Title: The Lost Colony
Author: Joolz
Feedback: [email protected]
Category: Gen, Crossover, Drama, H/C
Pairing: None
Word count: 26,100
Rating: R for some violence and brief nudity
Season/Spoilers: SGA: 2nd-ish, no spoilers /
Numb3rs: 2nd-ish, no spoilers
Notes: This is not my
usual angst fest (well, there is a little bit).
It’s more an enjoyment of some lovely characters and buddy-fic. I want the whole Numb3rs cast to move to Atlantis. There’s just a touch of SG-1 in there as
well. Many thanks to valiant betas Lady
Ra and Jenn. I
take full blame for the final product.
Summary: Stargate Atlantis / Numb3rs crossover. In the Pegasus Galaxy they’ve found a puzzle
that only one man can solve. The Eppes
brothers go traveling.
Disclaimer: Not my lovely characters, just playing with
them.
Warnings: None in particular, past the rating
~~*~~
Rodney slid the stack of
9X12 photos down the table so that everyone could reach one. Or ten.
They all looked the same at first glance, except they weren’t. Over a hundred photos and no two alike, and
that covered only a small portion of the original subject.
Each photo showed columns
of four-glyph sets. At the side of each
was a wooden ruler showing the dimensions of the figures as about one inch
tall. They were from a ten foot high
wall that ran around a outside of a chamber the size of a football field. The entire wall was covered in glyphs that
didn’t resemble any script they knew.
Elizabeth Weir frowned at
the photo before her and asked, “So have you determined what they mean yet?”
Rodney barked, “Ha! Good one.
Yes, yes, of course I decrypted the code over dinner. It’s the complete works of William
Shakespeare.”
Visibly drawing on her
patience, she tried again. “Well what can
you tell us, Rodney?”
Leaning back in his chair,
the scientist grumbled, “No more than we already knew. From the plaque by the entryway we know that
the room was left by a group of Ancients who didn’t escape to Earth or ascend
when driven out of Atlantis. They hid themselves
on some planet and covered all tracks, using their technology to become
invisible to Wraith and humans alike.
They were willing to be found by a civilization advanced enough to be
able to crack the code they left in this structure, which contains instructions
or directions on how to find their world.
They were apparently convinced that the Wraith would not fall into that
category. Unfortunately, it would appear
that we don’t either. I got nothing.”
Sheppard cocked his
head. “Come on, Rodney. You aren’t giving up, are you? This is a lost colony of Ancients we’re
talking about. I’d expect you to keep at
it until you figured it out.”
McKay glared at him. “Thank you very much for your confidence, and
it isn’t misplaced. I probably could figure
it out. All I’d need is access to 100%
of Atlantis’ data base and computing systems and to work full time on the
project for the next, oh, five years or so.
I could do that. Or I could, I
don’t know, deal with the small matter of keeping us alive on a daily basis.”
Dr. Beckett ventured, “We
all know you can do almost anything, Rodney, but could it be that you’re not
the right man for this particular job?
This sounds much like Dr. Jackson’s quest to find the lost city of the
Ancients, which ultimately led us here.
It seems to me that maybe this is a job for the linguists rather than
the hard science department.”
“And you would be wrong,”
McKay informed him loftily. “That would
be the case if this were a language. It
isn’t, it’s a code. An extremely complex
and obviously extensive cipher. It has
more in common with mathematics than it does with words. Once the code is broken, linguistics might
play a part, but not at this stage.”
Weir asked, “So are you
saying we should just give up on it?”
“Not at all.”
Sheppard said, “Before we
go devoting the rest of our lives to this, maybe we should ask ourselves if
it’s worth it. These may be Ancients,
but they’ve happily hidden themselves away in safety for the last ten thousand
years. What makes us think they’d be
willing to help now?”
Teyla inclined her head in
agreement. “The colonel makes a good
point. They have stood aside while the
Wraith culled the populations of many planets.
If they could do this with equanimity, then they are clearly a most
selfish and uncaring people.”
McKay looked around the
room. “We can’t assume that they
wouldn’t help. We’ll have to ask them
when we find them. Whether they are
willing to become directly involved or not, just think of the technological
advances they may have made over ten thousand years. Even if they were only willing to share a
small part of it, it could provide a way of defeating the Wraith once and for
all. We won’t know until we get there.”
Brow furrowed in
confusion, Elizabeth said, “But I thought you said we couldn’t decipher the
code with less than five years of dedicated effort.”
“I said that we
couldn’t. I didn’t say that nobody
could.”
“Get to the point, McKay,”
Sheppard urged impatiently. “What are
you trying to say?”
Rodney answered lightly,
“In this case, Carson is actually right.
I’m not the best person for this job.
While I myself may be something of a Renaissance man, having
extraordinary abilities in a number of complementary fields, there are people
on Earth who have specialized so that their aptitudes exceed my own in certain
areas.”
Sheppard sat up in mock amazement. “No!”
“Yes, I know it’s
difficult to imagine, but true,” Rodney
nodded sympathetically. “I propose that we
bring one such expert here to take on the task.
The right person could have this solved in a fraction of the time. We have to find out where the Lost Colony is. We can’t afford to let this opportunity pass
just because it’s difficult.”
Weir nodded. “I’m inclined to agree with you on that. We need to find these Ancients before we can
evaluate their potential as allies, and I believe it needs to be a top
priority. This could give us the edge
we’ve been looking for. I take it,
Rodney, that you have someone in mind?”
“I do. There’s a professor of Applied Mathematics at
CalSci who has one of the finest minds on Earth, or
possibly anywhere in two galaxies. He’s
done work for the government before, if I remember correctly.”
Elizabeth looked interested. “I’ll ask General Landry to approach
him. The General can be very persuasive
when he needs to be. What’s this math
genius’ name?”
“Dr. Charles Eppes.”
~~**~~
Charlie was organizing
lesson plans for the coming semester when someone knocked on his door. “Dr.
Eppes?” a woman’s voice asked.
Looking up, Charlie found
a tall, beautiful blonde in an incongruously severe Air Force dress uniform
standing in the doorway.
“Yes, I’m Dr. Eppes. Can I help you?”
“I believe you can.” She stepped into the room. “I’m Dr. Samantha Carter, Lieutenant
Colonel. Do you mind if I close the door
while we talk?”
“Not at all. Please have a seat.”
Charlie was used to
dealing with classified government information and expected that this would be
another recruitment pitch. This woman
was by far the most attractive functionary to approach him yet.
She sat on the chair in
front of his desk, the one his brother tended to lounge on after a long
day. Dr. Carter had perfect posture.
“Dr. Eppes, I’ll get right
to the point. I have a proposition for
you. We need your help on a very
important project.”
Charlie nodded. “I thought that might be it. Go ahead and tell me about it, and please
call me Charlie.”
The woman smiled. “I’d be glad to, Charlie, if you’ll call me
Sam.”
He smiled back and
confirmed, “Sam.”
“When I say that this is
about an important project, I don’t mean in the normal sense. I’m talking about an extensive covert program
that is the single most top secret operation the United States government has
ever carried out. What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this room.”
Charlie raised his
eyebrows in surprise. “I’ve consulted
with the NSA, the CDC, the FBI, and a few other agencies. My security clearance is about as high as it
gets.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why I’m able to speak with you with a
simple reminder that your existing non-disclosure agreement applies to this as
well. You’ll understand why the secrecy
in a moment.”
Charlie nodded, signaling
for her to continue.
“Do you recognize the name
Dr. Rodney McKay?”
After thinking for a
moment Charlie said, “I’ve met him a couple of times. He’s a well-known astrophysicist and a friend
of my colleague Larry Fleinhardt. Well, to say he’s a friend might be going a
bit too far. I get the impression that
Dr. McKay isn’t an easy man to spend time with.”
The colonel smirked. “I see you have met him. It seems you made quite an impression on him,
which is hard to do. He says that you’re
the only person who can do what we need.”
“And what would that be,
exactly?”
Sam took a deep
breath. “Do you know anything about
wormhole physics?”
~~**~~
Charlie sat back and tried
to take in what Dr. Carter, who turned out to be an astrophysicist herself, had
told him. An ancient device, built by a race
rather obviously called ‘The Ancients’, that created stable wormholes connected
to similar devices on other planets and allowed two-way travel. Alien parasitical overlords and slave armies. The lost city of Atlantis, in another
galaxy. And here he thought the most
challenging thing he would have to do that day would be to figure out when to
set his office hours.
He said, “Let me see if I
understand. An alien race left code on
an obscure planet in the Pegasus Galaxy, and you want me to go there to analyze
it?”
“That’s right.”
“You want me to go
there?” Cold sweat broke out down his
back. This wasn’t just a trip to D.C. or
Munich. This meant leaving everything
and everyone farther behind than he could even imagine.
Seeing his hesitation, Sam
reached into her briefcase and then handed him a photo. “Take a look at this.”
The symbols in the photo
caught his interest immediately. His
mind automatically began sorting, categorizing, scanning for patterns.
“Charlie? Dr. Eppes?”
“Huh?” His head snapped up and he looked at the
woman who had probably been trying to get his attention for some time. He asked, “Do you have more like this?”
She chuckled. “Do we have more? There’s so much more that if we tried to
photograph all of it the pictures would stack up half way to the moon. That’s why it wouldn’t be possible to consult
from here. You have to see it for
yourself.”
That sucked the joy right
out of the room. While, yeah, it was the
opportunity of a lifetime, and there were no challenges on Earth that could
compare to what he might find out there, he honestly didn’t think he could
go. Los Angeles was his home, or more
specifically, the university and the house he shared with his father. Helping students learn, working with Larry
and Amita and helping Don with cases kept him in
contact with the world.
He loved his father and
brother, but more than that, he needed them.
Charlie might be an adult, a professor at a prestigious university and a
government consultant, but his family kept him from becoming too lost inside
his own head. He tried to imagine what
it would be like to submerge himself in this project without the support system
he’d built around himself. Thinking
about it, Charlie realized for the first time just how much responsibility he
let other people take for his well being.
He knew that on his own, with a challenge of this kind, he could
literally work himself to death.
Was the risk of isolation
and burn-out worth it? On the other
hand, how could he not go?
“Look, I can’t decide this
now. I need to talk to my father and my
brother, get their opinions.”
Sam looked
sympathetic. “I’m afraid that won’t be
possible. Everyone who went on the
Atlantis expedition or even works for Stargate Command has left people behind
without being able to tell them where they were going or what they were
doing. It’s painful, but necessary due
to the top secret nature of the program.
We will make arrangements with the university for you to be given a
leave of absence, but you won’t be able to tell anyone what it’s about.”
Charlie shook his
head. “Then I guess I can’t go. I’m not trying to be difficult, but you don’t
understand the situation. I really,
really need to talk to them about this.”
“But Charlie, we really need
you on this project.”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
And he was sorry. He wanted to
go, but wasn’t going to be pushed into it.
He wasn’t willing to lose his family for anything, especially now that
his mother was gone and Don was there.
Dr. Carter thought for a
minute. “Your brother is an FBI agent,
right?”
“Yes. He has security clearance. Not as high as mine, but high enough. You can trust him.”
She leaned forward. “How about this? I’ll make some calls and see if I can get
authorization to tell your brother.
Maybe we can work out a compromise, but I can guarantee it won’t be
extended to your dad.
“I know how you feel,
Charlie,” she went on. “My own father
was dying and I couldn’t tell him what I was doing. It’s a long story how that worked out, but I
do understand. Would talking to one of
them be enough?”
He thought about it. He would hate to keep secrets from his dad,
but of the two it was Don’s opinion he needed most on this. And he could just imagine the look on Don’s
face.
“Yes, all right. If you could arrange that, it would be
great.”
As she started talking
into her cell phone, Charlie thought over what he’d just learned. He felt like there was quicksand shifting
under his feet. Whether he went or not
his life would never be the same again.
~~**~~
Don was studying a wall
covered in notes, pictures, maps, and other items related to his current
case. He was studying it again, though
he’d been over it a dozen times already.
Sometimes looking at the relationships between the different elements
would cause something to spark in his brain and he could make an intuitive leap
that would knock them out of a stalemate.
The visual approach worked for him, while for others of his team it was computer
research, printed reports or, in Charlie’s case, abstract conceptualization.
“Don?”
Think of the devil. Don turned his head briefly and said, “Oh,
hey, Charlie,” before returning his attention to the wall. He asked absently, “What’s up?”
“Do you have a
minute? I need to talk to you about
something important. Well, actually,
it’ll probably take more than a minute.”
“Is it about a case,
because I’m kind of in the middle of…”
He turned again and this time noticed the woman in the Air Force uniform
standing behind his brother.
Charlie introduced her,
“This is Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter.
Sam, my brother Don Eppes.”
Charlie took a step forward and Don noticed a certain manic gleam in his
brown eyes that sent up red flags.
The officer nodded and
said, “Agent Eppes.”
Charlie continued, “I know
you’re busy, but this is important.” His
eyes got even wider and he gestured with his hands in emphasis. “Really, really important. As in you’ve got to hear this and the
sooner the better.”
Observing the woman
carefully, Don answered, “Yeah, yeah, I get it.
We can talk in the office.”
Don had a bad feeling,
wondering what Charlie had gotten himself into this time. A lot of people
approached his brother hoping to take advantage of his mind, but the Air
Force? That was a new one.
When they’d settled into
chairs in the glass enclosed office, Don behind the desk and the others facing
him, Colonel Carter started, “Thank you for making the time to talk to us. The US Air Force has made a proposal to your
brother and he insisted on speaking with you before giving us a response. This is highly confidential, and under your
oath of office you won’t be able to tell anyone what we discuss here.”
Intriguing. “What’s this about”?”
Charlie interjected,
“You’re not going to believe it. I mean
you’ll probably think this is crazy, but I’m convinced it’s true. Colonel Carter has shown me some
incontrovertible evidence. Keep an open
mind.”
Don cocked his head. “Right, because mine is usually closed.”
His brother shrugged
innocently, “I’m just saying…” and trailed off.
Carter asked, “Agent
Eppes, do you know anything about wormhole physics?”
~~**~~
Don said very little as
the woman recounted what sounded like a paranoid fantasy, Charlie nodding as
she told her story and watching Don expectantly.
When she finished, Don
asked, “Colonel Carter, do you have any identification?”
Briefly startled, she
said, “Oh, yes,” and dug a business card and Air Force ID out of her briefcase.
Taking them and looking them
over, Don said, “Just a moment, please,” and left the room, closing the office
door behind him.
“David,” he called. The serious black agent strolled over,
checking out Charlie and the guest in Don’s office.
“What’s going on? Charlie come up with another brilliant idea?”
“Something like that. Look, David, would you run this for me? Find out if Lt. Colonel Carter is on the up
and up. It isn’t for a case, but it’s
pretty important.”
“Sure, I’ll see what I can
find.”
“Thanks a lot. Just knock when you have something.”
Handing over the ID, Don
returned to his office. He nodded to the
blonde woman and said mildly, “I hope you don’t mind if I verify a few
things. I’m trained to be thorough.”
Carter smiled in
amusement. “I don’t mind, but they won’t
find very much. I’ll be listed as
working in deep space telemetry at the Cheyenne Mountain N.O.R.A.D. base. Everyone with the SGC has a similar cover
story. If you need further proof I can
give you the number for the base and you can speak to my commanding officer,
General Landry.”
Don leaned back in his
chair. “I may do that, but for now let’s
assume that your story is true.”
Charlie insisted, “It is,
Don. She’s shown me photos and
documentation that support everything she’s said.”
Focusing on the colonel,
Don said, “Assuming that it’s true, am I to understand that you want to take
Charlie to this Atlantis?”
She nodded. “That’s right. His assistance could mean the difference
between life and death for a lot of people.”
At this point Don was
drawing heavily on his professional façade to cover the alarm that was growing
in him. If it was true, actually true,
they wanted to put Charlie right in the middle of an alien war. Going to see Star Wars in the theater was one
thing. Charlie in that kind of insane
position was another.
His brother was speaking,
“It’s pretty incredible, but I told Sam I couldn’t commit to anything without
talking to you. I wanted to tell Dad,
too, but we could only get clearance for you.
It’s a big decision, and I’m not sure I can be objective enough to make
it alone.”
Don shot Charlie a
surprised look and the younger man went on seriously, “You may think I’m
innocent and sheltered, and that may be true in some ways, but I’m a realist
about my own abilities. I can do this,
Don. I can break this code and find the
Lost Colony. But at what cost to
me? Not only do I love you and Dad, but
I need you, too, to be there for me when I get too wrapped up in the
numbers. I really want to go, but I’m
afraid of what it could mean for me to do this alone. What do you think?”
A man didn’t end up a
senior agent of the Los Angeles FBI field office by giving in to panic. Don swallowed and willed his heart to stop
pounding so loudly. He said, “I don’t think
you should go. It’s bad enough that you
put yourself on the line helping me, but this is too much. I don’t want you in that kind of danger.”
Now Colonel Carter leaned
forward, suddenly hard as nails. “Agent
Eppes, I understand your concerns, but this is important not only for national
security, but for the world, too. I know
you understand the call of duty. I can’t
say that Atlantis is safe, but neither is crossing the street. They sent me to talk to Dr. Eppes because I’m
a scientist, but if necessary the President will make the request in
person. We need your brother. Don’t stand in his way.”
He could hear that. Don totally understood why they wanted
Charlie, and it was important, but in
that moment Don was a brother, not a government agent. It was hard-wired into his system; the number
one priority was to protect Charlie.
Don studied Charlie’s
face, and the turmoil was easy to read in those large eyes. Charlie had never backed down from an
intellectual challenge, in fact he thrived on them. Yet he had just given Don unprecedented
influence over him. Don was fairly sure
that if he insisted, his brother would tell them no, even the President. But was that the right thing to do?
He asked, “You really want
to go?”
Charlie nodded, curls
bouncing on his shoulders and puppy dog eyes in full force. “I do.
I think I have to.”
Don heard his own voice
say, “Then I’ll go with you.”
That wasn’t what he’d
intended to say, and it surprised him.
Charlie’s face lit
up. “You will?”
Carter interjected, “Agent
Eppes, that won’t be possible. This is a
highly selective mission.”
In the back of Don’s mind
his job, his responsibilities and his father were all clamoring for
attention. And yeah, it was crazy to
think about walking away from his career, but these people wanted to take his
little brother to another galaxy. Not
without him, they fucking wouldn’t.
“Colonel Carter, that’s
the deal. You want Charlie, you’ll have
to take me too.”
Charlie spoke up, “Sam,
it’ll be perfect. If Don is really willing
to do this,” and he looked at Don with concern, “that’s my condition for
going. He knows how I work, what I
need. And it’s not like he’d be a drain
or anything. He’s a federal agent! It’s not so much to ask. You can fix this, Sam, I know you can.”
The poor woman didn’t
stand a chance once the puppy dog eyes were trained on her, but she put up a
good fight.
“It isn’t that easy.” She addressed Don, “This isn’t the kind of
thing you can decide just like that. You
don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“No, I don’t,” he agreed,
“but neither does Charlie, and you want him to be ready to go when?”
“In two days,” she
admitted with some chagrin.
“I’m not letting Charlie
go into something that dangerous without me there to watch his back. Just consider that this math genius comes
with his own bodyguard.”
Carter smiled and Don knew
he’d won.
She said, “There are over
a hundred scientists on Atlantis now, and none of them have their own
bodyguards.”
“Well, this one does.”
While the Colonel got out
her cell phone and Charlie beamed, happier than Don had seen him since their
mother died, Don started to plan. He’d
have to see what David found, though he was pretty sure it was all legitimate. They’d have to come up with some cover
story. He wouldn’t be able to follow
through on the case they’d been working on- he’d put David in charge until the
Assistant Director could decide how to replace him. Both of them would have to arrange power of
attorney for their father. His
apartment, packing, Charlie would need equipment, there were a million things.
And if he kept busy
enough, maybe he wouldn’t have to think about what they were doing.
~~**~~
Sheppard found McKay just
where he expected at that time of the morning, in the main lab hunched over his
laptop. He tapped his friend on the
shoulder.
“Hey, you in there?”
“Hmm?” McKay looked up. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”
John rocked back on his
heels happily. “Only to tell you that
the Daedalus is here. They’ll be beaming the special guests down
in a few minutes.” The rest of the new
arrivals would disembark when the ship landed.
“Thought you might like to be there to greet them.”
Rodney’s face lit up. “They’re here? Excellent!”
He closed his laptop and jumped to his feet. “What are we waiting for?”
As they walked toward the
‘gate room, John reflected on Rodney’s behavior. It wasn’t exactly normal for him to be
excited about other scientists coming to what he considered ‘his’ city, or to
be excited about other people in general.
It seemed like people mostly existed to be targets for McKay’s verbal
abuse. He thought that this Eppes guy
must be pretty special to get this kind of reception from Rodney.
John himself was curious,
as much about the brother as about the scientist. He’d been warned that the elder Eppes had
practically blackmailed his way onto the ship.
Also, he was a FeeBee. John hadn’t met many agents personally, but
he’d watched TV and seen movies. The guy
could end up being a hard-assed G-man, or even worse, a star-struck alien
fanatic like Fox Mulder. Even though he hadn’t met the man yet, John
felt uneasy about him, just knowing that he hadn’t been purposefully selected
for the mission like everyone else.
They entered the ‘gate
room and Rodney looked around expectantly.
On cue, a white light shimmered in the center of the open space, and
when it faded two men in civilian dress were standing there.
John assessed them
quickly. Both had dark brown eyes, but
the physical resemblance didn’t go much farther. The taller one had short, dark hair that was
almost as artfully tousled as John’s own.
The smaller one had a striking mop of black curls. It was easy to tell which one was the Fed –
the taller one had the physical strength and the serious demeanor, while the
other was inspecting the room with avid scientific interest. They were both younger than John had
expected.
Rodney stepped forward and
addressed the long-haired man, bouncing on the balls of his feet in
pleasure. “Dr. Eppes, welcome to
Atlantis.”
The man beamed, “Dr.
McKay! This is so,” he struggled to find
an appropriate adjective, “astonishing!”
Rodney beamed back. “Yes, yes it is, isn’t it?”
John was evidently not the
only curious one, because Elizabeth, Teyla and Ronon joined the greeting
committee.
Rodney introduced
them. “This is Dr. Weir, head of the
expedition. And Lt. Colonel Sheppard,
head of the military contingent. And
Teyla Emmagen and Ronon Dex. They’re aliens.” When his teammates favored Rodney with their
half amused, half pissed off glares, he amended, “And highly valuable allies.”
Dr. Eppes said, “And this
is my brother, Special Agent Don Eppes.”
He said the full title and name with pride, but his wide eyes were fixed
on Ronon. After a moment he blurted,
“Wow, you’re really big.”
Ronon leaned forward and
smiled down at him, an expression that could be taken any number of ways. “Or maybe you’re just really small.”
Agent Eppes put his hand
on his brother’s back. “Nice to meet you
all. This happened pretty fast for us,
and it’s a lot to take in. We’ll
probably be gawking like tourists for a while.”
John was sure Agent Eppes
was excited too, because, who wouldn’t be?
But John could see that it didn’t stop him from threat-assessing both
the strangers and the surroundings. John
liked that about him.
Elizabeth said, “I’d like
to welcome you to Atlantis, Dr. and Agent Eppes. We appreciate that you could make the trip on
such short notice.”
The mathematician said,
“Actually, I don’t think I can thank you enough for inviting us. This is literally the opportunity of a
lifetime. And everybody calls me
Charlie.”
The woman nodded
graciously. “Charlie, then,” she said,
and turned to Rodney. “Will you show our
newcomers around and help them get settled?
We’ll have a briefing at fourteen o’clock.”
“Right!” Rodney grabbed Charlie’s arm and led him
toward the hall, chattering a mile a minute.
“We have a 29 hour diurnal cycle here, so the clock has changed to
accommodate. That sounds like fourteen
hundred hours, or two o’clock, but actually it’s just before ‘noon’ our
time. I can get your laptop set up with
the new system right away. You did bring
a laptop, didn’t you? Because if you
didn’t, we have plenty to spare. And
you’re going to love the terminals that interface with Atlantis’
mainframe. And wait till I show you…”
The others watched them
walk away. John caught Agent Eppes’
glance and the man raised an interrogatory eyebrow. Noting a glimmer of humor in the dark eyes,
John shrugged and grinned back. He
asked, “Shall we join them?”
Eppes answered, “Oh, I
think we’d better.”
Following after the other
pair, they fell into step. John barely
knew the guy, but he had a feeling that they were going to be able to work
together.
~~*~~
Don looked around with
interest as they walked through the halls, but wondered how long it would take
to learn his way around. If there was
some kind of coded system for knowing which corridor you were in, then Charlie
would figure it out in no time. If not,
then Don would probably have to navigate for both of them for a while. Though his brother did seem to be well
attended at the moment.
He smiled, watching the
two scientists bond over torrents of incomprehensible jargon. Beside him, Lt. Colonel Sheppard commented
wryly, “Looks like a match made in heaven.
We may have to interrupt them at some point so they’ll get a chance to
breathe.”
Don nodded
resignedly. “Yeah, that’s exactly what
I’m here for.” When he got an odd look
in response, he explained. “Charlie is
brilliant, a true genius, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my
brother. He thinks at a level I can
barely follow on a good day. But he can
get distracted by what’s in his head and totally forget the basics, like the
need to eat or sleep. That’s why I
insisted on coming with him, to make sure he takes care of himself.” That, and to get between Charlie and any
bug-eyed monsters that might be lurking around.
Sheppard’s face was
carefully neutral, but Don got the impression that he was slightly
incredulous. “So you,” John drawled,
“the FBI agent, are here as a glorified babysitter?”
Don cringed. Over the past twenty days he’d come to the
conclusion that that’s exactly what he was, and he wasn’t very happy about
it. Not that he regretted his
decision. It was just that looking after
Charlie was hardly going to be a full-time job, especially not on Atlantis,
which seemed very orderly and controlled.
The Air Force officer
seemed to sense his discomfort and said, “Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty to
keep you busy. Never a dull moment
around here.”
“So I gather. I got a chance to read over some of the
mission reports on the trip out. Charlie
and that grey Roswell alien really hit it off, so I had a lot of time to kill.”
Sheppard smirked, “Hermiod.” He made
the word sound like it had two or three extra syllables.
“Yeah,” Don agreed, “the
little naked guy. Charlie learned the Asgard language, their mathematical philosophy and the
basics of operating their technology. I
got to read up on life-force sucking aliens, hostile humans from other planets,
lethal insects, and all kinds of potentially fatal hazards.”
They had entered a
computer lab, and McKay was introducing Charlie to a group of extremely
ordinary looking geeks.
Sheppard said, “Oh, it’s
not that bad. You get used to it. Before you know it, Atlantis will seem like
the only home you’ve ever had.”
Don didn’t think so. He couldn’t forget their father’s face when
they’d told him that they were going away on an assignment, and they couldn’t
tell him where or what they would be doing, or when they would be back. That communication would be almost
impossible, so he shouldn’t expect to hear from them often.
At first their dad had
squawked and argued, but then had fallen silent. He agreed to everything Don asked him to do
to help, but he did it monosyllabically.
Don could see his pain at being left, and so could Charlie, but Charlie
dealt with it by talking nonstop and rushing around excitedly. It was up to Don to do the damage control.
He remembered the
conversation:
The morning they were to leave, Don found his
father in the kitchen, staring at the mugs inside the open cupboard. He watched for a minute, but the older man
made no move to take one down.
Don said, “Dad?”
Startled, Alan turned. “Oh, Donny.
I didn’t see you there. Want some
coffee? It sounds like you have a long
trip ahead of you.”
So now he was trying a false cheer approach. Probably wanting to make it easy on his sons
in the end, no matter how his heart was breaking.
“Dad, I’m sorry about how all this is working
out. You’ve gotta
know that if I could tell you anything at all, I would.”
“Oh, I understand.
You’re needed for something classified, top-secret, super
important. I’ll just wait here
patiently, trying not to wonder what horrific danger you’re in.”
Don didn’t have an answer for that, and looked down
at the floor. It was, in fact, pretty
much exactly what Alan was being asked to do.
“Don.”
He met his father’s eyes.
“It is dangerous, isn’t it, what you’ll be doing?”
Compelled to answer, Don said, “I won’t lie to you
and tell you it isn’t. But that’s why
I’m going, to make sure nothing happens to Charlie. I’m just sorry I can’t help you see how
important this is. If I could, you would
understand why we have to do it.”
Alan approached him and put his hands on Don’s
shoulders. “I’m sure I would. As much as I hate this, I understand that you
boys do what you believe is right. Don’t
you worry about your old man. Just
promise me you’ll come home. Both of
you.”
“I promise to do everything possible. And I’ll write as often as I can.”
His father turned back to the coffee machine. “I’ll appreciate that. I know your brother won’t get around to
it.” Pot in hand, he faced Don
again. “I’m counting on you, Don, to
look after him.”
“I know you are, Dad.”
Even here in this amazing
place, the lost city of Atlantis, Don could feel their father’s presence. That’s where home was.
But he said, “I’m sure
it’ll be fine. Charlie will adapt
quickly. If a little thing like a naked
grey alien can’t keep him from an intellectual discussion for more than a
moment, there probably won’t be much that will faze him.”
Sheppard said, “You’ll
both be good additions to our little outpost amongst the stars, Agent Eppes.”
“Thanks. And call me Don.”
“John.”
They turned back to watch
the bustle of activity in the lab. At
the very least Don suspected Sheppard was right, dull moments would be rare.
~~*~~
Rodney was glowing with pride
as he showed Dr. Eppes around Atlantis.
He felt as though he were personally responsible for each and every
wonder they saw. He also enjoyed
emphasizing that he was in charge of almost two hundred scientists and that he
could make them scurry or cry, or both, at will.
Technically, Charlie was
under his authority, too, but Rodney didn’t see it that way. The mathematician was more like a consultant
than an employee, and one Rodney was particularly pleased to have lured into
his project. It helped that Charlie
dealt with numbers and ideas, and would be less likely to break priceless
artifacts or challenge his analysis of their inner workings. He was a resource Rodney could use when it
suited him, and the rest of the time Charlie would be quietly working on his
own project. Perfect.
Eventually he showed
Charlie to the room that would be his lab.
It was filled with chalk boards, white boards, tables large enough to
spread massive amounts of folders out on, and computer equipment.
“I assume you brought some
things with you on the Daedalus. We’ll have them moved in here, and then you
can tell me what else you might need,” he promised Charlie.
“This looks pretty
complete, Dr. McKay.”
“Please, call me
Rodney. I can’t tell you what a pleasure
it is to have a peer here when I’m accustomed to being surrounded by
incompetent stooges.”
The colonel, who had been
lounging in the doorway with the other Eppes, said, “I’ll be sure to tell
Zelenka that’s what you think of him. He
probably won’t feel the need to get even at all.”
Rodney sighed with
exasperation. “Oh, all right. I suppose he’s competent enough, as long as I
don’t leave him unsupervised for too long.”
Charlie asked, “That’s the
Czech engineer, right?”
“Yes! Very good.
You’re catching on quickly. I
knew you would,” Rodney said approvingly.
Sheppard interrupted
again, “Why don’t we show them where they’ll be staying and let them settle in
a bit before the briefing.”
“Right!” Rodney agreed
brightly. “Let’s do that.”
As he hustled out the door
and down the hall, Sheppard caught up to him while Charlie fell back to walk
with his brother. Rodney glared, but
Sheppard was undaunted.
“Okay, McKay. What gives?
I’ve never seen you be so, well, nice
to anyone before. It’s unnatural and
frankly a little scary.”
Rodney huffed. “What do you mean? I’m nice to lots of people.” The raised-eyebrow response was quite
eloquent. “I am. I’m nice to… that time with… I can be
nice.” His voice trailed off a bit at
the end.
They had come outside onto
a balcony, and the brothers were leaning over the railing laughing with
pleasure at their first external view of the ocean and the city that would be
their new home.
Sheppard wouldn’t let the
issue go. “What’s so special about this guy?”
Rodney observed the
colonel for a moment, then decided he might as well tell him. Sheppard would hound him until he did.
“He’s a genius.”
“Yeah, Rodney, you told us
that.”
Rodney sighed. “Look, when I talk to anyone here, I have to
dumb it down to their level.”
Sheppard rolled his
eyes. “Because we’re all thick as
planks.”
“I didn’t say that, but
compared to me, pretty much. You’re not
really dumb, I know that. But there’s a
lot that goes on inside my head that I can’t talk about with anyone else
here. There are places my mind goes that
not even Radek can follow. You have no idea what that’s like. Sometimes it gets,” he hated to admit it, but
it was the truth, “lonely. Charlie Eppes
may actually be able to converse at that level.
It’s very,” he swallowed down a surge of emotion, “exciting.”
Sheppard looked at him
thoughtfully. “I guess I can see
that. We joke about you being a genius
all the time, and I guess we forget that it’s actually true and what that means
for you.” He grinned and asked, “So all
that screaming at people about how stupid they are isn’t just blowing off steam
after all?”
“Well, it is, mostly,”
Rodney admitted. “But Charlie works with
mathematical theory at a level few people in the world can match, and he knows a
lot about physics, too. If I can talk to
him about some of my theories, he may be able to help me see if I’m totally on
the wrong track, or if I really am on the road to the Nobel, like I think I am. It may seem like I don’t want other people’s
opinions, but I just don’t want to hear pointless drivel that has nothing to do
with what’s important. Having someone
here who can really understand is a wonderful opportunity. It can be both a reality check and propel me
further along in my work. Those of us with
exceptional minds need each other to reach our potential.”
John nodded. “Okay.
But I still say you’re acting like a pod person. He’s here for a while, you know. He won’t disappear if you’re your usual
grouchy self.”
Rodney thought about it and
yeah, maybe he was going a little overboard.
It was how he felt, though.
“I’m sure I’ll get over
it,” he told Sheppard. “It’s just the
novelty.”
Don and Charlie approached
them and the younger man said exuberantly, “Rodney, it’s so beautiful! Your city is so beautiful. Have you calculated the ratios of the towers’
sizes and distance from each other? If
my estimation is right, they are extremely elegant, mathematically.”
“Yes!” Rodney exploded in
relief at hearing Charlie’s insight, then glanced at Sheppard with
embarrassment for gushing again. He said
more calmly, “Yes, I’ll look forward to comparing notes on that. Your rooms are just down the hall. You want to see them?”
“Okay,” Charlie
agreed.
They had set up a suite of
rooms for the brothers. Each had his own
bedroom, but shared a living area, bath and small kitchen. Their bags were already sitting inside the
door.
Don and Charlie looked
around at the luxurious furniture with obvious approval. Even the FBI guy had relaxed. He looked almost pleasant when he smiled.
Charlie grinned and said
to Rodney, “I’m really glad we came.”
Rodney grinned back. “I am, too.”
~~*~~
The briefing lasted quite
a while, discussing the logistics of Charlie’s code breaking project. He would spend some time settling in and
getting to know the Ancient mathematical theory available through the
database. Then he would start making
trips to the planet with the code, and they would see how he wanted to progress
from there.
Don thought it sounded
good. He was impressed with the
professionalism of the people he had met on Atlantis and liked the sincerity of
their interest in Charlie and his project.
In Los Angeles Don had been found that he enjoyed working full time with
a team, and this seemed to be a really big, really well-integrated team. He supposed that the imminent death thing
might have something to do with it.
Now if they would only
stop calling him Agent Eppes. It felt
inappropriate to him when he was in no way serving as an FBI agent, but no
matter how often he asked people to call him Don, they seemed reluctant. Nearly everyone there had either an academic
or military title, and Don didn’t fit into that anywhere. He hoped that with familiarity they would get
used to using his first name. After all,
it might take him a while to figure out what to call the others, too.
After the briefing, Dr.
Weir asked Don to stay, and Dr. McKay offered to show Charlie the
cafeteria. When they were alone, Dr.
Weir clasped her hands together on the table top and addressed him seriously.
“Agent Eppes. Don,” she corrected herself, clearly making
an effort to respect his preference.
“I’ve been giving some thought to your role here on Atlantis.”
He wasn’t surprised by
that. He would have some concerns about
someone thrust upon him in this situation, too.
She would have no way of knowing what his agenda was.
So he was surprised to hear her say, “I think you may, in fact, be a
godsend.”
“I…” he began. “You do?”
“The idea came to me when
I was looking over your file before you arrived. They sent it in one of the regular data
bursts. And having met you, I’m
convinced the idea’s a good one.”
“What is it?” he asked
curiously.
“When we first came here,”
she explained, “we were just over a hundred people. Those numbers started dropping rapidly, I’m
afraid. Even taking the Athosians into account, it was never an unmanageable
number. Since we re-established contact
with Earth and the Daedalus began making regular
runs, though, our numbers have more than doubled. There are now nearly three hundred people in
the city, and more arrive all the time, both refugees from other planets and
new staff from Earth.
“It’s gotten to the point
where I can’t manage all the personnel, treaty, trade, scientific, and
strategic matters myself. I’d like you
to be my Chief of Staff. I need someone
to filter the daily issues that come up and pass on to me only the ones I need
to deal with personally.
Don was stunned. “Dr. Weir, that’s very flattering, but you
barely know me. Shouldn’t you ask
someone who’s more familiar with the workings of Atlantis and your own style of
leadership?”
“It’s true we’ve only just
met, but I could see from your file that you have exactly the qualities and
experience I’m looking for. You were
Special Agent in Charge of the Albuquerque FBI office. You work well with others and easily gain
their loyalty and trust. You handle
yourself well under pressure, even under fire.
Your status as an FBI agent will give you credibility with the military
members of the expedition, and you also have experience working with
scientists. The fact that you aren’t
military will be important to the civilians here. There are some people who, for all their
scientific brilliance, have difficulty relating to the military mindset. That you belong to neither group yourself is
actually a big advantage.
“You’ve also lost people
you were responsible for.” She paused,
then added, “That, regrettably, is something we have in common and will probably
face again. Having met you, I can tell
that we’ll get along well enough. Yes,
you’ll have a lot to learn at first, but I have no doubt that you’ll manage
just fine. You would be doing me a great
favor if you would agree.”
Don thought about it. Offhand it sounded like an ideal solution to
him. He could be useful here in his own
right, not only as Charlie’s shadow. He
did have some concerns, though.
“In principle, I’m
inclined to say yes,” he said, and her face brightened. “But there’s one condition. While I am interested in the success of the
program as a whole, my main responsibility has to be to Charlie. That’s why I’m here in the first place. I would be willing to accept the position as
long as it doesn’t interfere with that.
Specifically, it would have to be understood that any time he goes
off-world, I’ll be going with him. I’m
afraid that would be non-negotiable. I
don’t know if that fits with your needs, though, to have an assistant who’s
only here part of the time.”
“I understand your
commitment to your brother’s safety, and I think we could work around it. You might begin looking for someone who could
act as your assistant and fill in
when you can’t be here. This mission has
outgrown its old administrative structure, meaning me. It’s time for us to
expand in whatever way is needed.”
“There’s also the fact,”
Don cautioned, “that I’ve never had a strictly administrative job. I’ve always done field work no matter my
other responsibilities. The time off
world will be important to me in that sense, too, because I don’t see myself
being happy in a desk job.”
“It works out well,
then. But this is Atlantis.” She smiled sardonically. “I think you’ll find that even the concept of
a desk job takes on a whole different meaning here. I’ll set up a meeting for us with the
department heads for tomorrow, and you can get started.” She extended her hand across the table and he
shook it. “Welcome to the team, and
thank you.”
“I think I should be
thanking you,” he said. “I would have
gone stir crazy with nothing to do.”
Dr. Weir laughed. “You might want to hold off on your
thanks. There’s a rivalry brewing
between the janitors and the kitchen staff that needs sorting out. That’ll be your first job.”
Mediation between the
janitors and the kitchen staff. He’d
rather tackle a nice, simple fraud case any day. Don hoped he was up to the challenge.
~~*~~
When they were finally
alone in their quarters that night, Don and Charlie flopped down on the sofa
side by side. Charlie’s head was spinning
with everything new he was learning, and they hadn’t even been there a whole
day yet. The silence of their sitting
room distracted him briefly, before he became aware of the shushing sound of
the ocean outside their window. His
brain began to automatically calculate the intervals and the variations in
intensity between waves.
Don had closed his eyes
and leaned his head back, then let it flop to the side so he could peer at
Charlie.
“So, another galaxy. Who’d have ever thought we’d end up somewhere
like this?”
“Not me,” Charlie
agreed. “Though Larry might have. I wish he could be here too. He would love this.”
“Yeah. Maybe he’ll get here yet. You never know.” After a pause Don said, “Hey, Charlie, it
looks like I might be pretty busy after all.
But I’m still gonna look after you,
buddy. You come first, I want you to
know that. Don’t hesitate to tell me if
you need something, or just want to hang out.
I’m here for you, after all.”
Part of Charlie thrilled
to hear Don say that. He loved having
his brother’s attention and support. But
part of him bristled, too.
“I know I didn’t want to
come without you, but I’m really not a child, Don. I don’t need you following me around like a
nanny.”
“I’ll try not to be
intrusive, but that is why I
came. To make sure you stay
healthy. I won’t interfere with your
work unless I have to, but when I tell you enough, it’s time to stop, I hope
you’ll listen to me. It sounds like this
project you’ll be working on is right up there with some of the toughest you’ve
dealt with. You might get a little
carried away.”
“I appreciate that, and
I’ll try not to give you a hard time.
But you have to understand, too, that sometimes in order to solve the
problem I have to get a little carried away.
Sometimes an interruption can set me back hours or days. I may not always be able to drop what I’m
working on that easily.”
Don nodded, then said with
an affectionate smile, “We’ll work it out.
Just don’t let that Dr. McKay monopolize all your time so you forget you
have a brother.”
Charlie laughed. “He has been coming on pretty strong, hasn’t
he?”
Don bumped his
shoulder. “He just knows how lucky he is
to have you here. As he should. I’m really proud of you, Charlie.”
Happiness welled up in
Charlie and he smiled shyly. Hearing Don
say that was actually the best thing that had happened to him all day.
~~*~~
“Oh, thank god!” Rodney
blurted.
John had to laugh at his
teammate’s histrionics, while Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.
“Excuse me?” she asked
pointedly.
“I’ve been dealing with
all kinds of mundane matters that are far too trivial for me to waste time on,
just out of generous consideration for your position, Elizabeth.”
They all stared at
Rodney.
“What? You think I’m utterly inconsiderate. I’ll have you know I’m quite sensitive to the
needs of others.”
There were several snorts
and eye rolls around the room in response, while Don Eppes watched with
amusement.
“Well, thank you, Rodney
for your thoughtfulness,” Elizabeth said drolly.
“You’re very
welcome.” He looked pleased with
himself.
Then Elizabeth clarified,
“John, Rodney, Carson, Teyla, and Colonel Caldwell will all have direct access
to me at any time. You can tell Radek and Major Lorne that if they have something they feel
is urgent then they’re free to approach me, too. Otherwise, people should run things by Don
first. That is not,” she focused on
Rodney, “a license to dump your own departmental issues on him.”
John chuckled. “Not even the paperwork?”
“No, I’m the only one who
gets to dump paperwork on him. Er, I mean,” she mumbled, blushing.
As was her way, Teyla
intervened. “Special Agent Eppes, we
appreciate your willingness to assist us in the smooth running of our
community.”
Don said, “Thanks. It will take me a while to get up to speed,
but I hope everyone will see me as a facilitator, not an obstacle. And call me Don, please.”
Elizabeth resumed her
professional demeanor. “I’d like Don to
meet with each of you to go over staffing and departmental procedures. If that’s all, we should get back to work.”
On his way out of the
room, Don was flanked by Rodney and Carson, each trying to get his attention.
“So, I was thinking about
instituting a new schedule for the lab staff.
There will be some consequences for power consumption levels that you
should be aware of...”
“Lad, I didn’t want to
bother Elizabeth with it, but there are a few pieces of equipment we’ll need to
special order for a project of mine. If
you can take a look at my requisition list…”
John just shook his
head. The poor G-man had no idea what he
was getting himself into.
~~*~~
The days flew by, and Don
arrived at his quarters more deeply exhausted each night. Who knew there could be so many details
involved in juggling the interests of the different departments? And lord, the paperwork was indeed
intimidating. Still, it was definitely
not dull, which was a good thing.
He was excited, too, about
their first trip through the Stargate.
It felt good to get geared up with the Kevlar vest and thigh
holster. It was the first thing that had
felt familiar since they arrived.
It didn’t feel quite as
good to get Charlie geared up the same way.
Charlie had gone through a quick firearms lesson from Don and some basic
hand-to-hand training from Sheppard, and he was looking like very much the
little soldier. It was a reminder that
there were more dangerous things to be concerned about out here than paper
cuts.
Don saw how comfortable
Dr. McKay was with the military paraphernalia and hoped it wouldn’t become
necessary for Charlie to reach that point.
But Charlie’s eyes were shining with an excitement that was infectious,
so he didn’t worry about it too much.
Charlie was having a great
time, enjoying all the new things he was learning on Atlantis and also getting
to know the other scientists. Don could
see that it was an even more rarified environment than CalSci
in terms of sheer intellectual prowess – like summer camp for geniuses. For maybe the first time in his life, Charlie
fit right in.
It wasn’t just the
scientists, either. Charlie and Ronon
had formed a tight friendship. An
attraction of opposites thing, Don suspected, like seemed to work for Sheppard
and McKay, too. Charlie was constantly
surrounded by admirers, which helped set Don’s mind at ease. It was a relief to know he wasn’t the only
one looking after his brother.
Now they stood in front of
the Stargate – Don, Charlie and Sheppard’s team. Don had traveled on a space ship for more
than two weeks, crossing the void from one galaxy to another and, unbelievably
enough, after the first couple of days it had stopped feeling strange and
started feeling normal. Neither he nor
Charlie had been through a wormhole yet, though, and that was a whole different
thing.
The planet they were going
to had been visited several times and the natives were apparently indifferent
to visitors, so no trouble was expected.
It was clearly no big deal to those who had done it before.
When the wormhole whooshed
into existence, Charlie’s eyes were wide with wonder, but Don saw a hint of
fear there, too. Sheppard and McKay were
talking as they walked into the wall of blue light, both interrupted mid sentence. It was comforting to see how casually they
took it, but still. Don felt butterflies
in his own stomach.
Emmagen and Dex were waiting
patiently for the Eppes brothers to go through first, so Don reached over and
took Charlie’s hand in his.
“So, shall we do something
extraordinary today, little brother, like travel to another planet through a
wormhole?” Don asked, giving Charlie his most confident look. “Sound like fun to you?”
Charlie nodded
quickly. “Yeah, it’ll be great.” His hand tightened around Don’s.
“Okay, then. Let’s go.”
They took several steps
forward, and after one last glance at each other, walked into the blue.
There was a momentary
sensation of floating and then their feet landed on the stone paving in front
of another Stargate on another world.
Beside him, Charlie gasped with excitement and stared at their
surroundings, which were mostly normal looking trees with the tops of some
stone structures visible in the mid and far distances.
Don saw Sheppard and McKay
watching them with amusement and dropped his brother’s hand. He led the way across the clearing towards
the other men and was aware of Charlie following, the other two team members
coming through the circle, and the Stargate shutting down.
Stopping in front of the
colonel and the scientist, he said, “So, here we are on…”
“CXR-289,” Charlie
supplied.
“Yes,” Sheppard agreed,
“or Torrens as it’s known to the locals.
The Memorial Hall is about a fifteen minute walk away.”
As they made their way along
the forest path, Charlie’s excitement continued to grow. Don could see, though, that it had now
changed to anticipation of a great mathematical challenge. This, clearly, was way better than birthdays
and Chanukah combined.
When they entered the structure,
which looked something like a Mayan temple, Charlie glanced around the chamber
impatiently. “Where is it?”
“If you come this way,
I’ll take us through,” McKay said.
The six of them stepped
into a circular space delineated by eight ornately carved pillars. Once they were all standing close together,
McKay waved a hand in the air and pronounced grandly, “Voila!”
From one blink of an eye
to the next, the room around them changed.
It was now bigger and lighter, with different frescoes decorating the
walls.
Sheppard explained, “It’s
a transport device. We’re now about a
hundred yards beneath the surface.
McKay’s little magic show just means that the device can be mentally
activated by people with the Ancient gene.
Even a second-class artificial gene like McKay has.”
The scientist made a face
and Sheppard continued, “We’ve also found a stairway that people without the
gene could take, but one section of it caved in a couple thousand years ago, so
no one had been down here for a long time before we accidentally discovered the
transporter.”
Teyla volunteered, “Yes,
we were most alarmed when Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay vanished from the
chamber on our first visit. It was half
an hour before they returned, and we feared they had fallen victim to a trap.”
McKay defended himself, “I
only thought, ‘I want to get to wherever that interesting energy signature is
coming from,’ and poof. Then of course
we had to look around once we ended up here.”
Just like Charlie had
already started looking around. He
called to them from in front of an upright stone slab about eight feet tall,
“This is the introduction tablet, right?”
Don moved to join him as
McKay explained, “Yes. As you can see,
it’s written in Ancient, but it’s the only thing that is. The hall itself is entirely in code.”
His eyes scanning the
carved letters, Charlie nodded. He had
made a good start on learning written Ancient already, while Don had been busy
juggling the work schedules of support staff that were often needed in more than
one place at the same time.
“Where’s the hall?”
Charlie asked.
“Over here.” Sheppard led them towards a set of
twenty-foot-high doors. As they
approached, the doors swung away from them, revealing a huge open space that shone
with more gold than the most opulently decorated cathedral on Earth.
Charlie darted forward,
then came to a sudden stop soon after entering.
His eyes were fixed on the wall in front of him. Don could see why he was so fascinated. The first ten vertical feet of the tall wall
were covered with the symbols they had seen in photos. Even hearing how big the room was didn’t
really prepare Don for the reality.
Given the size of the markings, there must be millions, if not billions
of individual symbols.
McKay was explaining,
“We’ve only photographed and catalogued a small part of what’s here. Even so, we’ve identified 314 distinct
symbols, some of which are repeated and some of which aren’t. We’re guessing there will be thousands, all
together.”
Expecting a precise
estimate, Don glanced at Charlie, whose eyes were glazed as they flitted around
the wall, and whose face had gone slack.
He had already entered the ‘Charlie Zone’.
Don said, “Charlie?” He didn’t get an answer, as he’d known he wouldn’t. Charlie’s eyes kept panning up and down, and
he took an automatic step to the left to see more.
Ronon peered at Charlie,
his eyes narrowed. “He all right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Don
answered. “This is Charlie in his
element. That super-computer brain doing
its thing.”
Watching avidly, McKay
asked, “Should we be quiet?”
“Nah. There’s not much that can distract him when
he’s like this. Probably doesn’t even
know we’re here.”
Charlie took another step
to the left and the group shifted forward to follow. After a few moments of silence where they all
watched Charlie look at the wall, Sheppard asked, “Now what?”
Don shrugged. “Now we let him do his thing. It may be a while.” Then he asked, “You said we were 100 yards
underground, but the light in here is great.
It’s almost like natural sunlight.
How does that work?”
McKay perked up at the
opportunity to explain something, and as Charlie worked his way slowly along
the wall, the others trailing along, he talked for some time about the recessed
lighting that was apparently solar-powered, though he hadn’t been able to
locate the collector cells yet.
“And you notice how well
preserved everything is,” McKay went on.
“Yeah,” Don answered, “no
dust bunnies, no animal droppings, no deterioration at all that I can see.”
Sheppard joined in, “The
Ancients were good like that. We found
Atlantis pretty much as it is now. Maybe
in better shape considering the damage it’s seen since we arrived. It isn’t exactly stasis, but they have some way
of preserving physical structures and their contents that comes close to that.”
As they talked about
Ancient architecture to fill the time, Don was keeping an eye on Charlie,
noting his expression and posture. There
were support columns scattered through the open space and Charlie was heading
for one without noticing. Don stepped up
behind his brother and gently moved him a couple of steps forward. Even though that meant he had to crane his
neck farther to see the top symbols, Charlie didn’t protest or even acknowledge
Don’s presence. After a few more slow
steps to the left, bypassing the column, Don guided him backwards to his
original distance.
Don saw the others
watching with a combination of concern, wonder and indulgence, and raised his
eyebrows at them. “What?”
Sheppard asked slowly, “Is
he always like this?”
“No, of course not. You’ve seen that he’s fairly normal most of
the time. When he’s working on a math
problem, though, this is pretty much standard.
I can’t say I understand exactly what’s going on in his mind, but I know
that when this happens he literally forgets about everything else, including
his own body. His entire existence is
condensed to what his brain is doing. I
don’t think he can help it. That’s one of the reasons we both wanted me to come
along. Charlie takes some special
handling.”
“Huh,” Sheppard said. “That’s interesting. Our own resident genius is pretty darn easy
to distract when he’s working.”
“Oh,” McKay protested,
“you just think that because I can concentrate on work and yell at you at the
same time. It takes a miniscule portion
of my intellectual resources to deal with all of you, leaving plenty of room
for ongoing brilliant scientific discovery.”
Teyla teased, “Of course,
Dr. McKay, that’s why you insisted Dr. Eppes come to Atlantis. Because this project was too simple to waste
your valuable time on.”
McKay frowned. “Oh, well, no.”
“Actually,” Sheppard said
thoughtfully, “the way McKay is makes him perfect for Atlantis, where there’s
usually about a hundred things to do at the same time. If he were to get focused like this,” he
gestured toward Charlie, “he probably wouldn’t live very long, and neither
would we.”
McKay beamed. “Yes, exactly. My extraordinary multi-tasking
abilities. How very uncommonly
perceptive of you, Colonel.”
Don had come to enjoy
watching McKay interact with his teammates.
It was as though the other three orchestrated their efforts to take
their scientist up and down the scale of human emotions, and McKay played right
along.
At the moment, though, he
was more concerned with Charlie. He
noted that his sideways shuffles were becoming more sluggish and his eyes were
watering. It showed that Charlie’s body
was already reaching its limits. With
absolute concentration his brain was memorizing and processing thousands of
pieces of data to the exclusion of everything else. It took a lot more energy than typing an
article or working on equations.
Don stepped in front of
Charlie, blocking his view of the wall.
When Charlie leaned to look around him, Don leaned too.
“Charlie. That’s enough for today. Time to stop now.”
Charlie leaned the other
way. Don continued to be an
obstacle.
“Okay, Charlie. Come on back.” His brother’s eyes began to focus on Don’s face,
and he encouraged, “That’s it, buddy.
Look at me. Time to go home.”
That got through, and
Charlie’s face scrunched in displeasure.
“Don, I just started.”
“It’s been well over two
hours. You were going to work with this
a little at a time, remember, not do it all at once.
“But I can do more!”
“I’m sure, but we’re not
going to be stretching your limits. Even
your brain can explode from too much input.
Look how much you’ve done today.”
Don indicated the twenty yards of wall he’d worked past.
“That’s hardly anything,”
Charlie complained.
“Look how much more there
is to do.” Don stepped behind his
brother and physically turned him in a slow circle. “Look.
It’s the size of the Rose Bowl.
You’re going to have to take it in little chunks. We’ll
make lots of short trips.”
Charlie’s shoulders
slumped slightly. “Oh. I guess you’re
right.
With his hands on
Charlie’s shoulders, Don felt him wobble slightly and leaned closer to ask
softly, “You need to sit down for a while before we head back?”
Charlie, his eyes already
starting to drift back toward the symbols, said, “No, we should just go. I have enough to start working with.”
The others followed them
back to the transport area in respectful silence. When they were on the surface again and
walking back to the Stargate, McKay asked Charlie reverently, “Will you be able
to break the code just by looking at it?”
“No,” Charlie
answered. “We have photos and videos of
some of it, and we’ll need to get more, but most of the initial processing will
happen here.” He tapped his head. “It will tell me what information is
important to put into the computer and how to devise the equations that will
give us the right outcome. Even I don’t
know exactly how it works, but it does.
My brain sees patterns and makes connections on some intuitive level,
and then leads me into the mathematical analysis.”
After a pause, Sheppard
said, “Cool.”
Charlie shrugged, “I’ve
always thought so. Some people find it
annoying.” He smiled up at Don.
Sometimes it scared Don
when a force he couldn’t begin to comprehend took over his brother’s brain, but
he’d had a long time to come to terms with it and accept Charlie as he
was. Sometimes that force felt like an enemy
that he had to compete with to keep from losing his brother. Don liked to think he was uniquely suited for
the task.
Don allowed himself a
smirk. “Oh, it isn’t the math that’s
annoying. It’s your personality. You’re such a dweeb.”
Charlie laughed and Don
grinned at him. Yeah, being Charlie’s
brother could be a pain in the butt, but it made Don kind of special, too.
~~*~~
In between regularly
scheduled crisis events, John was impressed with how well Don and Charlie were
fitting into Atlantis life. It wasn’t an
easy posting and not everybody made it, especially the people who were drafted
instead of volunteering.
Don had been a
surprisingly quick study in relieving Elizabeth of some of the administrative
burden. He had a way of listening to
people so that they felt heard, even if a solution to their problem wasn’t
immediate. When necessary, he had no
problem issuing stern reprimands, and people learned quickly that he wouldn’t
take any crap. He was also good at
setting limits and redirecting issues to where they should really be handled,
such as sending to John the Marines who were proposing a training course on
some of the more obscure local weapons, and sending the botanists who wanted to
pursue a joint study with the geologists to Rodney. John still got the impression that administration
wasn’t a job the FBI agent would have specifically wanted, but he took it
seriously and applied himself 100%.
He also took his
responsibilities to his brother seriously and could be found regularly dragging
Charlie out of his lab to the mess hall or onto a balcony for air. As often as not, Don ended up dragging a good
portion of the science section along with them.
It made John realize that Charlie wasn’t the only civilian on Atlantis
that could benefit from having someone to look after their wellbeing. They weren’t all as conscious of ensuring
regular meals as Rodney was, nor did they all manage to exercise their bodies
as often as they should. It gave John
something to think about.
Don had quickly begun to
join John and Ronon in their regular runs around the city. John was glad to have him along, especially
when he noticed that Don didn’t have the same opportunities for social contact
that most people had. Being neither
civilian, exactly, nor military, Don didn’t have a built-in peer group. John had been happy to pick up some of that
slack, but as time went on he saw Don getting to know more people. He was choosing friends carefully,
strategically. Before long, instead of
being excluded from both major social groups, he had become a bridge between
the two. With John’s help, they had also
been creating stronger ties between the new arrivals and the ‘originals’.
Charlie, as Don had
predicted, really did spend most of his time submerged in his work. John had seen that sometimes, when he was
busy manipulating equations on black or white boards, science personnel from
various disciplines would wander in, stand and watch for a while, then wander
out again without Charlie ever noticing they were there.
When he wasn’t working,
though, he got along well with his colleagues.
John often found Charlie and Rodney with their heads together, talking
about completely incomprehensible things.
Some people, including John, might have been a little jealous of the
attention Charlie seemed to attract so easily, if it weren’t for the fact that
Charlie was so open and genuinely interested in other people. He was too nice to dislike. Except, of course, for when someone made the
mistake of questioning something in his work that he was sure was right. On those rare occasions he could be just as
surly as Rodney.
Charlie’s friendship with
Ronon was a great source of entertainment for John. The unusually short scientist was teaching
the unusually tall Satedan how to play basketball, of
all things. When Don joined him to play
two-on-one against Ronon, it was a surprisingly even match. Ronon physically dominated the court, but
the brothers were quick and skillful.
John wasn’t the only one who tended to show up to watch the games.
All in all, it was a
prosperous period for Atlantis, periodic run-ins with Wraith
notwithstanding. By the time the Eppes
brothers had been there four months, it was starting to feel more like a
community than a military posting. While
this wasn’t all due to Don and Charlie, they were helping. Not to mention
the fact that Elizabeth was looking more relaxed than she had since John had
known her. Having someone to share some
of the administrative responsibility with was doing her a world of good.
John just hoped it wasn’t all
too good to be true.
~~*~~
Charlie had been moving
back and forth between two white boards for some time before he noticed that
anyone was in the room with him, and then it was only because of a voice saying
‘Charlie’ in incrementally louder tones. Charlie blinked and looked around.
Colonel Sheppard, Rodney
and Don were all sitting in a row on a table, swinging their legs. It had been Sheppard who was calling his
name.
“Oh, hi. What’s happening?” Charlie asked.
Sheppard said, “We’re gonna go watch a movie.
Wanna come?”
“Um,” Charlie glanced at
his work.
“Come on, Charlie. You’ve been at this long enough today,” Don
said.
The colonel cocked his
head. “How’s it going, by the way?”
Charlie didn’t know how to
answer that. “Um, right now, or in
general?”
“Either one,” Sheppard
answered agreeably.
“Well, you want the short
version, right?”
“Yeah, Charlie, we really
do.” Don was definite.
Charlie took a
breath. He could explain it one way to
Rodney, but would have to explain it a different way for the others. In simple terms like he did for the FBI
team. Unfortunately, this problem was a
good deal more complex than your average investigation.
“Of course you know that
I’m trying to decrypt the code left by the Ancients.”
There were nods all
around.
“Well, there are a lot of
different types of code, and first I have to identify what this is. I have to determine whether it is a cipher, a substitution of one letter
for another letter or group of letters, or a more complex representation. Does
the pattern refer to dates, astronomical positioning, geometric shapes, or
algebraic equations? Or something else
entirely?
“We start with the most
basic options. When decoding something
written in English, through Information Theory and a knowledge of the language,
we know that some letters, combinations of letters and words recur more often
or in certain combinations. That helps
us calculate probability, assign letter values and test it to see if it gives
us a result that makes sense. Given
what we know of the Ancient language I’ve been able to eliminate this type of
coding, so we have to look deeper.
“The solution to the
puzzle depends on the assumptions we make about how the cryptographer organizes
his or her data. What types of
references are included or excluded? The
more I study the glyphs, their arrangement on the two dimensional plane of the
wall, as well as their relationship to each other in three dimensional space,
the more I learn about the person who created the code. The better I understand the way that person
thought, the closer I get to understanding their unique encryption technique.
“I’m currently working
with a number of known coding methods to see how they each relate to the data.”
Charlie tapped one of the
equations he’d written on the board.
a2 = 1, b2 = 1, ba = ab:
“Ah,” said Sheppard. “A Klein-4 group.”
Charlie turned and looked
at the laconic officer. His mouth may
have been hanging open a little bit in shock.
Rodney on the other hand,
was chortling with glee. “The colonel is
a bit of a math whiz, himself. Hidden
depths. Could have joined MENSA, you
know.”
Don groaned, “Oh, god,
John. Not you too. Another genius?”
Sheppard shrugged. “Hey, I’m no genius, but I know a few
things.”
Charlie grinned. It always made him happy when a
non-mathematician showed interest in and knowledge about what was the
foundation of Charlie’s own existence.
He pointed to a table with six elements along the x and y axes and
another equation below.
a3 = 1, b2 = 1, ba = a-1b:
“That’s an S3
commutative group,” Sheppard supplied promptly.
“That’s right!” Charlie
exclaimed. “So far, what I’m finding
bears the most resemblance to this.” He pointed
to a third equation.
a4 = 1, b2 = 1, ba = a-1b:
It was correctly
identified again. “A dihedral group.”
Rodney poked Sheppard in
the side enthusiastically. “And to think
he gives the impression of having left his last brain cell in the pocket of a
jacket he took to the cleaners and forgot to pick up before moving to another
galaxy.”
Sheppard grinned back at
him. “Hey, I resemble that remark.”
Charlie resumed
talking. “Anyway, to say the code is
more like a dihedral group than everything else I’ve tried so far doesn’t
really help much. It’s just another
piece of information that will go into the whole analysis. I’m still hoping that I’ll be able to get far
enough into the head of the person who created the cipher to find a way to
reach the hidden information.”
“You’ll get it,” Don
assured him, “but not tonight. How about
it? John has Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”
Oh! Charlie had been looking forward to seeing
that movie. “I suppose I could take a
break. The work’ll
still be here tomorrow.”
Sheppard affirmed, “That’s
the spirit,” and Rodney added, “There’s popcorn,” as though Charlie needed more
convincing.
He recapped his red
marker. It didn’t seem to want to leave
his hand, but Charlie resolutely placed it on the whiteboard’s tray. Don threw his arm around Charlie’s shoulders
and gave him a small shake as they left the lab.
Charlie loved his work -
he lived for it, or lived through it, even - but he loved this, too. Feeling part of a human group, Klein-4 or
otherwise. Being with people who liked
him and wanted him around. It made his
heart happy the same way numbers made his head happy. In general Charlie was feeling very happy
these days.
~~*~~
It was time for another
trip to study the Ancient code in situ,
and Rodney went along with Charlie to collect Don. When they entered the Chief of Staff’s
office, they found four Marine non-com’s in the
middle of a shouting match with three electricians. Well, two of the electricians were shouting;
the third, a woman, was curled into a ball in a chair crying. Don was alternately trying to calm the
combatants and talk into his headset radio, calling Dr. Heightmeyer,
Dr. Zelenka and Major Lorne to join them.
Rodney was glad that he didn’t have to deal with whatever this stupidity
was the plebeians were engaged in.
Rodney and Charlie stood
in the doorway watching the fracas. When
Don saw them, he ducked out from between the warring groups and came over to
them. Looking at their off-world gear,
Don frowned.
“Damn,” he said as he
approached. “We’re supposed to go to
Torrens now, aren’t we?”
Charlie answered, “Yeah,
everyone’s waiting.”
Don looked at Charlie with
that intense expression that brooked no argument. “I can’t go now, Charlie. I’m in the middle of something.”
Rodney couldn’t help
teasing the serious man. He said, “I can
see that. Going to have to send the
children to their separate corners until they can play nice again? Pudding restrictions, maybe?”
Don glared at him. “Something like that. Look, can we postpone the trip? Elizabeth’s not back from the mainland yet
and I can’t leave until this is settled.”
Charlie frowned. “I don’t know that we can postpone it, Don.”
“My team’s scheduled to
take part in some training exercises tomorrow,” Rodney explained, “and so are
most of the other experienced off-world teams.
If we don’t go now it could be five or six days before there’s another
chance.”
The noise level in the
room rose, not quite drowning out the sound of the Athosian
clay pot that had been sitting on Don’s desk hitting the floor. Don cringed, but didn’t look back. He said, “I’m sorry, Charlie. We’ll go as soon as possible, but not now.”
“But Don,” Charlie
insisted, “I really need the next set of data.
It’ll put me way behind if I have to wait any longer. I can go with Colonel Sheppard and the
others. I’ll be okay without you this
once.”
Don shook his head. “You don’t go off-world without me. That’s the deal.”
Rodney interjected,
raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony, “Oh, please, Agent
Eppes. I think we can get along without
your supervision for a few hours. We
have been doing this since before you even knew there was a Pegasus galaxy, and
by now we’re well aware of the care and feeding requirements of one Dr. Charles
Eppes. Boy Scout’s honor. We’ll bring him back good as new.”
At that point, Radek and Major Lorne pushed between them into the room,
and the sound level rose yet another few decibels as the quarreling parties
tried to make their cases to the newcomers.
Don visibly wavered,
obviously torn between arguing with Charlie and getting back to his conflict
resolution situation. Clearly sensing
weakness, Charlie cajoled, “Please, Don.”
Don looked at Charlie and
threw his hands up. “Stop with the eyes
already. Okay. Go on.
But you be careful.”
“Thanks! See you soon.
Good luck with what you’re doing.”
Charlie was already backing down the hallway as he spoke, as though he
were afraid Don would change his mind.
Rodney grinned at the harassed
administrator and held up a hand.
“Scout’s honor!” he assured.
Don looked at the
hand. “That’s the Vulcan salute, not the
Scouts’.”
“Whatever,” Rodney chirped
as he followed Charlie.
The quiet of the Gate room
was welcome after the unfortunate scene in Don’s office, and with no further
delay the team filed through the Gate into another calm, sunny day on Torrens.
The mission was
uneventful. Ronon and Teyla did some
video taping while they kept Charlie from exploding his brain in the Memorial
Hall, while Rodney inspected the antechamber looking for more of the
solar-based technology, with Sheppard standing around kibitzing. Rodney was pleased to find that the
transporter was connected to the same solar technology, which meant that it was
capable of generating enough energy for more than just turning on the
lights. It definitely had possibilities
for replacing ZedPM power for a lot of mundane needs,
which could extend the Ancient power source’s life considerably while not
monopolizing their limited supply of naquadah
generators, either.
Quite a successful trip,
all around, right until they transported up to the surface chamber. Then they were collectively hit by a stun
weapon.
As Rodney dropped to the
ground, he had time to think, ‘Oh, shit.
Agent Eppes is going to kill me.’
~~*~~
Don swallowed two Tylenol
and leaned back in his chair. It had
been a grueling afternoon. He resolved
to look into exactly how much he was getting paid for this job, and ask for a
raise.
While he was rubbing his
eyes, he heard a tap on the door-frame.
He looked over to see Elizabeth standing there with two mugs of coffee.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m back.
Heard you had some excitement today.”
He motioned her
forward. “Come in.”
She stepped around the
broken pottery shards, handed him a mug and settled into a chair.
Don asked, “You want to
hear about it?”
Weir cocked her head. “Not unless you think I need to. Was it something important?”
“No, you know, it
absolutely wasn’t, except to the parties involved. I’ll spare you the details. Kate is going to have her hands full,
though.”
“Well, I’m glad you were
here to handle it.”
Don shook off his
fatigue. “So, how was your day on the
mainland?”
“It was wonderful. Sorry I was late getting back. Halling and I made
some real progress on the…”
At that moment the
intercom blared, “Agent Eppes, report to the ‘gate room. The team is dialing in from Torrens.”
Don hauled himself out of
the chair and set his coffee down reluctantly.
As they left the office, Elizabeth asked, “You let them go without you?”
“Against my better
judgment. But we’ve been six times
before with no problem, so I couldn’t really justify making a big deal out of
it.”
Within seconds they
reached the control room. Sgt. Campbell
said to Elizabeth, “We’ve received Colonel Sheppard’s IDC, ma’am.”
“Have them come through.”
When Sheppard stepped onto
Atlantis, he ran immediately up the stairs toward the control area. No one else followed him. Don’s gut tightened with trepidation.
When he was close enough,
Sheppard began without preamble, “We were ambushed and stunned. When we woke up, Rodney and Charlie were
gone. One of the villagers saw the ‘gate
address they were taken to. I need a
‘jumper, Lorne, Collins and their teams, and plenty of firepower. We’re going to get them back.”
Don’s blood ran cold. John met his eyes and flinched, then
repeated, “We’re going to get them back.
I’m sorry, Don.”
Don didn’t answer, nor did
he listen to the questions Elizabeth began asking Sheppard. He turned around and walked straight to the
armory. While he was fastening the P-90
strap around his neck, others came in and started gearing up for battle.
He found Sheppard
initializing the ‘jumper controls when he entered the bay. While Don stood stonily with emotions flaring
under the surface, waiting for the rest of the extraction team, John said, “It
wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d been there. You would’ve been stunned, too.”
Don still wasn’t ready to
speak. He was furious - at John, at
himself, at Charlie. And he was
scared. Charlie was out there, god knew
where, in the hands of some obviously hostile aliens. It was exactly what he’d been afraid of. He had to get Charlie back; the alternative
was unthinkable. He would do it or die
trying.
The soldiers gave him a
wide berth as they filed into the small ship.
While he maneuvered the Puddlejumper into
departure position, Sheppard called back, “Standard search and rescue. Try to hold your fire until we know the situation,
but do what you have to. First priority
is to extract Dr. McKay and Dr. Eppes.
Understood?”
There was an enthusiastic
shout of “Yes, sir!” from the assembled Marines.
Don was aware that he was
with experienced troops who knew what they were doing. He hadn’t done any exercises with them beyond
some sparring in the gym, however, so it was hard for him to trust them. He was trying, though, because he needed
their help to achieve his objective.
It was also hard not to be
in charge of the operation. Don looked
at Colonel Sheppard and noted the determination on his features. Sheppard’s friend was missing, too, and Don
had no doubt that he would do everything necessary to get him back.
Within moments they were
through the ‘gate and setting down on Torrens.
When the back hatch opened, Teyla and Ronon strode aboard.
Sheppard barked, “What did
you find out?”
The woman answered, “The
men who attacked us visited the planet a couple of weeks ago, asking a lot of
questions. The villagers said that they
didn’t speak to them, but clearly someone did.
They surely know more than they are telling.”
Ronon growled, “I could
make them talk.”
Sheppard said, “We don’t
have time for that. Anything else?”
Teyla continued, “Only
that the villagers found the visitors to be quite coarse. They felt that they were not well
intentioned. They did not ask the
strangers about the planet they came from.”
“Not a lot of help then,”
Sheppard complained. “It doesn’t matter.”
He dialed the ‘gate.
Don had met residents of
Torrens on two occasions. They were
simple people who shied away from contact with off-worlders. He wondered which of them had given up
information about the Atlanteans; specifically about
Charlie and Rodney. He wondered what
they wanted with the mathematician and the physicist, but agreed with Sheppard
that it didn’t matter. Getting them back
was the only thing that did.
They went through the
Stargate cloaked and began to fly over a surprisingly sophisticated
settlement. Sophisticated in the sense
that the rectangular metal buildings looked more like mobile homes than the
natural material constructs most Pegasus cultures favored. Don’s curiosity won out over his anger and he
leaned over Teyla in the co-pilot seat so that he could see what they were up
against. The place had the same
abandoned, run down look as so many of the trailer parks Don had seen in New
Mexico.
Behind them, Major Lorne
was looking at a readout screen. He said,
“I’m not sure, but if I’m reading this right, what we’re seeing is
camouflage. It looks like there’s an
underground complex. I think there are
some energy readings.”
Sheppard grumbled, “He
thinks. Rodney would be sure.” Then he called back, “Can you tell where
people are concentrated? Call up the
life signs screen.” Lorne hesitated and
John shouted impatiently, “Just think it on!”
“Right.” Lorne studied the screen.
Don moved back to look
over his shoulder. There was a diagram
of a series of tunnels with scattered white dots indicating people. He said to Sheppard, “There aren’t many. About a hundred.”
Ronon suggested, “Maybe
they’ve been culled. Makes it easier for
us.”
It was an ugly thought,
but Don agreed. He said, “There are
three main branches. Two of them are
more crowded.”
“Can you see a way in?”
Sheppard asked.
Don studied the
diagram. He found what looked like a
central entrance where they could get into all three of the radiating
branches. He tapped the screen. “There.”
“Show me,” Sheppard
ordered.
Major Lorne looked toward
the front and a similar diagram popped up in hologram form in front of the
pilot. There was a red circle around the
entrance.
After he set the ‘jumper
down, Sheppard grabbed what looked like three palm pilots and fitted them into
three slots in the console. After a
moment he removed them and handed one each to Lorne and Collins. The diagram glowed in miniature on the screens.
“We’ll split up,” Sheppard
said, then looked at Don. “Which do you
like?”
Don had already decided
and pointed to the one with the fewest life signs. “The greater concentrations of people are
likely to be the living areas. Families,
kitchens and such. If I were holding
kidnapped scientists, I would keep them where there were fewer witnesses or
distractions.”
John nodded. “I agree.
We’ll take the passages to the left.
Lorne, take the center. Collins
to the right. Stay in contact. If you do encounter families, try not to
engage.”
They filed out of the
‘jumper and approached a sheet-metal covered building.
Sheppard said, “We’re
going in.”
~~*~~
After entering the
building and descending the staircase hidden by a trap door, the three groups
silently went their own ways. John led
his team down a passage that connected to their chosen area.
While he was intimately
familiar with Teyla and Ronon’s styles, Don was an
unknown element. He was glad Don had
loosened up; since finding out his brother was missing, the man had been wound
so tightly that he was dangerous. But
John was now seeing a side of the FBI agent he hadn’t previously, and it looked
good. The man knew how to move, how to
hold his weapon and his body, how to work as a team. The way he was sighting along his P-90 as he
proceeded was textbook. John mentally
slotted him into the ‘competent, trust with back’ category.
The passage was cold, damp
and fairly dark, which worked in their favor.
At a crossing, they heard voices down a side corridor and stopped. John motioned to Ronon, who disappeared into
the dark entryway. The others waited
silently, and Ronon returned within a minute, shaking his head. They continued on.
After passing a dozen
rooms and corridors, they heard voices ahead of them. Proceeding stealthily, they reached the
doorway. Motioning the others to stay
back, John peeked through the open portal.
They’d found them. Rodney and Charlie were there, along with
five other men. John pulled back and
tapped his radio on.
“Lorne, Collins, we’ve
found them. Fall back and secure egress. Wait for orders.”
He heard quiet
confirmations, then turned to his team.
All three were poised for action.
John held up five fingers,
then whispered, “We have the element of surprise. Shoot to kill, but be careful. They’re close to our people.”
The others nodded, and
John held Don’s gaze for a moment. The
dark eyes were steady, and he tilted his head in acknowledgement of John’s
unspoken question. He was calm and ready. John motioned him to the other side of the
doorway and Don slid over smoothly. With
a signaled, “one, two, three,” he and Don stepped in together, guns raised.
Charlie lay sprawled face
up on the floor, naked, with a dirty, long-haired man standing between his
spread legs holding a small device in his hands. Another stood at his head. Charlie looked unconscious.
Rodney, also naked, was on
his knees. It appeared that two men were
holding him upright, while another struck him across the face with the back of
his hand. The hitter snarled, “Tell us!”
John said, “I don’t think
so,” and fired. The hitter flew off to
one side and the other two released Rodney, who fell forward onto the floor.
Don fired twice in rapid
succession striking the two men near his brother, who dropped, one reaching for
a weapon on the way.
Suddenly Teyla was beside
John, and she fired simultaneously with him, each taking one of the two men who
remained on their feet.
Then Ronon had a boot on
the wrist of the one Don had shot, causing him to drop the stunner he had been
in the process of raising. The large man
bent and stuck a knife into the base of his throat. There was a choking gurgle and the man went
still. Ronon looked up and grinned in
satisfaction. John sometimes had mixed
feelings about his teammate’s violent nature, but at the moment he approved
wholeheartedly.
Still holding his gun
ready, Don moved farther into the room, inspecting the fallen enemies, and John
did the same. As Don knelt by Charlie’s
side and touched his neck, John dropped beside Rodney and rolled him onto his
back.
“McKay. Hey, Rodney, you hear me? You awake?”
Rodney made a face and
tried to open his eyes.
John encouraged, “That’s
it. Time to get out of here. Can you stand?”
The blue eyes succeeded in
opening, but didn’t quite focus. The
pupils were blown, indicating that drugs had probably been used. Rodney opened his mouth, but no sound came
out.
John looked up and asked,
“Eppes?”
Don answered, “He’s out
cold. I’ll carry him.”
“No. Ronon, get Charlie. Don, help me with Rodney. Teyla, take point.”
Don hesitated, looking
intently at Ronon for a moment, then nodded.
Ronon picked Charlie up and threw him over his shoulder, holding him in
place with one arm, leaving the other free for his weapon.
John pulled Rodney to a
sitting position, then to his feet with Don’s help. They each drew an arm over their shoulders,
practically carrying Rodney between them.
He was too big of a man for either of them to carry solo, and this way
they had some defensive options.
“Move out,” John ordered.
Following Teyla through
the passage, they jogged as quickly as they could. Up ahead they heard raised
voices and gunfire.
John tapped his headpiece
again. “Report.”
Lorne’s voice came back,
“We’ve been made, but I think we’ve managed to discourage them for the time
being. Your ETA?”
“Two minutes,” John
answered. “Get the door open.” As the major would know, that meant literally
the trap door, but also securing a path to the hatch of the Puddlejumper.
Soon John and his group
met the others, and they all proceeded up the stairs, Collins and his men
forming a protective barrier at the rear.
John, Don and Ronon hustled across the open space with their burdens,
then they all piled into the ship. As
the incapacitated scientists were lowered to the floor, Teyla was already
unfolding silver emergency blankets to cover them.
John pushed through the
crowded cabin to his pilot seat and initiated the flight sequence. They’d done it, gotten their men back alive,
if not entirely healthy. He felt incredible
relief as they rose from the ground and headed for the Stargate.
Glancing back briefly,
John saw Teyla sitting on the floor with Rodney’s head in her lap. Don sat beside Charlie, one hand on his
brother’s shoulder, looking dazed.
Quickly punching in the
‘gate address and IDC code, John took them home.
~~*~~
Don was immediately
shunted aside by medical personnel, who began taking readings from Charlie even
as they moved him to a stretcher. He
heard Dr. Beckett ask Sheppard, “What can you tell me?”
The colonel answered
succinctly, “Drugged, definitely.
Beaten, probably. They were naked
and on a damp concrete floor.”
“Do y’know
what drug they were given?”
As Sheppard shook his
head, Don dug a stoppered vial out of his vest pocket
and handed it to the doctor. Everyone
looked at him, and he shrugged, watching the medical team take his brother
away. “It was on the ground. I don’t know if it’s what they used, but it
might be.”
Beckett said, “Thanks,
that’s a great help,” and disappeared down the hall after the moving gurneys.
Sheppard clapped Don on
the shoulder, startling him. “I know
Beckett, and he won’t let us anywhere near the infirmary for a while. We might as well get changed and debrief Elizabeth.”
Don nodded, feeling
slightly numb. The adrenaline was
slipping away now, leaving only the fear.
Charlie had been kidnapped and hurt, they didn’t yet know how
badly. The reality of exactly how far
they were from a major medical facility was hitting home. Don had to trust the Atlantis personnel to
take care of his brother.
Somehow, that wasn’t very
comforting. After all, his brother had
trusted Don to take care of him, too, and look how that had turned out.
~~*~~
Just as John thought, a
closed door and a muscular medic kept them from getting close to the rescued
men. There was a small group already
waiting outside the infirmary when John arrived.
“Any news yet?” he asked
hopefully.
Radek answered, “Carson has just said that they’re
running tests. That is all.”
Eppes was standing,
staring at the door with his arms crossed in front of his chest looking
dour. Teyla was sitting patiently,
looking like she was there for the long haul.
Next to her, Ronon managed to hover like a vulture even seated on a
small plastic chair, looking like the need to hit someone hadn’t quite worn off
yet.
Elizabeth was standing on
the far side of the waiting area with Radek and a
couple of other scientists. John knew
she was putting some distance between them at the moment and didn’t approach
her. Their diplomatic leader had been
uncomfortable with the level of lethal force Sheppard’s team had used to
retrieve Rodney and Charlie. She had
refrained from second-guessing them in the debriefing, but John knew her well
enough to recognize the signs of internal conflict. He had seen them fairly often, unfortunately.
John himself didn’t feel
conflicted. As far as he was concerned
those men had forfeited any consideration when they stunned him and took two of
their most valuable people. Valuable to
Atlantis and the mission, yes, but more than that, to John. John wasn’t sure there was a limit to how
many people he was willing to kill to get Rodney back, and Charlie had been
entrusted to John’s care and was his responsibility. When it had become clear that their captors
had been abusing them, the strangers’ fates were sealed.
John leaned against a
wall, refining his casual, unconcerned posture, but he doubted he was fooling
anyone. The two men about whom they were
waiting to hear news meant too much to all of them.
After what seemed like
forever, the door opened and Dr. Beckett himself came out. John was at the front of the newly energized
group in an instant.
“Before you ask,” Beckett
preempted, “both our patients are stable and not in any immediate danger.”
That was good news, but
John wasn’t ready to relax.
“However,” the Scott
continued, “they aren’t entirely out of the woods yet. While they have been roughed up some, the
physical damage is minimal; a few bruises and scrapes. The drug that was used on them, though, is
another story.”
“Were you able to analyze
it?” Don asked.
Beckett sighed. “For the most part, yes. From the sample you gave us,” he addressed
Don, “and confirmed by blood tests, we know that the substance has a chemical
structure similar to Sodium Thiopental, more commonly known as Sodium
Pentothal. It is a barbiturate that acts
on the receptors of the brain and spinal column to decrease neural activity. It
also reduces the ability to resist, which is why it’s used in interrogation.
“Administered
intravenously,” he continued, “it causes unconsciousness in less than a minute,
but unless repeated doses are given, the patient should awaken within ten
minutes or so. That doesn’t seem to be
happening in this case. The lads have
shown no signs of waking.”
“So you’re saying it’s
close to Sodium Pentothal but not quite the same,” Don clarified.
“Aye, and that’s the
problem. There is one additional
molecule present in the chemical formula making it something entirely new to
us. I’m quite optimistic that they’ll
come around on their own in a relatively short period of time, but without
further study we honestly have no way of knowing what other effects the drug
might have.”
John frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense. If they wanted to interrogate Rodney and
Charlie, why give them something that was going to knock them out? Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”
The doctor shrugged and
shook his head. “At this point we can
only speculate. While humans in the
Pegasus galaxy are genetically quite similar to humans from Earth, we have
identified some significant differences.”
Teyla’s brow furrowed, and she shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m not talking about
your wee variation, love, and we haven’t completely mapped all of the
divergences yet. It’s possible that the
drug didn’t work the same way on Rodney and Charlie that it would on a local
resident. Or it could have been the
first part of a procedure that would have generated more response in the
subjects. We don’t know.”
“Or they could just be
complete morons,” John suggested.
“Dead morons,” Ronon
contributed, looking smug.
Elizabeth ignored them and
asked, “What’s the bottom line, Carson? Are
they going to be all right?”
“Like I said, I’m
optimistic. But given the unknowns and
the fact that this chemical affects the brain, I can’t say for sure. We’ll have to monitor them carefully. I expect to have a better idea of what we’re dealing
with in the morning.”
“Carson,” John asked, a
lump in his throat. “Were there any
other injuries? Ones we might not see at
first glace?”
When the doctor realized
what John was asking, he assured them, “If you’re concerned about the
possibility that they’ve been sexually assaulted, I can put your minds at
ease. They’ve not been harmed in that
way.”
Now John felt the tension
in his body release. That thought had
been haunting him since they found their men naked. Stripping someone bare as an
intimidation/interrogation technique was common. Sometimes it turned sexual, sometimes it
didn’t.
“Can I see him?” Don
asked, then corrected himself. “Can we
see them?”
“I can let you have a
quick peek, but you can’t all stay.”
They filed silently into
the infirmary and over to the two occupied beds. The patients were cleaned and dressed in
green scrubs, and would have simply looked asleep if it weren’t for their
unnatural pallor, the machines scattered around them and the tubing that snaked
down from hanging IV bags. Not much like
sleeping at all, when John thought about it.
John hung back with the
group when Don walked straight over to Charlie’s side, looking down at his
brother as though his heart were breaking.
Carson said quietly,
“Instead of turning everyone out as I usually do, I’m actually going to ask
someone to stay with each of them tonight.
A nurse could do it, but it doesn’t have to be a medical
professional. I’m assuming Agent Eppes
will stay with his brother, and for Rodney-“
“I’ll stay,” John
interrupted.
The doctor smiled at
him. “I thought you might, colonel. The rest of you can come back in the
morning.”
After the others
reluctantly left, Beckett said to John and Don, “You’re mostly here in case
they wake up disoriented, which is highly likely. The monitors will warn us if anything is
amiss, but you should call if they show any signs of distress. With a high dose of Sodium Thiopental we
would watch for respiratory difficulties and nausea. In this case there could be other side
effects as well.”
John nodded. “We’re on it.
Why don’t you get some rest, Carson.”
“I’ll do that. I have a feeling they’ll need me more
tomorrow than tonight. But I’ll be on
the cot in my office, so don’t hesitate to wake me. Nurse Churchill will be just around the
corner as well.”
John was glad to be left
alone with Rodney, or almost alone. He
sank into the chair that had been placed beside the bed and studied his
friend’s face. He was pale and his broad
mouth was slack and slightly open in sleep.
There were a few mottled bruises along Rodney’s cheek bones.
It always startled John
how still McKay could be when very sick or injured, and this was no
exception. McKay was supposed to have
too much energy, talk too much and too loud, and drive everyone around him
crazy. Rodney was nowhere near up to
that at the moment, but John couldn’t find it in himself to complain about the
silence too much. At least he was back
on Atlantis where he belonged, and alive.
The rest would be made right with time.
~~*~~
Don was hungrily drinking in
everything about Charlie; the mess of hair, the beak of a nose that advertised
his ethnic heritage, the long lashes and olive skin. The steady rise and fall of his chest that
proved he was still alive.
It was funny, Don
reflected, that until recently he had gone a year or more at a time without
seeing Charlie. Now he couldn’t imagine
that, and it wasn’t just the current dangerous circumstances making him feel
protective. Ever since Don had moved
back to Los Angeles to look after the family during his mother’s final illness,
he and his brother had been gradually finding each other again and, he liked to
think, becoming friends as adults in a way they never could have achieved as
children.
The crap that had divided
them before – Don’s jealously and pain at constantly being overshadowed in the
eyes of his parents, Charlie’s cluelessness and
tendency to withdraw into the numbers – was slowly being worked through. Don had been able to find his own strengths
in service to the FBI, and Charlie was more aware of what was going on around
him. They were able to meet each other
as equals.
In fact, he thought they
were actually bringing out the best in each other. Don found that he could mostly understand the
explanations of the mathematical principles Charlie brought into play in
investigations. That made Don feel
better about himself, about the math and about Charlie.
At the same time, he
thought that their father was right. A
large part of the reason Charlie worked on cases for the FBI was to be closer
to Don. And through that work, Charlie
was drawn farther into the world. Don could see that it was becoming easier and
easier for the younger man to connect with people, which was nice because
Charlie had a lot more to give than just the numbers.
Don reached out to brush a
dark curl off of Charlie’s forehead and let his fingers linger on his brother’s
scalp. He whispered, “It’s okay,
Charlie. You’re safe and you’re going to
be fine. I’m here, and I won’t let
anything happen to you.” He cringed
internally at the lie. Too late. He had already let something bad happen. But no more.
“Just rest. I’ll stay right
beside you. Wake up whenever you’re
ready, buddy.”
Don looked up to see
Sheppard sitting beside McKay’s still form.
He had a hand resting on McKay’s arm, and John’s head was tipped back,
eyes closed. It was really late, and it
had been a day from hell, but Don couldn’t rest.
Just then his stomach
rumbled, reminding Don that he had missed dinner. There was no way he was going to go to the kitchen
to look for something, but glancing around he spotted a small table with an
electric kettle, mugs and drink fixings.
Just what he needed.
Don filled the kettle from
a nearby sink and spooned some instant coffee into a mug. There was a box of cookies there, too. Not Oreos, unfortunately. They looked like high-fiber health cookies
and had a slightly gritty texture, but they tasted good.
Noticing John watching him
from his place beside McKay, Don lifted his cookie in invitation. John nodded and stood, stretching the kinks
out of his back. He walked over, dropped
a tea bag into a mug, and joined Don in leaning against the edge of the table
where they could still see their charges.
After a moment the kettle switched off and Don filled both their mugs.
For several minutes they
sipped and munched in silence. Don
noticed Sheppard looking at Charlie and turned his own gaze to Rodney. Don had developed a kind of distant affection
for the man. Rodney was loud and
abrasive, arrogant to the point of caricature, but he obviously thought Charlie
walked on water.
It seemed like most people
who could truly understand the beauty of Charlie’s mind were not as emotionally
open and kept their admiration to themselves, where it sometimes turned to
resentment. Larry being a notable
exception. Don was coming to see the
similarities between Rodney and Larry.
Neither had any reservations about engaging in life.
Sheppard was just the
opposite, going to great lengths to hide what he was feeling, and it made Don curious.
“So,” he asked, “you and
McKay. Are you together?”
Sheppard almost choked on
his tea. “Uh, you mean like, together?”
“Yeah. A couple.”
Setting down his mug, John
straightened his back. “Now, first, you’re
not supposed to ask things like that.
And second, no, we’re not a couple.”
Don shrugged, “I just
wondered because you spend so much time together. And I’m not military. No big deal.”
John looked at McKay
contemplatively. “He’s my best friend here,
odd as that may seem. Best friend
anywhere, maybe, that’s still alive.”
“I get the impression that
this isn’t the first time you’ve done a bedside vigil for him.”
“No,” Sheppard shook his
head. “It isn’t. He’s had the pleasure of doing the waiting,
too. I guess we have kind of an unspoken
arrangement. Neither of us has anybody
else, so we look after each other that way.
It’s nice to know that there’ll be someone around who cares if you feel
like crap. We can both get along on our
own, have done it for a long time, but things are dicey enough here that you
appreciate every little bit of support you can get.”
“I can see that.” Don was once again glad he’d come here with
Charlie. He couldn’t stand the thought
of him being alone in this.
Sheppard spoke
thoughtfully. “I don’t have any
family. Neither does Rodney; none that’s
done him any good. I’m a little envious
of you and Charlie. It must be nice to
have a brother.”
Don considered that. “I guess it is.”
John was observing Don
with an odd look on his face.
“What?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“Oh, I am. I wouldn’t trade Charlie for anything in the
world. It hasn’t always been like that,
though. He’s my brother and I’ve always
loved him, but we haven’t exactly been there for each other. It’s kind of a recent development. Now he’s my best friend.” Don hadn’t really thought of it that way
before. “Charlie and my dad are my two
best friends. Not too long ago the
thought of that might have embarrassed me, but now I’m glad. They’re good people.”
“You’re close to your
father, too?”
Don nodded. “We both are, but Charlie is especially. On Earth they still live together.”
John chuckled. “How old is Charlie?”
“Thirty.” Then Don insisted, “It’s a good thing,
really. I give Charlie a hard time about
taking advantage of Dad, but I think Dad thrives on taking care of him, on
being needed.”
“Like father, like son,
then.” John’s smile softened the
observation.
Don figured he wasn’t
wrong. “Maybe. It has its down side, too. Now I think it would kill me to lose
Charlie. And I worry about my dad being
all alone with us gone. He hasn’t been
alone since he married Mom. The occasional
email doesn’t really do it.”
“I can see there are trade
offs, but I’m still envious. You’re very
lucky.”
“Yeah, I am. You aren’t doing too badly, though,” he said,
motioning towards Rodney.
John shrugged and nodded
in acceptance. They fell silent then,
but Don had the impression that there was more John wanted to say. After a few minutes he was proven right.
“I chose the military,”
John began abruptly. “I chose a life
that would put me in danger. I’ve been
injured and almost killed, and I don’t mind that. I knew what I was getting into.
“Rodney, though, he chose
to be a physicist. He should be working
on theories in labs, not having to worry about violence and the possibility of
sudden death. Things like today
shouldn’t happen to him, not ever.
“I don’t want to devalue
him and say that he can’t handle it, because he’s a lot tougher than people think. I just can’t accept that I continually put
him in dangerous situations where I can’t protect him. Even though it’s the right thing to do, it
feels like the wrong thing. You know?”
“Oh, man,” Don breathed,
“do I ever.” John looked at him
questioningly. “I’ve been trying to come
to terms with putting Charlie in danger for the last couple of years. His math stuff has helped us out in a lot of
investigations, and he loves doing it, but it isn’t always safe. I’ve had to place him under protection, and
he even got shot at once. How wrong is
that? He’s like a national treasure or
something.
“Nothing like this,” he
gestured towards Charlie, “has happened to him before, and I don’t think I
could take it if it happened again.”
There was some incipient panic working its way to the surface in
Don. The image of Charlie lying on the
ground, naked and vulnerable with big guys standing over him, and the thought
of what more might have happened if the team hadn’t gotten there when they did,
was something he couldn’t face head on.
Not yet.
Don forced himself to
continue talking. “I don’t know how he’s
going to handle it, either. He hasn’t
been physically hurt before, but he has been emotionally hurt, and it was devastating
to him. I don’t know how to make it
right.”
“He has you. He’ll make it.”
“And Rodney has you. You and Ronon and Teyla.”
“Yeah, he does. Charlie has us too, you know. And so do you. You aren’t alone here.”
Don felt something shift
inside himself. In moments, in response
to those simple words, he went from feeling like he was playing the role of
someone who had gone to the city of Atlantis, to really being there. People here cared about both of them. That made them family, in a way. And when they became family it changed
everything.
Don met Sheppard’s
gaze. There was a lot there in the
colonel’s eyes. He’d seen loss and
soul-wrenching ugliness. He’d done what
he had to do regardless of the consequences to himself. And despite everything, he was still there,
not backing down. Don understood that,
and he respected it.
A noise drew their
attention and they looked over to see Rodney shift slightly. John was on his feet and over to the bed in
seconds. Don moved back to Charlie’s
side, finding that his brother was still sleeping deeply.
Rodney shifted again,
making a small whimpering sound.
“Hey, Rodney, you gonna wake up? Open
your eyes. Can you do that?”
McKay’s head rocked a
couple of times, then his eyes blinked partially open.
“That’s it,” Sheppard
praised. “How are you feeling?”
“Sh’pprd?”
“The one and only.”
“Wha’
‘append?”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. You got kidnapped, but we mounted a daring
rescue and got you back. Now you’re taking
up space in the infirmary when you’re going to be just fine.”
McKay’s face crumpled into
a grimace.
“Hurts.”
“What does?”
“Head.”
“I’ll get the nurse.”
Don stood and said, “I’ll
get her.” He left Sheppard and McKay
murmuring softly to each other and walked around the corner. The night nurse was stacking some supplies
onto a shelf.
“Rodney’s awake,” he told
her.
The woman briskly took
charge, moving Sheppard out of the way so she could question McKay herself and
check monitors. After several minutes,
Sheppard intervened, “He said his head hurt.
Can you give him something?”
“I think you’ll notice,
colonel, that Dr. McKay is asleep again.”
It was true. The scientist had
turned onto his side and curled up, but was snoring slightly. It was amazing how much better he looked than
when he had been so unnaturally still – as Charlie still was.
The nurse went on, “Dr.
Beckett doesn’t want to give them any medications unless absolutely necessary
because of the unknown interactions with the drugs they were given. If he wakes up again, just keep him calm and
encourage him to go back to sleep. For
now it’s the best thing.”
As she was leaving, Don
asked, “Will Charlie wake up soon, too?”
It felt like a stupid question, because how would she know, and he was
surprised when there actually was an answer.
“There were slightly
higher levels of the drug in Dr. Eppes’ blood work. That combined with his smaller size may mean
a longer recovery time. The fact that
Dr. McKay has begun to come out of it is a good sign.”
Don and John returned to
their silent vigils. Don felt exhaustion
pulling at him, but anticipation kept him alert. Charlie could wake up at any time.
When it finally happened,
it didn’t go as well as McKay’s first emergence. From one moment to the next, Charlie opened
his mouth and cried out in pain.
Don leaned over quickly
and stroked his brother’s cheek.
“Charlie? Can you hear me?”
“Donny!” Charlie’s voice was harsh in the quiet room.
“I’m here, buddy. Right here.”
Charlie turned and flung
an arm out toward him. Don sat on the
side of the bed and pulled Charlie into his arms. The young man curled his body around Don’s
desperately.
“Donny, make them stop!”
“It’s all over,” Don tried
to reassure him, feeling sick. “You’re
safe now.”
“Make them stop,” Charlie
cried again, his eyes still closed. “I
wasn’t making fun of them. I was just
trying to show them the right answer.”
Don hugged him. It didn’t sound like Charlie was talking
about what had happened the day before.
It sounded more like an incident that had taken place their senior year
in high school. Some of the guys on the
football team had taken offense when Charlie offered to help them with their
homework and had picked a fight. Not
much of a fight, really, mostly just pushing Charlie around.
At thirteen Charlie had
been so much smaller than the older boys that he’d been deeply scared by the
time Don had broken it up. Don wasn’t
surprised that Charlie was flashing on that incident now.
“You didn’t do anything
wrong. I made them stop. I’ll always be here for you, little brother.”
Charlie’s body began to
relax, and he said more quietly, “You’re here, Donny.”
Don leaned down and kissed
Charlie on the temple. “Right here. Don’t worry about anything.”
Soon Charlie was asleep
again, but Don kept holding him. He
looked up and found Sheppard watching them, and they exchanged a look that was
equally relieved and troubled. The ordeal
wasn’t over, but they were moving in the right direction.
~~*~~
Rodney’s whole body hurt,
from his head, down his back, and all the way to his toes. It took him a moment to realize that the
pitiful moaning noise he was hearing was actually coming from him.
“Do you want some water?”
Cracking his eyes open,
Rodney saw Don Eppes bending over him, a glass and straw in his hand. Rodney was just as surprised as the other man
when he lunged forward and vomited over the side of the bed, all over Don’s
shoes.
When the heaves subsided,
he groaned in misery. A cool, damp cloth
wiped his face, and it felt heavenly.
Daring to open his eyes
again, he asked, “Where’s Sheppard?”
“Too much tea. He had to go to the bathroom. He’ll be so sorry he missed this.” There was gentle humor in the other man’s
voice.
Rodney tried to glare, but
wasn’t sure it was his best effort. Then
he said, “Sorry, Agent Eppes.”
“Given the circumstances,
I think you could call me Don. You did
throw up on me, after all. And no need
to apologize.”
“Wasn’t apologizing for
that. Was your own fault for not moving
fast enough. Meant about Charlie.” Alarm suddenly shot through him and he tried
to sit up. “Charlie!”
Strong hands eased him
back down. “Charlie’s right here. He’s going to be fine. And what happened was in no way your fault. Don’t even think that.”
“Scout’s honor,” Rodney
protested. It made perfect sense to him.
He might have drifted to
sleep for a while, because when he opened his eyes again John was there.
“Morning, sleepyhead.”
“Not a good morning,” he
growled back.
Sheppard looked tired, but
chipper. “Could be a lot worse. Next time you decide to go sightseeing with
strangers, just don’t, okay? You feeling
better?”
Rodney took stock. There was still considerable discomfort, but
it felt more like a bad flu than active torture. “Some,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Can you tell me what
happened? What did they want?”
He tried to remember, but
images kept swimming from left to right and back again in his mind.
He grimaced. “It was, hmm, not sure. Something about wanting us to talk to the
gods for them. Thought we had some kind
of direct line to the Ancients. Got
angry when we couldn’t do it.”
“Gee,” Sheppard said
acerbically, “they could have asked nicely.”
“They were not nice
people.”
“So we gathered.”
Rodney yawned and a hand
patted his shoulder.
“You better get some more
beauty sleep, McKay.”
“Hmm.”
Far be it from him to
disobey an order.
~~*~~
Charlie woke up to find
Ronon sitting beside him. The big man
leaned down until his eyes were level with Charlie’s.
“Midget.”
“Behemoth.”
“You okay?”
“I think so,” Charlie
tested his voice. He didn’t feel right
at all, but he did have a sense of safety.
Ronon explained
conversationally, “Beckett made Don go shower and change. McKay threw up on him.”
“Rodney?”
The other man looked
across Charlie and pointed with his chin.
Charlie twisted around
slowly, feeling his body protest, and saw Rodney asleep on the next bed. That was a relief, anyway. He was settling back into a relatively
comfortable position when he heard Don’s voice.
“Hey there, bro. It’s good to see you.”
When Charlie looked up,
Don was beside Ronon. Don was holding a
basin in his hands, looking ready to put it to use instantly, should the need
arise. The little nausea Charlie was feeling
didn’t seem to be enough to warrant, though, which was good.
“Don. I knew you’d find us.”
“Of course we did,
Charlie. You’re pretty important to all
of us.”
“We couldn’t help
them.” Charlie felt bad. The men who had taken him and Rodney had seemed
so desperate.
“Don’t think about it,”
Don urged. “It’s all over now.”
“Maybe we can go back and
do something for them.”
“I don’t think so.”
Charlie looked more
closely at Don, whose face was set and cold.
“What happened?”
Don and Ronon glanced at
each other, and Don said, “We got you back.
That’s all that’s important.”
“They got what was coming
to them,” Ronon added.
Charlie felt his eyes fill
with tears. “They thought we could help
them protect their families. They were
just superstitious. The Wraith had been
there and they were suffering.”
Don reached over and began
stroking Charlie’s hair. “Please,
Charlie, don’t worry about it. It’s
okay, really.”
“It’s not.” Charlie’s voice felt choked. “The Wraith.
They’re hurting so many people.
We have to do something.”
“And we will. That’s what you’re doing here, remember? If we can find those Ancients, maybe they can
help everybody. But we can’t control
everything, Charlie. Things don’t always
work out like we want. You know that.”
Charlie nodded sadly. He didn’t want to upset Don. “Yeah.
Okay.”
Ronon stood up. “Take it easy, little guy. Maybe I’ll let you beat me at basketball when
you’re better.”
Charlie managed a
smile. “You wish.”
After Ronon left, Don
continued to watch Charlie, concern evident on his face. Charlie tried to smile for him, too.
“I’m okay, Don. Really.”
“We’ll get through this
together. I love you, Charlie.”
That was never in
doubt. “Me, too.”
Charlie resolved that he would
just have to work harder. There was
nothing else he could do.
~~*~~
Rodney and Charlie
recovered slowly but steadily. They
suffered from head and body aches that were apparently much like
meningitis. John had experienced that as
a child and felt sorry for them. You
couldn’t even move without regretting it.
But as soon as they were
able, both patients were back at work.
For Rodney, this was just another in a series of unpleasant experiences,
and he seemed to have no particular after affects. Charlie, however, kept saying he was fine and
refusing to talk about what happened, but he was different. He didn’t smile as much, didn’t take time for
recreation or entertainment, and fought anything that interfered with his work.
And now, when they had to
go to Torrens, it wasn’t just with Sheppard’s team. They always took a second unit to stand guard
topside. The lesson that safe is a
relative concept had been well learned, and despite the lack of further
problems, no one really felt comfortable on the peaceful planet anymore.
One night, two months
after the incident, John was passing by Charlie’s lab and heard raised
voices. Sticking his head in, he found
Don and Charlie facing off, both pairs of eyes narrowed stubbornly, both voices
harsh. John withdrew to a balcony just
down the hall, and a few minutes later Don joined him – brotherless.
John observed, “Charlie
won this round, did he?”
Don sighed and scrubbed
his hands over his face. “Yeah. There’s only so much I can do, short of tying
him up and carrying him home, and he’s right.
He’s an adult and can make decisions for himself. It’s just so damn frustrating!”
John nodded
sympathetically. “It’s hard to take care
of someone who doesn’t want your help.”
Still agitated, Don
answered, “You know, that’s just it! If
he had the smallest interest in taking care of himself it would be
different. But no, Charlie thinks about
everyone else first, when he thinks at all.”
John raised his eyebrows at the irritation in the other man’s voice, but
Don went on. “He takes on all the
problems in the world, and thinks that because of his gift it’s his
responsibility to solve them, no matter what.
He’s dealing with being kidnapped and abused by feeling sorry for his
captors, can you believe that?”
“Yeah, I can. Some people have big hearts that work that
way. It’s not necessarily a bad
thing. It would be worse if he were
completely self-centered and didn’t care.”
Don took a deep breath and
huffed it out. His posture relaxing, he
agreed, “You’re right. It’s just part of
the package with Charlie. It’s hard to
argue with, though.”
“I know. Rodney gives the impression of being totally
oblivious to others, but he feels the responsibility to take care of everyone,
too. He just spews out annoying chatter
to distract people from noticing. In
fact, there are a lot of people here who work too hard and take on too
much. This place has a way of fostering
the tendency.”
“I guess that’s not
surprising.”
“So is Charlie making
progress at least?”
“I think so. He says so.
At this rate he’ll probably be done soon.”
“That’d be cool. There are a few questions I’d like to ask
those Ancients.”
Like why a bunch of mere
humans were driving themselves into the ground trying to find a way to protect
the galaxy from the Wraith, while the super-advanced Ancients hid away in
whatever hole they called home. If they
could have done something and decided not to, then they would have a lot to
answer for.
~~*~~
After one long circuit, the
runners stopped for a rest. Don bent
over with his hands on his knees for support as he wheezed. John had begged off of their usual run, and
Don suspected that Ronon was pushing extra hard just to test Don’s
stamina. The big man was somewhat
competitive, and Don wondered if it ever got boring to always win.
“You can go ahead if you
want,” Don offered. “I’m gonna take a minute here.”
“That’s all right.” Ronon leaned against the catwalk railing.
“I’ll wait.”
After catching his breath,
Don said, “I’ve been meaning to thank you.
For how you’ve been there for Charlie.
When they were taken, but ever since we got here, really. It means a lot to me.”
Ronon shrugged. “No need to thank me. He’s one of mine now. It goes without saying.”
“One of yours?”
“Yeah.” Ronon was quiet for a moment, then continued,
“You know my planet was destroyed, right?”
Don nodded. He’d heard the story in general terms.
“My people are all
dead. Parents, brothers and sister,
friends, everyone. And then I was a runner
for seven years. Couldn’t stay anywhere
long enough to even talk to anyone.
Until they brought me here. I was
trained to be loyal, without reservations.
Now I have people to be loyal to again.”
“Everyone on Atlantis?”
Don asked.
“Nah. My team, first. Sheppard, Teyla, McKay. Anyone touches or even threatens them,
they’ll be sorry. Then Beckett, Weir and
a few others. Charlie, you. I’ll do everything I can to protect
them. The rest of the people here and
the city, yeah, they matter, but when it comes down to it, I know what my
priorities are.”
Don could understand that
in part. Back home he had loyalties to
his family and his team, but for him his oath of service and responsibility to
the overall good of American society sometimes conflicted. In the Pegasus Galaxy things were a little
different.
“Do you believe in what
we’re doing here?” Don asked.
Ronon looked at him, his
head cocked. “What do you mean?”
“Atlantis. The great hope to defeat the Wraith.”
“Understand, Eppes. I admire you people from Earth. You’re so fearless and optimistic. You believe anything’s possible. It’s cute.
But you don’t stand a chance of defeating the Wraith. Everyone in the galaxy knows it except
you. They drove out the Ancestors, and
you think a handful of humans will do better?”
“If you feel that way, why
do you stay?”
“Because even though
you’ll lose, nobody else within living memory has been able to hurt or even
annoy the Wraith. The Wraith may win,
but they’ll know they’ve been challenged.
I like being part of that.
Besides, the food is good.”
“And,” Don noted, “you’ve
got people here now.”
Ronon gave him a small
smile. “Yeah, I’ve got people.”
“And a man gets tired of
running.”
“That’s the truth.” Ronon stood and started jogging in place.
“How about another lap?”
“I’m good to go.”
There’s running, and then
there’s running.
~~*~~
Rodney was excited. After nearly a year, Charlie was finally
ready to unveil his findings on the code.
Charlie had been very closed-mouthed about his work for the last couple
of weeks, so Rodney didn’t have a clue what was coming. Not only was he looking forward to some
brilliant math, but it should be entertaining, too. Charlie was a good showman. There was a sizable group of scientists and
others in the meeting room waiting for him to start.
Sure enough, Charlie had a
PowerPoint presentation ready. The
mathematician looked calm, but his eyes sparkled.
“So what have you got for
us?” Don asked.
“No less than the location
of the Lost Colony.” Charlie looked very
pleased with himself.
The colonel prompted,
“Don’t keep us in suspense. Where is
it?”
“First of all,” Charlie
began, “I’ll show you how I found it. In
very simplified terms, of course.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth
agreed. “Those of us in the social
sciences appreciate your consideration.”
“Okay, first of all, what
helped me break the code was the Atlantis mainframe computer.”
“So,” Rodney interrupted,
“It was worth it to move all of our projects off for you to have complete
access.”
“Yes,” Charlie agreed,
“but not necessarily in the way you might think. It wasn’t the computer’s processing power
that was useful so much as the computer’s processing style. Let me explain. Most of you have probably been using personal
computers since they first came on the market, so I’ll assume some basic
knowledge, and some of you have possibly been involved in the evolution of
computing technology itself.”
The slide on the screen
showed a series of PC terminals of different ages and sizes.
“Think of the early
PC’s. They were slow and limited
compared to what we commonly use today, and have steadily been improving. You should all be familiar with how operating
systems have upgraded – Windows 95 is superseded by Windows 2000, which is
replaced by Windows XP, etc.”
Heads nodded all around.
“Computer processors have
undergone a similar progression. The
jump from single processors to hyper-threading technology, or HT, was one such
evolutionary step. HT technology
supports the concurrent execution of multiple separate instruction streams,
which are called threads of execution, on a single physical processor. This basically means that they can work on
more than one thing at a time.
“Simply put,
hyper-threading allows for a single physical processor to appear to the
operating system as two logical processors. The operating system doesn't
know the difference and feeds threads to each as if they were indeed separate
physical processors.”
Charlie moved his
presentation to the next slide.
“This is an example of an
HT-enabled system that has two physical processors. The logical processors shown as shaded are
the ones that are utilized by the operating system.”
1 3 4 2
“In this example, the
operating system will attempt to utilize the first two logical processors, that
is, one from each of the physical processors.”
The next slide came up on
the screen.
“This shows an example of
a Standard Server running on a system that has two HT processors.”
1 3 4 2
“The Standard Server will
attempt to utilize all four logical processors.”
“Uh, Charlie,” Don
said. He made an exaggerated confused
face and waved his hand for his brother to move along.
Rodney was impatient, too,
but it was because he knew all this already and wanted to get to the good
stuff.
“Too much detail?” Charlie
asked.
Don nodded apologetically.
“Okay, we’ll skip
forward.”
Charlie flicked through
several slides and then stopped.
“Now, this is an example
of a four-processor system that has two active threads.”
8 4 7 3 1 5 6 2
“Basically, there can, in
theory, be any number of processors being used in any order. The order can be random, or it can be
determined by a preset pattern.
“Think of it as a series
of parallel one-way streets as seen from above.
Sometimes the traffic will alternate in direction from one to the next,
sometimes two or three streets will go the same way before the next one flows
the opposite direction.”
Rodney could visualize
little cars zooming up and down at fast-forward speeds, arrows making the
direction of traffic on each street obvious.
Charlie went on, “The cars
don’t go whatever way they want to. The
pattern has been planned out in advance.
“Now, let’s go back to the
code from the Memorial Hall. Needing to
have some basis for developing a decoding algorithm, I had been reviewing
various decryption techniques looking for the best match. When I started working with the Ancient
database, I found it somewhat by accident.
I worked out the algorithm used in the multi-threading pattern of the
processors, and coincidentally,” Charlie paused for a moment to smile happily,
“when I applied that algorithm to the code, it fit perfectly. The pattern the Ancient database uses to
process data threads is the same pattern that governs the Memorial Hall data.
“It made sense,
really. The person who developed the
code was probably intimately familiar with their computer technology. It may have been subconscious on his or her
part to incorporate this algorithm into the code, or it may have been
deliberate. I predict we’ll find that
this same algorithm appears in other areas of their science and mathematics,
much like the modern mathematics of western cultures on Earth are base 10. This pattern was part of the Ancients’ basic
conceptual understanding of math.
“Then I processed the data
using the algorithm that I had identified.
The quantity of data was daunting, and at first I was very careful to
make sure it was entered exactly so that no errors would be made. As I went on processing the data through the
algorithm, using the same algorithm as a secondary pattern as well, I was able
to determine and predict what data sets were important and which weren’t. That helped speed things up considerably.”
“So what did you find?”
Sheppard asked.
“It wasn’t a substitution
cipher.” Charlie explained. “The symbols
we needed were there all the time; it was just a matter of narrowing them
down. After running the data set
through one complete series of the program, the code was reduced to a third of
the original. I ran that through again
with the same algorithm, and got a smaller result. After repeating that process several times,
six symbols remained. See if you
recognize them.”
The slide changed,
displaying the six symbols Charlie had mentioned. Rodney’s breath caught. He did recognize them. They were on the DHD.
“It’s a ‘gate address,”
Rodney said.
Charlie nodded and
grinned. “That’s right. That’s where you’ll find the Lost Colony.”
Sgt. Campbell tapped
excitedly on his tablet computer, then looked up. “It isn’t in our database.”
Elizabeth leaned
forward. “Charlie, that’s amazing. Out of all those thousands of symbols you
came up with just six.”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “These specific symbols were on the wall
multiple times, as were others identical or similar to ‘gate address glyphs. It wasn’t until the analysis was complete
that I could be sure which were correct and in what order.”
“So,” Sheppard said
brightly, “shall we go a’visiting?”
Rodney stood up. “I’ll get my equipment.”
“Hold on,” Elizabeth
interrupted. “Once the remote sensors
have checked it out, your team will have a go.
I don’t need to remind you of the importance of making a good impression
on these people, do I?”
Rodney rolled his
eyes. “They’ll be plenty impressed, I
assure you.”
“I’m going too,” Charlie
said, drawing all eyes to him.
“You don’t need to,”
Sheppard cautioned. “Especially when we
don’t know what we’ll find.”
“First,” Charlie responded
evenly, “I figured it out so I get to go.
Second, I think you’ll want me there when you do meet the Ancients. The code was set up so that their location
would only be revealed to someone who could decipher it and pass the test. Which was me.
They may have questions about how that was done.”
Elizabeth looked at Don,
who tilted his head in Charlie’s direction.
“I’d say he certainly deserves it.
I’m not going to say no.”
“If that’s settled, can we
go now?” Rodney pleaded.
“The ‘gate room in half an
hour,” Sheppard said.
“Good!” Rodney was aware of people congratulating Charlie
on his success and made a note to shower accolades on the younger man later,
but first things first. He had to get
ready to go meet the Lost Colony of Ancients.
He already had pages of questions to ask them all written out, and he
refused to consider that they might not be willing to answer. They had to.
So much depended on Rodney being able to find answers, and he needed
their insights to do it.
~~*~~
The MALP sent back images
of rocks and scrubby plants, but from its vantage point in what looked like a
depression, there wasn’t much its viewfinder could see. There was no sign of anything hostile,
though, so there was no reason not to go.
Charlie was keyed up about
this. It was going to be the culmination
of all his work. It is where he would
get the pay-off for the hours and months he’d put into breaking the code.
He stepped through the
Stargate along with Don and Sheppard’s team.
Initially, there wasn’t much to look at.
The rocks the remote device had seen were stones fallen from a wall that
had once surrounded the ‘gate area. Now
it wasn’t much more than a pile of rubble about two feet high.
There was a gap in the
wall to one side, and the group headed through it, following McKay, who was
bent over a handheld monitor.
Sheppard inquired,
“McKay?”
Rodney waved a hand in the
air like he was brushing away an insect.
“Just a minute.”
Charlie looked around at
the scenery. It was dry with some
scrappy, tenacious vegetation, not unlike a lot of southern California. In the distance there were structural ruins,
and not much else. Charlie had expected
something more like Atlantis, and this wasn’t it.
Sheppard asked again,
“McKay? Which way?”
Rodney tore his eyes away
from the readout and looked up at them, his face desolate. “I, there’s…”
He swallowed with some effort.
“There’s nothing.”
Don asked, “What do you
mean, nothing?”
“Nothing as in
nothing. No energy readings, very little
residual radiation to indicate there was ever a civilization here. Nothing.”
Teyla speculated, “You
said that they had been hiding themselves to prevent discovery. Could they be employing cloaking technology?”
“Right, because I wouldn’t
have thought to check for that,” Rodney snapped. “Even cloaking technology gives off detectable
wave emissions if you know what frequency to look for. I’ve scanned for all known Ancient
signatures. Nada. Zip.
Zilch.”
“Well,” the colonel said
reasonably, “Maybe they’ve advanced to using something we haven’t encountered
yet.”
Rodney looked at him with
hope creeping back into his eyes. “Do
you think so?”
“Could be. Why don’t we at least go over to those ruins
and take a look.”
The group was quiet as
they filed over the uneven ground, except for occasional murmurs from McKay
trying to coax a response out of his scanner.
Charlie was distracted by the novelty of being on yet another planet,
but there was a feeling of worry growing in his chest. He’d worked so hard to solve the riddle. It was supposed to mean something. It was supposed to be a great breakthrough in
the struggle to defeat the Wraith.
When they got to the
outskirts of the developed area, Sheppard asked, “Anything?”
Radiating misery, Rodney
shook his head.
They began making their
way through the half-fallen structures.
Occasionally, decorative designs were visible on still intact walls,
along with smatterings of script Charlie recognized as Ancient. Rodney squatted to look at one patch of writing.
“Can you read it?”
Sheppard asked.
“Yes,” Rodney snarled,
“it’s a fucking poem about butterflies in the fucking garden.” He picked up a rock, stood and hurled it at
the wall.
Ronon’s voice rumbled a warning, “McKay.”
Rodney turned on him. “What?
I’m supposed to respectfully preserve the insipid drivel of people who are
obviously long gone?”
“Yes, you should respect
it,” Ronon stated. “This was a
settlement of the Ancestors.”
“Well, la dee friggin’ da. Excuse me if I’m not overwhelmed with
devotion. Your beloved Ancestors just led us on one hell of a
wild goose chase.” He turned toward
Charlie. “Are you sure you got the right
address?”
The force of Rodney’s ire
directed at him startled Charlie.
Through his own disappointment Charlie found enough voice to say, “There’s
always some margin of error, but yes, I’m sure.”
McKay’s shoulders
slumped. “Yes, sorry, of course you
are. This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.
I was the one who insisted it was worthwhile to follow through with it.”
“This isn’t your fault, McKay,”
Sheppard assured him. “We all agreed.”
Now Rodney’s voice wavered
so that it was hard for Charlie to hear.
“It’s just that I was so sure that this time it was going to be worth
it. This time we would find something that
would make a difference.” Then he
plaintively asked the group, “It’s our turn to have something go right, isn’t
it? We’re the good guys, aren’t
we?”
Charlie saw Ronon give Don
a ‘see what I mean’ look, which he didn’t understand. It was Sheppard again who answered Rodney’s
distress.
“I wish it worked that
way. But I don’t think we should to give
up yet. There may be something here that
tells us where the Ancients went. We’ve
barely started to look.”
Teyla nodded. “That is true. Why would they go to all the trouble of constructing
such an impressive chamber to house the code, if they were simply going to move
on?”
“Maybe,” Don suggested,
“after a couple thousand years they just forgot about it.”
“Or maybe,” Sheppard
stressed, “they left a forwarding address somewhere here.”
Rodney argued, “But they
didn’t even preserve the structures.
They always did that.”
Charlie thought he knew
the answer. “Or maybe they decided to
ascend after all, and then the rest of us didn’t matter to them any more.”
No one had a response to
that, and they contemplated the situation silently for a minute. Then Sheppard straightened his shoulders and
proclaimed, “Okay. I don’t think there’s
any need for us to stay longer today.
This looks like a project for the archaeologists and the anthropologists. Maybe they can make sense out of it.”
Everyone agreed, and they
began to trudge back toward the ‘gate.
Charlie maneuvered himself to walk beside Rodney. He tried to comfort his dejected friend.
“It was worth it, Rodney,
even if we never find the Lost Colony.
We learned a lot in the process – about the Ancients, about the
mainframe on Atlantis. Don’t feel bad.”
“You’re taking this so
well,” Rodney complained quietly. “How
can you do that, you of all people?”
Charlie shrugged. “I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet. But I was focused on the process of breaking
the code, and I did that. Sometimes an
achievement like that has to be its own reward.”
Charlie lifted a hand to
rub Rodney’s back. It was a little too
soon for him to take in the letdown he was feeling. There was sort of a desolate hole where his
pride and anticipation had been.
Scenes from the last
several months flashed through his mind.
Moments of discovery in his project, sleepless nights, confrontations
with Don, the beauty of the elegant Ancient database, the anger of men he
couldn’t help, playing basketball with Ronon--whose whole planet was destroyed
by the Wraith. In the end, what did it
all mean? Charlie wondered if he had
just wasted a year of his life.
A nice set of equations in
need of solving would help him feel better.
Sometimes the purity of the numbers was enough.
~~*~~
By the time they walked
back through the ‘gate, Rodney had gotten a hold of himself. What was one more failure? They’d already had more than a few, and they
were still there. It just meant that the
answer to defeating the Wraith lay elsewhere.
He would keep looking.
Elizabeth and several
others were hanging over the command area railing expectantly. Rodney saw John look up and shake his head
no. Elizabeth looked briefly
disappointed, then seemed to accept the news.
“All right,” she said,
“we’ll debrief in thirty minutes. You’ve
all done a good job with this.”
To Rodney’s left, Don put
a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Are
you okay?”
Charlie blinked up at Don,
pulling on a smile by sheer force of will.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just a
little discouraged.”
It was some small
consolation to Rodney to know that Charlie wasn’t able to brush it off so
easily after all. Rodney wasn’t the only
one to have invested a lot in this, and he didn’t want to be the only one who
would suffer for the failure. Not that
he wanted Charlie to suffer, but when in misery, Rodney liked to have company.
Then it occurred to him
that now that the project was over, Charlie had no reason to stay. That, maybe, was something Rodney could do
something about. He actually perked up a
bit at the thought. The first order of
business would be to start making sure bits of research that involved higher math
found their way into the young genius’ line of sight. Like bread crumbs to lead him further into
Atlantis. Then the city could do the
rest.
~~*~~
Several days after the
fruitless trip to the Ancients’ planet, Charlie was sharing a table with Don,
Elizabeth, Rodney and John. They’d
finished dinner but were lingering over coffee.
Elizabeth said to him,
“I’m sorry that you had to work so hard for so little reward.”
“The work itself was very
rewarding,” Charlie answered philosophically.
He could say this honestly now.
“The whole experience has been. I
just wish it had led to something that would help.”
“You know, if you wanted,”
she said carefully, “you could stay here.
There’s still more that you could do.”
“That’s right,” Rodney
said more boldly. “You’ve seen the
important work going on here. If you
stay we’ll be able to progress much faster.
It could save all our lives.”
Sheppard elbowed him in
the ribs and scolded, “Rodney. We agreed
not to pressure them.”
“Why? You want them to stay, too. I know you do. And Elizabeth is about ready to get down on
her knees and beg Don not to go. Why
beat around the bush?”
Charlie grinned and shared
a look with Don, who said, “Actually, we’ve been talking about it. Charlie and I are thinking we’d like to stay
a while longer.”
John’s smile lit his whole
face. “That’s great!”
Elizabeth looked faint
with relief.
“Oh, good,” Rodney
said. “Now I won’t have to worry about
anyone blowing up the Daedalus to keep you from
leaving.”
“In fact,” Don went on,
“we have some ideas on how things could be organized even better.”
“Oh?” Elizabeth asked brightly, “What are
they? We’re all ears.”
Don made his
presentation. “Well, the population of
Atlantis keeps growing and we’re spreading out more all the time. Issues are coming up that are outside of any
of our experience. Social and physical
factors, like where to locate new living areas to maximize safety and comfort
while making the best use of our resources.
How and where supplies should be distributed. Water and sewage monitoring. It isn’t just a matter of hooking up a pipe,
there are peak demand times that need to be taken into account in order to
avoid problems. We might want to start
thinking ahead about amenities like recreation areas, rather than having rooms
end up being used by default, even if they aren’t suitable. Environmental mitigation measures for
Atlantis and the mainland. The specific
needs of refugees. We should keep in
mind that some day, when more children live here, we’ll need classroom
areas. Big picture things like that.”
“That’s a good point,”
John said. “We’ve just been smooshing ourselves around in the city without any kind of
planning. That could get out of hand.”
“Exactly!” Charlie agreed.
With a knowing smile,
Elizabeth asked, “What did you have in mind as a solution to this?”
Don said confidently, “I
think what we need is a city planner.
Someone who has experience managing an urban area like Los Angeles, for
example. After dealing with the
complexities there, Atlantis would be a piece of cake.”
“And do you have someone
in mind?”
“As a matter of fact, we
do.” Charlie said.
Don nodded. “His name is Alan Eppes.”
Elizabeth’s smile
widened. “You want to bring your father
here.”
“He would be great at the
job,” Don assured her. “Why take a risk
on someone we don’t know?”
“I think that’s a great
idea,” John agreed.
“Oh, wonderful,” Rodney
complained without any real heat.
“Another Eppes. Why don’t we just
rename Atlantis ‘Eppesville’?”
“Eppesville,” Charlie grinned. “I do like the sound of that.”
End
Note: Before you ask, there may be a sequel, but no
guarantees. *g*
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