Alligator Smile
mid-ep for We're So Screwed: Hot to Katratzi
by feldman
He spits, "May I speak?" He hears the sarcasm in his own voice, fresh hot and startling.
His humor had always been cold and dry, an elegant counterpoint to his violence. His verbal attacks were threats that he could deliver on, and his jokes were solely for his own amusement.
"For ten cycles I've served you as a spy, why would I betray you now?"
It had never occurred to him to combine the two, to attack an opponent with jokes, to make fun of, to poke and prod with words that meant nothing.
to snark
He'd been eager to understand Crichton better, predict him more accurately...it had been cycles since he'd sampled the human's psyche, and it was imperative that he take every rare advantage offered to him. Crichton's trust in Sikozu made it effortless. He reprogrammed the neural clone, copied it for backup and added a real-time transmission system.
Always save Crichton
The clone was a body of knowledge to be replicated and preserved, yes, but Scorpius found it was a body with its own heat and blood, its own perpective. His own voice, his own name.
"Thank you, John."
That first night he focussed on controling and interpreting the direct feed from Crichton, then he sifted for the wormhole equations. Sated, his thoughts turned to the neural clone itself.
He pondered how this tool, built from traits strategically chosen for the neurochip, could devolve into a loyal jester. Harvey played the docile informant, but Scorpius was careful of anyone who changed loyalties even once, much less twice. He didn't want to integrate the whole of Harvey back into himself.
He spent his time in his cell in meditation, once so deep that it took Sikozu an arn to rouse him. He wanted to pull Harvey apart for study, to understand, to absorb what was useful and neutralize what was harmful. In time, the neural hybrid was vivisected, catalogued and set aside.
The sarcasm was the first clue that he'd been less than successful.
~*~
Sikozu's energy signature flicks upwards, and she stops mid-sentence. "What did you just do?"
He brings his full attention to her. "Are you well, Sikozu? Your coloring has changed."
"Did you just...roll...your eye?"
Indeed he had. He'd rolled both of them. "I apologize. I am still tired from my experience with the molluscs. But I am quite interested in your observations. Please, go on."
Her pupils contract and her signature burns down to a normal color. "So that roll of your eyes...did you learn that from Crichton?"
He smiles on the outside. Harvey had retained some of his foundation traits, he was insidious and not easily submerged. He was a strange shadow behind Scorpius, a filter over his vision. Scorpius was determined to control the changes, he would not be undermined by a Crichtonized chariacature of himself.
In a flicker of daydream, he sees his hands cradle Sikozu's head, black thumbs caressing the sheen on her cheeks. Her eyes are closed, her skull fractured, and her skin salty sweet.
A hand on his shoulder pushes him down onto the cot. Sikozu, amused.
"Rest, Scorpius." She opens the door, and calls to him over her shoulder, "I've lowered the temperature in your cell. You should feel the difference soon."
He props himself on his elbows. "Thank you for your assistance, Sikozu." The door closes, and he murmurs, "Unfortunately, I feel the difference already."