Last Will and Testament

Last Will and Testament

The man screamed and sobbed, burying his face in his hands, pacing around the small, dimly lit metal cell. "No, no no, no, no,.NO!!'", he yelled out, banging his fist uselessly against the wall. He threw his his head back and let out a yell that probably would have brought a normal guard running to shut him up; however, this was not a normal cell and his guards wouldn't care how much noise he made. To them, he had already served his purpose and his usefulness had ended.

The man stopped screaming and sat down on the little bunk. He was surprised that he was afforded that much. "How accommodating", he said to himself, feeling it's cold, utilitarian surface.

He looked around the little cell more since he had little else to do and pondered a question in his mind. Why had they provided a bed, such as it was for him? They needed no rest.

Why wait for the execution until they reached the capital? Were they afraid of getting blood on the floor of the leaders throne room?

"It's amazing what comes into the mind of a condemned man.", he said aloud, his voice shaking still. He started to chuckle at his predicament.

"Are you quite well enough to begin, now?", a velvety voice said.

The condemned man looked around and saw no one. He stood up

"I don't know if my condition matters. You're going to execute me in any case, my machine friends," , saying the last part with a sneer.

"We are not without some compassion.", the voice replied.

"Hah!", he snarled back. "What would you know about compassion? You're machines! "

"We are beings, just as you are a being.", the voice continued. "And I am here to offer you something. I believe you humans call it 'the last Will and Testament''

The man collapsed on the bed and laughed out loud. "I can't believe this! You condemn me to death; you can see that I have nothing to leave to anybody and I have no relatives left anyway!"

"Yes,. that's true. You handled that yourself, I believe."

"Yes, that's true! With your help, might add!!", he said glaring at the wall. "But, what is that to you? Am I amusing you? Perhaps that's useful enough to stop the execution", he giggled at the thought of being taken to the capital as a zoo specimen. "See the human! How horrific!"

"If you want to know why we're doing this, well....", the voice paused. "You could say that we find human behavior most perplexing, so we are offering this to you to further our understanding."

"I see.. I'm a lab rat", he snorted. "From being a Lord on the high council to a lab rat, begging for its life!"

"Most curious. Our records show that you came from a poor family and yet somehow, you ascended all the way to the high council. We were very curious how this came about."

"Really? Well I can tell you that. It's not like it matters now. ..

The man sighed for a moment.

"As you know, I was born on Aerilon during the time of the thousand yahren war. Our colony's whole culture was all about being warriors, ready to take the fight to the enemy. Strength training regimen, cardio, hand to hand were all essential skills,.and that was just to start."

"Usually after being fully trained, the cadets would graduate and they would be given a 'gift': a one night stand with a healthy female in case they never came back from the front. The females would give birth in 9 months and they would usually have a male child.

"As for me, I was not good at any of these basic skills and I was a sickly child anyway, and my father always felt it was a bad reflection on him.  I would often come home from school to feel the sting of a belt across my face, then it was across my back"

"I would be in tears but that only made him angrier. 'DON'T CRY!!! STOP ACTING LIKE A BABY!! YOU'VE GOT TO GROW UP TO BE A MAN!!!'"

This was an almost an everyday ritual for us. I would go to school with bruises but no one paid much attention. "You're lucky you got a dad that 's still alive', I was told. 

That did cause me to wonder though; how is it that I had a father while all of the others were children of the military school itself? Was my father sent off to war? I didn't know. So I did do a little digging on my own,. going through public records.

At first, it seemed there was nothing on him. It was as if he didn't exist until some 4 or 5 yahren before I was born. It was strange.

I knew I couldn't dare talk to him about this as any questions were met with a severe lashing unless he was passed out from ambrosia. 

Then, one night when he was passed out, I wandered into his bedroom while he was away and I rummaged for what clues I could find and I came across a picture of a woman who was dressed in such finery, she almost resembles a goddess. 

I decided to take the picture with me after making sure everything else was put back in place.

The next day, I went straight to the records building to search for this woman's identity. After 2 centons of searching, I found that she was a cousin of the Sire of Caprica.  I wondered why he would have a picture of her?

I dug up as much as I could about her including her birth and death records, any functions where she was in a attendance. She was always around at diplomatic functions, but I couldn't find anything else until I found another picture in the archives that I thought was odd. This picture was of a soiree on the Caprican capital and all of high council were in attendance and it seemed to include all of the extended family members as well. There in the right side, stood my father, albeit much younger. How could this be? Father worked in a factory making weapons, why would he be there?"

"Interesting,", the velvety voice said. "A mere factory worker at diplomatic function."

"Yes, I thought that too, but I couldn't find out more without actually asking more questions and some questions are dangerous."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I decided to try something a little new. I had learned in my schooling that certain substances can make a human more easily subject to suggestion and if done properly, it can yield a lot of information.

"So one night, I came home before he got off of his shift and opened all of his ambrosia and put the substance inside. When he finally came home, he was so tired that he reached into the refrigerator without looking at anything and grabbed the first bottle of ambrosia and downed it one gulp!"

"I was a little surprised at this, but I was not too concerned. After the 3rd bottle, he collapsed into his chair and turned on the monitor for the local news"

"I crept up behind him and whispered to him, lightly. He didn't respond at first but then, he saw the picture. I thought he would jump out of the chair like a shot, but he just looked at it, wistfully, a single tear falling down his face.

'That was me.', he had said. 'It used to be me. And Min...'

"I remembered her name was Minerva. I stayed with him as long as I could until I found out from him that he had a one night stand with her."

"The ruling houses of the 12 always played by a different set of rules than everyone else, so, one night stands were somewhat common... unless it was done with a Caprican woman.  Capricans were the elite of the 12. All very pristine, having the absolute best of everything, and you did not cross a Caprican. What he did to her was a scandal in the making. If word of this got out, we would have had a civil war in the colonies as well as the ongoing war.

"Some 9 months later, she gave birth to a son. Me."

The Sire of our colony was his father and as I found out later, he was my grandfather as a result of this "tryst.". The whole affair with Minerva was hushed.  Minerva herself was sent to a monastery and my father's identity was changed and a story was told that he died of some shuttle accident off colony.

He and I were sent in exile under new identities, in the factory sector."

"It was then I realized that I was not just sickly kid, I was also a reminder of all that he had lost and the Capricans had a great deal to do with my situation.

"I certainly didn't ask to be born sickly, nor did I want to be the bastard son of a Caprican elitist but, I had to survive, somehow.

"What did you do when you learned the truth?"

The man looked up at the wall towards the direction of the voice and grinned, his eyes glittering with the delight that only a hunger would bring. 

"Why, I used it, of course."

“How?”

“Well, the first thing I had to do was to prove my connection to the ruling house. I went to a clinic for routine checkup and asked for a DNA profile to be done telling them that I might have some other relatives on other colonies. This was plausible scenario since in war, many families get separated even if they are not warriors.”

"When I had it done, I had the results sent to a secure file at home. I then made a few copies in my spare time."

"During this time, my father's own health was declining due to the hazardous conditions in the factory. He would come home and pretty much ignore my presence altogether."

"One night he came home, collapsed in his chair and never got up again.”

“How fortuitous”

The man looked up and smiled. “Sort of. I was still underage so they could have sent me to an orphanage, but, I had my DNA file and I presented it to the court for consideration. When the court looked at, they made contact with the office of the Sire of the colony, my estranged grandfather.”

“I knew, of course, that they would not risk a scandal. They would have just sent an order to have me killed in an ‘accident’, but before they could do anything, I told them to that if I was to die, the file would automatically be sent to media outlets all over the 12 colonies. This got my grandfather’s attention.”

“I remember the moment that we first met. He told me that, while he could not acknowledge me as his grandson, he could take me on as an aide. He also admired my cunning and my tenacity, not to mention my ability to get information and said he could put that to good use.”

“So during the remainder of his life, I was his aide and also, ‘spy’. I used my knowledge to find more and more information on the powerful houses of the 12 and was able to uncover all kinds of skeletons in secret closets. This was enough to make my grandfather the most powerful lord in the colonies.”. 

“When he died, I claimed my heritage. By that time, we had amassed so many secrets, that we could effectively rule all of the 12 colonies.”

The velvety voice spoke again. “This ability to survive at almost any cost is most curious as well as being innovative. This is a quality we have long coveted. You have provided a good service to us, Lord Baltar.”

The man called Baltar smiled again. Perhaps he could still be of some use after all. Slowly he made plans in his mind.