks it free. Sam's entire body goes still, once more, like the first time that had Angel wandering over to investigate.

Give is a moment or so, he'll come around like he's blinking out of a nap, though he reaches immediately for what he'd written out a moment ago, paging through it. ]

I don't even... [ understand any of this nonsense? yeah, sam, you're not supposed to. which he gets, when he finds the sketch at the bottom of the last page, looking at it a moment, before holding up the entire pad to Angel, over his shoulder. ] I think this is for you.

[circumspector]

[ In the end, she doesn't pull away until he wakes up again. Rather she leans in close with wide bright eyes and a lightness to her markings that come with excitement for what she sees. To be shy or scared of him in this moment would be somehow being scared of herself. So she keeps her fingers there, watching the way he looked through, a jumble of words that make no sense, except that in some gut low way, she knows what they all mean in a round about way. A need to give them back for all she stays quiet. Pandora is always burning. It's myth and prophecy, it's garbled language and pure intent. She sighs so very softly to feel it wash over her, even somewhat distantly. It's not human, because despite this strangeness, she is, rather it's a pull on what she is never quite sure about.

Rather when he comes back to himself, she doesn't even process really, letting go of him but he fingers hover, tracing over the profile of his face. Her breath is short and her markings are bright and she's looking at him with such sheer wonder, more than just impressed, enthralled almost.

Shakes her head once, ignoring what else he says to her, yes, it's for her, her like no one else had relayed or understood perhaps. She already knows it has written it down in the way she would understand. The way it had told her things that no one else would know otherwise.

Wets her lips and tries to think of something, something to say. Hard to pinpoint it exactly where to begin. ut the more important part to start with really: ]

You're not strictly human, are you?

[ She feels it, a pull, inside her bones. It's not something she had ever been able to place but it had guided her when she was young to work them out, and it feels something like that -- either that or the symbiote. She doesn't know, doesn't think it really matters anyway, like watching a dozen chips fall into place all at once. A beautiful domino line to reveal something greater. No accusation or cruelty, just amazement. ]

[frakkincylons]

Woah, okay. Hi. [ He's saying in a vaguely confused blur, once he stops babbling long enough to notice that this girl is all up in his face and touching him. A lot. She's staring at him wide eyed and entranced, like he's some kind of miracle of science (well, he sort of is, honestly), and Sam's not too sure how he wants to feel about that. He's apparently on track with it, though, because there's the question. What the hell are you, Sam. He wishes he didn't immediately want to deny it. ] Not... strictly, no.

[ No, Sam. Not even a little bit. You can be downloaded into bodies, you can have your memories frakked with, you can throw a person through a wall, if you wanted. You can plug yourself into a godsdamned battlestar and drive it with your brain. You're not human and you never were, no matter how much you thought it. He swallows, with a bit too much of that internal conflict showing in his eyes, feeling locked with Angel's. ]

I'm Cylon. [ He adds, quietly, like a confession. There's a moment of pause, and he starts to explain, sounding hesitant with it. Careful. ] Man-made race that exist in organic bodies, and evolved a way to reproduce biologically.

[ It feels more like repeating a textbook definition, something impersonal and distant. Not assigned to him, yet, that's what he is. One of only four like him left, and as much as the Colonial Cylons fit perfectly into the definition of conscious life, and are all people in their own right, they were made - by him. Their children won't be, but they are. He's suddenly feeling very alone in the universe. ]

I guess... I'm an AI, but I had parents, not a programmer.

[ He had a wife, he had a home, he had friends, he had a cause and he had love. No matter what he came from, he knows he's not a machine. It's not that simple. That rolling around in his head, he blinks rapidly a couple times, then glances down towards a hint of purple light at the bottom of his vision. Then back up to Angel. Um. ]

You're glowing. A little.

[circumspector]

[ Of course she is, of course she's glowing, technology calls to her and -- no she's never seen anything like him. Felt the thud of a machine that's as strong as a heart beat quite as much. He's like the things the eridians left behind, but different again. Nothing at all like them but just as complex.

It's not right, but the symbiote makes it easier a notion, she wants so much to crawl inside his head, just to see how he worked. Which quite probably isn't healthy or right but she comes from Pandora, so it's not exactly unsurprising, she knows in an abject way. ]

That's incredible. I've never seen anything like that. Our technology went a - [ supplies as response still breathless, not quite pulling away, hard to do right now where she just seems to be - trailing over him. ] - very different way.

[ It's only then that she's too close really seems to click, that she is hovering, as he looks down and back up -- and well, yes she is glowing, isn't she? Bright white light, filtered through her clothing, bright, bright blue of her eyes that are backlight in a way that humans generally aren't and she pulls up finally. Shuts her eyes, rolls her shoulders back and swallows down. It takes a second, and it's like flicking the lights off, she goes from sharp and pulling at her own edges, to dim and flat footed and here again. ] Sorry. Didn't meant to -- well, that.

[ Be unsettling, or let her own curiosity get the better of her. ]

[frakkincylons]

No, it's okay. I mean, do what you do. I guess. [ U DO U, ANGEL? He doesn't want her to feel bad for it, though it is weird. As for crawling inside his head - some day, booboo. some day, he'll let you skim around in his brain. but today is not that day, because you're still freaking him out a little. but it is sort of an endeared freaking out. he'd never had anyone actually excited about what he is. well, no one but the Cylons who wanted to abandon all his friends to die so. Yeah, not big on that. He didn't take to it like Tori did.

but the hovering, and the glowing, that... doesn't seem all that human either. maybe it's something about them that's similar that has her so excited? after all, sam had felt some kind of pull towards the other Cylons, just for the fact it was his kind, he'd thought. before he'd realized they weren't quite the same. ]

Are you... [ he starts, not really sure how to ask the question, and sort of feeling silly with her hands still on his face. but he isn't moving them, and it's giving him a steady hum of her emotions, which is kind of nice. to be on the same page. kind of flattering, as well. not that he really... gets why. why he's flattered, that is. it's not like he made him. Anyway. ] Are you something else? What's all the...

[ there's a vague pointing to the general all of her vicinity. the glowing, the hovering, the eyes. ] I mean, not exactly human? More than human?

[circumspector]

[ She takes the time to disentangle herself then, a sigh, quiet, like removing herself from something that feels right. Dropping away from him slowly until she takes that last step away from him.

Flicks her fingers then, and it's strange, the build up these days she can feel of electricity on herself. Feels it crackle and she smooths her hands flat against her side. Willing the calm and quiet over herself with a practised ease. Harder to do these days without the control collar, but she was determined to never need it again. ]

They call me a uhm, a siren where I come from. We're a bit of a mystery, unfortunately. We barely even know what we are. [ Fiddles then, fingers tapping. Giving him the basic facts as they were, just the same as he gave her. ] Only six of us can exist at one time, and a new one is born when one of us dies. Only women though and it's... completely random. Some... some little girl somewhere out there gets born this way to perfectly normal parents.

[ Let her replacement be happier, let her life be better. Let her wield her power for herself. Let her be strong. ] We manifest these markings, though, that's how you know one of us. [ She hooks her thumb under her shirt then, tugging it up to reveal the flat of her stomach and the framing markings that are framed against her hips. Dips and swirls and jagged pointing lines, meandering like rivers. Matching where they wrap around her left hand and foot to show how extensive they were, where they ran up her chest and down the path of hip bones. Drops her hands to tug her collar down to show another part, where it curls across her shoulders and the central marking in the middle of her chest. ] And we all get... an ability. One of a kind, all our own, has something to do with the colour we glow? I ... can meld my mind to machines, and manipulate and control them in doing so. I become almost... part of them. I can also falsely manipulate reality too, in a small area. Distort it is probably a bit easier to understand it as. It's complicated but... it's all got something to do with these ancient aliens that left technology all over the galaxies. Seems to be... where we get it from.

[ she shrugs then. Hand dropping to tug her shirt down. ] That's about as much as anyone knows really. So... no, I guess? Not strictly human either. Or maybe, human but a little bit more than that? [ Lilith would say it cocky, she'd tilt her chin, say something like "like you, but better, kiddo." Maya would be clinical, and to that end, Angel has made her peace with the fact she's never truly going to understand why her. ]

[frakkincylons]

[ There's a thought that comes immediately, rapidly, to mind, like a striking fear - can you control me too? maybe angel can hear it, he's still new to all this and he's not great about keeping his mind to himself. but he thinks, with how she'd reacted, either she can't or she doesn't want to. but it's a fear that runs deep, not just due to angel. he's been toyed with before, had his mind taken apart and rebuilt, been reprogrammed, and there's still huge chunks of his memory missing. it terrifies him, a bit, to lose anything else.

But what she says about it, about becoming a part of the machines she controls, he understands that on a way maybe no one else can, and that pulses brilliantly in the mental link between them, a smile pulling across his lips, like he'd just found some long lost sibling. ]

I did something like that, back home. A battlestar. I was, I guess, the mind of it. More than that, I think. [ i was everything, all at once, his mind supplies, but that sounds insane, so it stays there, in his head. maybe he'll tell her another time. maybe share some of it, what he remembers, so long as she doesn't dig too deep into his mind after it. less out of a want for privacy, more out of concern for her. having all that inside his head broke his mind, irreversibly. he can't risk doing that to another.

angel speaks with a kind of awkwardness, and uncertainty, that sam can understand as well, his head tilting a bit to watch her, the console forgotten completely for the moment. ]

You know, I thought I was human, for a long time. Most of what I can remember. One day it was like a flip switched, and I was this, and I... couldn't figure out how to reconcile it. Still can't, in some ways. But a friend told me something, that day. You be the person you want to be, until the day you die. And that's who you are. [ Maybe a bit simple, not something so deeply philosophical, but it'd worked for all of them, then. That was just Tigh's way of doing things, and whether it was because they'd all subconsciously known and trusted him, or because of the station he held on the Galactica, they'd followed it, without question. ] So, human, cylon, either way, I'm still just Sam Anders. And you're still just Angel.

That's all you need to be.

[circumspector]

[ Her eyes watch him thoughtfully. Peeking out from behind the thick of her hair, something careful - skittish - animal excepting predator perhaps, all she expects from life anymore. But it's not that, that comes out of his mouth or his mind - and the question of whether she could or not will have to be for another day. ]

A planet. I used to... I used to cover a planet.

[ Which is to say - she knows - she knows how that feels. The meaning that is implied that outside of this between them, she doesn't think anyone else could understand what it is to be multitude. Whole but as something infinite rather than one. ]

I've always been this - [ not the same, not the same but there's more to it than that, it's not comfortable, it's not acceptance, it's regret and confusion ( and blood and fire and slag and - screaming, so much screaming ) ] - you sort of can't go back the first time you melt someone.

[ Swallows, bare it for what it is - she's done pretending. But oh if lying wasn't easier, just pretending to be blind, deaf and dumb doesn't have its own bliss. ] I've never been able to just be Angel.

[ And the look she gives him is - appreciative, but more than that. Like taking something off of her, the soft brush of her mind like she might want to physically but she is still getting used to being comfortable. But it's there as thought, of her fingers brushing against his cheek. An easy thank you for something that can't be summed up so simply as that. ]

[frakkincylons]

That's a lot of stuff to have inside one head.

[ but yes, he does understand it. hell, he'd been driven nuts when it was him. it's impressive she's still as stable as she is.

what he gets from her, when she mentions melting someone, is guilt. waves of it. sorrow, and while there's the appreciation there for him trying to help, he knows she's too swallowed up in regret and mixed up in the things inside her.

reaching out, perhaps in response to the phantom feeling of a soft touch to his cheek, sam takes her hands, holding them carefully, fingertips pressing into her palms and thumbs over the backs of her hands. What kind of person do you want Angel to be? Forget the powers and all that other crap - who do you want to be?

[ what you believe in, what actions you take, what you commit yourself to, what things you're brave enough to do, what things you won't do, what things are important, what do you value, how do you value it - all of that. for sam, it was being a soldier, a fighter. someone who defended and protected his people, and the ones he loved. the kind of person who was loyal until the bitter end. it was also sam anders, kara thrace's husband. someone to be at her back every time and any time she needed it, regardless of if she said she did or not. if she shoved at him and pushed him away, trying to destroy herself. he'd followed her to the ends of existence and reality and divinity, and that'd been exactly what he wanted. ]

It's hard, but... Tell yourself that's who you are, then start living it. [ just do it. don't look back, don't second guess it, don't look for all the reasons you can't be everything you wish you were as a person. ] If you stumble or frak up, it's okay. Get back on it and keep going. It's not going back, it's refusing to stop going forward.

Whether you're trying to make up for something, or you just don't like what you are - that's all any of us can do.

[circumspector]

[ She stays quiet, because ultimately - to all of that. It's a choice, it's a choice to be made every single time she opened her eyes, about what she was now. It was the loosest of definitions so far. She wouldn't be the person Jack made her, and she would start from there.

But it's all of it not something she wants to discuss right now though. She nods, the once, solemn and quiet, and then with the heaviness of those thoughts on her she puts them away. Fixing a smile on her face and presses forward.

She has choices to make, and they were all her own now. ]

Come on, I can help you build a robot, and we can get your friend out of there. He must be dying to stretch his legs.

[ Little, cute robotic legs. Granted, she doubts he's as irritating as a CL4P-TP unit. Either way, she would adore him, she often preferred them over people. ]

[frakkincylons]

[ Sam offers a smile in return, small but encouraging, with a final squeeze to her hands before he lets them drop. It's a heavy talk, and certainly something Angel likely has had rolling around in her head for a while. He'd given his two cents on it, but it's all just input for her to decide what to do with.

instead, he's turning back to the console, rubbing his hands together and ready to get to work. ]

Sounds good. You know, I'm kinda the crappiest AI there is. I don't actually remember being one much, so anything I'm not, you know, plugged in, I got no frakkin' clue what I'm doing with this junk.

[ Hell, Cavil'd made him a godsdamn sports player. of course he didn't know crap about tech. at least, not nearly as much as he should. ]