# Babylon 5 and its characters and their words were created by J. Michael Straczynski, and belong to Joe and Warner Bros., and are used without permission. The rest belongs to Cathy Faye Rudolph.)

3__________

Garibaldi turned. She just sat there. It wasn't even clear that she was listening. The last shred of control stretched, then snapped. He grabbed her shoulder, fingers like talons into her flesh. As she tried to pull away, he pinned her left hand, gathered in a fist, against the table with his hand. Pain contorted her face.

"It must be nice, you down here all comfortable and safe in your little temple while the rest of us are busting ass up there to keep things together," he snarled the brittle words as she pulled against his grip and the pressure of his hand on her closed fist. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

His suspicions ran riot. "You're still 'Corps,' aren't you? One of the privileged high and mighty, Bester's little darlings, waiting for the New Order to waltz in." She moaned, shook her head, not looking at him, pain competing with rising anger. Blood began to leak out between her fingers, dripping down to the table.

He leaned close to spill each word into her ear. "You know what I think? I think we're part of some experiment right now," he continued, contempt triumphing over reason, "and that you set us up. I think you sold us out to PsiCorps, so that Bester can crawl around in our heads and pull our strings -- mundane puppets dancing to PsiCorps' tune. Am I right?" She was screaming, denying it over and over, her shoulders and head slumped in agony, her hair tangled and obscuring her face.

"Maybe it isn't just Sheridan who has the god-complex," he growled. "You're right up there with him. Power, control, the unquestioning obedience of the faithful sheep--that gets you off, doesn't it? Was power your price? Money?" His eyes bored into hers. "You sold us out, didn't you? You betrayed us to Earth Gov and PsiCorps, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?" He seized her chin and pulled her face up to look at him.

The green of her eyes was completely gone. There was only black, a hollow darkness that grasped him with cold unyielding fingers. He couldn't turn away, couldn't pull back. He was drawn forward, as if falling. He could hear her screams over and over as he fell, closer to the pit, falling faster, falling toward a dark barrier like glass--

---- smashing through, the shattering of glass intermixed with sound of her screams ---- countless dark barriers, each a dark mirror that held dim images of possibilities ---- each fallen through and shattered in turn ---- each marking

---- possibilities

...Sheridan standing on the balcony, comm-link raised to signal the White Star...A woman's hand firmly but gently taking his...Anna smiling, appealing to the last vestiges of guilt and loss in Sheridan's heart, drawing him away from the balcony, back inside the colony walls...

---- possibilities

...The Shadow fleet fading away as suddenly as they had come...Ivanova watching as the last Shadow ship disappeared...

---- possibilities

...Sheridan announcing in the Zocalo a return of the station to Earth Alliance command and the beginning of a campaign against the Vorlons...

---- possibilities

...The disbanding of the Rangers and the deportation of the Minbari delegation...

---- possibilities

...The return of Nightwatch...

---- possibilities

...The release of toxic gas into Grey 17...

---- possibilities

...The execution of Franklin...

---- possibilities

...The deployment of the cryo-sleepers in the Shadow vessels...

---- possibilities

...Ivanova as a black-suited PsiCorps agent... ...Ivanova dead at her own hand...

---- possibilities

...Minbar...Narn...Epsilon 3...destroyed...

---- possibilities

...Babylon 5 destroyed by the Vorlons... ...Babylon 5 destroyed by the Shadows... ...Babylon 5 destroyed by the remnants of the Army of Light... ...Babylon 5 destroyed...

---- possibilities

...a PsiCorps research facility...a cryo-unit listing the dissected occupant as experimental subject Lyta Alexander...

---- possibilities

...He was wearing the PsiCorps insignia...she was wired with Shadow technology, restrained in an enviro-chamber...her eyes were empty, dark pools without awareness, without self...he repeated, you work for us, only for us...only for us

---- possibilities---- possibilities---- possibilities...

...

[to Chapter 4]