�Very much,� John replied honestly.
As she changed lanes in preparation for exiting onto the road that would take her right up to NORAD and the SGC Elizabeth sighed softly. �Okay. I�ll hang up then. Talk to you later?�
�Definitely. And check your e-mail. I sent you the names of a few people I think would be able to hack it in our neck of the woods,� John said. �Remember about Jumper Six,� he added.
�It�s burned into my brain,� Elizabeth promised. �Stay safe,� she added before hanging up, only a moment before John echoed the sentiment so many miles away.
Using the new calculating system to determine the time and date differences between Lantia and Earth that Colonel Carter had sent through the last time Teyla had dialled the Tau�ri home world Teyla and Radek determined the exact time that they should dial Earth again. It was the middle of the night, Atlantis time, but everyone was so accustomed to the bizarre hours and days on end without rest that staying up a little late when things were calm wasn�t exactly a hardship for Teyla and Zelenka, the two who were sharing the roles that Elizabeth, John, and Rodney usually filled�Doctor Biro was running the Infirmary with the help of a few doctors that the Daedalus had brought from Earth when the arrived to help defend the Lost City.
The Wraith still thought Atlantis was gone, destroyed by its current inhabitants as a way of keeping both the knowledge of the Ancients and the access to Earth and the new feeding ground it represented from the enemy, and most off-world travel was on hold in an attempt to maintain the ruse. Several Athosian teams had been sent to other worlds where Atlantis and the Athosians had trade partners, all visits conducted via the Alpha Site to prevent being traced, and the rumour that the great city of the Ancients had been destroyed was spread carefully enough that it didn�t come off false but insistently enough that word spread across the galaxy with little effort.
A few AR team members had gone off-world to collect raw materials for repairing the city and things like that, but they always went in disguise, usually as Athosians, sometimes in the dress of whatever culture they were planning on trading with or taking from, and, though they were always armed, they used weapons that weren�t traceable to the people of Earth, mostly weapons collected from the Genii after their attempted raid of Atlantis and some weaponry that a few of the military and science types had gotten together to create from scratch. Teyla, herself, hadn�t stepped through the Stargate, spending most of her days either in Elizabeth�s office or working with the military faction of the city to maintain John�s usual routine since neither John, nor Ford, not the annoying but ultimately decent Sergeant Bates was there to head up the military. Zelenka, of course, had only been through the Stargate once, when he came to Atlantis, and he was more than happy keeping it that way, spending most of his time working with the team that was studying the ZPM that had saved their collective asses several weeks earlier.
The Control Room was eerily quiet and annoyingly empty as Teyla and Radek waited for the time to come for their scheduled check in. They had dialled in earlier in the day, early that morning, in fact, for the first of two scheduled check ins that were to take place over the time that the leaders of Atlantis� four main areas were back on Earth, only to be told by General Landry that they were a week early. Colonel Carter, who Teyla only knew from stories that McKay told but who Zelenka knew quite well from back on Earth, posited that days were shorter on Atlantis which made time seem to go faster and the culmination of extra hours became days that passed ahead of Earth which was why they had dialled in a week earlier than those in the Milky Way expected. Zelenka and Carter had started talking rather quickly in what Teyla knew was English, though she recognized few of the words, and she had tuned them out for the most part, only listening when Zelenka said something about making sure a special clock was made to prevent such a mistake from happening again. Once that was out of the way Teyla asked to speak with Doctor Weir or Major Sheppard, preferably both�Radek had everything that McKay needed to know uploaded onto the compression matrix that McKay had developed when they all thought it would be their last chance to share thoughts and words with loved ones, and had sent it through to Colonel Carter who promised to pass it along the moment she saw him next.
General Landry had apologized, saying that Major Sheppard was in Nevada at Area 51 for flight training and wouldn�t be back for several days at best. Teyla didn�t know what or where Nevada was, nor what Area 51 meant�though she made a mental note to find out as soon as she could find a free moment�but she knew what flight training was as John had often spoken of his initial days in flight training in the Academy, usually with great fondness. The General went on to say that Doctor Weir was back from Washington (another place that Teyla had no concept of and made a mental note to ask about when she inquired about Nevada and Area 51) but that she was currently off the base taking a bit of personal time. It was then, with some encouragement from Colonel Carter, that General Landry agreed to call Doctor Weir in as long as Teyla dialled in again in one hour, earth time.