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[kickem]

Ray. Leave a message.

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[hairlocked]

I listen.

[ He tilts his head, watching as Ray hesitantly sips the coffee, and returns to drinking his own, at least for a few seconds.

Then he says: ]

Of course, I might have poisoned it. That's what you're thinking. You're a police officer, it's your job to be suspicious.

[kickem]

[That word, poison, is enough to have Ray halting any further sipping. Even if he had been thinking it, Leo mentioning it makes it sound all the more suspicious.]

Yeah. And all you gotta do is poison me, get rid of the body and uh, take over my life or whatever. Your plan kinda sucks though, cause my life isn't so fun to take over.

[hairlocked]

[ Leoben grins, and steps closer again, taking Ray's cup and pouring half of it into his own, then pouring it back, offering it to him again. ]

I wouldn't kill you. Like I said, you're special. You're the archetype of form, the ideal of everything that we wanted to achieve.

Drink your coffee, Ray.

[ Patting him condescendingly on the cheek and turning away. ]

Then put on some clothes. I can't talk to you when you without them, it's distracting.

[kickem]

[Mixing the drinks is a convincing enough show, but Ray still takes another sniff of the returned drink before satisfying his caffeine urges with a heavy swig.]

Seriously, I'm no ideal anythin'. You're barkin' up the wrong ancestral tree.

[Tilting his head away after that pat, just in case another comes.]

[hairlocked]

[ How could you flinch away from him he's so pretty. ]

You're perfect. Believe me, Ray. You can't see beyond yourself, but you've been chosen; chosen by God. You'll see.

[ Leoben leaves him be with his coffee, only sipping his own again after Ray's taken a gulp and shuffling back into the main room. He makes himself comfortable on the couch waiting for him to get dressed, humming happily. ]

[kickem]

Yeahyeah.

[He drinks it like it's water, while wandering off back towards the bedroom.

Minutes later he returns, wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a Chicago Bulls t-shirt. Totally dressing to impress.]

So uh. You're tryin' to say that what you wanted to achieve after like uh, 150,000 years was a uh, skinny Polack with experimental hair, right? Cause maybe you need to set your standards a lil' higher next time.

[hairlocked]

[ Much better. Ray looks tidy, for him, and Leoben smiles and sinks a little further down into the couch, relaxing. ]

If you'd seen the first crossbreeds, you wouldn't be so dismissive. They were brave people that bred with those things. Brave, desperate people.

[ Seriously. ]

You're lucky you don't have their genetics. Then it might be fair to call it 'low standards'.

[kickem]

[His empty mug gets dumped into the kitchen sink, and then he joins Leoben at the couch, dropping into the space available while keep as far away as it'll allow.]

If you already gotta bunch of normal people, then uh, just keep it in the family, right? No need to go sleepin' with the low standards. It's bullshit.

[hairlocked]

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Except apparently the choice between a club wielding primordial man and a Cylon is a surprisingly difficult one.

But we managed, and here you are, widow's peak and everything.

[ He turned over, propping his chin on his arm on the back of the couch and staring across at Ray. ]

[kickem]

So Out of the choice of sleeping with ape dudes and whatever a cylon is, they chose ape dudes? Wow, you must have really pissed some people off.

[Unless chicks really just don't find Ray and his clone attractive. That's sadness.]

[hairlocked]

[ Turning his head very slightly on his arm. ]

We all but exterminated the entire human race, then chased the survivors across half of known space.

They resented that, somewhat.

[kickem]

Exterminating a race and them resenting it? Huh, go figure.

[That's sarcasm right thar.]

[hairlocked]

[ He reaches across and taps Ray on the nose. ]

You're very smart. It runs in the family. That's why we ended up on the winning side.

[kickem]

So you kill everyone and then switch to their side? How are you still alive? I'd kick your ass.

[Because killing all of humanity isn't very nice, even if most humans suck.

Aaand still leaning away from touches. >(]

[hairlocked]

[ Still adorable. He folds his hands back under his head and looks off across the short distance of Ray's three room apartment. ]

Humanity built machines. It gave life to machines. It enslaved machines. The machines fought back, and they destroyed each other in a great war. The surviving machines crossed space to find the colonies, to warn them not to make the same mistake, but it was too late. They'd built their own machines, enslaved them, and they were at war.

That was when we were born. The war ended, and the humans enslaved each other instead, because that's how humans are. Someone or something always has to keep the wheels turning.

We sought for them the revenge they couldn't take for themselves. We felt it as strongly, from the first moment, their hatred for us, for what we were. We were following God's plan; we didn't know that we were being manipulated - misled - from the very beginning.

[kickem]

[Ray listens intently, still trying to make up his mind how much of this is fact and what's fiction. This guy has gone to a lot of trouble to make convincing stories, but it's hard to entirely disbelieve a guy who looks identical to you.]

See, that's why this God's will stuff ain't so great. You can't follow the directions of a guy you can't see or hear. That's like uh, like taking directions from a blind guy who can't speak.

[hairlocked]

You can't make dead things live again.

[ He rolled back over, looked up at the ceiling. ]

We were young. We didn't understand that. We didn't understand love, or individuals, the bonds between living things. We didn't believe in humanity's humanity, because how could it be real when it had never been shown to us. Compassion, love, family.

[ How do you like your sad robot, Ray? ]

[kickem]

[So sad. Much depressing.]

So uh, you kinda killed what you didn't understand, right? That's a pretty generic mistake to be honest. Pretty human.

[Because Ray might not be a genius, but he's seen enough shit to know a bit about humanities failures.]

[hairlocked]

It was hard to stop, once we started.

[ But he sits up again, looks across at Ray, studying him in disturbing silence for a few moments. There's no sudden nose touches or unnecessary petting, but he does give him all due consideration. ]

See? Smarter than you look. I knew you'd understand.

[kickem]

Yeah, yeah. Real genius.

[Eye roll, even as he continues with the thoughtful little furrow of his brows.]

It just all seems dumb. Hypocritical, y'know? Like 'oh, look at the big bad humans killing each other and everything else. Let's show 'em the error of their ways by killing them!'. It's like uh, it's like a parent hitting their kid as punishment for the kid hittin' someone.

[hairlocked]

But a parent doesn't generally speaking melt down their child to build a better one when the warranty expires.

[ There's still a flicker of sadness there. The reasons were all right. The actions were wrong. ]

We didn't know that. You have the anecdotal evidence of generations of human beings that came before you. We were new. There was nothing like us that had come before. We didn't remember our parents, though perhaps if we had, they'd have guided us down a different path.

[kickem]

So you had nothin' to learn from? No history or nothin' 'cept humans bein' dicks to robots? Huh.

[Ray can kind of understand. Only as much as one can ever really understand genocide.]

Still half wonderin' if you're just a crazy.

[hairlocked]

I can prove it.

[ He slithers off the couch, moving over to crouch beside Ray's TV and the blinking VCR. It takes him a few seconds, max, but then he comes back to the couch and sits back down looking very pleased with himself.

VCR programmed. Only space aliens and robots can do that, right? ]

See?

[kickem]

[Blink blink. Curious and suspicious and still pretty much not believing any of it.]

Okay, so maybe you're a tech or a nerd or whatever too. It'd explain the dumb shirt.

[hairlocked]

That's not good enough for you?

[ He straightens up unhappily, reconsiders the room, then crosses the "open" plan living room to the little kitchenette, fetching a knife out the rack, then fetching a spool of electrical wire from the plug repair box in the back of the odds and ends drawer. He knew what he was doing with Ray's stuff.

In any case he comes back over with the stuff, plops himself next to the stereo and brings the sharp blade of the knife to his wrist totally nonchalantly. Robot logic. ]