firstcylon | (no subject)

"Are you sure we're ready?" Zoe asked, wringing her hands together before she realized she was doing it, and stopped.

"We're ready," her father assured her, nodding, as her mother came and put her hands on her shoulders.

"We're ready, Zoe," she echoed, looking into her eyes. "We've triple-checked everything. This is it."

Zoe nodded slowly, and took a deep breath. "Okay." A small, slightly tight smile. "Let's get it done."

It was only normal, she told herself as her parents derezzed to get things ready in the real world, for her to feel slightly anxious. People got cold feet about getting married, of course she would get cold feet about being born again. If something went wrong, she might be deleted and lost forever. Double up or nothing.

She looked around the room of her old home, walked to the window and looked out at the lake. The water was real now, as real as it could get in V-World. She had programmed everything here better than her father could have, but now it was time to enter the real world.

"We're ready for you, Zo," her father's voice sounded in the otherwise empty house.

She clenched her fist, programming the sun to rise. A dawn seemed appropriate, right then, and she watched the first rays come over the horizon. "I'm ready," she answered, and for an instant, there was nothing.

There was nothing, and then she took a loud, gasping breath, oxygen forcing its way into brand new lungs, and she sat up, panting, before she scrambled in panic when she found herself on a cot, clothed, and very dry, three things that should not have happened. Her back hit the wall, and that was when she noticed the other person in the room. The other person she had never seen before, and she could only stare at him now, not even sure whether her vocal chords would work properly.

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Zoe is starting to wonder if she's not in a cell with a madman, the way he's staring at his clenched fists before he snaps. Then again, maybe he associates fist-clenching with a little something of his own, like her with programming in V-World.

"I thought you knew," she points out, with raised eyebrows, and shifts her weight a little to make for better balance, ready for it in case he decides to take his newfound anger out on her. She hopes the skin job is as strong as they meant it to be. Just in case. "Fury the asshole and all that."

Logan hears her, even though his ears are suddenly roaring with rage and a powerful need to escape.

"I was wrong. This ain't Fury. He doesn't really do space, and he definitely doesn't do please and thank you."

He gets right up against the force field, which doesn't hurt him, but is menacingly tingly. Bet you bite back, huh Bub?

Great. So he was as clueless as she was, in the end. She pursed her lips in disappointment, tapping her foot on the floor as she thought.

"Okay. So what did you mean, a mutant?"

She still hasn't gotten the answer to that question, and if someone is running secret experiments turning people into mutants... She isn't sure which Colony would go for something like this, but at least she's pretty sure it isn't Caprica. The Cylons were enough.

This one musta lived under a rock. Impatient as he was to get out of here, Logan rattled off the mutant spiel.

"Mutants are humans with a weird "X" gene. I don't really get the science bit, but it means we have abilities. All different, and usually not something regularfolk take kindly to."

He continues to stare at his hands, not the sanest lookin' thing ever, but he can't shake the disbelief over not being able to do what always comes so natural.

Zoe frowns, because it's really nothing she's ever heard of, not enough in rumors circulating in New Cap City - then again, Tamara and she had pretty much taken over the rumor mill. Tough guy here hasn't come out and said he was one, but the way he's back to staring at his hands, she figures that he is.

"What's your ability, then?" she asks, folding her arms across her chest.

Something about this little girl's posture reminds Logan of his favorite X-Men. X-Women, really. She's totally unafraid and grilling him like he should be doing something to impress her. It's kind of familiar, and relaxes him just a little.

Through clenched teeth, he answers.

"Flashiest is probably the claws, which don't seem to be workin' right now. Also I heal =really fast and from stuff that would kill anyone else."

Been there, done that. The thought is on Zoe's mind even if it doesn't pass her lips, but that sounds like just what she could do in V-world. Real world deathwalker, then?

The claws, though, that's a bit tougher to imagine, and she purses her lips. "How come I never heard of mutants? Are you a secret government program?"

And which government would that be. Whoever grabbed them, it might give them a clue.

"Sometimes." He growls, flashing briefly to his Mutant X ordeal.

"But the mutations aren't. You're born with 'em."

Logan set his nose to work, even though it was having an off day. Metal he didn't recognize, the girl, and ...bacon?

His head whips around to the little alcove in the wall, which now contained a prissy looking little sandwich that he didn't trust at all.

Zoe follows his gaze, and realizes that she is hungry. Actually hungry, not a hunger that was built into a program and that she could hack off with a thought. The problem with that is that they've been abducted, she doesn't know where to, and she doesn't trust the food at all either.

"Think it's drugged?" she asks, her gaze still on the sandwich.

Then again, if their captors want them drugged, they could easily pull it off by throwing something into their cell via the air vents.

Logan picks up the plate and sniffs the sandwich. It seems ok. He looks under the top slice of bread.

"Probably no point in drugging us. We're going nowhere fast."

He's hungry, but isn't about to take food out of a kid's mouth. On the other hand, he doesn't want her to feel like his poison tester.

"Want half?"

"Sure," she agrees, and holds her hand out, biting into it with gusto when he hands it over. It's her first real food, and it's her first food at all.

After she swallows a few bites, she wipes a hand over her mouth and looks over at the guy. "What colony are you from?"

At first glance, she'd say he's a Tauron, except he doesn't have the tats.