brennen
/
lurkers-guide



								<h3>Synopsis by Katrina Glerum (kat@midwinter.com)</h3>


								<p>

								As Sheridan's forces approach Earth, the fighting grows more fierce.

								Outgunned and unable to flee, Clark's remaining ships still refuse to

								surrender.


								<p>

								Meanwhile, Dr. Franklin and Lyta find themselves on Mars again with

								their disturbing cargo.


								<p>

								Garibaldi matter of factly informs Edgars that John Sheridan's trap has

								been baited with his father.  Pleased, Edgars again promises Garibaldi

								the elusive reward of the whole truth.  "I think the last guy got

								thirty pieces of silver for the same job," Garibaldi remarks with

								distaste as he leaves.


								<p>

								Sheridan orders the opposing vessels to stand down again.  One captain

								finally breaks silence saying that Sheridan is only going to execute

								them if they surrender.    Sheridan's new ally Macdougan convinces the

								young captain that its safe to stand down just as a new ship jumps into

								the melee.  To Sheridan's relief it's his old ship, the Agamemnon, come

								to join his fleet.


								<p>

								Number One is livid to discover that Franklin has brought a teep into

								her facility without even thinking of consulting her.  The dozens of

								frozen telepaths he brings are equally unwelcome.


								<p>

								Sheridan and the Agamemnon's crew share a fond reunion when he goes on

								board.  He's still there when Garibaldi's transmission catches up with

								him.  Garibaldi explains that Clark's people have captured Sheridan's dad,

								and says he has a rescue plan which requires Sheridan's presence.  Against

								everyone's advice Sheridan decides to go to Mars alone, and the

								Agamemnon agrees to transport him there.


								<p>

								The hostility towards Lyta is not limited to Number One.  Franklin is

								baffled, until Lyta explains the Bloodhound program.  Anyone suspected

								of being in the Resistance is simply picked up and scanned.  No due

								process.  Quietly Lyta begins to explain the other things Psi Cops have

								done.  One serial killer of telepaths now lives in an institution,

								screaming all the time at the "things [we] planted in his mind."  When

								that happened she left Psi Cops for Commercial work, but from then she

								became afraid of what telepaths could do.  "Someday there's going to be

								a war between telepaths and mundanes, Stephen," she predicts direly.


								<p>

								Ivanova leaves the station to take command of the fleet in Sheridan's

								absence, and Delenn agrees to keep watch over B5 until she returns.


								<p>

								John pilots a fighter down to the surface of Mars.  Garibaldi is

								waiting in a smoky bar.  As soon as the Captain sits, Garibaldi slaps a

								tranquilizer patch on his hand.  Furiously Sheridan stands and attempts

								to escape, but like a lion brought down by jackals, the men who have

								come for him are too many and too strong.  Garibaldi just sits in his

								place and watches impassively as his former friend and CO gets beaten

								to a pulp.


								<p>

								ISN's gloating begins immediately.  Ivanova and Marcus watch in stunned

								silence.


								<p>

								Garibaldi returns to his boss, furiously demanding to be finally told

								the truth.  Edgars and Wade reveal that they have genetically

								engineered a virus that attacks only telepaths.  They have also

								developed an "antidote" that needs to be administered to infected

								telepaths every two weeks.  Turning telepaths into a virtual slave race

								is the only way they see to counter the threat of the "death of human

								liberty and human thought."  As a side-effect, by removing Clark's

								power base in the Psi Corps, they will be free to overturn his

								government easily.  Garibaldi affirms that he is still on board and

								Edgars informs him that now that Clark is distracted by the capture of

								Sheridan, he can begin the process of releasing the virus.


								<p>

								"The telepath prob--" he utters and stops.  Hearing the holocaustic

								parallel in his own words, he continues in a broken voice, "The

								telepath problem...will finally be over."


								<p>

								Unbeknownst to them all, a horrified Lise has heard everything from her

								hiding place behind a column.


								<p>

								When they have left the room Garibaldi sits quietly and pops a cap off

								his tooth revealing a miniscule transmitter.  Lise finds him later

								waiting stony faced in a tube.  She begs him to help stop her husband.

								With eerily muted urgency Garibaldi only tells her to go home.


								<p>

								Moments later a new passenger joins him and the car leaves the

								station.  Without hesitation, Bester jumps straight into Garibaldi's

								mind and extracts Edgars' nefarious plan.  Even the imperturbable Psi

								Cop is stunned by the extent of this "final solution."   Having

								finished what he came for, Bester muses about what to do with Garibaldi

								next.  "I can feel you, you know...the real you, beating at the inside

								of your skull, screaming to get out."  Should he let Garibaldi

								free?  Should he keep him penned up forever?  He explains to Garbaldi

								what happened when he was captured by the Shadows.


								<p>

								Bester got control of Garibaldi during the Shadows' attempt to

								"adjust" him and managed to handle the procedure on his own terms.

								That way he could thwart his enemies the Shadows (the virus of Edgars'

								was surely Shadow technology after all), take revenge on the officers

								of Babylon 5, and use Garibaldi as a weapon against his other enemies,

								all in one move.  Accentuating his naturally rebellious and

								suspicious instincts turned Garibaldi into the perfect tool for digging to

								the bottom of anti-telepath conspiracies.  The odd messages Garibaldi

								received from time to time tuned his conditioning until his real

								personality was completely buried under the new one.


								<p>

								And now Bester wonders what to do.  Toying for an instant with a gun in

								Garibaldi's face, Bester comments that now that Garibaldi's friends know

								he betrayed Sheridan, he "can't go home again."  Deciding to let the

								real Garibaldi free, Bester exits the car and the train leaves the

								station.


								<p>

								Garibaldi sits impassively on the bench.  A flash of reality slams his

								mind.  He shakes his head.  Then another.  And then again.  He screams

								in rage and whacks his head into the wall of the train.


								<p>

								When Marcus informs Ivanova that Garibaldi has attempted to contact

								them, she orders that if he shows up on the station he be shot on

								sight.  In the interim, with Sheridan captured and the fleet in limbo,

								she vows to finish the job her Captain began.


								<p>

								Garibaldi frantically searches Edgars' home for Lise but only finds

								Edgars dead, the virus removed and Wade mortally injured on the floor.

								Wade manages to whisper that Lise hadn't been there when they were

								attacked.


								<p>

								The ISN anchor reports the assassination of William Edgars apparently

								by Free Mars terrorists.  She also proudly congratulates former Chief

								Warrant Officer Michael Garibaldi for rescuing the renegade Earth Force

								Captain John Sheridan.  While Sheridan continues to be pummeled by his

								captors, she reports that now that he has been freed of alien

								influences, Sheridan is expressing regret for his actions against his

								home world.