OK Computer part 1
Title: OK Computer
Author: cesperanza
Fandom: SGA
Commentator: stultiloquentia
Excerpt: "Don't shoot!" Rodney yelled, leaping up, onto his knees, and waving his hands, afraid that Sheppard was going to blow his alter-ego to blazes. "He's me! I think!"
PLEASE ADVISE: This commentary contains some references to acafen from Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, Transformative Works and Cultures and other sources. If you're aware of their fannish pseudonyms, please be extra careful when you comment. Don't out anybody! Thanks, y'all. :o)
OK Computer
by Speranza
So, all right:
Aaaand three words in and I'm already cackling with glee. "So." Hwaet! The universal, storyteller's word for, "Hi, kids, take a seat. Listen up. Here we go." Except this is Rodney McVerbiage McKay so you can forget about a solemn, punctuated pause while everybody gets settled; we're hurtling onward, fasten your participles, please keep your hands and arms inside the paragraph. "So, all right:" it's endearing and telling that the very first sentence is capitulation, embarrassed admission -- introducing a trend that's going to last another hundred pages. So, Rodney-style, which means we're not going to stop to breathe for another half a dozen clauses at least. Rodney works on a larger scale than the rest of us: for him, long sentences are short sentences and short sentences are punctuation.
maybe he had Sheppard to thank for getting him to the firing range, for nagging him to practice pulling his gun and shooting at the stupid paper targets, because it meant that when the evil alien thing burst into his room from out of another dimension, Rodney McKay was able to grab his gun and fling himself over the bed and begin firing with something like grace under pressure, though he really wasn't sure whether the screaming he heard was his or the alien thing's.
It turned out to be the alien's.
QED. The very rhythm of Speranza's sentences is a comedic tool: babble babble babble jerk-to-a-halt, reverse, screech-of-tires, whoop whoop whoop! It's kinetic, agile, the prose equivalent of professional slapstick.
"Stop! Stop! You idiot, stop, it's me!" the alien screamed in a weird, too-high voice. "Jesus Christ, today you choose to be macho?"
Rodney, heart pounding as he reloaded, ventured a quick, nervous look up over his unmade bed and saw that the alien was wearing his face. Oh my God, a shapeshifter-! he thought hysterically, raising his gun, just as the alien yelled, "I'm not a shapeshifter!" and oh my God, oh my God, a mind-reading shapeshifter! "-or a mind-reading-oh, for God's sake," the soul-sucking alien said, now sounding distinctly irritated. "I'm you, all right? Just quit firing! Look, I know about the lesbians."
Technically speaking, this is the perfect beginning, according to the genre (of fanfic)'s "go-straight-to-the-good-parts" conventions. No Thomas Hardy exposition in sight. We're flung into the action right along with poor, sleeping Rodney. Way to establish him as our POV character. Speranza cements the connection between him and us by forcing us all to scramble to orient ourselves at the same time. Then she gives us not one, but two separate What The Fucks to chew on in three paragraphs: "WTF is alt!Rodney doing here?" and "WTF lesbians?"
Rodney froze in his crouch, thinking frantically; that couldn't possibly mean-
"Yes, those lesbians," the alien snapped. "I know about the program, and the box, and what you did to Sheppard," and Rodney felt something creep across his shoulders. The alien sounded suddenly weary, and maybe a little bit sad. "I know all your dirtiest, ugliest secrets, McKay. Some you don't even know yet."
Rodney stayed low, shoulders hunched. "You're really me?"
"Yes. Come on, come on, you're a smart guy; can't you work through this faster?"
Rodney stole another glance over the bed. That wasn't him; couldn't be. "From another dimension," he asked warily, "or-"
"No, not from another dimension; not yet," the other him said. "That thrill's still ahead of you-" and of course that was when Sheppard skidded in, guns blazing.
"Don't shoot!" Rodney yelled, leaping up, onto his knees, and waving his hands, afraid that Sheppard was going to blow his alter-ego to blazes. "He's me! I think!"
The other McKay had turned to the door and gone still, both hands raised. Finally, Rodney was able to get a good look at him: it was him, all right, but he looked like-shit. He was years older, if the slight paunch and graying hair were any indication, and he was standing there in his bathrobe-his same bathrobe, which was even more stained and tattered than it was now, which Rodney hadn't thought possible. This McKay had a slump to his shoulders, and a scraggly gray-brown beard. He looked like he'd been through the wars. Probably he had, Rodney realized, and was suddenly afraid.
Sheppard was looking warily between McKay 2.0 and Rodney himself, and for once, Rodney wasn't coming off worse in the comparison. Sheppard slowly lowered, then holstered, his gun, and you really had to hand it to the guy: he always kept it together when bizarre things were happening.
"O-kay," Sheppard said cautiously, still looking from one to the other of them. "Maybe one of you should tell me what-" and before Rodney could complain that, uh, hello, maybe Sheppard could take a moment to discriminate between his close friend, Dr. Rodney McKay, and this clearly inferior interloper from another dimension, McKay 2.0 was moving toward Sheppard, his hands stretching out.
"Sheppard," McKay 2.0 said in a low voice, his hands fluttering down to land on Sheppard's sleeves. He leaned in, eyes closed, and gently moved his face back and forth near Sheppard's ear-jeez louise, was he smelling him? [I love the way that gains resonance later.] Rodney waited for Sheppard to pull some fancy martial arts move, maybe put him in a headlock or something. But Sheppard just stared blankly, even when McKay 2.0 abruptly cupped Sheppard's neck and kissed him on the mouth-and where the hell was John Sheppard, insane killing machine, now, huh, huh? Because this, this was just-and Rodney's brain fumbled wildly for the word-outrageous!
Neat little bit of characterization lurking in the "fancy martial arts killing machine" descriptors: it's typically, Rodneyishly hyperbolic, but I also think it's telling that it's Sheppard he's describing with the action hero language. Which means he's not thinking too hard about Sheppard-the-actual-human-being who might be hidden under the suit. In the next few paragraphs, he's repeatedly surprised by Sheppard's reactions. He doesn't know him very well, because he's a self-involved guy who's never learnt to look at another person and really, truly see. Enter the story's character growth arc.
Rodney gaped as McKay 2.0 finally broke off the kiss and pulled back. McKay's eyes were closed, but Sheppard's were wide open, and while he hadn't broken either of McKay's arms or pulled his gun or anything, he looked totally freaked out.
Rodney waited for Sheppard to take command, to yell, "What the hell?" and maybe shake some answers out of his older, pudgier, and yet more brazenly lustful, counterpart, but Sheppard just swallowed a couple of times and fidgeted where he stood. "When-" Sheppard began, in a tense, unfamiliar voice, "-when does it, how long do I-?"
McKay's eyes opened instantly, his hands clamping down on Sheppard's shoulders. "There's time," he said. "Plenty of it. I promise you-" and Rodney realized with a start that Colonel Mensa had worked it out faster than he had. "We can fix it, I'm sure we can," McKay was saying in a rushed, reassuring voice. "I'll run through it with you, the whole scenario, so you'll be ready. Tiny details, a couple of variables-" and Sheppard was holding McKay's eyes and nodding intently. "Just, we have to be careful not to change things too much," McKay added, "because believe it or not-" and McKay let out a queer, high-pitched laugh that Rodney recognized; it was his own, when he was near to hysterical, "-a lot of good came out of that situation."
Is it just me, or are those tiny, insignificant scraps of description in the last couple paragraphs-John's attention, the evidence of his brain burning through a problem-really hot?
I love the contrast between Rodney, whose every flail we're party to, and John, who's enigmatic. A code to be cracked (heh).
"Really?" Sheppard actually sounded relieved. "So otherwise things are-okay?"
McKay jerked a nod and looked away; this seemed like a painful subject. "Yes. Things are-they're fine, or near enough; nothing I can tell you about without changing it. Things are great. Everyone's great. Except you, of course," he said, and barked out another queer laugh, hands darting up to scratch nervously at his beard. "And me. We're not doing so well, you and me."
"So will this overwrite it?" Rodney asked. Both Sheppard and McKay jerked to look at him, like they'd forgotten he was there, which-yes, very flattering. He folded his arms and smiled thinly at them, annoyed at having been made a third wheel in his own goddamned life. "The future," he added pointedly. "Will this overwrite your-"
"No, actually," McKay 2.0 said; he seemed vaguely distracted by the question. "It doesn't work that way; turns out it's more of a-" McKay stopped, one hand going to his furrowed forehead while his other hand snapped out a rapidfire beat, "-a-a-a thing that branches off from another thing. What do you call it?" McKay demanded, wheeling on a startled-looking Sheppard. "Come on, you know what it's called. You told me-"
To Rodney's relief, Sheppard just stood there, blinking. Rodney was getting really sick of this shit where McKay 2.0 thought he was Sheppard's fucking best friend or-
"You mean, a tangent vector?" Sheppard said, and McKay went, "Ha, yes," and touched his nose. "That's it. Yes, exactly: I'm trying to provoke a tangent vector to a world line, or, in other words, to create an offshoot reality that leaves my reality-a stump, or whatever it's called."
Sheppard frowned. "A node. I think," and oh, how Rodney hated the both of them. "I mean," he added, "this is graph theory; I haven't thought about this in years. In fact, I was never really particularly good at-"
*nerdjoy* This might be a little silly, but I get a kick out of the tossing around of hard science terms like "graph theory" in my fanfic. I like science, I like world-building detail, but also-because it's a bit stereotype-defying, I guess. Fandom being so female- and emotion-driven, it's fun to, I dunno, thumb my nose at an imaginary news columnist and say, "Yes, female science fiction fans; did you think we were all just here for the pretty, and that none of us has ever picked up a Technology Review?"
"Oh, please," McKay 2.0 snorted. "I did the conceptual work, but you worked out most of the equations." He shook his head wearily. "Time travel does my head in."
"But why bother provoking a tangent vector?" Rodney asked. "I mean, the Everett interpretation of quantum theory dictates that every version of reality-"
McKay wheeled on him. "Yes, yes, of course every version of reality exists somewhere," he said, now obviously impatient, "but that doesn't mean we just kill ourselves, go running into bullets because, hey, I bet in some alternate universe we got this right. I mean," McKay said, turning back to Sheppard, "I'm sure there are versions of reality where you never even came to Atlantis, where you're a math professor or a dog walker or a farmer. But you're the Sheppard I know," McKay said, and then, to Rodney, "and you're the guy I was, and-well." His smile was quick and unhappy. "I've got nothing but time on my hands now."
Alternate realities: you privilege the one you're in now, but don't allow that one is ultimately "true" or superior. Yep, we're pretty good at that. :)
I like the in-joke peeking out; it's like a sort of community bonding experience. Mafalda Stasi, in one of the essays in Fan Fiction and Fan Communities, compares fanfic to medieval allegory or poetry, in that the expected readership is presumed to have a certain knowledge base, be familiar with a certain set of other texts, allowing writers to develop a shorthand (the roses in Roman de la rose, for instance) made up of symbols and references and running jokes.
This detail, plus the invocation in paragraph one of Rodney's improved combat reflexes, explained by John's lessons-it's a subtle little marriage of canon and fanon: we can see on screen that Rodney's not who he's been; he goes storming around with a P-90 slung across his chest and he knows where to point it. But fandom takes over the explanations, imagines scenes on the firing range, hands on wrist and shoulder and hip, manipulating, teaching, making sure the geek can take care of himself. We extrapolate the same way Rodney later extrapolates details about John for his VR.
Sheppard interrupted with a small cough. "Sorry, but you said...I did the equations?" and Colonel Mensa obviously had his thinking cap on. "How is that-I mean, was this something we were working on together before I...before?"
McKay swallowed, his face flashing with guilt. "No." His hand slid into his dressing gown, into what Rodney knew was a deep, inside pocket on the left side. "We only started working on it after you were dead," he added quietly, pulling out a smooth, flat rectangle just a bit larger and thinner than a life signs detector, and then, just as Rodney was trying to decide whether to run to the toilet or just try keeping it down, McKay turned to him and said, "Do you want to tell him, or should I?"
It was just another random piece of Ancient technology, found in someone's long-abandoned living quarters, and it was fascinatingly boring: it didn't light up or have any moving parts or do anything, really. Rodney studied it for a while, turning it around and around in his hands, and then put it aside, briefly closing his eyes to make a mental record of the thing. It was a puzzle piece, and some day he'd find a matching edge. [I love that description of Rodney's thought process.]
Speranza jumps back in time. This is amusing from a meta perspective, since she's basically positioned Rodney as a stand-in for Fanfic Authors Everywhere (more on that later), and Rodney also spends most of his story manipulating time and space.
Moreover, it's just a really crisp example of smart structuring. She starts the story, as I said up top, in the most attention-grabbing, off-the-deep-end place possible. Fanfic readers can have the attention spans of gnats; you must net them instantly and ruthlessly. Then you go back to the chronological beginning to line up all your ducks. (or penguins, or whatever you use in your fandom.) It's a tricky balance, though: I've read plenty of stories that start promisingly, only to devolve into absolute bores while the author catches us up on twenty years of backstory.
The matching edge came a year or so later, in yet another abandoned residential room, and it was Zelenka who found it. "Rodney, come and see this," Zelenka said. Rodney went over and saw, on the wall behind the bed, a blast pattern of brown-green mineral deposits that he'd come to associate with fried Ancient circuitry. At the center of the damage, something had been vertically inserted into the wall. Zelenka was frowning and tugging at it with a pair of pliers, and when it came out of its slot, Rodney saw that it was rectangular, twice as long as it was high. Whatever it was, he had one just like it.
"Well," Zelenka said, turning it this way and that. It was discolored and a little warped. "No telling what this was. We could perhaps look for it in the Ancient database-"
"No, don't bother," Rodney said, and when Zelenka looked up at him, he explained, "I found one of these about a year ago. It's a rectangle. You can't search for 'rectangle' in the Ancient database. Until we know what it does, we can't-hm, I don't suppose that mechanism still works?" he asked, bending to peer into the slot.
"I doubt it," Zelenka said, crouching beside him. "We could try," and so Rodney went and found the thing. They pushed it into the burned-out slot. Nothing happened.
"Wait, wait, we're idiots," Rodney said, and so they went down to Rodney's room and looked around for a similar slot. They found it on the wall behind the desk, and Rodney couldn't believe that they'd just assumed all those bizarre curlicues were decorative. Rodney pushed the rectangle in until it clicked, and this time, it lit up like a flash drive.
He stared at it. Beside him, Zelenka stared at it.
"Perhaps it is nightlight," Zelenka said finally. [*loves on Zelenka*]
"Oh, shut up," Rodney said, and threw him out.
The idea, when it came, woke him up with its absolute, staggering rightness. Rodney fumbled his way into his bathrobe, yanked the rectangle out of the slot, and headed back down to where he'd found it, thinking about flash drives and how to decrypt them. He remembered vaguely where the room was-what area of the city, what hallway-but it took him two or three tries to find the exact one. Still, he remembered it when he walked in: it was typically small (why were Atlantis's living quarters always so small?) but more cluttered than a typical Ancient room, which had endeared its long-ago occupant to Rodney; a like mind, he supposed. There was a bed, a chaise, all the usual dusty bric-a-brac-but there were also bits and pieces of Ancient technology scattered across the desk, like the owner had been tinkering with them. A few broken machines were stacked against one wall, looking forlorn and abandoned.
That was the frustrating thing about the Ancients, Rodney reflected, picking up two bits of twisted metal with a crystal set in the center; you couldn't get a sense of them as people, as human beings with hobbies or interests other than ascension. Surely everyone couldn't have lived on the spiritual plane all the time? Sheppard had told him about his six months in the Sanctuary, all that living without purpose; he'd said it was like being stuck in an airport. Rodney would have gone out of his mind. But this guy, here, seemed to have something going on, some interest in problem solving-and come on, somebody had to have invented all this Ancient technology, right? Somebody with half a brain had to have built all these wonderful machines.
He inspected the wall behind the bed for the slot, and didn't find it; then moved to the wall behind the chaise and found it there. He dragged the chair around, perched on the edge, and leaned forward to press the drive into the slot. It clicked, lit up and-
He was shocked by the burst of color and jerked away from it, falling backwards, and he didn't hit the vinyl back of the chaise like he expected to, but just kept going, falling back and back until he crashed onto the floor. Rodney blinked, hands already scrabbling at the-what? soft, squishy, the floor was-and the room felt, sounded-and then there, looming above him, darkening the sky, was the terrifying spectre of breasts.
*puts head down on desk and ROARS* Do I spoil the joke by unpacking it? Because dear God, the mileage in there. It's-a send-up of the undersexed/sexually clueless geek stereotype, and popular media's simultaneous love/fear of women's bodies and women's sexuality, and an arch wink to fandom's crazy "het is icky!" slashers (what are breasts doing in my slash story, omg make them leave!), and (with some help from the subsequent paragraph) revenge for every last Neanderthal vs. Raquel Welch movie since the invention of leopard print.
Two of them, gigantic, like bowling balls, and Rodney scrabbled up to his knees and saw that-yes, all right, not imagining it. She was topless, and really about eight feet tall: massive, like a Viking or something, wearing a chain mail skirt and a fancy metal necklace and nothing in between but her giant, giant knockers. He looked around wildly for an exit, and saw that the room had, in fact, changed. It was cavernous and dank, and the floor beneath his knees was more like a thin mattress, or a leather wrestling mat. The woman stood over him, smiling. It was like looking up a tree.
Rodney's language, which hasn't exactly been soaring rhetorical heights anywhere in the story (I kinda love that trope-the plain-spoken genius), skids straight back to junior high. Breasts of any sort can have that effect on the best of men. It's in the stuttering qualifiers as well as the vocab: "knockers" and "fancy" and "or something."
When she first spoke, Rodney didn't recognize the language. "Halton," she said, almost purring. She reached out for him, and Rodney saw that she had ridged metal bands around her hands, almost like brass knuckles. "Come here, my darling, and take your punishment," and Rodney instantly skittered backwards, crablike, on hands and knees.
"No, no, no, no, no," Rodney said, panicked. "This must be some kind of-" but before he could even finish the thought, the world shifted around him again. It was brighter and warmer here, almost cozy, the room tinted orange by the fire crackling in a stone fireplace not ten yards away. But there were two bodies tangled on a mattress before the fireplace-four arms, four legs, limbs twisting and writhing-and the air was pierced with the quickly rising screams of someone-well, having an intensely personal experience. It should have been sexy; in fact, it made him cringe with embarrassment. "Sorry," Rodney said quickly, flinging his hands over his eyes and willing himself out of there, "sorry, I-"
He felt the air change again, and this time, when he dropped his hands-
Just like us, eh?-flipping through our t.v. channels on the remote, searching for something, anything, that isn't another blonde chick in a compromising-and yup, there's a nice double meaning for ya-position.
Halton's scenarios comment on our own fantasies, but mostly the fantasies of the TV producers who cast scantily clad blonde after blonde. The story gently mocks Halton's lack of imagination, but, after all, our hero, Rodney, happily consumes (to begin with), and so do we.
The room was bright, airy, circular, white: clearly Ancient in design. Windows on all sides gave out onto some of the most beautiful scenery Rodney'd ever seen: a panorama of multicolored mountains. He turned around and around, taking it all in: the brightly patterned carpets, the white couch and comfortable-looking chairs, the broad dining table. But what was really astounding was-god, this was a room, a real room, full of things: half-empty cups and plates, abandoned electronic devices, a blanket thrown over the back of a chair. Weird, alien shoes on the floor. A manuscript casually tossed on an end table. Rodney felt wildly elated: this explained it, this explained everything! God, how stupid they'd been, not to have thought of it! The Ancients didn't need things, they had virtual things, virtual lives that-
"Darling." Rodney jumped and turned around, and there, behind him, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen: fair, blonde, curvaceous, wearing a clingy white draping thing that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and carrying a plate of what smelled like freshly baked scones. "Do you want something to eat?"
Then he got it.
I'm struck by the simultaneous wonderfulness and tragedy of this explanation. Because, yes, it has always bugged me how chilly and boring the Ancients are, especially in their design aesthetic. As if mental sophistication only manifests in shades of ecru. (Or mint. Do not get me started on the architecture of the gateroom.) But, wow, it strikes me that, later in the story, John and Rodney code themselves all kinds of toys-race cars and ski slopes and woolly socks and beer-but it's all coding, and it's all finished products. It’s a weird relationship to have with an environment. A superficial relationship. They never have to take what exists and work with it; they just write exactly what they imagine they want. So there's no adaptation involved.
"So," Rodney said, mouth full of scone; his second; they were fantastic. "Let me get this straight: this environment is entirely virtual, yes?"
"Yes, Halton," she said, and refilled his cup of tea.
I love the tea and scones. The mingling of the Western world's most potent icons of genteel society with the freaky sex. Two entirely different types of sensual indulgence lurking right under the surface of the Ancient's ascetic façade.
And then Rodney talking to the sex toy about science. Hee hee.
"It's Rodney," Rodney said for the third time.
She smiled indulgently. "Yes, Rodney."
Rodney swallowed. "And all this information is held in the flash drive-the uh, uh, what do you call it?" he asked, fingers tracing the shape. "It's a rectangle, it fits into the wall-"
"I have never seen such a thing, Halton."
"Rodney," Rodney said again, and then it occurred to him: if this Halton guy was an Ancient, she probably hadn't seen him for at least ten thousand years. He tried to make his voice a bit more sympathetic: "When, er...when was the last time you saw Halton?"
The question didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. "He was just here," she replied, and Rodney grabbed another scone and sat back to think that over. Either she'd lost track of time or there was no time here; very possibly the interface reset itself every time it was used. Or else-well, it was possible that Halton had designed himself a mistress with almost no memory, literally or figuratively. Rodney could see where a guy might want such a thing, though he himself found her lack of continuity kind of disturbing. Worst of all, she seemed not to have a name, or not to know her name, anyway: she'd just laughed and gracefully shrugged when Rodney had asked.
"Are there many levels to this thing?" Rodney asked, finally, thinking of the blonde Viking and the Potential Threesome before the fireplace. "I've been to two others so far."
She shook her head and smiled regretfully.
"I bet they're coded to the individual user," Rodney told her. "I'll bet these are Halton's user settings, but if I could get admin privileges, I could wipe them and create my own."
She stared at him across the table, apparently fascinated.
Rodney fidgeted in his chair. "What I really need is an interface," he explained. "I don't suppose you've seen one, or seen Halton use one? A command console, perhaps?"
"I have not seen one," she replied regretfully, sliding out of her chair, and Rodney was distracted by the way her breasts shifted beneath the thin fabric of her dress; he had always been a breast man, and God, her breasts were amazing. She came closer, and he couldn't help but stare at the way her nipples perked visibly through the gauzy cloth, with just a hint of brown-pink aureoles behind. Suddenly, shockingly, he had a lapful of her, warm and silky, her round bottom pressed against his thighs. She turned to him and loosely draped her arms around his neck. The side of her soft breast nudged against his chest. "Will you make love to me?" she asked.
Rodney swallowed a bunch of times; he couldn't seem to get his throat to work. "I, er-" but then she was bending her head down to kiss him, and wow, her mouth was incredibly soft, and she smelled so nice, like flowers or something. Obviously, this was where Halton had chosen to use his yottabytes: there was incredible attention to detail. Helplessly, he wrapped his arms around her, then slid his hands over her. Phenomenal! She really felt like a woman, except she wasn't. She was a couple of steps above a blow-up doll; hell, she didn't even have a name-
The clingy fabric was parting under his hands, and he cupped her warm, silky flesh: she was unwrapping like a present. Groaning, he slid his hands under her bottom and managed to get to his feet, taking her with him, lifting her up. She laughed and tongued his ear, and oh, what the hell: it wasn't wrong, because she wasn't a real woman, right? You couldn't have it both ways; either she was a real woman, and he was being a pig, or she wasn't real, and he was-all right: pathetic-but no harm, no foul, surely?
He laid her twice, taking her on the large sofa, spread out beneath him like a buffet, all soft breasts and delicate white limbs, and then again from behind, because Christ, she had a fantastic ass; he wanted to eat off it. He collapsed finally, sated but not tired, with her arms around him and his face in the soft, sweet crook between her neck and shoulder.
"Can I call you Elena?" Rodney murmured, and kissed beneath her ear.
"Yes," she said.
"Or Sonia," he said, after a moment. "Maybe you're more of a Sonia," he said, and then, closing his eyes: "Or Samantha. Can I call you..?"
RPF OH NOES. :P
"Yes, of course," she said, and he hated himself a little.
He opened his eyes when it was over, and couldn't remember where he was: in the chaise, in the tiny room with all the broken electronics. He looked around, then down at himself, because he could smell the tang of semen and feel the sticky wetness in his shorts even before he opened his bathrobe and saw the stain on his pajama pants. He belted his robe again, leaned forward, and yanked the drive out of the wall, looking at it admiringly before tucking it into his inside left bathrobe pocket; Christ, what a find.
The next day, Rodney did what he always did when he found something fantastically great: he ran to tell Sheppard all about it. Sheppard was in his room, crouched over his tiny desk and typing something on his laptop. "I found something you'll want to see."
Sheppard barely glanced up. "I'm kind of busy right now. Can I find you later?"
"It's a holographic porn room," Rodney clarified, already turning for the door.
He heard the click as Sheppard slammed the laptop shut. "All right, I'm coming, I'm coming!" though he had to jog to catch up.
Rodney explained the whole thing to him in hushed, excited tones as they made for the transporter, dropping his voice even further whenever anybody was in earshot.
"Huh," Sheppard said, and "Wow," and "Whoa," and "You know, what you really need is to find a command line to overwrite-"
"Yes, yes. Thank you for that incredibly obvious suggestion," Rodney said, and stopped in front of the correct door. He fumbled in his jacket, pulled out the rectangular drive, and handed it to Sheppard, who frowned at it and flipped it over in his hands.
"This is it?" Sheppard asked.
"That's it," Rodney replied, and then he reiterated the directions. "Vertical slot, wall behind the chair. You can't miss it. Push it in until it clicks and, er. There you go. I'll wait out here, then, shall I?" he added, because this was suddenly incredibly awkward.
Sheppard turned defensive. "I'm just checking it out, McKay. It could be dangerous, or-"
"Yes, yes, yes; of course," Rodney said, making a frantic shooing gesture. He turned sharply, crossing his arms and showing Sheppard his back. "Go on. Check it out."
Sheppard came out fifteen minutes later, looking a little flushed and with his shirttails strategically pulled out over his pants. "Okay, that was a trip," he said with a wry smile, and Rodney burst out laughing and grabbed his arm and said, "Oh my God, tell me; tell me everything."
Sheppard just shrugged. "Nothing to tell," he said, but he couldn't keep a straight face, and Rodney cried, "You double-crossing, cretinous bastard! I told you!"
"I can't help it if you have no discretion," Sheppard said virtuously, but then he was smirking and raising his hands, trying to fend off Rodney's half-serious punches. "All right, all right," he said. "I found your interface, anyway," and Rodney stopped to listen. "It's holographic," Sheppard explained. "Comes right out of the air, like in the puddlejumpers; I left it up for you." Rodney arched an eyebrow and waved his hands wildly; come on, give! For a moment, he didn't think Sheppard would, and then Sheppard grinned and said, "This Halton guy programmed, like, thirty scenarios-"
"Thirty?" Rodney gaped.
"Yeah. It's pretty wild," Sheppard said, thoughtfully scratching the back of his ridiculous mop of black hair, "but pretty boring at the same time. No imagination. They're all-" and he paused for a moment, before finishing, with an amused tilt of the head, "-blondes."
Rodney blinked. "What, all of them?"
"Yep. Must be your lucky day, McKay: you and our pal Halton share a type. Speaking of which," Sheppard said, licking his lip with slow deliberation, and Rodney cringed, because he could totally hear it coming; Sheppard had gotten that tormenting, older-brother, sing-song tone to his voice, "I met your new girlfriend," and God, he could die from embarrassment. "Sa-man-tha." Or suicide, perhaps.
Rodney took a breath and tried to muster up some persuasive outrage. "She is not my girlfriend; she's not even a girl! She's a collection of data bytes and-"
Sheppard wasn't buying. "Yeah, yeah," he said, but he patted Rodney's shoulder with affection before handing him the flash drive. "Just have the car home by eleven, okay?"
"What, that's it?" Rodney stared down at the rectangle, then looked up at Sheppard, bemused. "You're done? I thought you'd..."
"Hey, I went!" Sheppard tensed. "It was good, it was great, just-you know, it's your thing." He leaned toward Rodney, his head tipped a little. "Go on," he said, and his voice was low and conspiratorial. "Enjoy it." He clapped Rodney's shoulder and loped off, down the corridor. Rodney hesitated for only a moment before deciding that Sheppard's blessing was genuine, and then he went inside and connected the drive.
The small room disappeared and left him facing a huge, holographic interface; damn the man and his intuitive grasp of Ancient technology. Sheppard was right: the screen did look remarkably like the ones in the puddlejumpers, and it was similarly jam-packed with information. Rodney took all the pre-sets in at a glance-scenarios, schematics, settings, user profiles-and then took a deep breath and began to hack on the underlying code.
It took him a while to figure out, but then he felt the tingle at the back of his neck he always got when he'd successfully sussed out alien math. He gave himself root access, vindictively deleted Halton's userid, and began sifting through the files. His first big programming insight was that the system was working with limited memory; by creating thirty-one realities, Halton had chosen to sacrifice quality for variety. Rodney considered this, then deleted the blonde Viking with the gigantic breasts and added the freed-up memory to the scenario Samantha (his girlfriend, Sheppard teased in his memory) inhabited. Maybe now she'd be able to remember his name; or hey, even her own.
When he was ready to close the terminal, the interface surprised him by asking him if he wanted to clear his cache, compact the history files, etc. He was about to say yes, being a fellow who believed in regular maintenance, except that he couldn't help but be curious about what a holographic porn machine might keep in its cache. He followed the path and found a last-action logfile. He saved it out, played it back and-
The world shifted and Rodney stumbled, trying to keep his footing on the weird leather mats-oh, Christ, this was the lair of the Viking again. He peered through the dim light, searching for her. Oh, she was there, all right; he could hear her chain mail miniskirt clanking, and felt meanly glad he'd deleted her. Then he heard a soft, gusty laugh, and picked out a familiar shape in the dark: tall, lanky, angular. Incredibly stupid hair. He'd stumbled into Sheppard's session in the cache, and a decent person of high moral standards would log out immediately. He himself was not that person.
"Oh, hell, no," Sheppard said under his breath, just as the Viking sing-songed, "Hal-ton! Come and take your punishments, darling!" Sheppard let out a soft, surprised-sounding, "yeesh!" and then turned to pull a holographic interface from thin air.
It was the same screen Rodney had just been using, but he couldn't help but be entranced by Sheppard's graceful, intuitive use of the technology. Rodney went over to stand next to him and watched him move through the screens with complete unselfconsciousness and almost freakish ease. He wondered if Sheppard restrained himself when other people were around. Rodney could see why he would; he was getting chills, watching this.
Sexy.
The world blurred around them as Sheppard began moving through scenarios, barely stopping to glance around at one before sliding on to the next. Rodney felt a little seasick, grabbed for Sheppard's arm, and passed right through him. He flailed, righted himself, and turned just in time to see a scantily dressed blonde holding up a glowing Ancient device, and then another barely-dressed blonde stretched out on a chaise-and taken like this, Rodney could see what Sheppard meant by "lack of imagination," because they were all blondes. Tall blondes, short blondes, sitting down, tied up, posed seductively in all sorts of costumes: mostly in various states of undress.
Sheppard stopped in a candle-lit room, where a topless woman was sitting at some kind of vanity, brushing her long, ash-blonde hair. She had a beautiful back, and Sheppard stood there for a long time and watched her while Rodney fidgeted invisibly beside him and wondered if she was the one: Sheppard's one. Then the woman put down her brush and turned in her chair. Her breasts were like milk. "Will you come in?" she asked, and Sheppard flushed and said, "Sorry, no. No, ma'am," and yanked them out of there.
Still, he must have gotten hot and bothered, because four scenarios later Sheppard stopped again, dropped to his knees in a pile of pillows, and lazily slid a hand into his pants. Rodney recoiled when he saw the scenario-these girls were young, young, young, eighteen or twenty at most, slim-hipped and coltish and entirely unlike his round-bottomed Samantha. Still, though, he could-er, sort of see the attraction: they were long-limbed and silky and extremely lithe, and not naked, which should have been a disadvantage but wasn't. Instead, they were wearing scrappy, stretchy bits of material over their perky bottoms and barely-there breasts, and yes, okay, that was a pretty picture, wasn't it? The way they were, um, kissing like that, and the way the tips of their fingers disappeared beneath the bra-things, slipped down into the panty-things-
Rodney looked away and inhaled sharply, trying to control himself; God, that was close. He glanced over at Sheppard, who he figured would be beating away like mad. But Sheppard was just kneeling there, hand still in his pants but not moving, though he was taking very deep, very deliberate breaths, chest rising and falling. Still, it was hard not to be impressed by Sheppard's patience-or maybe confused was more like it. Sheppard stroked himself almost casually and watched them make out, watched as things heated up, as they toppled together in a writhing, mewling heap like obscene kittens, mouthing each other's nipples and sliding down each other's bodies to lick between each other's legs, their slim thighs falling open. Sheppard just watched, his head slowly lolling to one side like he couldn't be bothered to hold it up, and Rodney couldn't understand how he wasn't- Didn't Sheppard understand these scenarios were interactive? Rodney himself was violently sucking for air; he hadn't planned to jerk off, but he hadn't been expecting picture-perfect pornographic lesbians, either.
Every once in a while I bumble across an article about pornography that complains about porn actresses faking lesbianism for the titillation of male viewers. I've seen bits and pieces of the stuff in question, and yeah, it's pretty silly-there they are licking away, but staring straight at the camera (kinking their necks, totally undermining the cunnilingus!), so the viewer won't feel excluded from the proceedings. So of course this scene, this actually interactive scene, has to have fake lesbians. The meta! It is so snarky it hurts!
(And of course John picks a scenario where he thinks he might get away with not being the centre of attention. He has to do something in there to fortify his het cred. But.)
In the end, it was the lesbians who made the first move, taking coy notice of Sheppard and slowly crawling toward him. Rodney half expected Sheppard to run for it, but Sheppard stayed put, watching them curiously as they came close. They touched his arm, his chest, four hands gliding over his shoulders, and then they were taking him down, pushing him back among the pillows. He let them do it, going along with a strange, almost indulgent passivity, and then one of them was kissing his face, and the other undoing his pants, and-
"Stop!" Rodney gasped, waving his arms wildly. "Stop stop stop stop-" but that was almost worse, because they just went still, the three of them, like hitting pause, and now Rodney could see everything: the one girl's pink lips touching Sheppard's mouth, the other girl's mouth hovering just over, Christ, the softly rounded tip of Sheppard's cock. Rodney stared helplessly, unable to think what to do or say next, because it was one thing to watch porn with a friend and jerk off, and another thing entirely when said friend was the porn. Childishly, Rodney put his hands over his eyes, and actually, that seemed to clear his brain a little. "Abort!" he yelled. "Abort, abort-"
Sheppard and the lesbians vanished and the interface appeared. Rodney nearly fell over in relief. He was actually sweating. He logged out and snatched the drive out of the wall. He'd spent more than enough time screwing around with this incredibly useless Ancient technology. He'd wasted Sheppard's time as well as his own, and it wasn't as if they didn't have enough real work to do. In fact, it wasn't overstating the case to say that the mission depended on him, and Sheppard was important too. So really, he shouldn't be spending his few, highly-precious moments of free time on the high-tech equivalent of a blow-up doll, and this line of reasoning kept him occupied until he made it back to his room, whereupon he unzipped, fell onto the bed, and masturbated so hard he saw stars.
His self-deception crumbled in stages. He wasn't going to use the drive any more, except he was, but only to visit Samantha, because stress relief was important, and it wasn't like he was getting laid regularly in his own reality, right? Still, he was absolutely going to trash that logfile, because it was an outrageous invasion of his friend's privacy, except of course that he'd never watched the entire thing through, and with Sheppard's intuitive use of technology-well, that file could contain crucial information. Of course, Rodney could easily skip over the part with the lesbians, except he didn't, good porn being hard to come by in Atlantis, and besides, what Sheppard didn't know couldn't hurt him. It's not like he was interested in Sheppard anyway. Except for how he was.
In the end, he had to admit to himself that he liked to jerk off while watching John Sheppard be manhandled by lesbians, but, put that way, it sounded all right. Because honestly, who wouldn't want that? Rodney could imagine an entire cable television empire founded on a solid gold premise like that.
Besides, it wasn't as if it affected his relationship with the actual John Sheppard: it was like they weren't the same person. The John Sheppard who starred in his own personal cable pornography had nothing to do with the guy he hung out with and saved galaxies with. The real Sheppard got way too competitive when they played video games, and passive-aggressive when they played chess, and had the absolute worst taste in movies. Plus he was really annoyingly anal about loaning out his comic books, even though Rodney had apologized, sincerely, a thousand times, for that coffee stain he had gotten on Amazing Adventures #43. Sheppard was his best friend and kind of an asshole, and he had nothing to do with the guy in the holographic threesome.
Of course, he saw Samantha too; in fact, Rodney deleted another of the vapid blondes in order to devote more memory to her scenario, giving her a couple changes of outfit and programming an add-on hot tub module. So it wasn't like he spent all his time ogling Sheppard and the lesbians. Samantha's scenario had its charms too: the scones, for one, and it turned out that, having being Ancient-built herself, Samantha knew all sorts of things about Ancient technology. She wasn't a scientist, but in a way she was better, because she knew the basic things that every schoolchild knew, which were the kinds of incredibly useful things people hardly ever bothered to write down for grownups.
In fact, it was Samantha who explained to him, in a soft, amused voice, that yes, silly, of course you could build holographic people from scratch: there were great artists who did that, and you could see their works in museums. But unless you were an artist, why would you bother? It was so much easier, (and Rodney could almost hear the fondness with which she made clear the extremely obvious) to build one off the wireframe of a living person by extrapolating from their biometric readouts. And that's when it first occurred to him that, if there was some version of Sheppard still cached in the database, the information could maybe be used to construct-
Okay, here we are. Cop to it. From here on out, it's a great, long, zany slide into the subtext; reader's choice whether you're gonna laugh or squirm.
Abbrev. Portrait of Rodney in Canon: (a) computer geek, (b) not your average Hollywood body, (c) cat lover ;P, (d) lusts after distant object (Sam), (e) supersmart.
Abbrev. Itinerary of Rodney in OK Computer: (a) looks at Halton's offerings (blonde, skinny, barely legal...), (b) lusts for a while, (c) abandons in favour of own earthier, queerer, more complex fantasy, (d) takes pre-existing image/body (Sheppard) and expands, extrapolates, cossets and adores.
Rodney is Lawrence Lessig's classic read-write consumer. Rodney is us.
Francesca Coppa, in her essay in Fan Fiction and Fan Communities, applies performance theory to fanfic in ways that are entertainingly relevant to OK Computer. She talks about fans observing actors' physical bodies on t.v.-i.e., in performance theory terms, "the movement of bodies in space"-then translating them into written/virtual spaces on our computers. She's making an argument that fan fiction, with its bazillion iterations of the same characters, operates in the same tradition as theatre, which offers a bazillion performances of the same text. Awesome essay in an awesome anthology; I'll come back to some of her specific points later. For now, though, I just going to hop up and down a bit and squeak, "Lookie! Rodney! Us! Turning bodies into words=pixels=data and making them sashay all over cyberspace!" Hee hee hee! and also oh dear. So hold that thought.
"-Wait just one goddamned motherfucking second!"
The other advantage of jumping back and forth between two positions in time (besides starting with maximum bang) is that Speranza gets to use John in almost a meta role, as a commenter on the story, just like us fans yelling at our TV screens.
and okay, he and Sheppard had had their various run-ins over the years, what with solar systems exploding and nanovites invading, the incredible pressure and so forth, but this was the first time Rodney thought Sheppard might actually clock him. "You did what?" and Rodney instinctively moved backwards, hands raised, heart pounding; Christ, this was everything he ever feared might happen. He'd never seen Sheppard so furious; his face was like thunder. "Tell me you didn't," Sheppard said in a truly murderous tone of voice.
Relief came from an unexpected quarter; McKay 2.0 stepped in front of him, which was pretty brave of him, considering the look on Sheppard's face. "He didn't do it, he never did any of it," McKay said, as Rodney cowered behind him. "I did it," and McKay looked defiant, but his voice was quavering a little. "Your beef's with me."
That took the wind out of Sheppard's sails, which was somehow worse. Anger ebbed from Sheppard's face, and his shoulders slumped, leaving him looking lost, confused, and more than a little bit hurt. "I don't know how you do that," Sheppard said quietly, but he was addressing himself to McKay, now. "I'm a person, not a pinup. I thought we were-"
"-friends, yes," McKay said in a low, anguished voice, and then he was cupping the back of Sheppard's head and pulling him down into an Athosian embrace. Rodney stared at himself in shock, and why on earth was Sheppard permitting this? "We were friends," McKay murmured, and Rodney all of a sudden realized that his alter ego, his future self, was more than just frazzled: he was maybe a little nuts. "And it was wrong, I know it was, but you have to understand-God, Sheppard, you've just got to understand-"
I like that McKay is actually nuts, no bones about it and no 42-minute reset.
"Who is it today?" Rodney said, distracted, as he came in trying to finish his donut and buckle on his thigh holster at the same time. "What? What do I need this- " Ronon was handing him an ammunition belt, a giant heavy one loaded up with grenades, and was that C4 -?
"Load up, Rodney," Sheppard drawled. "We're dressing to impress."
"Impress who, Genghis Khan?" Rodney said.
"Close enough," Ronon said.
I like that Ronon has either absorbed enough of the crazy Earthlings' cultural references to get that, or is tuned into their rhythms so well by now that he responds to the context without missing a beat. Both readings work really well for me. Adaptable!Ronon = hot.
Rodney felt a lot less stupid once they stepped through the gate; the clansmen were similarly bedecked with weapons: knives dangling from their belts, spears crossing their backs, guns on both hips. They must have made one heck of a parade as they were led to the throne room: the clansmen, the team, the marines. Rodney was expecting somebody extremely fearsome-the fellows who'd met them at the gate were fierce enough, nearly seven feet tall, most of them-but their chieftain was a normal-enough specimen of manhood, though he was wearing an elaborately filigreed suit of armor and carrying a very long, jewel-encrusted sword. Rodney shot a quick, meaningful glance in Sheppard's direction before looking away swiftly and biting his lip. Sheppard's eyeroll told him they were on the same page: this was overcompensation city, baby.
Ronon stepped forward, unbuckled the extra gunbelt he'd put on for precisely this purpose, and meaningfully dropped it on the platform upon which the chieftain's throne sat. "We come to you without fear," Ronon said gravely. "You will find us brave allies."
"Yes, yes," the chieftain said with the bored air of one who's heard it all before. "What do you want?"
Ronon shot a sideways look at Sheppard, who replied with the merest shrug. Rodney had no trouble translating: Hey, go for it. You're doing great. Ronon nodded back almost imperceptibly and said, bowing his head, "We have heard you are warriors. We have heard you have a weapon that is effective against the Wraith."
Their chieftain nodded, as if this was no more than he had expected. "Are you the leader of these fearsome people?" he inquired, taking them all in with a wave of his hand.
Beside him, Sheppard shifted and murmured under his breath, "Showtime." "No," Sheppard said, and stepped forward, one hand resting protectively on his P-90. "I am. I'm-"
And then he was dead.
Rodney heard the blast before his mind could process the image: the chieftain pulling his gun and firing in a single, fluid movement. The blast momentarily obliterated Sheppard from his view, and then the air was full of smoke and weapons fire. Rodney grabbed for Sheppard to keep him from falling, but Christ, he was dead weight and they were both going down, Rodney's hand cupping the back of Sheppard's head to stop him from braining himself on the throne room floor. It was only when they were sprawled together, shots still flying above them, that Rodney saw the blood on the side of Sheppard's head, the mangled remains of his ear. Sheppard's eyes were open, though, and Rodney felt the impulse to kiss him, he was so relieved. He nearly pressed his mouth to Sheppard's, then came back to himself and jerked away: what the hell did he think he was doing? And then he realized it didn't matter. Sheppard wasn't there anymore. There was no light.
Time stopped until something startled him, clattered beside him; a gun; Teyla's gun. And then he had his first, gutwrenching panic attack, because Teyla had dropped her gun. Rodney stared up at her, his insides spasming and his mind blank. Her face was wet and contorted, her mouth all twisted up. He didn't know she could look like that. She fell on her knees beside him, her chest heaving so erratically that Rodney was afraid for her, was afraid she was maybe having a heart attack or something. "John," she gasped, her voice terrifyingly high-pitched, hands reaching for him. Rodney followed her hands with his eyes and saw them frantically tugging on Sheppard's tac vest, and why had he never noticed how thin Sheppard's chest was, how narrow his shoulders were?
Rodney looked up and saw that three marines were dead, but so was half of the clan and- Christ, Ronon had really done a number on their chieftain. The marines held their guns on lines of men lying face down on the floor, and Rodney, who was still crouching, numbly holding Teyla in his arms, looked up to see Ronon pacing the room, frantic with grief. His face was streaked with sweat and blood: none of the blood was his. Ronon would drift closer, get a glimpse of Sheppard, and then veer away violently, visibly fighting for control of himself. Rodney's eyes kept drifting back to Sheppard's boots, half unlaced as always.
Quirky little human details.
Part 2
Author: cesperanza
Fandom: SGA
Commentator: stultiloquentia
Excerpt: "Don't shoot!" Rodney yelled, leaping up, onto his knees, and waving his hands, afraid that Sheppard was going to blow his alter-ego to blazes. "He's me! I think!"
PLEASE ADVISE: This commentary contains some references to acafen from Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, Transformative Works and Cultures and other sources. If you're aware of their fannish pseudonyms, please be extra careful when you comment. Don't out anybody! Thanks, y'all. :o)
OK Computer
by Speranza
So, all right:
Aaaand three words in and I'm already cackling with glee. "So." Hwaet! The universal, storyteller's word for, "Hi, kids, take a seat. Listen up. Here we go." Except this is Rodney McVerbiage McKay so you can forget about a solemn, punctuated pause while everybody gets settled; we're hurtling onward, fasten your participles, please keep your hands and arms inside the paragraph. "So, all right:" it's endearing and telling that the very first sentence is capitulation, embarrassed admission -- introducing a trend that's going to last another hundred pages. So, Rodney-style, which means we're not going to stop to breathe for another half a dozen clauses at least. Rodney works on a larger scale than the rest of us: for him, long sentences are short sentences and short sentences are punctuation.
maybe he had Sheppard to thank for getting him to the firing range, for nagging him to practice pulling his gun and shooting at the stupid paper targets, because it meant that when the evil alien thing burst into his room from out of another dimension, Rodney McKay was able to grab his gun and fling himself over the bed and begin firing with something like grace under pressure, though he really wasn't sure whether the screaming he heard was his or the alien thing's.
It turned out to be the alien's.
QED. The very rhythm of Speranza's sentences is a comedic tool: babble babble babble jerk-to-a-halt, reverse, screech-of-tires, whoop whoop whoop! It's kinetic, agile, the prose equivalent of professional slapstick.
"Stop! Stop! You idiot, stop, it's me!" the alien screamed in a weird, too-high voice. "Jesus Christ, today you choose to be macho?"
Rodney, heart pounding as he reloaded, ventured a quick, nervous look up over his unmade bed and saw that the alien was wearing his face. Oh my God, a shapeshifter-! he thought hysterically, raising his gun, just as the alien yelled, "I'm not a shapeshifter!" and oh my God, oh my God, a mind-reading shapeshifter! "-or a mind-reading-oh, for God's sake," the soul-sucking alien said, now sounding distinctly irritated. "I'm you, all right? Just quit firing! Look, I know about the lesbians."
Technically speaking, this is the perfect beginning, according to the genre (of fanfic)'s "go-straight-to-the-good-parts" conventions. No Thomas Hardy exposition in sight. We're flung into the action right along with poor, sleeping Rodney. Way to establish him as our POV character. Speranza cements the connection between him and us by forcing us all to scramble to orient ourselves at the same time. Then she gives us not one, but two separate What The Fucks to chew on in three paragraphs: "WTF is alt!Rodney doing here?" and "WTF lesbians?"
Rodney froze in his crouch, thinking frantically; that couldn't possibly mean-
"Yes, those lesbians," the alien snapped. "I know about the program, and the box, and what you did to Sheppard," and Rodney felt something creep across his shoulders. The alien sounded suddenly weary, and maybe a little bit sad. "I know all your dirtiest, ugliest secrets, McKay. Some you don't even know yet."
Rodney stayed low, shoulders hunched. "You're really me?"
"Yes. Come on, come on, you're a smart guy; can't you work through this faster?"
Rodney stole another glance over the bed. That wasn't him; couldn't be. "From another dimension," he asked warily, "or-"
"No, not from another dimension; not yet," the other him said. "That thrill's still ahead of you-" and of course that was when Sheppard skidded in, guns blazing.
"Don't shoot!" Rodney yelled, leaping up, onto his knees, and waving his hands, afraid that Sheppard was going to blow his alter-ego to blazes. "He's me! I think!"
The other McKay had turned to the door and gone still, both hands raised. Finally, Rodney was able to get a good look at him: it was him, all right, but he looked like-shit. He was years older, if the slight paunch and graying hair were any indication, and he was standing there in his bathrobe-his same bathrobe, which was even more stained and tattered than it was now, which Rodney hadn't thought possible. This McKay had a slump to his shoulders, and a scraggly gray-brown beard. He looked like he'd been through the wars. Probably he had, Rodney realized, and was suddenly afraid.
Sheppard was looking warily between McKay 2.0 and Rodney himself, and for once, Rodney wasn't coming off worse in the comparison. Sheppard slowly lowered, then holstered, his gun, and you really had to hand it to the guy: he always kept it together when bizarre things were happening.
"O-kay," Sheppard said cautiously, still looking from one to the other of them. "Maybe one of you should tell me what-" and before Rodney could complain that, uh, hello, maybe Sheppard could take a moment to discriminate between his close friend, Dr. Rodney McKay, and this clearly inferior interloper from another dimension, McKay 2.0 was moving toward Sheppard, his hands stretching out.
"Sheppard," McKay 2.0 said in a low voice, his hands fluttering down to land on Sheppard's sleeves. He leaned in, eyes closed, and gently moved his face back and forth near Sheppard's ear-jeez louise, was he smelling him? [I love the way that gains resonance later.] Rodney waited for Sheppard to pull some fancy martial arts move, maybe put him in a headlock or something. But Sheppard just stared blankly, even when McKay 2.0 abruptly cupped Sheppard's neck and kissed him on the mouth-and where the hell was John Sheppard, insane killing machine, now, huh, huh? Because this, this was just-and Rodney's brain fumbled wildly for the word-outrageous!
Neat little bit of characterization lurking in the "fancy martial arts killing machine" descriptors: it's typically, Rodneyishly hyperbolic, but I also think it's telling that it's Sheppard he's describing with the action hero language. Which means he's not thinking too hard about Sheppard-the-actual-human-being who might be hidden under the suit. In the next few paragraphs, he's repeatedly surprised by Sheppard's reactions. He doesn't know him very well, because he's a self-involved guy who's never learnt to look at another person and really, truly see. Enter the story's character growth arc.
Rodney gaped as McKay 2.0 finally broke off the kiss and pulled back. McKay's eyes were closed, but Sheppard's were wide open, and while he hadn't broken either of McKay's arms or pulled his gun or anything, he looked totally freaked out.
Rodney waited for Sheppard to take command, to yell, "What the hell?" and maybe shake some answers out of his older, pudgier, and yet more brazenly lustful, counterpart, but Sheppard just swallowed a couple of times and fidgeted where he stood. "When-" Sheppard began, in a tense, unfamiliar voice, "-when does it, how long do I-?"
McKay's eyes opened instantly, his hands clamping down on Sheppard's shoulders. "There's time," he said. "Plenty of it. I promise you-" and Rodney realized with a start that Colonel Mensa had worked it out faster than he had. "We can fix it, I'm sure we can," McKay was saying in a rushed, reassuring voice. "I'll run through it with you, the whole scenario, so you'll be ready. Tiny details, a couple of variables-" and Sheppard was holding McKay's eyes and nodding intently. "Just, we have to be careful not to change things too much," McKay added, "because believe it or not-" and McKay let out a queer, high-pitched laugh that Rodney recognized; it was his own, when he was near to hysterical, "-a lot of good came out of that situation."
Is it just me, or are those tiny, insignificant scraps of description in the last couple paragraphs-John's attention, the evidence of his brain burning through a problem-really hot?
I love the contrast between Rodney, whose every flail we're party to, and John, who's enigmatic. A code to be cracked (heh).
"Really?" Sheppard actually sounded relieved. "So otherwise things are-okay?"
McKay jerked a nod and looked away; this seemed like a painful subject. "Yes. Things are-they're fine, or near enough; nothing I can tell you about without changing it. Things are great. Everyone's great. Except you, of course," he said, and barked out another queer laugh, hands darting up to scratch nervously at his beard. "And me. We're not doing so well, you and me."
"So will this overwrite it?" Rodney asked. Both Sheppard and McKay jerked to look at him, like they'd forgotten he was there, which-yes, very flattering. He folded his arms and smiled thinly at them, annoyed at having been made a third wheel in his own goddamned life. "The future," he added pointedly. "Will this overwrite your-"
"No, actually," McKay 2.0 said; he seemed vaguely distracted by the question. "It doesn't work that way; turns out it's more of a-" McKay stopped, one hand going to his furrowed forehead while his other hand snapped out a rapidfire beat, "-a-a-a thing that branches off from another thing. What do you call it?" McKay demanded, wheeling on a startled-looking Sheppard. "Come on, you know what it's called. You told me-"
To Rodney's relief, Sheppard just stood there, blinking. Rodney was getting really sick of this shit where McKay 2.0 thought he was Sheppard's fucking best friend or-
"You mean, a tangent vector?" Sheppard said, and McKay went, "Ha, yes," and touched his nose. "That's it. Yes, exactly: I'm trying to provoke a tangent vector to a world line, or, in other words, to create an offshoot reality that leaves my reality-a stump, or whatever it's called."
Sheppard frowned. "A node. I think," and oh, how Rodney hated the both of them. "I mean," he added, "this is graph theory; I haven't thought about this in years. In fact, I was never really particularly good at-"
*nerdjoy* This might be a little silly, but I get a kick out of the tossing around of hard science terms like "graph theory" in my fanfic. I like science, I like world-building detail, but also-because it's a bit stereotype-defying, I guess. Fandom being so female- and emotion-driven, it's fun to, I dunno, thumb my nose at an imaginary news columnist and say, "Yes, female science fiction fans; did you think we were all just here for the pretty, and that none of us has ever picked up a Technology Review?"
"Oh, please," McKay 2.0 snorted. "I did the conceptual work, but you worked out most of the equations." He shook his head wearily. "Time travel does my head in."
"But why bother provoking a tangent vector?" Rodney asked. "I mean, the Everett interpretation of quantum theory dictates that every version of reality-"
McKay wheeled on him. "Yes, yes, of course every version of reality exists somewhere," he said, now obviously impatient, "but that doesn't mean we just kill ourselves, go running into bullets because, hey, I bet in some alternate universe we got this right. I mean," McKay said, turning back to Sheppard, "I'm sure there are versions of reality where you never even came to Atlantis, where you're a math professor or a dog walker or a farmer. But you're the Sheppard I know," McKay said, and then, to Rodney, "and you're the guy I was, and-well." His smile was quick and unhappy. "I've got nothing but time on my hands now."
Alternate realities: you privilege the one you're in now, but don't allow that one is ultimately "true" or superior. Yep, we're pretty good at that. :)
I like the in-joke peeking out; it's like a sort of community bonding experience. Mafalda Stasi, in one of the essays in Fan Fiction and Fan Communities, compares fanfic to medieval allegory or poetry, in that the expected readership is presumed to have a certain knowledge base, be familiar with a certain set of other texts, allowing writers to develop a shorthand (the roses in Roman de la rose, for instance) made up of symbols and references and running jokes.
This detail, plus the invocation in paragraph one of Rodney's improved combat reflexes, explained by John's lessons-it's a subtle little marriage of canon and fanon: we can see on screen that Rodney's not who he's been; he goes storming around with a P-90 slung across his chest and he knows where to point it. But fandom takes over the explanations, imagines scenes on the firing range, hands on wrist and shoulder and hip, manipulating, teaching, making sure the geek can take care of himself. We extrapolate the same way Rodney later extrapolates details about John for his VR.
Sheppard interrupted with a small cough. "Sorry, but you said...I did the equations?" and Colonel Mensa obviously had his thinking cap on. "How is that-I mean, was this something we were working on together before I...before?"
McKay swallowed, his face flashing with guilt. "No." His hand slid into his dressing gown, into what Rodney knew was a deep, inside pocket on the left side. "We only started working on it after you were dead," he added quietly, pulling out a smooth, flat rectangle just a bit larger and thinner than a life signs detector, and then, just as Rodney was trying to decide whether to run to the toilet or just try keeping it down, McKay turned to him and said, "Do you want to tell him, or should I?"
It was just another random piece of Ancient technology, found in someone's long-abandoned living quarters, and it was fascinatingly boring: it didn't light up or have any moving parts or do anything, really. Rodney studied it for a while, turning it around and around in his hands, and then put it aside, briefly closing his eyes to make a mental record of the thing. It was a puzzle piece, and some day he'd find a matching edge. [I love that description of Rodney's thought process.]
Speranza jumps back in time. This is amusing from a meta perspective, since she's basically positioned Rodney as a stand-in for Fanfic Authors Everywhere (more on that later), and Rodney also spends most of his story manipulating time and space.
Moreover, it's just a really crisp example of smart structuring. She starts the story, as I said up top, in the most attention-grabbing, off-the-deep-end place possible. Fanfic readers can have the attention spans of gnats; you must net them instantly and ruthlessly. Then you go back to the chronological beginning to line up all your ducks. (or penguins, or whatever you use in your fandom.) It's a tricky balance, though: I've read plenty of stories that start promisingly, only to devolve into absolute bores while the author catches us up on twenty years of backstory.
The matching edge came a year or so later, in yet another abandoned residential room, and it was Zelenka who found it. "Rodney, come and see this," Zelenka said. Rodney went over and saw, on the wall behind the bed, a blast pattern of brown-green mineral deposits that he'd come to associate with fried Ancient circuitry. At the center of the damage, something had been vertically inserted into the wall. Zelenka was frowning and tugging at it with a pair of pliers, and when it came out of its slot, Rodney saw that it was rectangular, twice as long as it was high. Whatever it was, he had one just like it.
"Well," Zelenka said, turning it this way and that. It was discolored and a little warped. "No telling what this was. We could perhaps look for it in the Ancient database-"
"No, don't bother," Rodney said, and when Zelenka looked up at him, he explained, "I found one of these about a year ago. It's a rectangle. You can't search for 'rectangle' in the Ancient database. Until we know what it does, we can't-hm, I don't suppose that mechanism still works?" he asked, bending to peer into the slot.
"I doubt it," Zelenka said, crouching beside him. "We could try," and so Rodney went and found the thing. They pushed it into the burned-out slot. Nothing happened.
"Wait, wait, we're idiots," Rodney said, and so they went down to Rodney's room and looked around for a similar slot. They found it on the wall behind the desk, and Rodney couldn't believe that they'd just assumed all those bizarre curlicues were decorative. Rodney pushed the rectangle in until it clicked, and this time, it lit up like a flash drive.
He stared at it. Beside him, Zelenka stared at it.
"Perhaps it is nightlight," Zelenka said finally. [*loves on Zelenka*]
"Oh, shut up," Rodney said, and threw him out.
The idea, when it came, woke him up with its absolute, staggering rightness. Rodney fumbled his way into his bathrobe, yanked the rectangle out of the slot, and headed back down to where he'd found it, thinking about flash drives and how to decrypt them. He remembered vaguely where the room was-what area of the city, what hallway-but it took him two or three tries to find the exact one. Still, he remembered it when he walked in: it was typically small (why were Atlantis's living quarters always so small?) but more cluttered than a typical Ancient room, which had endeared its long-ago occupant to Rodney; a like mind, he supposed. There was a bed, a chaise, all the usual dusty bric-a-brac-but there were also bits and pieces of Ancient technology scattered across the desk, like the owner had been tinkering with them. A few broken machines were stacked against one wall, looking forlorn and abandoned.
That was the frustrating thing about the Ancients, Rodney reflected, picking up two bits of twisted metal with a crystal set in the center; you couldn't get a sense of them as people, as human beings with hobbies or interests other than ascension. Surely everyone couldn't have lived on the spiritual plane all the time? Sheppard had told him about his six months in the Sanctuary, all that living without purpose; he'd said it was like being stuck in an airport. Rodney would have gone out of his mind. But this guy, here, seemed to have something going on, some interest in problem solving-and come on, somebody had to have invented all this Ancient technology, right? Somebody with half a brain had to have built all these wonderful machines.
He inspected the wall behind the bed for the slot, and didn't find it; then moved to the wall behind the chaise and found it there. He dragged the chair around, perched on the edge, and leaned forward to press the drive into the slot. It clicked, lit up and-
He was shocked by the burst of color and jerked away from it, falling backwards, and he didn't hit the vinyl back of the chaise like he expected to, but just kept going, falling back and back until he crashed onto the floor. Rodney blinked, hands already scrabbling at the-what? soft, squishy, the floor was-and the room felt, sounded-and then there, looming above him, darkening the sky, was the terrifying spectre of breasts.
*puts head down on desk and ROARS* Do I spoil the joke by unpacking it? Because dear God, the mileage in there. It's-a send-up of the undersexed/sexually clueless geek stereotype, and popular media's simultaneous love/fear of women's bodies and women's sexuality, and an arch wink to fandom's crazy "het is icky!" slashers (what are breasts doing in my slash story, omg make them leave!), and (with some help from the subsequent paragraph) revenge for every last Neanderthal vs. Raquel Welch movie since the invention of leopard print.
Two of them, gigantic, like bowling balls, and Rodney scrabbled up to his knees and saw that-yes, all right, not imagining it. She was topless, and really about eight feet tall: massive, like a Viking or something, wearing a chain mail skirt and a fancy metal necklace and nothing in between but her giant, giant knockers. He looked around wildly for an exit, and saw that the room had, in fact, changed. It was cavernous and dank, and the floor beneath his knees was more like a thin mattress, or a leather wrestling mat. The woman stood over him, smiling. It was like looking up a tree.
Rodney's language, which hasn't exactly been soaring rhetorical heights anywhere in the story (I kinda love that trope-the plain-spoken genius), skids straight back to junior high. Breasts of any sort can have that effect on the best of men. It's in the stuttering qualifiers as well as the vocab: "knockers" and "fancy" and "or something."
When she first spoke, Rodney didn't recognize the language. "Halton," she said, almost purring. She reached out for him, and Rodney saw that she had ridged metal bands around her hands, almost like brass knuckles. "Come here, my darling, and take your punishment," and Rodney instantly skittered backwards, crablike, on hands and knees.
"No, no, no, no, no," Rodney said, panicked. "This must be some kind of-" but before he could even finish the thought, the world shifted around him again. It was brighter and warmer here, almost cozy, the room tinted orange by the fire crackling in a stone fireplace not ten yards away. But there were two bodies tangled on a mattress before the fireplace-four arms, four legs, limbs twisting and writhing-and the air was pierced with the quickly rising screams of someone-well, having an intensely personal experience. It should have been sexy; in fact, it made him cringe with embarrassment. "Sorry," Rodney said quickly, flinging his hands over his eyes and willing himself out of there, "sorry, I-"
He felt the air change again, and this time, when he dropped his hands-
Just like us, eh?-flipping through our t.v. channels on the remote, searching for something, anything, that isn't another blonde chick in a compromising-and yup, there's a nice double meaning for ya-position.
Halton's scenarios comment on our own fantasies, but mostly the fantasies of the TV producers who cast scantily clad blonde after blonde. The story gently mocks Halton's lack of imagination, but, after all, our hero, Rodney, happily consumes (to begin with), and so do we.
The room was bright, airy, circular, white: clearly Ancient in design. Windows on all sides gave out onto some of the most beautiful scenery Rodney'd ever seen: a panorama of multicolored mountains. He turned around and around, taking it all in: the brightly patterned carpets, the white couch and comfortable-looking chairs, the broad dining table. But what was really astounding was-god, this was a room, a real room, full of things: half-empty cups and plates, abandoned electronic devices, a blanket thrown over the back of a chair. Weird, alien shoes on the floor. A manuscript casually tossed on an end table. Rodney felt wildly elated: this explained it, this explained everything! God, how stupid they'd been, not to have thought of it! The Ancients didn't need things, they had virtual things, virtual lives that-
"Darling." Rodney jumped and turned around, and there, behind him, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen: fair, blonde, curvaceous, wearing a clingy white draping thing that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and carrying a plate of what smelled like freshly baked scones. "Do you want something to eat?"
Then he got it.
I'm struck by the simultaneous wonderfulness and tragedy of this explanation. Because, yes, it has always bugged me how chilly and boring the Ancients are, especially in their design aesthetic. As if mental sophistication only manifests in shades of ecru. (Or mint. Do not get me started on the architecture of the gateroom.) But, wow, it strikes me that, later in the story, John and Rodney code themselves all kinds of toys-race cars and ski slopes and woolly socks and beer-but it's all coding, and it's all finished products. It’s a weird relationship to have with an environment. A superficial relationship. They never have to take what exists and work with it; they just write exactly what they imagine they want. So there's no adaptation involved.
"So," Rodney said, mouth full of scone; his second; they were fantastic. "Let me get this straight: this environment is entirely virtual, yes?"
"Yes, Halton," she said, and refilled his cup of tea.
I love the tea and scones. The mingling of the Western world's most potent icons of genteel society with the freaky sex. Two entirely different types of sensual indulgence lurking right under the surface of the Ancient's ascetic façade.
And then Rodney talking to the sex toy about science. Hee hee.
"It's Rodney," Rodney said for the third time.
She smiled indulgently. "Yes, Rodney."
Rodney swallowed. "And all this information is held in the flash drive-the uh, uh, what do you call it?" he asked, fingers tracing the shape. "It's a rectangle, it fits into the wall-"
"I have never seen such a thing, Halton."
"Rodney," Rodney said again, and then it occurred to him: if this Halton guy was an Ancient, she probably hadn't seen him for at least ten thousand years. He tried to make his voice a bit more sympathetic: "When, er...when was the last time you saw Halton?"
The question didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. "He was just here," she replied, and Rodney grabbed another scone and sat back to think that over. Either she'd lost track of time or there was no time here; very possibly the interface reset itself every time it was used. Or else-well, it was possible that Halton had designed himself a mistress with almost no memory, literally or figuratively. Rodney could see where a guy might want such a thing, though he himself found her lack of continuity kind of disturbing. Worst of all, she seemed not to have a name, or not to know her name, anyway: she'd just laughed and gracefully shrugged when Rodney had asked.
"Are there many levels to this thing?" Rodney asked, finally, thinking of the blonde Viking and the Potential Threesome before the fireplace. "I've been to two others so far."
She shook her head and smiled regretfully.
"I bet they're coded to the individual user," Rodney told her. "I'll bet these are Halton's user settings, but if I could get admin privileges, I could wipe them and create my own."
She stared at him across the table, apparently fascinated.
Rodney fidgeted in his chair. "What I really need is an interface," he explained. "I don't suppose you've seen one, or seen Halton use one? A command console, perhaps?"
"I have not seen one," she replied regretfully, sliding out of her chair, and Rodney was distracted by the way her breasts shifted beneath the thin fabric of her dress; he had always been a breast man, and God, her breasts were amazing. She came closer, and he couldn't help but stare at the way her nipples perked visibly through the gauzy cloth, with just a hint of brown-pink aureoles behind. Suddenly, shockingly, he had a lapful of her, warm and silky, her round bottom pressed against his thighs. She turned to him and loosely draped her arms around his neck. The side of her soft breast nudged against his chest. "Will you make love to me?" she asked.
Rodney swallowed a bunch of times; he couldn't seem to get his throat to work. "I, er-" but then she was bending her head down to kiss him, and wow, her mouth was incredibly soft, and she smelled so nice, like flowers or something. Obviously, this was where Halton had chosen to use his yottabytes: there was incredible attention to detail. Helplessly, he wrapped his arms around her, then slid his hands over her. Phenomenal! She really felt like a woman, except she wasn't. She was a couple of steps above a blow-up doll; hell, she didn't even have a name-
The clingy fabric was parting under his hands, and he cupped her warm, silky flesh: she was unwrapping like a present. Groaning, he slid his hands under her bottom and managed to get to his feet, taking her with him, lifting her up. She laughed and tongued his ear, and oh, what the hell: it wasn't wrong, because she wasn't a real woman, right? You couldn't have it both ways; either she was a real woman, and he was being a pig, or she wasn't real, and he was-all right: pathetic-but no harm, no foul, surely?
He laid her twice, taking her on the large sofa, spread out beneath him like a buffet, all soft breasts and delicate white limbs, and then again from behind, because Christ, she had a fantastic ass; he wanted to eat off it. He collapsed finally, sated but not tired, with her arms around him and his face in the soft, sweet crook between her neck and shoulder.
"Can I call you Elena?" Rodney murmured, and kissed beneath her ear.
"Yes," she said.
"Or Sonia," he said, after a moment. "Maybe you're more of a Sonia," he said, and then, closing his eyes: "Or Samantha. Can I call you..?"
RPF OH NOES. :P
"Yes, of course," she said, and he hated himself a little.
He opened his eyes when it was over, and couldn't remember where he was: in the chaise, in the tiny room with all the broken electronics. He looked around, then down at himself, because he could smell the tang of semen and feel the sticky wetness in his shorts even before he opened his bathrobe and saw the stain on his pajama pants. He belted his robe again, leaned forward, and yanked the drive out of the wall, looking at it admiringly before tucking it into his inside left bathrobe pocket; Christ, what a find.
The next day, Rodney did what he always did when he found something fantastically great: he ran to tell Sheppard all about it. Sheppard was in his room, crouched over his tiny desk and typing something on his laptop. "I found something you'll want to see."
Sheppard barely glanced up. "I'm kind of busy right now. Can I find you later?"
"It's a holographic porn room," Rodney clarified, already turning for the door.
He heard the click as Sheppard slammed the laptop shut. "All right, I'm coming, I'm coming!" though he had to jog to catch up.
Rodney explained the whole thing to him in hushed, excited tones as they made for the transporter, dropping his voice even further whenever anybody was in earshot.
"Huh," Sheppard said, and "Wow," and "Whoa," and "You know, what you really need is to find a command line to overwrite-"
"Yes, yes. Thank you for that incredibly obvious suggestion," Rodney said, and stopped in front of the correct door. He fumbled in his jacket, pulled out the rectangular drive, and handed it to Sheppard, who frowned at it and flipped it over in his hands.
"This is it?" Sheppard asked.
"That's it," Rodney replied, and then he reiterated the directions. "Vertical slot, wall behind the chair. You can't miss it. Push it in until it clicks and, er. There you go. I'll wait out here, then, shall I?" he added, because this was suddenly incredibly awkward.
Sheppard turned defensive. "I'm just checking it out, McKay. It could be dangerous, or-"
"Yes, yes, yes; of course," Rodney said, making a frantic shooing gesture. He turned sharply, crossing his arms and showing Sheppard his back. "Go on. Check it out."
Sheppard came out fifteen minutes later, looking a little flushed and with his shirttails strategically pulled out over his pants. "Okay, that was a trip," he said with a wry smile, and Rodney burst out laughing and grabbed his arm and said, "Oh my God, tell me; tell me everything."
Sheppard just shrugged. "Nothing to tell," he said, but he couldn't keep a straight face, and Rodney cried, "You double-crossing, cretinous bastard! I told you!"
"I can't help it if you have no discretion," Sheppard said virtuously, but then he was smirking and raising his hands, trying to fend off Rodney's half-serious punches. "All right, all right," he said. "I found your interface, anyway," and Rodney stopped to listen. "It's holographic," Sheppard explained. "Comes right out of the air, like in the puddlejumpers; I left it up for you." Rodney arched an eyebrow and waved his hands wildly; come on, give! For a moment, he didn't think Sheppard would, and then Sheppard grinned and said, "This Halton guy programmed, like, thirty scenarios-"
"Thirty?" Rodney gaped.
"Yeah. It's pretty wild," Sheppard said, thoughtfully scratching the back of his ridiculous mop of black hair, "but pretty boring at the same time. No imagination. They're all-" and he paused for a moment, before finishing, with an amused tilt of the head, "-blondes."
Rodney blinked. "What, all of them?"
"Yep. Must be your lucky day, McKay: you and our pal Halton share a type. Speaking of which," Sheppard said, licking his lip with slow deliberation, and Rodney cringed, because he could totally hear it coming; Sheppard had gotten that tormenting, older-brother, sing-song tone to his voice, "I met your new girlfriend," and God, he could die from embarrassment. "Sa-man-tha." Or suicide, perhaps.
Rodney took a breath and tried to muster up some persuasive outrage. "She is not my girlfriend; she's not even a girl! She's a collection of data bytes and-"
Sheppard wasn't buying. "Yeah, yeah," he said, but he patted Rodney's shoulder with affection before handing him the flash drive. "Just have the car home by eleven, okay?"
"What, that's it?" Rodney stared down at the rectangle, then looked up at Sheppard, bemused. "You're done? I thought you'd..."
"Hey, I went!" Sheppard tensed. "It was good, it was great, just-you know, it's your thing." He leaned toward Rodney, his head tipped a little. "Go on," he said, and his voice was low and conspiratorial. "Enjoy it." He clapped Rodney's shoulder and loped off, down the corridor. Rodney hesitated for only a moment before deciding that Sheppard's blessing was genuine, and then he went inside and connected the drive.
The small room disappeared and left him facing a huge, holographic interface; damn the man and his intuitive grasp of Ancient technology. Sheppard was right: the screen did look remarkably like the ones in the puddlejumpers, and it was similarly jam-packed with information. Rodney took all the pre-sets in at a glance-scenarios, schematics, settings, user profiles-and then took a deep breath and began to hack on the underlying code.
It took him a while to figure out, but then he felt the tingle at the back of his neck he always got when he'd successfully sussed out alien math. He gave himself root access, vindictively deleted Halton's userid, and began sifting through the files. His first big programming insight was that the system was working with limited memory; by creating thirty-one realities, Halton had chosen to sacrifice quality for variety. Rodney considered this, then deleted the blonde Viking with the gigantic breasts and added the freed-up memory to the scenario Samantha (his girlfriend, Sheppard teased in his memory) inhabited. Maybe now she'd be able to remember his name; or hey, even her own.
When he was ready to close the terminal, the interface surprised him by asking him if he wanted to clear his cache, compact the history files, etc. He was about to say yes, being a fellow who believed in regular maintenance, except that he couldn't help but be curious about what a holographic porn machine might keep in its cache. He followed the path and found a last-action logfile. He saved it out, played it back and-
The world shifted and Rodney stumbled, trying to keep his footing on the weird leather mats-oh, Christ, this was the lair of the Viking again. He peered through the dim light, searching for her. Oh, she was there, all right; he could hear her chain mail miniskirt clanking, and felt meanly glad he'd deleted her. Then he heard a soft, gusty laugh, and picked out a familiar shape in the dark: tall, lanky, angular. Incredibly stupid hair. He'd stumbled into Sheppard's session in the cache, and a decent person of high moral standards would log out immediately. He himself was not that person.
"Oh, hell, no," Sheppard said under his breath, just as the Viking sing-songed, "Hal-ton! Come and take your punishments, darling!" Sheppard let out a soft, surprised-sounding, "yeesh!" and then turned to pull a holographic interface from thin air.
It was the same screen Rodney had just been using, but he couldn't help but be entranced by Sheppard's graceful, intuitive use of the technology. Rodney went over to stand next to him and watched him move through the screens with complete unselfconsciousness and almost freakish ease. He wondered if Sheppard restrained himself when other people were around. Rodney could see why he would; he was getting chills, watching this.
Sexy.
The world blurred around them as Sheppard began moving through scenarios, barely stopping to glance around at one before sliding on to the next. Rodney felt a little seasick, grabbed for Sheppard's arm, and passed right through him. He flailed, righted himself, and turned just in time to see a scantily dressed blonde holding up a glowing Ancient device, and then another barely-dressed blonde stretched out on a chaise-and taken like this, Rodney could see what Sheppard meant by "lack of imagination," because they were all blondes. Tall blondes, short blondes, sitting down, tied up, posed seductively in all sorts of costumes: mostly in various states of undress.
Sheppard stopped in a candle-lit room, where a topless woman was sitting at some kind of vanity, brushing her long, ash-blonde hair. She had a beautiful back, and Sheppard stood there for a long time and watched her while Rodney fidgeted invisibly beside him and wondered if she was the one: Sheppard's one. Then the woman put down her brush and turned in her chair. Her breasts were like milk. "Will you come in?" she asked, and Sheppard flushed and said, "Sorry, no. No, ma'am," and yanked them out of there.
Still, he must have gotten hot and bothered, because four scenarios later Sheppard stopped again, dropped to his knees in a pile of pillows, and lazily slid a hand into his pants. Rodney recoiled when he saw the scenario-these girls were young, young, young, eighteen or twenty at most, slim-hipped and coltish and entirely unlike his round-bottomed Samantha. Still, though, he could-er, sort of see the attraction: they were long-limbed and silky and extremely lithe, and not naked, which should have been a disadvantage but wasn't. Instead, they were wearing scrappy, stretchy bits of material over their perky bottoms and barely-there breasts, and yes, okay, that was a pretty picture, wasn't it? The way they were, um, kissing like that, and the way the tips of their fingers disappeared beneath the bra-things, slipped down into the panty-things-
Rodney looked away and inhaled sharply, trying to control himself; God, that was close. He glanced over at Sheppard, who he figured would be beating away like mad. But Sheppard was just kneeling there, hand still in his pants but not moving, though he was taking very deep, very deliberate breaths, chest rising and falling. Still, it was hard not to be impressed by Sheppard's patience-or maybe confused was more like it. Sheppard stroked himself almost casually and watched them make out, watched as things heated up, as they toppled together in a writhing, mewling heap like obscene kittens, mouthing each other's nipples and sliding down each other's bodies to lick between each other's legs, their slim thighs falling open. Sheppard just watched, his head slowly lolling to one side like he couldn't be bothered to hold it up, and Rodney couldn't understand how he wasn't- Didn't Sheppard understand these scenarios were interactive? Rodney himself was violently sucking for air; he hadn't planned to jerk off, but he hadn't been expecting picture-perfect pornographic lesbians, either.
Every once in a while I bumble across an article about pornography that complains about porn actresses faking lesbianism for the titillation of male viewers. I've seen bits and pieces of the stuff in question, and yeah, it's pretty silly-there they are licking away, but staring straight at the camera (kinking their necks, totally undermining the cunnilingus!), so the viewer won't feel excluded from the proceedings. So of course this scene, this actually interactive scene, has to have fake lesbians. The meta! It is so snarky it hurts!
(And of course John picks a scenario where he thinks he might get away with not being the centre of attention. He has to do something in there to fortify his het cred. But.)
In the end, it was the lesbians who made the first move, taking coy notice of Sheppard and slowly crawling toward him. Rodney half expected Sheppard to run for it, but Sheppard stayed put, watching them curiously as they came close. They touched his arm, his chest, four hands gliding over his shoulders, and then they were taking him down, pushing him back among the pillows. He let them do it, going along with a strange, almost indulgent passivity, and then one of them was kissing his face, and the other undoing his pants, and-
"Stop!" Rodney gasped, waving his arms wildly. "Stop stop stop stop-" but that was almost worse, because they just went still, the three of them, like hitting pause, and now Rodney could see everything: the one girl's pink lips touching Sheppard's mouth, the other girl's mouth hovering just over, Christ, the softly rounded tip of Sheppard's cock. Rodney stared helplessly, unable to think what to do or say next, because it was one thing to watch porn with a friend and jerk off, and another thing entirely when said friend was the porn. Childishly, Rodney put his hands over his eyes, and actually, that seemed to clear his brain a little. "Abort!" he yelled. "Abort, abort-"
Sheppard and the lesbians vanished and the interface appeared. Rodney nearly fell over in relief. He was actually sweating. He logged out and snatched the drive out of the wall. He'd spent more than enough time screwing around with this incredibly useless Ancient technology. He'd wasted Sheppard's time as well as his own, and it wasn't as if they didn't have enough real work to do. In fact, it wasn't overstating the case to say that the mission depended on him, and Sheppard was important too. So really, he shouldn't be spending his few, highly-precious moments of free time on the high-tech equivalent of a blow-up doll, and this line of reasoning kept him occupied until he made it back to his room, whereupon he unzipped, fell onto the bed, and masturbated so hard he saw stars.
His self-deception crumbled in stages. He wasn't going to use the drive any more, except he was, but only to visit Samantha, because stress relief was important, and it wasn't like he was getting laid regularly in his own reality, right? Still, he was absolutely going to trash that logfile, because it was an outrageous invasion of his friend's privacy, except of course that he'd never watched the entire thing through, and with Sheppard's intuitive use of technology-well, that file could contain crucial information. Of course, Rodney could easily skip over the part with the lesbians, except he didn't, good porn being hard to come by in Atlantis, and besides, what Sheppard didn't know couldn't hurt him. It's not like he was interested in Sheppard anyway. Except for how he was.
In the end, he had to admit to himself that he liked to jerk off while watching John Sheppard be manhandled by lesbians, but, put that way, it sounded all right. Because honestly, who wouldn't want that? Rodney could imagine an entire cable television empire founded on a solid gold premise like that.
Besides, it wasn't as if it affected his relationship with the actual John Sheppard: it was like they weren't the same person. The John Sheppard who starred in his own personal cable pornography had nothing to do with the guy he hung out with and saved galaxies with. The real Sheppard got way too competitive when they played video games, and passive-aggressive when they played chess, and had the absolute worst taste in movies. Plus he was really annoyingly anal about loaning out his comic books, even though Rodney had apologized, sincerely, a thousand times, for that coffee stain he had gotten on Amazing Adventures #43. Sheppard was his best friend and kind of an asshole, and he had nothing to do with the guy in the holographic threesome.
Of course, he saw Samantha too; in fact, Rodney deleted another of the vapid blondes in order to devote more memory to her scenario, giving her a couple changes of outfit and programming an add-on hot tub module. So it wasn't like he spent all his time ogling Sheppard and the lesbians. Samantha's scenario had its charms too: the scones, for one, and it turned out that, having being Ancient-built herself, Samantha knew all sorts of things about Ancient technology. She wasn't a scientist, but in a way she was better, because she knew the basic things that every schoolchild knew, which were the kinds of incredibly useful things people hardly ever bothered to write down for grownups.
In fact, it was Samantha who explained to him, in a soft, amused voice, that yes, silly, of course you could build holographic people from scratch: there were great artists who did that, and you could see their works in museums. But unless you were an artist, why would you bother? It was so much easier, (and Rodney could almost hear the fondness with which she made clear the extremely obvious) to build one off the wireframe of a living person by extrapolating from their biometric readouts. And that's when it first occurred to him that, if there was some version of Sheppard still cached in the database, the information could maybe be used to construct-
Okay, here we are. Cop to it. From here on out, it's a great, long, zany slide into the subtext; reader's choice whether you're gonna laugh or squirm.
Abbrev. Portrait of Rodney in Canon: (a) computer geek, (b) not your average Hollywood body, (c) cat lover ;P, (d) lusts after distant object (Sam), (e) supersmart.
Abbrev. Itinerary of Rodney in OK Computer: (a) looks at Halton's offerings (blonde, skinny, barely legal...), (b) lusts for a while, (c) abandons in favour of own earthier, queerer, more complex fantasy, (d) takes pre-existing image/body (Sheppard) and expands, extrapolates, cossets and adores.
Rodney is Lawrence Lessig's classic read-write consumer. Rodney is us.
Francesca Coppa, in her essay in Fan Fiction and Fan Communities, applies performance theory to fanfic in ways that are entertainingly relevant to OK Computer. She talks about fans observing actors' physical bodies on t.v.-i.e., in performance theory terms, "the movement of bodies in space"-then translating them into written/virtual spaces on our computers. She's making an argument that fan fiction, with its bazillion iterations of the same characters, operates in the same tradition as theatre, which offers a bazillion performances of the same text. Awesome essay in an awesome anthology; I'll come back to some of her specific points later. For now, though, I just going to hop up and down a bit and squeak, "Lookie! Rodney! Us! Turning bodies into words=pixels=data and making them sashay all over cyberspace!" Hee hee hee! and also oh dear. So hold that thought.
"-Wait just one goddamned motherfucking second!"
The other advantage of jumping back and forth between two positions in time (besides starting with maximum bang) is that Speranza gets to use John in almost a meta role, as a commenter on the story, just like us fans yelling at our TV screens.
and okay, he and Sheppard had had their various run-ins over the years, what with solar systems exploding and nanovites invading, the incredible pressure and so forth, but this was the first time Rodney thought Sheppard might actually clock him. "You did what?" and Rodney instinctively moved backwards, hands raised, heart pounding; Christ, this was everything he ever feared might happen. He'd never seen Sheppard so furious; his face was like thunder. "Tell me you didn't," Sheppard said in a truly murderous tone of voice.
Relief came from an unexpected quarter; McKay 2.0 stepped in front of him, which was pretty brave of him, considering the look on Sheppard's face. "He didn't do it, he never did any of it," McKay said, as Rodney cowered behind him. "I did it," and McKay looked defiant, but his voice was quavering a little. "Your beef's with me."
That took the wind out of Sheppard's sails, which was somehow worse. Anger ebbed from Sheppard's face, and his shoulders slumped, leaving him looking lost, confused, and more than a little bit hurt. "I don't know how you do that," Sheppard said quietly, but he was addressing himself to McKay, now. "I'm a person, not a pinup. I thought we were-"
"-friends, yes," McKay said in a low, anguished voice, and then he was cupping the back of Sheppard's head and pulling him down into an Athosian embrace. Rodney stared at himself in shock, and why on earth was Sheppard permitting this? "We were friends," McKay murmured, and Rodney all of a sudden realized that his alter ego, his future self, was more than just frazzled: he was maybe a little nuts. "And it was wrong, I know it was, but you have to understand-God, Sheppard, you've just got to understand-"
I like that McKay is actually nuts, no bones about it and no 42-minute reset.
"Who is it today?" Rodney said, distracted, as he came in trying to finish his donut and buckle on his thigh holster at the same time. "What? What do I need this- " Ronon was handing him an ammunition belt, a giant heavy one loaded up with grenades, and was that C4 -?
"Load up, Rodney," Sheppard drawled. "We're dressing to impress."
"Impress who, Genghis Khan?" Rodney said.
"Close enough," Ronon said.
I like that Ronon has either absorbed enough of the crazy Earthlings' cultural references to get that, or is tuned into their rhythms so well by now that he responds to the context without missing a beat. Both readings work really well for me. Adaptable!Ronon = hot.
Rodney felt a lot less stupid once they stepped through the gate; the clansmen were similarly bedecked with weapons: knives dangling from their belts, spears crossing their backs, guns on both hips. They must have made one heck of a parade as they were led to the throne room: the clansmen, the team, the marines. Rodney was expecting somebody extremely fearsome-the fellows who'd met them at the gate were fierce enough, nearly seven feet tall, most of them-but their chieftain was a normal-enough specimen of manhood, though he was wearing an elaborately filigreed suit of armor and carrying a very long, jewel-encrusted sword. Rodney shot a quick, meaningful glance in Sheppard's direction before looking away swiftly and biting his lip. Sheppard's eyeroll told him they were on the same page: this was overcompensation city, baby.
Ronon stepped forward, unbuckled the extra gunbelt he'd put on for precisely this purpose, and meaningfully dropped it on the platform upon which the chieftain's throne sat. "We come to you without fear," Ronon said gravely. "You will find us brave allies."
"Yes, yes," the chieftain said with the bored air of one who's heard it all before. "What do you want?"
Ronon shot a sideways look at Sheppard, who replied with the merest shrug. Rodney had no trouble translating: Hey, go for it. You're doing great. Ronon nodded back almost imperceptibly and said, bowing his head, "We have heard you are warriors. We have heard you have a weapon that is effective against the Wraith."
Their chieftain nodded, as if this was no more than he had expected. "Are you the leader of these fearsome people?" he inquired, taking them all in with a wave of his hand.
Beside him, Sheppard shifted and murmured under his breath, "Showtime." "No," Sheppard said, and stepped forward, one hand resting protectively on his P-90. "I am. I'm-"
And then he was dead.
Rodney heard the blast before his mind could process the image: the chieftain pulling his gun and firing in a single, fluid movement. The blast momentarily obliterated Sheppard from his view, and then the air was full of smoke and weapons fire. Rodney grabbed for Sheppard to keep him from falling, but Christ, he was dead weight and they were both going down, Rodney's hand cupping the back of Sheppard's head to stop him from braining himself on the throne room floor. It was only when they were sprawled together, shots still flying above them, that Rodney saw the blood on the side of Sheppard's head, the mangled remains of his ear. Sheppard's eyes were open, though, and Rodney felt the impulse to kiss him, he was so relieved. He nearly pressed his mouth to Sheppard's, then came back to himself and jerked away: what the hell did he think he was doing? And then he realized it didn't matter. Sheppard wasn't there anymore. There was no light.
Time stopped until something startled him, clattered beside him; a gun; Teyla's gun. And then he had his first, gutwrenching panic attack, because Teyla had dropped her gun. Rodney stared up at her, his insides spasming and his mind blank. Her face was wet and contorted, her mouth all twisted up. He didn't know she could look like that. She fell on her knees beside him, her chest heaving so erratically that Rodney was afraid for her, was afraid she was maybe having a heart attack or something. "John," she gasped, her voice terrifyingly high-pitched, hands reaching for him. Rodney followed her hands with his eyes and saw them frantically tugging on Sheppard's tac vest, and why had he never noticed how thin Sheppard's chest was, how narrow his shoulders were?
Rodney looked up and saw that three marines were dead, but so was half of the clan and- Christ, Ronon had really done a number on their chieftain. The marines held their guns on lines of men lying face down on the floor, and Rodney, who was still crouching, numbly holding Teyla in his arms, looked up to see Ronon pacing the room, frantic with grief. His face was streaked with sweat and blood: none of the blood was his. Ronon would drift closer, get a glimpse of Sheppard, and then veer away violently, visibly fighting for control of himself. Rodney's eyes kept drifting back to Sheppard's boots, half unlaced as always.
Quirky little human details.
Part 2