Persona challenge
The Stargate Persona challenge at stargatecountry
The Tale of Glennary Roth
(and how she came to be a Civilian Contractor on Atlantis)
When Nary was fourteen, some men came to her house with a leather bag and a letter. The letter was from the President and the bag was full of medical supplies, including a whole slew of syringes that made her stomach flop around and her little sister cower in the corner. Her father read the letter before handing it off to her mother. Neither of them said a word as the whole family was instructed to stretch out their left arm.
When the men were done drawing blood samples from the family members, they saluted her father. It was a gesture he returned automatically, his face an inexpressive mask as they got back into their dark colored car.
“What was that, Norm?” Her mother shot a glare up at her father as she rubbed at the bandage in the crook of her elbow. “Who were those men?”
“They were from the government,” he replied as if his answer covered all the questions she’d asked and those still lingering. Since even Nary had understood they were from the government, she was just as upset as her mother. Not that he was withholding information but that he wasn’t sharing enough to keep her active imagination happy.
She concocted a simple story of a prince somewhere needing a royal princess to wed. They’d taken her blood because they were searching for the lost princess of a royal line long since assumed to have died out. It was a nice dream that kept her mind away from what the reality most likely was and why her mother didn’t seem to smile anymore.
She didn’t find out the truth for another year, and then only by accident. There was chocolate cake in the fridge and she was sneaking through the darkened house to get a piece now that she assumed that everyone was asleep. As she paused outside her parent’s room, she heard her mother’s smothered sob.
“I will not let them tear our family apart.” Her mother’s voice was ice cold, the way it had been getting more and more these days whenever she had anything to say to her husband.
“No. You’re already doing a good job of that, Cindy.”
“Do not lay this at my door. You’re the one who allowed them into our house.”
“The President-”
“Let’s not bring him up again. I didn’t vote for him and I’m not keen on him ruining my life like this. Not for some whim of his.”
“Who says it’ll be ruined?”
“They want to take her-”
“Not just her. The whole family. This was never just about one of us. I figured we’d do this as a family. Make a new life for ourselves.”
“Oh, yes. Let’s transplant the whole family to another galaxy. That makes so much sense. No, Norm. I can’t give my approval to this plan. All you want to do is make her into another one of your military drones and I’ll have none of it. Do you hear me? None of it.”
That was all that Nary heard. Instead of getting an extra dessert, Nary covered her ears with shaking hands to drown out the sound of her mother’s harsh words. She thought about bringing up the conversation later with her father but it seemed wrong to drag such unhappiness into the light of day.
On her sixteenth birthday, her father gave her a list of things she could have as a present. There were a number of interesting things listed but she picked flying lessons just because it was something she’d never thought of doing.
For Christmas that year, she was handed a similar list. This time, she picked archery lessons.
The list didn’t appear for her seventeenth birthday. Instead, she was handed the keys to her very own Cessna. It was an extravagant present but one that she put to good use to get herself to archery tournaments around the country.
The day after her graduation from high school (a non-event in that her mother locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out for any reason), Nary left for a six-week survival camp in the Rocky Mountains near Colorado Springs. There were interesting kids there, many with similar changes to their lives that they shared around the campfire each night. “Are you going over?” one of the kids asked her, acting like she should know what he was talking about. When she only shrugged, he walked away without elaborating but she didn’t give it much thought as she learned how to forage for food in the woods and build a shelter out of branches and mud.
There was always the nagging feeling that she was being directed down a path instead of being given a true choice at the way her life was ending up. Her mother never wanted anything to do with this new life she was beginning to love, refusing to be swept into the drama of retold stories of her adventures. The pained look only intensified over the years until mother and daughter couldn’t stand being in the same room with each other. Without being told as much, Nary knew she was the cause of the extra lines of worry on her mother’s face.
The day before her eighteenth birthday, her mother packed a bag for herself and one for her youngest daughter. They both got into the family car and, without a backward glance from either of them, drove away.
“She’s gone forever, isn’t she?” It was a stupid question but Nary just wanted to verbalize the words so they would quit reverberating through her head.
“Forever,” her father echoed.
There was no time to mourn the half of the family she’d lost, though. While sitting at the breakfast table for her special birthday breakfast of pancakes shaped like unicorns (the only shape the blobs of fried dough ever resembled), her father handed her an envelope marked TOP SECRET. She took it and read through the sheaf of paper inside. Twice. When she finished, Nary dropped the papers and stared at her dad for several seconds before asking, “This is what Mom’s been so against all these years?”
He nodded. “It’s completely up to you. No one will make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’re a gene carrier and they’re pretty rare. Especially one as strong as you. Your mom and I are both carriers.”
“Helena is one, too.”
This time, his nod was curt and abrupt, as if this was a conversation he didn’t want to be having with her on today of all days. “Remember when all those terrorists from the Middle East were bombing California? I suppose they were terrorists but they weren’t from the Middle East. They were from another galaxy. We have an outpost there, called Atlantis, and they followed us from there back to Earth. Now that Atlantis is headed back to that galaxy, they’d like you to move there. To help out on the city. You can make things work there that others without the gene can’t.”
“You, too?” She sounded like an eight-year old instead of the eighteen-year old she’d been proud of only a few minutes ago.
“Me, too. I’ve been planning on coming out of retirement if you decided you wanted to go. They can even use an old washed out has-been like me.”
“Old. Never.” but the old fear surfaced, breaking through the oil slick of this new fear. She had watched her dad leave on too many missions when she was younger to like the idea of him doing his old job again. She liked to think of him safe, puttering around in the garage on the cars he liked to refurbish and sell to guys who didn’t have the time or know-how to do it themselves.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they were together, though. It wasn’t like she was telling him goodbye. One of the reasons she hadn’t gone to college was because she wasn’t quite yet to tell this one remaining member of her family goodbye. If they went on this new journey together, no one would be left behind.
Taking a deep breath, she made the ultimate decision. “When do we leave?”
***
Nary’s been on Atlantis for three years now. Some things have changed (she can walk up to her jumper now without anyone asking her for her ID or if she’s old enough to drive it) and some things haven’t (she still has to fight Dr. McKay for the blue jello every Thursday night). Every Friday night, she goes to visit her dad in his quarters for some father-daughter bonding but the rest of the time she’s pretty much on her own.
She’s got a group of friends, mostly some of the same kids she went to that camp with all those years ago but there aren’t that many of them on the city. The search for viable gene carriers, at least the way they were doing it, didn’t run for much longer after Nary first arrived on Atlantis. It seems that her mother was one of the people leading the charge to stop the invasive practices of the government. Unwittingly, she was also one of the people who lobbied to have Atlantis cut off from Earth and one of the twenty people killed by Genii when they breached the wormhole a year later. Nary didn’t bother going back to Earth for the funeral but her father did.
There’s nothing that Nary loves more than flying her jumper straight up into the black of space. There are plenty of times when she says that she’s taking it out to practice maneuvers only to aimlessly fly as far and as fast as she can. She’s fairly certain that Colonel Sheppard knows what she’s doing but he doesn’t seem the type to tell her to stop doing what she loves.
Most of the time, she ferries scientists to and from the different planets. It’s quiet work but she doesn’t mind. There’s always interesting conversation and usually something new and different to eat for dinner each night. Better than following the soldiers around, seeing as how they’ll open up a MRE and feel completely satisfied.
All in all, it’s a good life. The occasional Wraith attack and the uprising of the Genii have just made things more interesting. If there are times that Nary wishes she’d never known she was a gene carrier or that a place like Atlantis existed, it doesn’t last for very long. This is her home now. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Tale of Glennary Roth
(and how she came to be a Civilian Contractor on Atlantis)
When Nary was fourteen, some men came to her house with a leather bag and a letter. The letter was from the President and the bag was full of medical supplies, including a whole slew of syringes that made her stomach flop around and her little sister cower in the corner. Her father read the letter before handing it off to her mother. Neither of them said a word as the whole family was instructed to stretch out their left arm.
When the men were done drawing blood samples from the family members, they saluted her father. It was a gesture he returned automatically, his face an inexpressive mask as they got back into their dark colored car.
“What was that, Norm?” Her mother shot a glare up at her father as she rubbed at the bandage in the crook of her elbow. “Who were those men?”
“They were from the government,” he replied as if his answer covered all the questions she’d asked and those still lingering. Since even Nary had understood they were from the government, she was just as upset as her mother. Not that he was withholding information but that he wasn’t sharing enough to keep her active imagination happy.
She concocted a simple story of a prince somewhere needing a royal princess to wed. They’d taken her blood because they were searching for the lost princess of a royal line long since assumed to have died out. It was a nice dream that kept her mind away from what the reality most likely was and why her mother didn’t seem to smile anymore.
She didn’t find out the truth for another year, and then only by accident. There was chocolate cake in the fridge and she was sneaking through the darkened house to get a piece now that she assumed that everyone was asleep. As she paused outside her parent’s room, she heard her mother’s smothered sob.
“I will not let them tear our family apart.” Her mother’s voice was ice cold, the way it had been getting more and more these days whenever she had anything to say to her husband.
“No. You’re already doing a good job of that, Cindy.”
“Do not lay this at my door. You’re the one who allowed them into our house.”
“The President-”
“Let’s not bring him up again. I didn’t vote for him and I’m not keen on him ruining my life like this. Not for some whim of his.”
“Who says it’ll be ruined?”
“They want to take her-”
“Not just her. The whole family. This was never just about one of us. I figured we’d do this as a family. Make a new life for ourselves.”
“Oh, yes. Let’s transplant the whole family to another galaxy. That makes so much sense. No, Norm. I can’t give my approval to this plan. All you want to do is make her into another one of your military drones and I’ll have none of it. Do you hear me? None of it.”
That was all that Nary heard. Instead of getting an extra dessert, Nary covered her ears with shaking hands to drown out the sound of her mother’s harsh words. She thought about bringing up the conversation later with her father but it seemed wrong to drag such unhappiness into the light of day.
On her sixteenth birthday, her father gave her a list of things she could have as a present. There were a number of interesting things listed but she picked flying lessons just because it was something she’d never thought of doing.
For Christmas that year, she was handed a similar list. This time, she picked archery lessons.
The list didn’t appear for her seventeenth birthday. Instead, she was handed the keys to her very own Cessna. It was an extravagant present but one that she put to good use to get herself to archery tournaments around the country.
The day after her graduation from high school (a non-event in that her mother locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out for any reason), Nary left for a six-week survival camp in the Rocky Mountains near Colorado Springs. There were interesting kids there, many with similar changes to their lives that they shared around the campfire each night. “Are you going over?” one of the kids asked her, acting like she should know what he was talking about. When she only shrugged, he walked away without elaborating but she didn’t give it much thought as she learned how to forage for food in the woods and build a shelter out of branches and mud.
There was always the nagging feeling that she was being directed down a path instead of being given a true choice at the way her life was ending up. Her mother never wanted anything to do with this new life she was beginning to love, refusing to be swept into the drama of retold stories of her adventures. The pained look only intensified over the years until mother and daughter couldn’t stand being in the same room with each other. Without being told as much, Nary knew she was the cause of the extra lines of worry on her mother’s face.
The day before her eighteenth birthday, her mother packed a bag for herself and one for her youngest daughter. They both got into the family car and, without a backward glance from either of them, drove away.
“She’s gone forever, isn’t she?” It was a stupid question but Nary just wanted to verbalize the words so they would quit reverberating through her head.
“Forever,” her father echoed.
There was no time to mourn the half of the family she’d lost, though. While sitting at the breakfast table for her special birthday breakfast of pancakes shaped like unicorns (the only shape the blobs of fried dough ever resembled), her father handed her an envelope marked TOP SECRET. She took it and read through the sheaf of paper inside. Twice. When she finished, Nary dropped the papers and stared at her dad for several seconds before asking, “This is what Mom’s been so against all these years?”
He nodded. “It’s completely up to you. No one will make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’re a gene carrier and they’re pretty rare. Especially one as strong as you. Your mom and I are both carriers.”
“Helena is one, too.”
This time, his nod was curt and abrupt, as if this was a conversation he didn’t want to be having with her on today of all days. “Remember when all those terrorists from the Middle East were bombing California? I suppose they were terrorists but they weren’t from the Middle East. They were from another galaxy. We have an outpost there, called Atlantis, and they followed us from there back to Earth. Now that Atlantis is headed back to that galaxy, they’d like you to move there. To help out on the city. You can make things work there that others without the gene can’t.”
“You, too?” She sounded like an eight-year old instead of the eighteen-year old she’d been proud of only a few minutes ago.
“Me, too. I’ve been planning on coming out of retirement if you decided you wanted to go. They can even use an old washed out has-been like me.”
“Old. Never.” but the old fear surfaced, breaking through the oil slick of this new fear. She had watched her dad leave on too many missions when she was younger to like the idea of him doing his old job again. She liked to think of him safe, puttering around in the garage on the cars he liked to refurbish and sell to guys who didn’t have the time or know-how to do it themselves.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they were together, though. It wasn’t like she was telling him goodbye. One of the reasons she hadn’t gone to college was because she wasn’t quite yet to tell this one remaining member of her family goodbye. If they went on this new journey together, no one would be left behind.
Taking a deep breath, she made the ultimate decision. “When do we leave?”
***
Nary’s been on Atlantis for three years now. Some things have changed (she can walk up to her jumper now without anyone asking her for her ID or if she’s old enough to drive it) and some things haven’t (she still has to fight Dr. McKay for the blue jello every Thursday night). Every Friday night, she goes to visit her dad in his quarters for some father-daughter bonding but the rest of the time she’s pretty much on her own.
She’s got a group of friends, mostly some of the same kids she went to that camp with all those years ago but there aren’t that many of them on the city. The search for viable gene carriers, at least the way they were doing it, didn’t run for much longer after Nary first arrived on Atlantis. It seems that her mother was one of the people leading the charge to stop the invasive practices of the government. Unwittingly, she was also one of the people who lobbied to have Atlantis cut off from Earth and one of the twenty people killed by Genii when they breached the wormhole a year later. Nary didn’t bother going back to Earth for the funeral but her father did.
There’s nothing that Nary loves more than flying her jumper straight up into the black of space. There are plenty of times when she says that she’s taking it out to practice maneuvers only to aimlessly fly as far and as fast as she can. She’s fairly certain that Colonel Sheppard knows what she’s doing but he doesn’t seem the type to tell her to stop doing what she loves.
Most of the time, she ferries scientists to and from the different planets. It’s quiet work but she doesn’t mind. There’s always interesting conversation and usually something new and different to eat for dinner each night. Better than following the soldiers around, seeing as how they’ll open up a MRE and feel completely satisfied.
All in all, it’s a good life. The occasional Wraith attack and the uprising of the Genii have just made things more interesting. If there are times that Nary wishes she’d never known she was a gene carrier or that a place like Atlantis existed, it doesn’t last for very long. This is her home now. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
