(Untitled)

[knowthyexits]

Things seem to be incrementally adding up to prove to Sarah that there is something out there that wants her life to be the same kind of hell as back home. She doesn't have John, but she knows he's protected. And yet she's foisted back into that life and forced to watch John do something that she wants to take away from him -- and yet, she can't.

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[dichotomos]

I've seen a lot of bodies in my time. Hell, I've seen a lot of bodies that I killed myself in my time, and it wasn't the body that fazed me, here, its limbs stretched out in the dirt with the telltale rigidity of death. No, it's Sarah who was the real fucking concern, one of the most staunchly composed people I knew, tearing fingernails off and sobbing as she scrabbled at a dead man.

I'm not saying I don't get it, whatever motivation she had. I'm just saying it was fucking disturbing.

"Sarah," I tried, and then again, and remembering how she'd been injured before, how she'd have fucking bled out if I'd not forcefully removed her ass from the bar, I took hold of her from behind. Strong arms wrapped tight around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides, I hauled her back from the body just enough that she couldn't hurt herself anymore.

"Sarah, stop," I hissed, when my peripheral vision caught the gleam of metal peeking from beneath the man's skull. I huffed out exhalation of disbelief next to her ear. "Is that…a fucking robot?"

[knowthyexits]

She struggles just as hard as she did before when she feels arms around her, when she hears a voice that's not John. Not John, who did this to her in Mexico, dragged her away from the chip and just held on. She tries to kick out, but settles for stabbing down on his toe with her heel as hard as she can, a surge of panic catching her as her worst fears come to light.

What is she supposed to say? The proof is right in front of her and her own reaction strips away her ability to deny that she has no clue what this is. "Cal, leave," she says, some of the old steel back in her voice.

[dichotomos]

"No," I said without compunction, firm enough that anyone else would probably know I couldn't be swayed. Sarah, though, she'd probably keep arguing, and she probably wasn't going to answer me easily, either. Thank fuck I wore steel-toed boots, because she'd stomped on my foot hard enough to break my toes.

"What the fuck is going on?" I asked, arms still fast around her, eyes narrowing at the bloodied mess Sarah had made of the thing's head. The metal beneath the layer of skin and fat was unmistakable, and put me immediately in mind of the Terminator movies, although I didn't make the connection yet with the woman struggling in my arms. The woman appropriately named Sarah.

[knowthyexits]

Her fingers are twitching, yet, trying to get back at the body. The chip has to be there and if she doesn't destroy it, then who knows what kind of hell she might be unleashing on the Island by simply existing. "I don't know," she gets out in a guttural tone, trying for denial as she struggles to push out of his arms.

[doubleomalley]

"Um," was all George could really manage when he came upon Sarah, a wordless syllable in place of the greeting he'd intended. A greeting would have been easy, just a hey, how are you, and George would have been on his way to the compound for the snack he'd been envisioning for the last half hour.

Instead, he'd stopped short under an orange tree when he saw what Sarah was crouching over, saw that she was nowhere near being fine. That, and he was pretty sure that was a half-robot, half-human she was trying to dig up.

"Sarah?"

[knowthyexits]

Sarah swallows back her grief and rage at finding a machine here -- not just any, but this one, this thing that had taken so much from her. "George," she gets out, a slight shake in the name, but considering how bad it could've been, she's almost proud of herself. She wipes at her sweat-stained cheeks with the back of her hand and knows this looks very bad.

"I just found it," she says, dully.

[doubleomalley]

"You just...you just found a robot," George repeated, as though she'd spoken a foreign language and he was sure he was getting the translation wrong. "You- it's a robot. You were digging - why are you digging up a robot?"

[knowthyexits]

At this point, she's working on autopilot, so when she says, "I'm not digging it up, it was already in a shallow grave," it's some traitorous part of her mind that hates her. It's some part of her that's idiotic and says things like that to half-friends and personal doctors. "It shouldn't be here."

[burnwithus]

Katniss has seen far too many bodies in her short lifetime, but each experience never prepares her for the next. She's suddenly grateful for the arrows the island had given her, because she now never goes anywhere without a bow on her shoulder. But there's something wrong here. A glint of metal that shines off the sun. The first thing she thinks of is Peeta's prosthetic leg, how he's partially metal at the knee. But it soon becomes clear that her association is wrong, because the skin is peeling off to reveal a head.

She takes a step back, hands tightening around the bow, although she hasn't removed it from her shoulder yet. It's the woman from before, the one who wanted to know so much about the future.

Is this the future?

[knowthyexits]

Sarah sees the shadow and lets out a shaky breath when she realizes who it is. She presses a dirt-stained, blood-spotted hand to her forehead and pushes her hair away as she tries to find a calm in this storm. "I..." is all she gets out before she shuts down. "You shouldn't see this."

[burnwithus]

"I've seen worse," she says simply, and it's altogether true. She's seen the stuff of nightmares, manufactured by human beings who combined cruelty and innovation. "He isn't human, is he?" there are more far-fetched things, Katniss supposes. And she's never seen the inside of a mutt before, even if this one doesn't come in the form that she's so used to.

[knowthyexits]

"No." Her tone is cold and curt and she wipes her nails (bloody and aching with the sting of sand, now) on her shirt, hating that she's lost control in public. Hating that history repeats itself. "Are you going to report me?"

[1struleiscardio]

I'm not going to lie to you - having a double barrel again is pretty fucking comforting. I'm pretty sure it'd be really bad manners to walk around holding it (even though I'd really, really like to). I've left it under my bed for now and I've got my hands in my pockets.

And then I see her. And then I see what she's kneeling over.
That face right there? That's me realising just how desensitised I am to all this shit.

"Sarah?"

[knowthyexits]

Sarah swallows hard. At first, all she'd heard was a young man's voice and her brain thought -- Kyle, John, Derek -- and then reality crashes in and she remembers that she's alone here. She keeps her back to him, wishing that she could deny her presence, but she just gives a short and sharp nod. "What is it?" she demands, curtly.

[1struleiscardio]

"I was about to ask you the same question."

I mean, it's difficult not to stare. I have no idea what that is. I don't think I want to know what it is. But I'm not going anywhere. Because I liked her when I met her. And that means that I'm going to stand here.

[knowthyexits]

Sarah knows that people here aren't so adept at dealing with the things she sees as she is. Still, she's not sure she wants to start sharing, either. "It's a reminder of how awful the world is outside of this place," she says honestly, managing to avoid the issue at the same time.

[rewarded_by_god]

The Cylons had never looked like this.

They'd skipped an evolutionary step along the way. Gone from walking toasters to perfect human replicants. This man, this thing, was flesh over metallic bone, where the Cylons had been so ingenious, they'd engineered themselves as perfect copies of humanity. You have to tear them down to their very molecules to find the differences.

The war would have been so much simpler if they'd looked so beastly under their skin.

But they must have been a formidable enemy, for how terrified she seemed.

"Sarah?" he said, as calmly as he could manage as he stepped into the shallow grave along with her.

[knowthyexits]

Sarah keeps searching, keeps clawing, keeps digging through the dust by the skull because it has to be there. "Gaius," she barks. "Help me find the chip."

[rewarded_by_god]

He dropped into a crouch at her side, his hands in the dust, but he hesitated, eyes on the gleaming skeleton of the man sprawled out in front of them.

"What chip, Sarah? What are we looking for?"

[knowthyexits]

She's at the skull, now, trying to get past the skin and the coltane to get at the chip. "Do you have a knife?" She can pry it open, but she wants to do it faster than anything on the off-chance he's going to reactivate. "I'm looking for the way to permanently kill him."