for Shay: "Disconnecting" (Battlestar Galactica) by mousewrites

Title: Disconnecting
Author: mousewrites
Recipient: shayheyred
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Summary: Leoben didn’t look so good when they found him at Ragnar Anchorage.



Disconnecting


[ LC649 Connecting ]

[ Connecting ]

[ Conntecti-]

[ Connection dropped. Radiation interference. Try again in 52345 cycles. ]

Nothing. Again. He looks around, the flickering light painting odd shadows
in the corners. Alone here, alone again. He isn’t restless, he doesn’t get
restless, but his body wants to move, wants to feel the smooth slide of
muscle under skin over bone, and he pushes upright, swinging his gun over
his hands. His face is scratchy; he can feel the hairs move under the skin.
He pulses a bit more electricity to the skin-surface, makes the hair a bit
longer, less itchy.

He tries again, even though it’s only been 52341 cycles.

[ LC649 Connecting ]

[ Connecting ]

[ Con-]

[ Connection dropped. Radiation interference. Try again in 90321 cycles. ]

Damn it. He paces, his boots scraping at the ground. The sound is muted
here, as if he’s got water in his ears, and he shakes them irritably.

No, not irritably. He’s not irritable, and he’s not restless, and he’s not
afraid.

He crouches against a wall, rusty water trickling down the pitted surface.
He rubs a finger through the trail, watching it break and bead over the new
path he made before spilling over, the light glinting momentarily off the
disrupted flow.

Disrupted flow. That’s what’s wrong, just not used to this…
disconnectedness. He sighs, shutting his eyes. The rust is gritty against
his fingers as he rubs his hands together. He can do this; he’s doing it,
its done.

He arrived hours ago. Hours and hours by the human’s reckoning, and it
couldn’t be long now before they figured it out, before they came here
looking for weapons that would not help them. He’s explored every inch of
this place, mapping it firmly in his mind. The environmental controls are
close to breaking down, and the air is hot, wet. Moisture slicks everything.
It didn’t bother him at first, but he’s sick of being damp, of being hot.
He’s dropped his body temperature as low as he can without causing damage to
his systems, and still he feels too hot. He’s exuding moisture at an
alarming rate. He’s already drunk two of the six canteens he has in the
ship. He’s thinking about drinking the third, but is trying to slow down. He
can smell himself; sweat and dirt and the iron from his hands.

He’s here, waiting for the humans to come. They will come, they have no
choice. No choice, no plan, and no real hope. They have forsaken God, and
God has smiled upon a new era, chosen a new people. His people. His era.

He tries to find that place inside him, the place full of God, but it feels
empty, and he flings his hand out, clanging it against the metal wall. Water
splashes in a glittering arc over his face.

[ LC649 Connecting ]

[ Con-]

[ Connection dropped. Radiation interference. Try again in 6580 cycles. ]

[ LC649 Connecting ]

[ Connection dropped. Radiation interference. Try again in 6221 cycles. ]

[ LC649 Connecting ]

[ Connection dropped. Radiation interference. Try again in 5758 cycles. ]

He glares up into the darkness overhead, watching faint drops of water catch
the light as they fall. This place is a pit. A stinking, rusting, rotting
pit, and he doesn’t want to be here anymore. He wants to be back on the
ship, in the smooth cool confines of the pod, or, or… somewhere.

The itch on his cheek has spread to his nose, but he resists scratching at
it. He’s got rust under his nails, and he doesn’t want to introduce that
much iron into his system if he breaks the skin-surface. Not that it would
really hurt him, but it’d throw off the balances, and he doesn’t want that.

He’s off balance enough.

He stands up, brushing his hands clean. He props his gun on the wall, not
caring that the strap is trailing in the water. He shakes out his hands, his
arms, rotating them through full motion ranges. If he can’t connect, he’ll
just pray. Praying is good. Praying is calming, and focusing, and makes him
feel beautiful.

He’s beautiful in the eyes of God.

He moves through the first Hymn, his bones and skin and muscle moving in
harmony, his face still. He can’t do this as well as some of the other
models can, not with his very human shaped body; his stops aren’t sharp
enough, aren’t precise enough. It’s the sacrifice they’ve made.

The dripping water in the background is almost the right tempo for the
second Hymn, and he slows his time perception a hair, matching up the steady
dub, dub, dub of the water with the deliberate beat of the Hymn, his heart
and feet falling automatically into place, and the Hymn holds him for a
while, directing and commanding and soothing him in its beat. Step, turn,
step, breathe, heart and hands and head and whole, step, turn, step,
breathe.

He casts his mind out again, wanting that spark, that feeling of God.

[ LC649 Connecting ] dub, dub

[ Connecting ]

[ Connecting ]

[ Connected. ]

Bliss. His steps fall into thousands of others, measured, perfect.

LC-whole absorbs his experience as he tightbeams it, and they all look at
the strangeness of the thoughts. Alone, and afraid, and empty. Alien, human
thoughts. His brain feels hot, swollen.

[ Not what we need, ] say the whole, and LC649 opens his eyes, pulling out
of the Hymn.

“Not what I want,” he says, “How long?”

[ not long now. Wait. Wait. Stay strong, be human for them. ]

He looks at his body, soft and pink and fleshy, his hands like thick coated
wires. His nose itches. His eyes hurt.

“I will. I will tell him.”

A pulse of duty love unity comes over the link, and he smiles, his eyes
sliding shut, his mind as much theirs as his, and long cycles go by. They’re
thinking about God, about love and the plan, and about eternity-

[ Connection dropped. Radiation interference. Try again in 1456378345
cycles. ]

He staggers against the wall, a low noise coming out of him. His skin feels
too big to operate alone, and he moves his hands shakily to his face. His
fingers come away wet, and he stares at them, the rusty water dark against
his skin.

Is this how the humans feel, alone in their bodies, forever cut off from
each other? Inefficient, and so… lonely.

Lonely. Lone. A lone. Alone.

Communicating with only their voices, trying to guess the nuances of each
other’s speech with only their eyes and ears to guide them. They are so easy
to deceive. They depend so much on their senses, and they trust them. If you
can convince their eyes you were telling the truth, then they’d believe you,
no matter how fantastic your tale. They were limited, out dated, obsolete.

A faint, echoing noise rolls down the hall, and he grabs his gun, inching
forward. He hadn’t seen any animals on the station, and there’s no way the
ship could have docked without him hearing it.

There, to the left- He spins, the gun up, his ‘human’ face on, mobile and
expressive. “Who’s there?” he calls softly. Perhaps they missed someone on
the scan.

His voice bounces down the hall, splintering in the air vents, and he hears
it echoing back at him a hundred times, a thousand. “Who’s there, who’s,
who, who there?” and it’s all his voice, and he automatically tries to open
to the voices, the self.

Nothing. It’s like opening a porthole into space, just cold, sucking
nothing, and he closes it again, gasping. He presses one hand against his
chest as if the coldness inside of him could be rubbed away, as if it
actually sat under his skin. A laugh bounces back down the hall, and he’s
spinning to face it before he realizes it’s him. He sets the gun down before
he ends up shooting himself with it.

Stupid station. Stupid humans and their inability to realize their time had
passed. Stupid, stupid, stupid… and the chant becomes the dubdub, dubdub,
dubdub of the sixth Hymn. He can't quite bring himself to move, just wedges
himself into a side room, hands wrapped loosely around his gun, thinking
about the face of God and the sound of rain.

[ LC649 Connecting ]

[ Connecting ]

[ Conntecti-]

[ Connection dropped. Radiation interference. Try again in 52345 cycles. ]

[ LC649 Connecting ]

[ Connecting …]