Caprica Season 2 at Beginning of Line is brought to you with limited commercial interruption by Avenging Angels.
Previously on Caprica:
Sam and Tamara Adama pencil drawing by Abby Geiger.
Caprica Season 2, Episode 5
Safe Journey: Hypatian's Bluff
Part 1 of 3
By Teresa Jusino
He couldn’t sleep. Even with Larry nestled close, Sam couldn’t switch his mind off. He thought of Willie bounding next to him down a side street in Little Tauron, all wide eyes and eager questions, and his heart broke all over again. It had been hard enough losing Shannon, the woman who kept his brother on his toes; and Tamara, his bright, beautiful niece who was supposed to change the worlds. But Willie was something else. Sam had paid the ferryman his coins, had gone through the motions, but he couldn’t let Willie go.
Because it was his fault.
He was the reason his nephew was gone. He’d helped raise a boy who’d flung himself headfirst into danger, and now...
No, that was it. The real reason for his sadness. He’d helped raise a boy. Willie had brought him closer to something he never dreamed he’d have. For a while, it was as if Sam had a son.
He gently pulled himself from Larry’s arms and got out of bed, disgusted with the thought. Willie was Yusif’s son, not his. What right did he have to carry on like this? How dare he...
He sighed and plodded out of the room.
Sam found his favorite armchair in the dark and sat without turning on a light. Lights would have seemed garish. Willie showing him his boxing stance. Willie on his Ink Day; running to Sam first, puffing out his chest to show off his second piece of ink in a month, before going to Yusif.
“You think I’ll have as many as you someday, Theios?”
“I don’t know, Little Man. You think you’ll be as completely awesome as I am someday?”
Being like Sam had gotten Willie killed.
When his phone vibrated on the coffee table, he was grateful. He hated feeling like this. He hated dwelling. Some late‐night Ha’la’tha business would do him good; would allow him to pack away his heart for a while.
MEET ME WHERE YOU SLAYED THE DRAGONS.
The number belonging to the text was unavailable. Dragons? It took Sam a moment to make the connection.
V‐World. The frakking Graystones. What the hell did they want? Daniel had a habit of turning up when Sam was at his most emotionally vulnerable, and Sam was sick of it. He would put this motherfrakker in his place once and for...
Another text:
YOU’LL BE ABLE TO RE‐ENTER. NOW. IT’S IMPORTANT.
Same unavailable sender. Why the mystery? It wasn’t as if they had to hide their interaction at this point. And how could he “re‐enter?” Amanda had blown him out of the game for good. Had Graystone figured out a way to override the blocks in the New Cap game? Sam retrieved his holoband from the shelf on the bookcase where he’d last left it. Then, settling back into his armchair, he put it on, setting it to his last location in the game...
After the shimmer, he was in the wooded clearing where he’d fended off the Dragon Fighters of Kobol as the Graystones’ Tauran knight. But no more. Today, he was going to tell them that he isn’t their soldier to command. He never was. And he’d be cutting off any and all communication with them from this point on. Sam didn’t want to hear the name Graystone ever again. Now, where the frak were they...?
“Hello, Theios.”
Her voice was still sweet, and in the moment before he looked at her, he felt the same warmth he always felt when greeting his only niece.
But only for a moment.
Because when he did turn to face her and saw her standing there in that ridiculous woodland poncho, he knew this wasn’t Tammy.
And before he could stop himself, he lunged at her, her appearance triggering all the anger and pain he’d tried so desperately to bury. That is not Tammy, he thought. That. Is. Not. Tammy.
Tamara braced herself for her uncle’s attack, and when he tackled her to the ground she allowed him to pummel her with his fists - in the face, in the ribs - because as much as it hurt her, and it did hurt her, she knew that his pain was worse. Her father had needed to watch her destroy herself, because he hadn’t the fortitude to do it.
But her uncle was different. This was a man who counseled her that sometimes, only sometimes, violence was the answer. So that, when a boy at school called her a dirteater, rather than the demure reaction that was expected, she kicked him in the balls. It was a moment of which she was proud, and the courage and cultural pride behind it was a gift from her uncle.
Tamara pulled into herself as Sam bloodied her. This was her gift to him. Because while her father needed it taken out of his hands, Sam needed not only to let Tamara go, he needed to destroy her himself.
Sam was beginning to tire, and as he looked down at the face of The Thing That Isn’t Tammy, he realized that all the punches in the world weren’t going to do him any good. Frustrated, he stood and backed away from it, unsure what to do or say next.
He watched it stand without saying a word and touch its fingers to its face. And it...did it wince? Wince in pain? Sam almost felt remorse, but then stopped himself, remembering that The Thing That Isn’t Tammy was created by Daniel Graystone. It was a bastardized copy of someone he loved.
“Are you finished?” it asked. A genuine question, as if it would have let him go on if he wasn’t.
Its eyes were filled with...concern? Sam’s breath caught in his throat. He remembered a moment from years ago. Tamara was twelve or thirteen, as old as Willie was when he died. She approached him as he did the dishes after another of Larry’s wonderful meals. Sam loved when Yusif and Shannon would visit with the kids; loved the happy noise and the bustle of it, the sounds of a nine‐year‐old Willie bounding around the house attempting to interest Larry in pyramid. Tamara’s girlish, soft voice beginning to bristle with teenage rebellion.
Tamara touched Sam’s arm, and he passed her a dish to dry.
“Theios? Why are you in the Ha’la’tha?”
It was the first time either of his brother’s children had asked him the question directly. He didn’t know what to say.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked. Answering questions with questions. It had served him well before.
“Because you’re a good person, and the Ha’la’tha does bad things.”
Sam swallowed hard and focused on the sudsy dish in his hands.
“They don’t only do bad things,” Sam replied. “The Ha’la’tha helps Taurans when Caprica City won’t.”
Tamara put her dry dish on the counter. “Daddy told me that when you were in jail last year, that it was for almost killing someone. Is that true?”
Sam sighed and turned off the faucet. “Come here,” he said, and after giving her his hand, still slick with soap, he led her into the den and sat her down.
“The Ha’la’tha exists, because when Taurans started coming to Caprica after the civil war, they were looked down on by the Capricans.”
“Dirteaters,” Tamara said simply.
“Yeah. Not so nice a name, is it?”
Tamara shook her head.
Sam continued, “A lot of the time, Taurans weren’t considered for good jobs...”
“But Daddy became a lawyer,” Tamara said.
“Only after the Guatrau of the Ha’la’tha paid for him to go to school. And the whole time he was there, he was picked on. And even after he graduated at the top of his class, no respectable firm would hire him...”
“...because his name was Adama.”
It hurt Sam to watch his niece put these things together, to watch her notions of black and white, good and bad, crumble in her young face. But she’d asked, and he promised himself when he tattooed two small squares on his arm representing his niece and nephew, claiming them as children for whom he was responsible, that he would always be honest with them. Even if it hurt.
“Yes,” Sam replied. “Because his name was Adama. So now he’s making you and your brother put up with this ‘Adams’ skata...”
He stopped, having noticed Tamara’s knit eyebrows. She didn’t take kindly to criticism of her parents, the loyal little thing, even by her uncle. Sam changed tactics.
“Look,” he said. “I joined the Ha’la’tha, and I stay with the Ha’la’tha, because they were there for me, and your dad, when no one else was. Can you understand that? They’re family.”
“We’re family,” Tamara said.
Sam took her hands and kissed her on the knuckles.
“I know,” he said. “And I love you guys most.”
“Just...try not to kill anybody, OK? Because then you’ll go to jail again, and I’ll be sad, because I’ll miss you.”
Suddenly, she threw her arms around Sam’s neck in a fierce embrace that caught him off guard. And then he hugged her back just as fiercely. He wondered how long she’d been holding this in, waiting to tell him this. He didn’t ask. He didn’t care. All he cared about was that he loved her, and he would never want to cause her pain again.
“I promise you that I will try,” he said. And it wasn’t a lie, because he did try.
And withholding the truth of murders past was not the same as lying.
Sam shook the memory off, reminding himself that The Thing That Isn’t Tammy didn’t deserve remorse or sympathy. Frak its concern. It didn’t have the right.
Tamara realized he didn’t understand what she meant. Or, perhaps she hadn’t made herself clear. She extended her right fist, closed her eyes, and summoned the right codes. This was becoming easier for her now. The blood on her face faded, as did the small open wounds. In a moment, she was whole again, as if Sam had never touched her. She noticed that his knuckles were bloody, so she summoned the code that repaired his avatar. She watched as he stared at his hands in surprise, then shook them as if she’d given him a disease.
“I need to know if you’re finished,” she repeated.
“I stopped, didn’t I?” he snapped.
“No,” she said, taking a step toward him. “I mean, are you finished for good?”
“What are you talking about?”
She sat on a nearby rock. She didn’t want to appear threatening.
“I heard you, you know,” she said, her voice low. “When you were here with the Graystones. I know that you were helping Zoe’s father so that he’d help you destroy me.”
Tamara searched his eyes for an indication that he was still her uncle. She thought she saw something, but it disappeared.
“I’m making a life here. A home. I have plans, but before I do anything, I need to know that I’m not gonna have to worry about you trying to kill me.”
Those last words made her chuckle, and she saw that this bothered him, but she couldn’t help it. I need to know that I’m not gonna have to worry about you trying to kill me. It was absurd that she even had to say this. In any other context, this would be a joke.
But Sam wasn’t laughing.
“Oh, yeah. Plans,” Sam replied. “And do these plans include worming your way into our lives? Into our family? Do these plans include programming robots to kill us all?”
“No!” Tamara leaped up, brazenly taking several steps toward him. “Look, all I want is to be left alone. I don’t belong in the real world anymore. I know that. Why do you think I agreed to...hurt Daddy like that?”
She saw that the way she said ‘Daddy’ hit Sam in the gut, sending a ripple of sorrow into his face.
“I helped him let me go,” she said. “I need you to let me go, too. Not just of the Tamara you know, but of me.”
Sam felt his entire body tense up. It had called him here - reached out to him from V‐World on his phone - to tell him to back off. On one hand, how dare it! On the other...how very Ha’la’tha of it. He had to back off or...
“Or what?” Sam asked, the absurdity of all this finally catching up with him. “What if I don’t? What if I go back to Graystone and he tells me how to get rid of you once and for all?”
It sighed.
“You don’t have to go to Graystone,” it said simply.
Because it was his fault.
He was the reason his nephew was gone. He’d helped raise a boy who’d flung himself headfirst into danger, and now...
No, that was it. The real reason for his sadness. He’d helped raise a boy. Willie had brought him closer to something he never dreamed he’d have. For a while, it was as if Sam had a son.
He gently pulled himself from Larry’s arms and got out of bed, disgusted with the thought. Willie was Yusif’s son, not his. What right did he have to carry on like this? How dare he...
He sighed and plodded out of the room.
Sam found his favorite armchair in the dark and sat without turning on a light. Lights would have seemed garish. Willie showing him his boxing stance. Willie on his Ink Day; running to Sam first, puffing out his chest to show off his second piece of ink in a month, before going to Yusif.
“You think I’ll have as many as you someday, Theios?”
“I don’t know, Little Man. You think you’ll be as completely awesome as I am someday?”
Being like Sam had gotten Willie killed.
When his phone vibrated on the coffee table, he was grateful. He hated feeling like this. He hated dwelling. Some late‐night Ha’la’tha business would do him good; would allow him to pack away his heart for a while.
MEET ME WHERE YOU SLAYED THE DRAGONS.
The number belonging to the text was unavailable. Dragons? It took Sam a moment to make the connection.
V‐World. The frakking Graystones. What the hell did they want? Daniel had a habit of turning up when Sam was at his most emotionally vulnerable, and Sam was sick of it. He would put this motherfrakker in his place once and for...
Another text:
YOU’LL BE ABLE TO RE‐ENTER. NOW. IT’S IMPORTANT.
Same unavailable sender. Why the mystery? It wasn’t as if they had to hide their interaction at this point. And how could he “re‐enter?” Amanda had blown him out of the game for good. Had Graystone figured out a way to override the blocks in the New Cap game? Sam retrieved his holoband from the shelf on the bookcase where he’d last left it. Then, settling back into his armchair, he put it on, setting it to his last location in the game...
After the shimmer, he was in the wooded clearing where he’d fended off the Dragon Fighters of Kobol as the Graystones’ Tauran knight. But no more. Today, he was going to tell them that he isn’t their soldier to command. He never was. And he’d be cutting off any and all communication with them from this point on. Sam didn’t want to hear the name Graystone ever again. Now, where the frak were they...?
“Hello, Theios.”
Her voice was still sweet, and in the moment before he looked at her, he felt the same warmth he always felt when greeting his only niece.
But only for a moment.
Because when he did turn to face her and saw her standing there in that ridiculous woodland poncho, he knew this wasn’t Tammy.
And before he could stop himself, he lunged at her, her appearance triggering all the anger and pain he’d tried so desperately to bury. That is not Tammy, he thought. That. Is. Not. Tammy.
Tamara braced herself for her uncle’s attack, and when he tackled her to the ground she allowed him to pummel her with his fists - in the face, in the ribs - because as much as it hurt her, and it did hurt her, she knew that his pain was worse. Her father had needed to watch her destroy herself, because he hadn’t the fortitude to do it.
But her uncle was different. This was a man who counseled her that sometimes, only sometimes, violence was the answer. So that, when a boy at school called her a dirteater, rather than the demure reaction that was expected, she kicked him in the balls. It was a moment of which she was proud, and the courage and cultural pride behind it was a gift from her uncle.
Tamara pulled into herself as Sam bloodied her. This was her gift to him. Because while her father needed it taken out of his hands, Sam needed not only to let Tamara go, he needed to destroy her himself.
Sam was beginning to tire, and as he looked down at the face of The Thing That Isn’t Tammy, he realized that all the punches in the world weren’t going to do him any good. Frustrated, he stood and backed away from it, unsure what to do or say next.
He watched it stand without saying a word and touch its fingers to its face. And it...did it wince? Wince in pain? Sam almost felt remorse, but then stopped himself, remembering that The Thing That Isn’t Tammy was created by Daniel Graystone. It was a bastardized copy of someone he loved.
“Are you finished?” it asked. A genuine question, as if it would have let him go on if he wasn’t.
Its eyes were filled with...concern? Sam’s breath caught in his throat. He remembered a moment from years ago. Tamara was twelve or thirteen, as old as Willie was when he died. She approached him as he did the dishes after another of Larry’s wonderful meals. Sam loved when Yusif and Shannon would visit with the kids; loved the happy noise and the bustle of it, the sounds of a nine‐year‐old Willie bounding around the house attempting to interest Larry in pyramid. Tamara’s girlish, soft voice beginning to bristle with teenage rebellion.
Tamara touched Sam’s arm, and he passed her a dish to dry.
“Theios? Why are you in the Ha’la’tha?”
It was the first time either of his brother’s children had asked him the question directly. He didn’t know what to say.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked. Answering questions with questions. It had served him well before.
“Because you’re a good person, and the Ha’la’tha does bad things.”
Sam swallowed hard and focused on the sudsy dish in his hands.
“They don’t only do bad things,” Sam replied. “The Ha’la’tha helps Taurans when Caprica City won’t.”
Tamara put her dry dish on the counter. “Daddy told me that when you were in jail last year, that it was for almost killing someone. Is that true?”
Sam sighed and turned off the faucet. “Come here,” he said, and after giving her his hand, still slick with soap, he led her into the den and sat her down.
“The Ha’la’tha exists, because when Taurans started coming to Caprica after the civil war, they were looked down on by the Capricans.”
“Dirteaters,” Tamara said simply.
“Yeah. Not so nice a name, is it?”
Tamara shook her head.
Sam continued, “A lot of the time, Taurans weren’t considered for good jobs...”
“But Daddy became a lawyer,” Tamara said.
“Only after the Guatrau of the Ha’la’tha paid for him to go to school. And the whole time he was there, he was picked on. And even after he graduated at the top of his class, no respectable firm would hire him...”
“...because his name was Adama.”
It hurt Sam to watch his niece put these things together, to watch her notions of black and white, good and bad, crumble in her young face. But she’d asked, and he promised himself when he tattooed two small squares on his arm representing his niece and nephew, claiming them as children for whom he was responsible, that he would always be honest with them. Even if it hurt.
“Yes,” Sam replied. “Because his name was Adama. So now he’s making you and your brother put up with this ‘Adams’ skata...”
He stopped, having noticed Tamara’s knit eyebrows. She didn’t take kindly to criticism of her parents, the loyal little thing, even by her uncle. Sam changed tactics.
“Look,” he said. “I joined the Ha’la’tha, and I stay with the Ha’la’tha, because they were there for me, and your dad, when no one else was. Can you understand that? They’re family.”
“We’re family,” Tamara said.
Sam took her hands and kissed her on the knuckles.
“I know,” he said. “And I love you guys most.”
“Just...try not to kill anybody, OK? Because then you’ll go to jail again, and I’ll be sad, because I’ll miss you.”
Suddenly, she threw her arms around Sam’s neck in a fierce embrace that caught him off guard. And then he hugged her back just as fiercely. He wondered how long she’d been holding this in, waiting to tell him this. He didn’t ask. He didn’t care. All he cared about was that he loved her, and he would never want to cause her pain again.
“I promise you that I will try,” he said. And it wasn’t a lie, because he did try.
And withholding the truth of murders past was not the same as lying.
Sam shook the memory off, reminding himself that The Thing That Isn’t Tammy didn’t deserve remorse or sympathy. Frak its concern. It didn’t have the right.
Tamara realized he didn’t understand what she meant. Or, perhaps she hadn’t made herself clear. She extended her right fist, closed her eyes, and summoned the right codes. This was becoming easier for her now. The blood on her face faded, as did the small open wounds. In a moment, she was whole again, as if Sam had never touched her. She noticed that his knuckles were bloody, so she summoned the code that repaired his avatar. She watched as he stared at his hands in surprise, then shook them as if she’d given him a disease.
“I need to know if you’re finished,” she repeated.
“I stopped, didn’t I?” he snapped.
“No,” she said, taking a step toward him. “I mean, are you finished for good?”
“What are you talking about?”
She sat on a nearby rock. She didn’t want to appear threatening.
“I heard you, you know,” she said, her voice low. “When you were here with the Graystones. I know that you were helping Zoe’s father so that he’d help you destroy me.”
Tamara searched his eyes for an indication that he was still her uncle. She thought she saw something, but it disappeared.
“I’m making a life here. A home. I have plans, but before I do anything, I need to know that I’m not gonna have to worry about you trying to kill me.”
Those last words made her chuckle, and she saw that this bothered him, but she couldn’t help it. I need to know that I’m not gonna have to worry about you trying to kill me. It was absurd that she even had to say this. In any other context, this would be a joke.
But Sam wasn’t laughing.
“Oh, yeah. Plans,” Sam replied. “And do these plans include worming your way into our lives? Into our family? Do these plans include programming robots to kill us all?”
“No!” Tamara leaped up, brazenly taking several steps toward him. “Look, all I want is to be left alone. I don’t belong in the real world anymore. I know that. Why do you think I agreed to...hurt Daddy like that?”
She saw that the way she said ‘Daddy’ hit Sam in the gut, sending a ripple of sorrow into his face.
“I helped him let me go,” she said. “I need you to let me go, too. Not just of the Tamara you know, but of me.”
Sam felt his entire body tense up. It had called him here - reached out to him from V‐World on his phone - to tell him to back off. On one hand, how dare it! On the other...how very Ha’la’tha of it. He had to back off or...
“Or what?” Sam asked, the absurdity of all this finally catching up with him. “What if I don’t? What if I go back to Graystone and he tells me how to get rid of you once and for all?”
It sighed.
“You don’t have to go to Graystone,” it said simply.
And now, a word from our sponsor...
And now, back to "Safe Journey: Hypatian's Bluff..."
Sam watched as it put a hand under its robes and pulled out an e‐sheet. It held the e‐sheet out to him.
“What the frak is that?” Sam still couldn’t bring himself to trust this thing.
She was a punctured balloon, air slowly hissing out of her. Shoulders slumped, eyes pleading, she repeated the gesture. She took tentative steps toward him until she was a mere foot away, and she offered the e‐sheet again. This time, Sam took it.
He switched it on, and what he saw made absolutely no sense to him. A series of numbers, letters, and dashes that were more foreign to him than the Ancient Tauran Scrolls.
“Zoe would kill me herself if she knew I was giving that to you. I’ve set us apart, so she can’t see or hear us, but if I’m away too long, she’ll come looking. We have to be quick.”
“What is this?” Sam asked again.
“It’s my code. My DNA, I guess. Not even Zoe’s dad has that. He only thinks he does. Zoe’s made sure of that.”
“Why are you giving me this?” Sam didn’t know what to think anymore. He wanted to throttle this thing, and yet if this meant what he thought it meant...
“I know you, Theios,” she said. “It’s one of the best and worst things about you. You don’t give up. You’ll keep coming until you end me, and I can’t go on in here constantly looking over my shoulder for the outside world.”
Sam swallowed hard. He wasn’t prepared to feel like this. She’s a thing, he told himself. She is a thing.
Then why was he thinking of it as a she?
“So, what? I just delete this and...poof?”
“You can’t do it in here, no,” she said. “But all the information you pick up in here gets stored in your game log. If you connect your holoband to any outside console, you’ll be able to retrieve it. Retrieve it...and hit delete.”
Suddenly The Thing That Isn’t Tammy looked so small. She sat up against a tree and brought her knees to her chest, encircling them with her arms. Head bowed, she lifted her eyes to her uncle, resigned.
It reminded Sam of Tamara as a younger girl, about nine or ten. Yusif had brought the kids over to play when The Guatrau arrived unannounced on business. Sam went upstairs to fetch some money The Guatrau was expecting, and when he returned to the dining room, he saw that The Guatrau and Tamara had begun playing cards.
“Tamara,” Yusif said gently. “The Guatrau is a very busy man. He has other things to do besides teach you how to play cards.”
“Nonsense!” The Guatrau protested with a smile. Then, with a wink in Tamara’s direction, “The day I don’t have time for a lovely little girl is the day I give up this ring!”
Tamara smiled.
Yusif and Sam sat at the other end of the table, and as The Guatrau explained the rules of the game to Tamara, Larry sat at the table to watch with seven‐year‐old Willie in his lap.
Tamara looked at the cards in her hand, then lifted her eyes to her opponent.
“Mister Guatrau?” she asked, which made him chuckle. “This game is called Hypatian’s Bluff, right?”
“That’s right, dear,” The Guatrau replied, glancing at the Adama brothers with a smile. “Hypatian’s Bluff. Why don’t you go first?”
She did. And she lost the first hand. She lost the second, too. When it seemed like she was going to lose a third, Sam wondered if he should help Tamara gracefully exit the game when suddenly, she said, “Let’s pretend we’re playing for money!”
The men looked at each other with amused surprise as Tamara ran to Larry’s desk, grabbed a notebook and scissors, then ran to her little pink backpack for her crayons. When she returned to the table, she cut out several bill‐sized rectangles, writing in denominations with crayon.
“Half for you, half for me!” she announced as she slid a portion of the bills to The Guatrau. “Each one is a thousand cubits!”
The Guatrau laughed out loud, then turned to Yusif. “High roller, isn’t she?”
Sam folded his arms and looked more intently at his niece. He was curious about the sudden interest in playing for faux cubits.
And then Tamara started winning.
Hand after hand, Tamara was winning. At first by slim margins, but then by a lot. Sam watched as The Guatrau’s expression went from humoring to frustrated.
Yusif leaned over to Sam and whispered, “You think we should stop this?”
“No,” said Sam. “They’re both in it now. Let’s see what they do.”
Sam eyed his niece. Her dealing had become more confident and when she put her cards down on the table at the end of each hand, she did so without the slightest hesitation. Sam noticed her eyes, the only part of her where any uncertainty remained, and that whenever The Guatrau looked as though he were going to end the game, Tamara would look at him with those eyes.
“One more hand please, Mister Guatrau?”
And The Guatrau played one more.
Sam chuckled to himself as he watched her. Mister Guatrau, he thought. Nice touch.
The old man and the young girl played until all the slips of paper sat on the girl’s side of the table. The Guatrau sat without saying a word for a moment so long it brought tension with it.
“Willie, I think the C‐Bucs are playing on television. Let’s go watch,” said Larry, who hated pyramid, before carrying the boy out of the room.
Sam watched as The Guatrau stared at Tamara, clenching his jaw. And Tamara? She sat looking right back at The Guatrau, still with those eyes, and the hint of a smirk on her lips.
“How many cubits is that, Tamara?” The Guatrau asked her.
She counted.
“Ten thousand.”
The Guatrau stood and put on his coat and hat.
“Sam,” he said. “Go into that money you have for me, take out ten thousand cubits, and give it to Yusif.”
The Adama brothers looked at The Guatrau, stunned.
“That’s for the girl’s college fund,” The Guatrau said to Yusif.
He looked at his little opponent and smiled.
“When you grow up, if you ever need a job, you come to me.”
Tamara finally allowed herself a full‐on grin as she nodded.
The Adama men escorted The Guatrau out, and as Sam closed the door behind him, Yusif asked, “Didn’t you teach her how to play Hypatian’s Bluff years ago?”
“Yeah,” Sam said with a smirk. “I taught her the game. She learned how to hustle all by herself.”
There wasn’t anything Tamara could do but wait. Sam would either use what she’d given him or not. She saw how the e‐sheet was starting to crinkle and bend where he clutched it. She searched his face for an answer, though Sam’s face was even more impenetrable as an avatar than it was in life, perhaps because he was trying so hard not to be her uncle here.
And then, for some reason, Sam smiled.
He threw the e‐sheet at Tamara’s feet.
“You didn’t expect me to fall for that, did you?”
Sam watched Tamara’s eyes as she registered this setback, watched her consider keeping up the act only to let it go and smile.
“Can’t play a player, huh?” she said.
“No. Especially not one who’s spent years learning your tells.”
Tamara crinkled her eyebrows.
“The way you look up,” Sam said. “Head down, eyes up. A demure look that sucks people in...until you go for the kill.”
They shared a chuckle, then an awkward silence for a moment. Tamara stood.
“Would you have done it?” she asked. “If it were real?”
Sam sighed.
“I was having some trouble there...” he replied. “But honestly, I don’t know.”
He never wanted to lie to her. Even if it hurt.
Tamara accepted that. She knew her uncle well enough to know that as single‐minded as he could be about achieving a goal, his heart was larger than his ambition or his stubbornness, even if he didn’t. There were lines even he wouldn’t cross, and she was sure that, deep down, she was one of them.
“Go home, Theios,” she said, stepping toward him again. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I have no interest in the real world. Take care of Dad and Willie. They need you. Evelyn can’t do everything herself...”
She didn’t know about Willie. At first, when Sam told her the way her fearless brother died, it was partially an experiment. How would she react?
With tears. Great, heaving sobs that racked her small body. She collapsed to a heap on the ground, burying her face in her robes. Her grief looked so...real.
Tamara felt his hand on her head at first, just resting there, unsure of how or if he could touch her. She remained still, hoping against hope that the last member of her real‐world family that she’d ever see would hold her.
As she cried for her own grief; and for her uncle, to whom Willie had meant the world; and for her father, whose devastation at losing his entire family she could only imagine, Sam knelt beside her and held her in his arms. Close and tight, almost as if he were the same uncle that held her aloft on his shoulders during Tauron Day parades when she was a child. She buried her face in his shoulder and cried for what felt like ages. And in a strange way, it made her happy. It had been a while since she felt this human.
Later, when Tamara’s eyes were dry, Sam reached into his pocket, pulling out a gold coin. A virtual representation of the coin he gave the ferryman for Willie. As he held it out to Tamara, Sam couldn’t help but think of her as the ferryman now. From then on, when he’d give coins for loved ones, or brothers and sisters in the Ha’la’tha who have returned to the soil, it’d be Tamara’s face he’d see, guiding people where they needed to be. The way she’d guided Yusif. The way she’d guided him.
“Safe journey,” he said.
Tamara took the coin and smiled, holding still as Sam kissed her forehead for the last time.
“Safe journey,” she said.
He smirked at her.
“Just...try not to kill anybody, OK?” he joked.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” she said. It’s not me you have to worry about, she thought, though she didn’t say it.
Withholding the truth was not the same as lying.
“You’ll never have to worry about me,” she said instead.
“I never did,” Sam replied.
For a moment, Tamara was flooded with love and pride. Like a child at the end of her birthday party, she desperately didn’t want him to go home. She wanted Yusif and Evelyn. She wanted Tsattie. She wanted her mother. Tamara wanted to show them all the miraculous things she could do. She wanted them to be proud of her, even now.
Yet, as Sam took a last look at her before de‐rezzing, she satisfied herself with the knowledge that she’d already made them proud. And she’d given them peace.
Now, the rest of her life was hers, and she knew just what she wanted to do with it.
“What the frak is that?” Sam still couldn’t bring himself to trust this thing.
She was a punctured balloon, air slowly hissing out of her. Shoulders slumped, eyes pleading, she repeated the gesture. She took tentative steps toward him until she was a mere foot away, and she offered the e‐sheet again. This time, Sam took it.
He switched it on, and what he saw made absolutely no sense to him. A series of numbers, letters, and dashes that were more foreign to him than the Ancient Tauran Scrolls.
“Zoe would kill me herself if she knew I was giving that to you. I’ve set us apart, so she can’t see or hear us, but if I’m away too long, she’ll come looking. We have to be quick.”
“What is this?” Sam asked again.
“It’s my code. My DNA, I guess. Not even Zoe’s dad has that. He only thinks he does. Zoe’s made sure of that.”
“Why are you giving me this?” Sam didn’t know what to think anymore. He wanted to throttle this thing, and yet if this meant what he thought it meant...
“I know you, Theios,” she said. “It’s one of the best and worst things about you. You don’t give up. You’ll keep coming until you end me, and I can’t go on in here constantly looking over my shoulder for the outside world.”
Sam swallowed hard. He wasn’t prepared to feel like this. She’s a thing, he told himself. She is a thing.
Then why was he thinking of it as a she?
“So, what? I just delete this and...poof?”
“You can’t do it in here, no,” she said. “But all the information you pick up in here gets stored in your game log. If you connect your holoband to any outside console, you’ll be able to retrieve it. Retrieve it...and hit delete.”
Suddenly The Thing That Isn’t Tammy looked so small. She sat up against a tree and brought her knees to her chest, encircling them with her arms. Head bowed, she lifted her eyes to her uncle, resigned.
It reminded Sam of Tamara as a younger girl, about nine or ten. Yusif had brought the kids over to play when The Guatrau arrived unannounced on business. Sam went upstairs to fetch some money The Guatrau was expecting, and when he returned to the dining room, he saw that The Guatrau and Tamara had begun playing cards.
“Tamara,” Yusif said gently. “The Guatrau is a very busy man. He has other things to do besides teach you how to play cards.”
“Nonsense!” The Guatrau protested with a smile. Then, with a wink in Tamara’s direction, “The day I don’t have time for a lovely little girl is the day I give up this ring!”
Tamara smiled.
Yusif and Sam sat at the other end of the table, and as The Guatrau explained the rules of the game to Tamara, Larry sat at the table to watch with seven‐year‐old Willie in his lap.
Tamara looked at the cards in her hand, then lifted her eyes to her opponent.
“Mister Guatrau?” she asked, which made him chuckle. “This game is called Hypatian’s Bluff, right?”
“That’s right, dear,” The Guatrau replied, glancing at the Adama brothers with a smile. “Hypatian’s Bluff. Why don’t you go first?”
She did. And she lost the first hand. She lost the second, too. When it seemed like she was going to lose a third, Sam wondered if he should help Tamara gracefully exit the game when suddenly, she said, “Let’s pretend we’re playing for money!”
The men looked at each other with amused surprise as Tamara ran to Larry’s desk, grabbed a notebook and scissors, then ran to her little pink backpack for her crayons. When she returned to the table, she cut out several bill‐sized rectangles, writing in denominations with crayon.
“Half for you, half for me!” she announced as she slid a portion of the bills to The Guatrau. “Each one is a thousand cubits!”
The Guatrau laughed out loud, then turned to Yusif. “High roller, isn’t she?”
Sam folded his arms and looked more intently at his niece. He was curious about the sudden interest in playing for faux cubits.
And then Tamara started winning.
Hand after hand, Tamara was winning. At first by slim margins, but then by a lot. Sam watched as The Guatrau’s expression went from humoring to frustrated.
Yusif leaned over to Sam and whispered, “You think we should stop this?”
“No,” said Sam. “They’re both in it now. Let’s see what they do.”
Sam eyed his niece. Her dealing had become more confident and when she put her cards down on the table at the end of each hand, she did so without the slightest hesitation. Sam noticed her eyes, the only part of her where any uncertainty remained, and that whenever The Guatrau looked as though he were going to end the game, Tamara would look at him with those eyes.
“One more hand please, Mister Guatrau?”
And The Guatrau played one more.
Sam chuckled to himself as he watched her. Mister Guatrau, he thought. Nice touch.
The old man and the young girl played until all the slips of paper sat on the girl’s side of the table. The Guatrau sat without saying a word for a moment so long it brought tension with it.
“Willie, I think the C‐Bucs are playing on television. Let’s go watch,” said Larry, who hated pyramid, before carrying the boy out of the room.
Sam watched as The Guatrau stared at Tamara, clenching his jaw. And Tamara? She sat looking right back at The Guatrau, still with those eyes, and the hint of a smirk on her lips.
“How many cubits is that, Tamara?” The Guatrau asked her.
She counted.
“Ten thousand.”
The Guatrau stood and put on his coat and hat.
“Sam,” he said. “Go into that money you have for me, take out ten thousand cubits, and give it to Yusif.”
The Adama brothers looked at The Guatrau, stunned.
“That’s for the girl’s college fund,” The Guatrau said to Yusif.
He looked at his little opponent and smiled.
“When you grow up, if you ever need a job, you come to me.”
Tamara finally allowed herself a full‐on grin as she nodded.
The Adama men escorted The Guatrau out, and as Sam closed the door behind him, Yusif asked, “Didn’t you teach her how to play Hypatian’s Bluff years ago?”
“Yeah,” Sam said with a smirk. “I taught her the game. She learned how to hustle all by herself.”
There wasn’t anything Tamara could do but wait. Sam would either use what she’d given him or not. She saw how the e‐sheet was starting to crinkle and bend where he clutched it. She searched his face for an answer, though Sam’s face was even more impenetrable as an avatar than it was in life, perhaps because he was trying so hard not to be her uncle here.
And then, for some reason, Sam smiled.
He threw the e‐sheet at Tamara’s feet.
“You didn’t expect me to fall for that, did you?”
Sam watched Tamara’s eyes as she registered this setback, watched her consider keeping up the act only to let it go and smile.
“Can’t play a player, huh?” she said.
“No. Especially not one who’s spent years learning your tells.”
Tamara crinkled her eyebrows.
“The way you look up,” Sam said. “Head down, eyes up. A demure look that sucks people in...until you go for the kill.”
They shared a chuckle, then an awkward silence for a moment. Tamara stood.
“Would you have done it?” she asked. “If it were real?”
Sam sighed.
“I was having some trouble there...” he replied. “But honestly, I don’t know.”
He never wanted to lie to her. Even if it hurt.
Tamara accepted that. She knew her uncle well enough to know that as single‐minded as he could be about achieving a goal, his heart was larger than his ambition or his stubbornness, even if he didn’t. There were lines even he wouldn’t cross, and she was sure that, deep down, she was one of them.
“Go home, Theios,” she said, stepping toward him again. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I have no interest in the real world. Take care of Dad and Willie. They need you. Evelyn can’t do everything herself...”
She didn’t know about Willie. At first, when Sam told her the way her fearless brother died, it was partially an experiment. How would she react?
With tears. Great, heaving sobs that racked her small body. She collapsed to a heap on the ground, burying her face in her robes. Her grief looked so...real.
Tamara felt his hand on her head at first, just resting there, unsure of how or if he could touch her. She remained still, hoping against hope that the last member of her real‐world family that she’d ever see would hold her.
As she cried for her own grief; and for her uncle, to whom Willie had meant the world; and for her father, whose devastation at losing his entire family she could only imagine, Sam knelt beside her and held her in his arms. Close and tight, almost as if he were the same uncle that held her aloft on his shoulders during Tauron Day parades when she was a child. She buried her face in his shoulder and cried for what felt like ages. And in a strange way, it made her happy. It had been a while since she felt this human.
Later, when Tamara’s eyes were dry, Sam reached into his pocket, pulling out a gold coin. A virtual representation of the coin he gave the ferryman for Willie. As he held it out to Tamara, Sam couldn’t help but think of her as the ferryman now. From then on, when he’d give coins for loved ones, or brothers and sisters in the Ha’la’tha who have returned to the soil, it’d be Tamara’s face he’d see, guiding people where they needed to be. The way she’d guided Yusif. The way she’d guided him.
“Safe journey,” he said.
Tamara took the coin and smiled, holding still as Sam kissed her forehead for the last time.
“Safe journey,” she said.
He smirked at her.
“Just...try not to kill anybody, OK?” he joked.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” she said. It’s not me you have to worry about, she thought, though she didn’t say it.
Withholding the truth was not the same as lying.
“You’ll never have to worry about me,” she said instead.
“I never did,” Sam replied.
For a moment, Tamara was flooded with love and pride. Like a child at the end of her birthday party, she desperately didn’t want him to go home. She wanted Yusif and Evelyn. She wanted Tsattie. She wanted her mother. Tamara wanted to show them all the miraculous things she could do. She wanted them to be proud of her, even now.
Yet, as Sam took a last look at her before de‐rezzing, she satisfied herself with the knowledge that she’d already made them proud. And she’d given them peace.
Now, the rest of her life was hers, and she knew just what she wanted to do with it.
Caprica ©2010, Syfy. A Division of NBC Universal.
Beginning of Line is a fan site with no affiliation to Caprica, Syfy, or NBC Universal. You should totes know that.
And "Safe Journey: Hypatian's Bluff" belongs to Teresa Jusino. No, the characters aren't hers, and she can't get paid for it, but if you want to reprint it anywhere, it'd be nice if you asked.
Beginning of Line is a fan site with no affiliation to Caprica, Syfy, or NBC Universal. You should totes know that.
And "Safe Journey: Hypatian's Bluff" belongs to Teresa Jusino. No, the characters aren't hers, and she can't get paid for it, but if you want to reprint it anywhere, it'd be nice if you asked.
