Fic: Mathematics: Architect (2/10)
Series Title: Mathematics
Segment Title: Architect (2/10) (Part 1 is here)
Author: kappamaki33
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eventually, Gaeta/Eight, implied Caprica/Baltar and (unrequited?) Gaeta/Baltar
Series Summary: Scenes from New Caprica. It was such a simple equation: Felix+Eight=valuable, effective death lists. But the math never remains that uncomplicated, once life gets factored in.
Part 2 Summary: “Architect”: Felix tries simultaneously to hold Baltar’s government together and tear it down from the inside. Two very close calls lead to two very strange conversations.
Spoilers: Through “Face of the Enemy” Webisodes
Disclaimer: I do not own BSG or any of the characters described herein. These works are for fan appreciation and entertainment only, and I do not benefit financially from them.
Series Notes: So, this is my first-ever fic. It’s going to be a ten-part series when I’m done. I wanted to impose some sort of structure on the story to make it a bit more challenging-and also to help me develop an overall framework-so each vignette has some connection to its number, in descending order from 10 to 1. The connection to the number is more obvious in some than in others, but it served its purpose as a structural framework.
Part 2 Notes: This section is pretty setup-heavy, too, but there were a few details in the mutiny arc that inspired me to write this part of the story in detail instead of glossing over it. First, after seeing how meticulous and clever Gaeta’s plan to take over the ship was in “The Oath,” I figured he must have had a clever system of getting hold of information for the Resistance on New Caprica, yet we’d never really seen how he did it. (Also, I wanted to write an explanation for that room Athena retrieves the launch keys from in “Exodus,” because that always struck me as a strange set.) Second, I absolutely loved Felix’s speech about architecture at the end of “Blood on the Scales,” not just because it resolved the relationship with Baltar and gave us as viewers a chance to say goodbye to the character, too, but because I think Felix’s fascination with architecture in particular is so appropriate for an idealist like him. He was trying to build a better world on New Caprica, but the plans just didn’t have solid enough foundations.
This segment is brought to you by the number 9, the age at which Felix became enamored with a certain career, an interest which is rekindled several years later under unusual circumstances.
Mathematics: Architect
“Mr. Gaeta, what have you done with the water ration distribution report?” Doral snapped.
Felix jumped at the sound of his name; he’d let himself-yet again-become too preoccupied with his idle doodling. “Uh, I gave it to a D’Anna after I’d finished with it.” He hesitated, wondering just how far he should push. “She probably filed it in the Vault.”
Doral snorted in disgust. “We never should’ve let any of the Threes play at being secretaries. That sort of unclassified, non-critical information needs to be readily accessible to everyone on staff-which is exactly why we file it in the main file room and not the frakking Vault!” Doral slammed his fist on the table, waking up the Leoben who had been dozing throughout the meeting. Doral waited for a response from someone, anyone, but received none. “Why did you let her do that, Mr. Gaeta?”
Felix replied in the cool, measured tone of his that he knew infuriated the Dorals. “I apologize. What would you like me to do about it?”
Felix sat, impassive and innocent, as the tension around the table crackled. The Cylons and the handful of other human staffers in the room sat stock still and silent, most likely trying not to attract any of Doral’s ire, Felix thought to himself a little smugly. Doral was gritting his teeth. All Felix could do was sit back and wait for the explosion.
“Just go find them!” Doral spat, digging in his sport coat pocket and then flinging a set of keys at Felix’s face. Luckily, Felix managed to catch them.
“Thank you. I’ll be right back,” Felix said quietly, bowing his head slightly before leaving the room. Felix could hear Doral chewing out a Leoben as he walked all the way down the hall. He allowed himself an almost imperceptible self-congratulatory smile for managing to push Doral’s buttons just right.
It was a risk-a big risk, he knew, especially since he’d used the same trick to get into the Vault only a four days earlier, but he couldn’t pass up such a good opportunity when it was presented to him like that. Felix made his way down to the aft lower deck. He stared into the retina scanner the Cylons had installed, and it let him through and catalogued his entry. He still had to use one of the keys Doral had tossed him to open the Vault; though the Cylons had added their own layers of security, they hadn’t had the time or inclination to remove the old human ones.
Back when Colonial One had been a luxury passenger carrier, the Vault had been nothing more than a secure luggage compartment with a wall of lock boxes built in for passengers’ smaller valuables. When it became Colonial One, the room was a natural choice as a secure filing room for government documents. When the Cylons arrived, however, the combination of the Dorals’ obsession with organization and their need for added control led them to convert one of the larger living compartments into another, less secure filing room. Now, they used the Vault only for the most important documents and a few other vital items, such as the codes and keys for the nukes the Cylons had brought with them and the launch keys for the grounded ships. Felix had no illusions about ever getting into the lock boxes, since the Cylons had gone to the trouble of installing some form of security technology that involved placing one’s hand in a stream of glowing liquid, which he was quite sure humans couldn’t use.
That didn’t mean there was nothing of value in the Vault that was accessible to humans. There were still file cabinets, dozens of them, that were only protected by old-fashioned locks, so human staffers could still be sent down to retrieve documents. Once inside the Vault, Felix opened one of the file cabinets and hunted through until he found what he was looking for: a folder labeled “Top Secret: Baseship-to-Ground Transport Schedule.”
The Cylons had enlisted Felix to help install the security cameras in this part of Colonial One when they first arrived, since, for all their technological superiority, the Cylons had never had any reason for security cameras aboard their baseships. So, Felix knew exactly where to stand in order to block the camera’s view with his body when he took the fake Heavy Raider traffic schedule he’d prepared out of a pocket sewn inside his jacket. He slipped the real file into the hidden pocket, then casually turned toward the camera with the fake in hand, pretending to read it. If anyone ever looked very closely at the report, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out it was a dummy, but Felix felt fairly confident it would escape the notice of anyone doing a cursory check on the files. He put the fake in the folder , put the folder back in the file cabinet, and locked the drawer.
“Fancy finding you here.”
Felix froze at the feel of hot breath on his neck. He tried to turn around but ended up stumbling and banging into the filing cabinet, making quite a racket. “Oh gods, what are you doing down here?”
“What, you thought I didn’t have retina-scan clearance for this room anymore, Felix?” Baltar sniffed, his red-rimmed eyes meandering around the Vault. “I am still the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, you know. I merely lost my keys.”
Felix wondered at how he hadn’t perceived Baltar’s presence from the reek of alcohol that clung to the President and filled the little room. The man who stood before him, swaying and glassy-eyed, was a mere shadow of the man whose eloquence and gracious smile had dazzled like a sun at the Founder’s Day ground-breaking ceremony less than a year ago. A hank of long, greasy hair fell across one of Gaius’s eyes, but he didn’t even seem to notice it. He was wearing a suit, but it was so rumpled that he must have slept in it. His shirt was stained, and his fly was open. He hadn’t bothered to put on shoes.
“You shouldn’t be down here, Mr. President,” Felix said, taking Baltar by the arm and gently ushering him toward the door.
“Neither should you, Felix,” Baltar said, glaring at him.
Felix’s heart thumped hard against the papers hidden inside his jacket. “Mr. President, I was-”
“Who are you meeting in here?” Gaius’s voice dropped an octave, almost down to a growl. “Who is it? It’s that burly fellow, the one with the Tauron accent, isn’t it? Bennik.”
Bennik had been one of Gaius’s bodyguards, before the Cylons arrived. He’d died of pneumona five months ago, back when Gaius was still attending state funerals.
“We need to get you back upstairs,” Felix said, but Baltar wasn’t listening. He mumbled some choice curses as he gave Felix a series of little shoves until he rammed Felix right into the file cabinet again.
“Not here, Felix. Don’t bring him here,” Gaius mumbled. A vague memory resurfaced in Felix’s mind: before Doral refurnished the room, the file cabinets in the Vault had been low enough to bend a man’s body over one. Leave it to Gaius to map out all the prime frakking locations on Colonial One, and to remember them even while in a drug-induced haze.
“What are you afraid of, Felix? If Bennik finds us, it’s me he’ll punch. I don’t still make you nervous after all this time, do I, Felix?” Gaius slid one hand to the back of Felix’s head and dug his fingers into the dark curls so tightly it hurt. This close up, Felix could see from Gaius’s eyes that the other man was so far gone he wouldn’t remember any of this the next day.
“Gaius, please,” Felix whispered, though he wasn’t even sure what he was begging for. Maybe for the last six months to have just been a bad dream.
“Gaius?” a familiar female voice echoed in the hall.
Gaius’s grip on Felix’s hair relaxed, and his eyes lost their focus, looking right through Felix. Gaius turned and left the room without a word. It was as if Felix had never been there.
Felix took a deep breath and paused a moment to straighten his jacket before following Gaius out. A Six-the Six, Felix knew-was cooing in Gaius’s ear and directing him up a ladder to the upper deck.
Felix caught up to her before she followed after Gaius. “What are you doing, letting him wander around like that?” he hissed, trying to keep his voice low enough so Gaius wouldn’t hear, just in case.
“I just woke up and found that he was gone.”
“What if he’d gotten outside on his own? Even if he wouldn’t have gotten past the gate, people can shoot through barbed wire.”
Six was visibly rattled, which was a rarity. “We were just in bed, he was asleep, and-”
“Just get him out of here,” Felix cut her off. Talking back to a Cylon in that tone of voice was dangerous, but as much as Felix hated to admit it, Baltar’s presence still usually overrode the logical parts of Felix’s brain.
Felix had calmed down by the time he got to the main file room. No one was there, so he had no problem taking last week’s water ration reports out of the rationing records file cabinet-exactly where he had put them three days ago-and deftly slipping the Heavy Raider schedule out of his pocket and into the folder amongst the water reports. Even a Centurion would likely catch him if he tried smuggling documents out in his clothing, since they patted down everyone who entered and exited the Colonial One compound. However, no one, Cylon or human, would bat an eye at Felix Gaeta taking work home with him in the evening, so long as they didn’t see a red “CLASSIFIED” stamp on the front page.
Who knew anal retentiveness would come in so handy in espionage? Felix mused to himself. Not that he was under any illusions as to it always being a virtue; Felix had, after all, finally met someone more anal than he was in Aaron Doral. Was he as scary as Doral when he went on an organization spree, Felix wondered? He wished he could ask Dee; she would have made some snide joke and then reassured him that he was all right-maybe not sane, definitely not normal, but all right. He wished he could ask Dee about a lot of things lately.
“Ah, Mr. Gaeta, you’re back just in time to be of absolutely no use to us anymore,” said Doral as Felix entered the conference room.
Felix suppressed a smile. “Sorry. You know the Threes and their organizational skills.”
Doral frowned at Felix before pretending to ignore him and turning back to the staffers at the conference table. “Right, then, you’re all dismissed. Four, remember to tell Cato and Tiverns I need that agriculture report on my desk by 0900 tomorrow.”
“Wait a minute,” Felix said as the other packed up their notes and papers. “What about my parole board proposal? I know it was on the agenda this week-”
Now it was Doral’s turn to barely suppress his glee under a façade of professionalism. “We voted on it. It didn’t pass.”
Felix’s jaw dropped. “You voted on my proposal? How could you vote on it-I didn’t even get to present it!”
Doral replied with a shrug, “You took too long. When we got to that item on the agenda, you weren’t here. For the sake of efficiency, we continued without you.”
Felix could feel anger welling up in his stomach, but he did his best to tamp it down and argue with Doral coolly. “Look, if you have some kind of grudge against me, fine-but take it out on me, not this government.” He paused for a moment, but Doral just continued to stare at him impassively. “Amendment Three of the Articles of Colonization guarantees habeas corpus. If you want this government to maintain any kind of legitimacy at all-”
“Thank you very much but that is enough, Mr. Gaeta!” Doral yelled. Those unlucky enough to still be in the room froze again. Doral took a deep breath and continued, more calmly, “Thank you, Mr. Gaeta, for your opinion, but the legitimacy of this government, endorsed and headed by a legally elected human president, is a non-issue.” Felix thought he saw a glimmer of a grin on Doral’s lips before the Cylon turned and left the room.
Felix shoved his notes from the meeting into the folder haphazardly and then braced his hands on the table to try to keep himself from shaking with rage. Doral almost made him miss working under Colonel Tigh.
“Hey there,” a Sharon said quietly. Felix looked up; he’d thought everyone had left already. “I just wanted to apologize for the way Doral treated you today. He was way out of line.” She smiled sadly and ambled toward Felix.
“No need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Felix said, trying to politely brush her off, but she kept coming closer.
“No, there is a need,” she pressed, still very sweetly and softly. “He treats you worse than a Centurion, and all you’re trying to do is help.” She paused until Felix looked up and met her eyes. “Do you remember me, Felix? You helped me set up the security cameras here, when we first arrived.”
“Okay,” Felix said. He remembered there had been three Sharons working on security, but mostly he remembered just being numb the week the Cylons arrived.
“Anyway…sorry. Doral’s meetings are so painfully boring, everybody drifts off. Honestly, I think you pay more attention than most of the rest of us combined.” She smiled, as if she’d tried very hard to make a joke that even she knew wasn’t funny. “I watch you in the meetings sometimes, and you’re almost always sketching something. Can I see?” she asked as she picked up the folder, not giving Felix a chance to tell her no.
Felix’s heart jumped into his throat. He’d thrust his doodles into the file folder with the water reports and the Heavy Raider schedule at random, so she’d have to thumb through the whole folder, stolen classified documents and all, to look at all of them.
“They’re buildings.” Her smile warmed. “Is this New Caprica?”
“It was supposed to be,” he answered, taking the opportunity to look hurt and embarrassed and close the folder as she held it in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” the Sharon stumbled, “I didn’t mean to intrude.” She handed the folder back to Felix. “It will be, someday.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty thought,” Felix said half-heartedly as he took the folder and then left the room.
Felix glanced out the windows as he walked down the hall to his tiny office. These windows showed a view of East Tent City, with the detention center, gray and cold and ugly, blocking the morning sun. If the Cylons hadn’t come, the people living in those tents might be moving into the first of the new apartment buildings, Felix thought to himself. He stopped and stood with his forehead pressed against one of the window panes.
Felix remembered when New Caprica had been more than just a pretty thought to him, back in the early days. He had been unfailingly fair in apportioning projects among President Baltar’s staff, often taking on the most tedious and frustrating tasks himself, like census-taking and negotiating with the unions, even when he really could have passed them on to others in good conscience. He’d only cheated once: he had given himself the job of overseeing the planning of New Caprica City’s future residential district and public service structures, even though the former member of the Army Corps of Engineers on staff would have been the most logical choice.
Felix managed to gather a staff of two independent contractors: the last architect in the known universe, 76-year-old Ms. Ivanna Narian, and her apprentice, a nineteen year-old kid from Aerilon who had gotten one year of university training before the apocalypse. Felix met with Ms. Narian and her apprentice at Ms. Narian’s home one night after work to lay out the broad contours of the plan for New Caprica City and to assure Ms. Narian and Danny that he would be available to answer any questions they had any time, but he had ended up staying there until nearly dawn, all three bouncing ideas off each other and drawing on each others’ sketches in a blissful flurry of imagination.
Somehow, Felix found himself at Ms. Narian’s the following night, and the night after that. He said he was just there overseeing in his capacity as a government official, but all three of them knew that was a lie by the end of the first week. Almost every day, Felix would drag himself through a full day of work on Colonial One and then spend most of the night in Ms. Narian’s tent. It got to the point that one day about a month into the project, Gaius asked Felix very suggestively, and perhaps even tinged with a little jealousy, if something or someone had been keeping him up at night a lot lately. Felix had told him that it was just that there was so much work to be done on the planet that he barely had time to sleep, but Felix knew that Gaius would interpret the broad grin on his face as he answered as meaning something quite different.
Felix had told himself that he wouldn’t have devoted so much time to helping design the apartments and schools if he hadn’t felt as needed as he did, though he knew that was probably a lie. Ms. Narian was skilled and knowledgeable, but the cold of New Caprica exacerbated her arthritis so badly that she could barely draw. So, Danny and Felix became her hands, poring over blueprints, sketching floor plans for houses and hospitals and schools, and making all sorts of over-eager, impractical design mistakes.
“You’re worse than Danny, and he’s just a kid-you should know better,” Ms. Narian would say, chuckling and patting Felix on the head like a child as she looked at his drawings, leaning on his shoulder for support.
“What? They need fire escapes.”
“So we’ll add fire escapes, not grand staircases-multiple grand staircases, from the looks of it.”
Founder’s Day had been the best day of Felix’s life. That was the day they broke ground on the first new apartment complex, the first building that was something more than just makeshift, like the water treatment plant and the handful of other small, shoebox-like industrial buildings Chief Tyrol and his union had cobbled together on the fly. Felix would spend his coffee and lunch breaks at this window, watching Chief’s people lay the foundations and put the rebar up, the construction progressing painfully slowly because Felix and the other ministers so often had to call the crews away to the many other, more pressing needs of the city.
When the Cylons arrived, the Centurions built on the bones of the apartments, working nonstop, day and night, to turn his dream into the blocky, squat, hideous detention center that loomed over Tent City like a nightmare. They’d finished it in six days. It killed Felix a little bit every time he saw it.
“I meant what I said,” the Sharon said, startling Felix with the sudden ardor in her voice and her hand on his arm. He hadn’t even realized she’d followed him. “I believe in this place, and not in the way Aaron Doral does.”
Felix paused, knowing he was teetering on the edge of something that could be a major coup, or that could be the death of him. He directed the Sharon into his storage-closet-turned-office, clicking the door shut behind her.
“Have any of the others-maybe my sister on Galactica-ever told you about projection?” she asked.
“It’s like really clear, realistic daydreaming, right?”
“Sort of. In some ways, it’s more like what you do, like sketching-like testing out an idea for a new world before you dig in and try to make it a reality, see if it’s really the kind of world you want first. This beautiful city you draw in the margins of your notes-it’s the same city I project when I walk out there among the tents.” The Sharon’s voice was firm but gentle, and tinged with a bitterness that surprised Felix. “I’m tired of just imagining that world, Felix. The way the others are going about it, terrorizing people, rounding them up off the streets-they’re destroying everything before it’s even been built. I know you feel the same way. I can tell from the way you speak in the staff meetings, and the way you try to work with the humans who come here with complaints. Yes, I’ve been watching you-please, don’t blush. I just had to make sure that you were the right person to talk to.” Felix was still wary, but just the look in her eyes when she spoke made him want so badly to believe there was somebody else who came to New Caprica to create rather than to destroy. “It’s not enough to project a perfect world and hope it’ll fall together eventually. I’m willing to work for it, to do whatever I have to do.” Emotion cracked her voice without weakening it. Her eyes were glistening. “I want to build something real here, just like you.”
Maybe it was a siren’s song, Felix thought to himself, but it was worth venturing at least a little closer to the rocks. After all, even if it was, he was the only person in danger of drowning.
Segment Title: Architect (2/10) (Part 1 is here)
Author: kappamaki33
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eventually, Gaeta/Eight, implied Caprica/Baltar and (unrequited?) Gaeta/Baltar
Series Summary: Scenes from New Caprica. It was such a simple equation: Felix+Eight=valuable, effective death lists. But the math never remains that uncomplicated, once life gets factored in.
Part 2 Summary: “Architect”: Felix tries simultaneously to hold Baltar’s government together and tear it down from the inside. Two very close calls lead to two very strange conversations.
Spoilers: Through “Face of the Enemy” Webisodes
Disclaimer: I do not own BSG or any of the characters described herein. These works are for fan appreciation and entertainment only, and I do not benefit financially from them.
Series Notes: So, this is my first-ever fic. It’s going to be a ten-part series when I’m done. I wanted to impose some sort of structure on the story to make it a bit more challenging-and also to help me develop an overall framework-so each vignette has some connection to its number, in descending order from 10 to 1. The connection to the number is more obvious in some than in others, but it served its purpose as a structural framework.
Part 2 Notes: This section is pretty setup-heavy, too, but there were a few details in the mutiny arc that inspired me to write this part of the story in detail instead of glossing over it. First, after seeing how meticulous and clever Gaeta’s plan to take over the ship was in “The Oath,” I figured he must have had a clever system of getting hold of information for the Resistance on New Caprica, yet we’d never really seen how he did it. (Also, I wanted to write an explanation for that room Athena retrieves the launch keys from in “Exodus,” because that always struck me as a strange set.) Second, I absolutely loved Felix’s speech about architecture at the end of “Blood on the Scales,” not just because it resolved the relationship with Baltar and gave us as viewers a chance to say goodbye to the character, too, but because I think Felix’s fascination with architecture in particular is so appropriate for an idealist like him. He was trying to build a better world on New Caprica, but the plans just didn’t have solid enough foundations.
This segment is brought to you by the number 9, the age at which Felix became enamored with a certain career, an interest which is rekindled several years later under unusual circumstances.
Mathematics: Architect
“Mr. Gaeta, what have you done with the water ration distribution report?” Doral snapped.
Felix jumped at the sound of his name; he’d let himself-yet again-become too preoccupied with his idle doodling. “Uh, I gave it to a D’Anna after I’d finished with it.” He hesitated, wondering just how far he should push. “She probably filed it in the Vault.”
Doral snorted in disgust. “We never should’ve let any of the Threes play at being secretaries. That sort of unclassified, non-critical information needs to be readily accessible to everyone on staff-which is exactly why we file it in the main file room and not the frakking Vault!” Doral slammed his fist on the table, waking up the Leoben who had been dozing throughout the meeting. Doral waited for a response from someone, anyone, but received none. “Why did you let her do that, Mr. Gaeta?”
Felix replied in the cool, measured tone of his that he knew infuriated the Dorals. “I apologize. What would you like me to do about it?”
Felix sat, impassive and innocent, as the tension around the table crackled. The Cylons and the handful of other human staffers in the room sat stock still and silent, most likely trying not to attract any of Doral’s ire, Felix thought to himself a little smugly. Doral was gritting his teeth. All Felix could do was sit back and wait for the explosion.
“Just go find them!” Doral spat, digging in his sport coat pocket and then flinging a set of keys at Felix’s face. Luckily, Felix managed to catch them.
“Thank you. I’ll be right back,” Felix said quietly, bowing his head slightly before leaving the room. Felix could hear Doral chewing out a Leoben as he walked all the way down the hall. He allowed himself an almost imperceptible self-congratulatory smile for managing to push Doral’s buttons just right.
It was a risk-a big risk, he knew, especially since he’d used the same trick to get into the Vault only a four days earlier, but he couldn’t pass up such a good opportunity when it was presented to him like that. Felix made his way down to the aft lower deck. He stared into the retina scanner the Cylons had installed, and it let him through and catalogued his entry. He still had to use one of the keys Doral had tossed him to open the Vault; though the Cylons had added their own layers of security, they hadn’t had the time or inclination to remove the old human ones.
Back when Colonial One had been a luxury passenger carrier, the Vault had been nothing more than a secure luggage compartment with a wall of lock boxes built in for passengers’ smaller valuables. When it became Colonial One, the room was a natural choice as a secure filing room for government documents. When the Cylons arrived, however, the combination of the Dorals’ obsession with organization and their need for added control led them to convert one of the larger living compartments into another, less secure filing room. Now, they used the Vault only for the most important documents and a few other vital items, such as the codes and keys for the nukes the Cylons had brought with them and the launch keys for the grounded ships. Felix had no illusions about ever getting into the lock boxes, since the Cylons had gone to the trouble of installing some form of security technology that involved placing one’s hand in a stream of glowing liquid, which he was quite sure humans couldn’t use.
That didn’t mean there was nothing of value in the Vault that was accessible to humans. There were still file cabinets, dozens of them, that were only protected by old-fashioned locks, so human staffers could still be sent down to retrieve documents. Once inside the Vault, Felix opened one of the file cabinets and hunted through until he found what he was looking for: a folder labeled “Top Secret: Baseship-to-Ground Transport Schedule.”
The Cylons had enlisted Felix to help install the security cameras in this part of Colonial One when they first arrived, since, for all their technological superiority, the Cylons had never had any reason for security cameras aboard their baseships. So, Felix knew exactly where to stand in order to block the camera’s view with his body when he took the fake Heavy Raider traffic schedule he’d prepared out of a pocket sewn inside his jacket. He slipped the real file into the hidden pocket, then casually turned toward the camera with the fake in hand, pretending to read it. If anyone ever looked very closely at the report, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out it was a dummy, but Felix felt fairly confident it would escape the notice of anyone doing a cursory check on the files. He put the fake in the folder , put the folder back in the file cabinet, and locked the drawer.
“Fancy finding you here.”
Felix froze at the feel of hot breath on his neck. He tried to turn around but ended up stumbling and banging into the filing cabinet, making quite a racket. “Oh gods, what are you doing down here?”
“What, you thought I didn’t have retina-scan clearance for this room anymore, Felix?” Baltar sniffed, his red-rimmed eyes meandering around the Vault. “I am still the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, you know. I merely lost my keys.”
Felix wondered at how he hadn’t perceived Baltar’s presence from the reek of alcohol that clung to the President and filled the little room. The man who stood before him, swaying and glassy-eyed, was a mere shadow of the man whose eloquence and gracious smile had dazzled like a sun at the Founder’s Day ground-breaking ceremony less than a year ago. A hank of long, greasy hair fell across one of Gaius’s eyes, but he didn’t even seem to notice it. He was wearing a suit, but it was so rumpled that he must have slept in it. His shirt was stained, and his fly was open. He hadn’t bothered to put on shoes.
“You shouldn’t be down here, Mr. President,” Felix said, taking Baltar by the arm and gently ushering him toward the door.
“Neither should you, Felix,” Baltar said, glaring at him.
Felix’s heart thumped hard against the papers hidden inside his jacket. “Mr. President, I was-”
“Who are you meeting in here?” Gaius’s voice dropped an octave, almost down to a growl. “Who is it? It’s that burly fellow, the one with the Tauron accent, isn’t it? Bennik.”
Bennik had been one of Gaius’s bodyguards, before the Cylons arrived. He’d died of pneumona five months ago, back when Gaius was still attending state funerals.
“We need to get you back upstairs,” Felix said, but Baltar wasn’t listening. He mumbled some choice curses as he gave Felix a series of little shoves until he rammed Felix right into the file cabinet again.
“Not here, Felix. Don’t bring him here,” Gaius mumbled. A vague memory resurfaced in Felix’s mind: before Doral refurnished the room, the file cabinets in the Vault had been low enough to bend a man’s body over one. Leave it to Gaius to map out all the prime frakking locations on Colonial One, and to remember them even while in a drug-induced haze.
“What are you afraid of, Felix? If Bennik finds us, it’s me he’ll punch. I don’t still make you nervous after all this time, do I, Felix?” Gaius slid one hand to the back of Felix’s head and dug his fingers into the dark curls so tightly it hurt. This close up, Felix could see from Gaius’s eyes that the other man was so far gone he wouldn’t remember any of this the next day.
“Gaius, please,” Felix whispered, though he wasn’t even sure what he was begging for. Maybe for the last six months to have just been a bad dream.
“Gaius?” a familiar female voice echoed in the hall.
Gaius’s grip on Felix’s hair relaxed, and his eyes lost their focus, looking right through Felix. Gaius turned and left the room without a word. It was as if Felix had never been there.
Felix took a deep breath and paused a moment to straighten his jacket before following Gaius out. A Six-the Six, Felix knew-was cooing in Gaius’s ear and directing him up a ladder to the upper deck.
Felix caught up to her before she followed after Gaius. “What are you doing, letting him wander around like that?” he hissed, trying to keep his voice low enough so Gaius wouldn’t hear, just in case.
“I just woke up and found that he was gone.”
“What if he’d gotten outside on his own? Even if he wouldn’t have gotten past the gate, people can shoot through barbed wire.”
Six was visibly rattled, which was a rarity. “We were just in bed, he was asleep, and-”
“Just get him out of here,” Felix cut her off. Talking back to a Cylon in that tone of voice was dangerous, but as much as Felix hated to admit it, Baltar’s presence still usually overrode the logical parts of Felix’s brain.
Felix had calmed down by the time he got to the main file room. No one was there, so he had no problem taking last week’s water ration reports out of the rationing records file cabinet-exactly where he had put them three days ago-and deftly slipping the Heavy Raider schedule out of his pocket and into the folder amongst the water reports. Even a Centurion would likely catch him if he tried smuggling documents out in his clothing, since they patted down everyone who entered and exited the Colonial One compound. However, no one, Cylon or human, would bat an eye at Felix Gaeta taking work home with him in the evening, so long as they didn’t see a red “CLASSIFIED” stamp on the front page.
Who knew anal retentiveness would come in so handy in espionage? Felix mused to himself. Not that he was under any illusions as to it always being a virtue; Felix had, after all, finally met someone more anal than he was in Aaron Doral. Was he as scary as Doral when he went on an organization spree, Felix wondered? He wished he could ask Dee; she would have made some snide joke and then reassured him that he was all right-maybe not sane, definitely not normal, but all right. He wished he could ask Dee about a lot of things lately.
“Ah, Mr. Gaeta, you’re back just in time to be of absolutely no use to us anymore,” said Doral as Felix entered the conference room.
Felix suppressed a smile. “Sorry. You know the Threes and their organizational skills.”
Doral frowned at Felix before pretending to ignore him and turning back to the staffers at the conference table. “Right, then, you’re all dismissed. Four, remember to tell Cato and Tiverns I need that agriculture report on my desk by 0900 tomorrow.”
“Wait a minute,” Felix said as the other packed up their notes and papers. “What about my parole board proposal? I know it was on the agenda this week-”
Now it was Doral’s turn to barely suppress his glee under a façade of professionalism. “We voted on it. It didn’t pass.”
Felix’s jaw dropped. “You voted on my proposal? How could you vote on it-I didn’t even get to present it!”
Doral replied with a shrug, “You took too long. When we got to that item on the agenda, you weren’t here. For the sake of efficiency, we continued without you.”
Felix could feel anger welling up in his stomach, but he did his best to tamp it down and argue with Doral coolly. “Look, if you have some kind of grudge against me, fine-but take it out on me, not this government.” He paused for a moment, but Doral just continued to stare at him impassively. “Amendment Three of the Articles of Colonization guarantees habeas corpus. If you want this government to maintain any kind of legitimacy at all-”
“Thank you very much but that is enough, Mr. Gaeta!” Doral yelled. Those unlucky enough to still be in the room froze again. Doral took a deep breath and continued, more calmly, “Thank you, Mr. Gaeta, for your opinion, but the legitimacy of this government, endorsed and headed by a legally elected human president, is a non-issue.” Felix thought he saw a glimmer of a grin on Doral’s lips before the Cylon turned and left the room.
Felix shoved his notes from the meeting into the folder haphazardly and then braced his hands on the table to try to keep himself from shaking with rage. Doral almost made him miss working under Colonel Tigh.
“Hey there,” a Sharon said quietly. Felix looked up; he’d thought everyone had left already. “I just wanted to apologize for the way Doral treated you today. He was way out of line.” She smiled sadly and ambled toward Felix.
“No need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Felix said, trying to politely brush her off, but she kept coming closer.
“No, there is a need,” she pressed, still very sweetly and softly. “He treats you worse than a Centurion, and all you’re trying to do is help.” She paused until Felix looked up and met her eyes. “Do you remember me, Felix? You helped me set up the security cameras here, when we first arrived.”
“Okay,” Felix said. He remembered there had been three Sharons working on security, but mostly he remembered just being numb the week the Cylons arrived.
“Anyway…sorry. Doral’s meetings are so painfully boring, everybody drifts off. Honestly, I think you pay more attention than most of the rest of us combined.” She smiled, as if she’d tried very hard to make a joke that even she knew wasn’t funny. “I watch you in the meetings sometimes, and you’re almost always sketching something. Can I see?” she asked as she picked up the folder, not giving Felix a chance to tell her no.
Felix’s heart jumped into his throat. He’d thrust his doodles into the file folder with the water reports and the Heavy Raider schedule at random, so she’d have to thumb through the whole folder, stolen classified documents and all, to look at all of them.
“They’re buildings.” Her smile warmed. “Is this New Caprica?”
“It was supposed to be,” he answered, taking the opportunity to look hurt and embarrassed and close the folder as she held it in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” the Sharon stumbled, “I didn’t mean to intrude.” She handed the folder back to Felix. “It will be, someday.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty thought,” Felix said half-heartedly as he took the folder and then left the room.
Felix glanced out the windows as he walked down the hall to his tiny office. These windows showed a view of East Tent City, with the detention center, gray and cold and ugly, blocking the morning sun. If the Cylons hadn’t come, the people living in those tents might be moving into the first of the new apartment buildings, Felix thought to himself. He stopped and stood with his forehead pressed against one of the window panes.
Felix remembered when New Caprica had been more than just a pretty thought to him, back in the early days. He had been unfailingly fair in apportioning projects among President Baltar’s staff, often taking on the most tedious and frustrating tasks himself, like census-taking and negotiating with the unions, even when he really could have passed them on to others in good conscience. He’d only cheated once: he had given himself the job of overseeing the planning of New Caprica City’s future residential district and public service structures, even though the former member of the Army Corps of Engineers on staff would have been the most logical choice.
Felix managed to gather a staff of two independent contractors: the last architect in the known universe, 76-year-old Ms. Ivanna Narian, and her apprentice, a nineteen year-old kid from Aerilon who had gotten one year of university training before the apocalypse. Felix met with Ms. Narian and her apprentice at Ms. Narian’s home one night after work to lay out the broad contours of the plan for New Caprica City and to assure Ms. Narian and Danny that he would be available to answer any questions they had any time, but he had ended up staying there until nearly dawn, all three bouncing ideas off each other and drawing on each others’ sketches in a blissful flurry of imagination.
Somehow, Felix found himself at Ms. Narian’s the following night, and the night after that. He said he was just there overseeing in his capacity as a government official, but all three of them knew that was a lie by the end of the first week. Almost every day, Felix would drag himself through a full day of work on Colonial One and then spend most of the night in Ms. Narian’s tent. It got to the point that one day about a month into the project, Gaius asked Felix very suggestively, and perhaps even tinged with a little jealousy, if something or someone had been keeping him up at night a lot lately. Felix had told him that it was just that there was so much work to be done on the planet that he barely had time to sleep, but Felix knew that Gaius would interpret the broad grin on his face as he answered as meaning something quite different.
Felix had told himself that he wouldn’t have devoted so much time to helping design the apartments and schools if he hadn’t felt as needed as he did, though he knew that was probably a lie. Ms. Narian was skilled and knowledgeable, but the cold of New Caprica exacerbated her arthritis so badly that she could barely draw. So, Danny and Felix became her hands, poring over blueprints, sketching floor plans for houses and hospitals and schools, and making all sorts of over-eager, impractical design mistakes.
“You’re worse than Danny, and he’s just a kid-you should know better,” Ms. Narian would say, chuckling and patting Felix on the head like a child as she looked at his drawings, leaning on his shoulder for support.
“What? They need fire escapes.”
“So we’ll add fire escapes, not grand staircases-multiple grand staircases, from the looks of it.”
Founder’s Day had been the best day of Felix’s life. That was the day they broke ground on the first new apartment complex, the first building that was something more than just makeshift, like the water treatment plant and the handful of other small, shoebox-like industrial buildings Chief Tyrol and his union had cobbled together on the fly. Felix would spend his coffee and lunch breaks at this window, watching Chief’s people lay the foundations and put the rebar up, the construction progressing painfully slowly because Felix and the other ministers so often had to call the crews away to the many other, more pressing needs of the city.
When the Cylons arrived, the Centurions built on the bones of the apartments, working nonstop, day and night, to turn his dream into the blocky, squat, hideous detention center that loomed over Tent City like a nightmare. They’d finished it in six days. It killed Felix a little bit every time he saw it.
“I meant what I said,” the Sharon said, startling Felix with the sudden ardor in her voice and her hand on his arm. He hadn’t even realized she’d followed him. “I believe in this place, and not in the way Aaron Doral does.”
Felix paused, knowing he was teetering on the edge of something that could be a major coup, or that could be the death of him. He directed the Sharon into his storage-closet-turned-office, clicking the door shut behind her.
“Have any of the others-maybe my sister on Galactica-ever told you about projection?” she asked.
“It’s like really clear, realistic daydreaming, right?”
“Sort of. In some ways, it’s more like what you do, like sketching-like testing out an idea for a new world before you dig in and try to make it a reality, see if it’s really the kind of world you want first. This beautiful city you draw in the margins of your notes-it’s the same city I project when I walk out there among the tents.” The Sharon’s voice was firm but gentle, and tinged with a bitterness that surprised Felix. “I’m tired of just imagining that world, Felix. The way the others are going about it, terrorizing people, rounding them up off the streets-they’re destroying everything before it’s even been built. I know you feel the same way. I can tell from the way you speak in the staff meetings, and the way you try to work with the humans who come here with complaints. Yes, I’ve been watching you-please, don’t blush. I just had to make sure that you were the right person to talk to.” Felix was still wary, but just the look in her eyes when she spoke made him want so badly to believe there was somebody else who came to New Caprica to create rather than to destroy. “It’s not enough to project a perfect world and hope it’ll fall together eventually. I’m willing to work for it, to do whatever I have to do.” Emotion cracked her voice without weakening it. Her eyes were glistening. “I want to build something real here, just like you.”
Maybe it was a siren’s song, Felix thought to himself, but it was worth venturing at least a little closer to the rocks. After all, even if it was, he was the only person in danger of drowning.