The Paradox of Tristram Shandy (1/2) (PG)
Title: The Paradox of Tristram Shandy (1/2)
Author: paradise_city
Beta: Many thanks to leaper182 for her excellent beta work and invaluable QL knowledge.
Characters: Sam, Al, John, Rodney gen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For SGA's "Trinity" (02x06).
Written for: jayel_fox, who asked for Trinity: "Every time he thinks he's fixed it, it only gets worse." I also tried to work in her other prompts (Sam/Rodney professional relationship and a paranoid John in the waiting room); they're all there in some way except for the Goa'uld (don't watch SG-1, sorry!)
Summary: Some plans require a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros, a Leon Spinks, and the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever. All John, Rodney, Sam, and Al need is a Millennium Falcon.
The first thing Sam felt after he leaped was a bright, blinding pain. He tried to suck in a deep breath and wrap his arms around himself in protection, but he was pinned, trapped. He could feel panic starting to gather at the base of his spine and he forced himself to breathe slowly and shallowly while he tried to sort out up from down.
When he did, he realized he wasn't trapped.
Just-fallen.
On his face.
With his nose supporting the rest of his body and still screaming with pain in protest, he snuck a quick look around and determined he was alone, in what looked like a bedroom (quarters), though a cold and sterile one. He climbed to his feet (arms sore and achy, but not in a bad way), groaned (voice high and nasal), patted himself down (tall, lanky, sweaty, dressed in jogging pants and a t-shirt-push-ups, maybe?), and caught sight of himself (long nose, pointy ears, morning beard, wild shock of hair) and a set of Air Force dress blues in the mirror.
The conclusion he drew was an easy one.
"Oh, boy."
------
Sam had worked with the military long enough to know the mess was easily the best place to get information on short notice. After a few minutes of exploration and quick detective work in his quarters, he made his way there slowly while trying to both look inconspicuous and keep an eye (neuron and meson) out for Al.
"Colonel," said a short, stocky man, coming the opposite direction up the hallway. He looked up from the-computer? (tablet) in his hands and snapped his fingers imperiously in Sam's general direction. Colonel, yes. He knew he was Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, USAF, at least according to the paperwork sitting on his desk, but the man's words prompted another a reaction, a feeling of rightness, a presence Sam couldn't quite identify but felt strongly just the same. "About time. If you're going to eat, you'd better hurry. The Marines are sucking up those spaghetti type things like a fleet of Hoovers and we're scheduled for launch in twenty-Colonel?"
Sam stopped, trying to subtly read the name on the large PROPERTY OF sticker across the top of the man's computer (tablet), but it wasn't necessary. "Yes, Rodney?" he said, the name coming to him like he knew it. That was new. At least the thought it was.
Also, he had a drawl. Huh.
"Are you feeling okay? What...?" and Rodney gestured vaguely, sketching out something either incredibly complex or incredibly dirty. Sam figured it could go either way.
When Sam (John) just looked at him blankly, he added, "Your hair?"
"Oh," Sam said, patting at it self-consciously, the patch at the back that he practically had to glue down, "I know. I-I tried."
Rodney frowned at him. "Colonel, are you all right? Have you eaten anything strange, sustained any head injuries, run into any alien Mata Haris in the corridors?"
Alien Mata Haris? "No," Sam said, "I'm fine."
Rodney squinted at him, obviously not buying it. "Maybe you should see Carson. We're going offworld-" offworld? "-in twenty and if you're going to die of an allergen or a subdural hematoma or a case of intergalactic VD, I'd rather it not be in space, if it's all the same to you."
Intergalactic? Space?
Something must have shown on Sam's face because Rodney grabbed him by the sleeve like a truculent child and started dragging him down the hallway to see Carson-who's Carson? (doctor)-before Sam pulled himself free. " Rodney," he said, and heard something not far from a growl in his voice, "I'm fine. It's just hair. We have twenty minutes-"
"Eighteen," Rodney said.
"-and I'm going to do the last pre-flight check and meet you in the gateroom to gear up in ten. So let go of me."
Sam didn't thought he was the one who meant to say any of that.
"Fine," Rodney replied, clearly in a snit. "All you had to do was say you were in the middle of a midlife crisis." And he turned on his heel and stomped away.
Sam (John) glared after him and yelled, "And quit it with the space VD already!"
A petite redhead (Brown), he thought, with a sharp flare of resentment, passed by and snickered quietly and none-too-kindly.
Sam just sighed.
--------
He thought about calling off the (mission) and putting a stop to things until he could talk to Al. But his (John's) instincts were telling him the worst thing he could do was arouse suspicion-and they weren't telling so much as yelling. That was when Sam recognized the tension at the base of his spine and the back of his brain not as his, but John's. And it was more than tension: it was worry and fear, adrenaline and fight or flight, all resting on a commitment to protection and safety at any cost necessary. It was instinctual, primitive, and that fierce tangle of emotions and ideals was apparently what passed for (love) in John Sheppard's world. The realization made Sam shiver.
He didn't know what this was, if it was a fantasy, a delusion, an accident, or God forbid, if something had gone wrong with the project. All he knew was that without Al, he had only two options: trust himself or trust John. Neither option was anything approaching ideal, but if this existence really was a fantasy or a delusion of John's creation, Sam had no idea what would happen if he took over. He didn't want to find out, at least not without Al and Ziggy, and maintaining the status quo seemed like the safest move he could make.
The rest of it came naturally to Sam once the decision had been made, and the continued ethereal sense of John's presence assured him it was the right one. He did as John would have and worked his way through the winding corridors up to a wide balcony (control room). When he stepped inside he was stopped short by a sudden inability to breathe, a gasping, hitching need for air that was superseded only by the painful, shrieking noise in his head. He couldn't see, couldn't feel, couldn't think, and he felt the blackness of hypoxia closing in around him as the whine climbed in tone and volume until he thought he might just shake apart from the dissonance.
Then he felt a separation, a very careful, delicate pulling apart, and the blackness and noise resolved into a quiet murmuring, a pleased sensation of golden intuition. Sam didn't know what had happened, but someone was speaking to him and there wasn't time to figure it out.
"Colonel?" a young man asked, concern in his voice.
"Yes," Sam said, hesitant, but then he leaned on the young man's console it and it all fell into place. "Last pre-flight check," he said. "All quiet on the Western front?"
The young man smiled wryly. "As quiet as it gets. The extra equipment Dr. McKay requested has been added to your kits, and Dr. Weir's expecting a check-in every hour on the hour. You're cleared for a go. Anything else, Colonel?"
Sam shook his head. "A go's a go, Lieutenant. See you gateside."
Something about that wasn't quite right, judging from the hint of puzzlement on the young man's face, but it wasn't enough to cause alarm.
"Have a safe trip, Colonel."
Sam gave him a jaunty salute and wound his way back through the corridors to the (jumper bay). He took a closer look at the architecture as he went, trying to learn both his way around and more about this strange place, whatever it might be. The architecture wasn't like any sort he had ever seen before, but it felt familiar nonetheless. The building materials, the style, the lighting, even the design of the technology he saw in passing in the (control room)...it tickled at the back of his mind like something he should remember (Swiss cheese) and then in a flash of insight he did: sci-fi. It was like cheap sci-fi, with a jumble of appearances and technologies that was half recognizable and half alien.
There was a name floating around in the part of him that was John, and Sam got a fleeting image of it bobbing on waves just out of his reach. He groped for it, but the gentle swells carried it away. He tried again, splashing gently in John's waters, thinking vaguely of nets and reels and he caught it (Atlantis) at the same moment he reached a corridor of windows and saw a city floating on an endless sea.
His first reaction wasn't one of awe or appreciation, but a sinking feeling that he had no idea how to fly what he was really afraid was going to be a spaceship.
He wasn't wrong.
When he made his way into the (jumper bay) he felt an immediate tug, like the murmur of intuition he'd heard in the control room made physical. There was a gray...ship of some sort (jumper!) that felt like it was calling out to him. He felt a sharp rush of exhilaration in response, like he'd mainlined a cocktail of adrenaline and serotonin all at once. He stood there in shock, his (John's) body thrilling to the call before it slowly quieted to the mental equivalent of touch, a warmth snugging up against him, ready to go, ready to please, eager and excited and seductive. While he was rooted to the spot two people passed by him and up the ship's entrance ramp: a petite, dark-skinned woman (Yoda), he thought nonsensically, and the largest, brawniest man he thought he'd ever seen, both of whom offered him greeting.
He frowned in their wake-who are they? (team)-and was still trying to wrangle back control of his (John's) body when someone bumped into him and nearly knocked him over. It was Rodney.
"Oh, would you stop being so starry-eyed?" he said, irritated. "She's not your girlfriend, Colonel. Although if she were, perhaps that would help with the-"
"Don't," Sam said.
"Space VD," Rodney finished smugly.
Sam stared him down, partly because the space VD was getting really old and partly because he had no idea what to do next.
Rodney met his eyes for a moment and then his face fell. "Oh, no," he said. "No no no. I'm not doing it."
Sam didn't ask what. He just gave McKay what he hoped was his (John's) best Lt. Colonel stare.
"No," Rodney said, but his resolution was already flagging. "I'm not flying, Colonel."
"Yes, you are," Sam said, and it was the best idea he'd had all day.
--------
"Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, United States Air Force, serial number 252-"
"Yes," Al said impatiently, "we've been over this. What I want to know is where you were stationed."
"Can't tell you that," John replied, unperturbed. "What I can tell you is that I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Shep-"
"Stop it," Al said, fighting the urge to deck the guy. He wasn't generally a violent person-more a lover than a fighter. But an endless loop useless recitation coupled with Ziggy's inability to pull up any records matching Lt. Colonel Sheppard's given information had Al rethinking his priorities.
The man in front of him was tall and thin, though his slouch made him appear far more compact than he really was. He was sprawled in the waiting room's single chair like it was the most comfortable he'd been in years-Al half expected him to kick back with his feet up on the table at any moment. His expression was sarcastic in a way that grated on Al's nerves and everything about LTC Sheppard said that he had all day to give Al the runaround, all week if he had to, and it wouldn't bother him one bit. In fact, he might even start to think it was fun.
He was the worst kind of military man-the kind who hated it as much as he loved it-and Al knew from experience that was also the most dangerous kind.
"Look," Al said, trying a different tack. "I've got a friend who's probably in a whole pile of trouble right about now, and I need your help. I'm Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci, United States Navy, Colonel Sheppard, and I'm asking for your help to save my friend. Please, where were you stationed?"
Something in Sheppard sharpened for a moment and Beeks whispered through the radio in Al's ear, "Interesting," but the moment was over before it had even begun
"I'm sorry," Sheppard said, not sounding sorry at all. "That's classified."
--------
"I'm just saying as a team veteran to the new guy, heavy lunch before mission departure? Bad idea. I mean, even with the inertial dampeners this whole flying thing's best done on an empty stomach."
The behemoth (Ronon) behind John rumbled, "Yeah, well, I've got a pretty strong stomach."
Rodney swiveled in his seat. "Hey, I can eat frozen dinners without thawing them and it doesn't even affect me," he said, like his pride had been affronted.
"McKay," Sam (John) said wearily, "watch the road."
"There is no road."
"You know what I mean."
"Hmph." But he turned back to the console and a holographic reading projected itself onto the front windshield (viewpanel), tracing a jaggedly irregular course.
"And even if you were driving, you wouldn't be driving in England," Sam (John) couldn't help but add.
"Oh, what's this?" Rodney asked with an epic roll of his eyes. "More American imperialism? Please, this is uncharted space."
Sam wanted to balk at "uncharted space," but instead he said, "You're Canadian, Rodney. You drive on the same side of the road I do."
Rodney "hmph!"ed again. "Minor detail."
Before he could formulate a response, Ronon called his name in a quiet voice.
"Okay," Sam (John) said, looking out the viewpanel, "that's not something you see every day." So far, he'd been okay with (Atlantis) and the possibility of aliens and the certainty of spaceships and space travel, but he was ready to draw the line at space wreckage from a scene that looked like an outtake from Star Wars. For a fantasy or a delusion, this was taking it a little too far.
Sam was trying to figure out what to do next, what the protocol in a situation like this might be (unfortunately, he thought turn and run like hell wasn't it), when he realized he'd somehow taken over the controls from Rodney without being aware of it. He was about to panic because he was mostly okay with being a bystander in this space opera as long as he didn't have to be an active participant who flew a spaceship but then the (jumper!) was snugging up beside him again, showing him just where to go.
"There was a great battle here," (Teyla) observed and then, as they moved closer, "That is a hive ship."
"That was a hive ship," Ronon corrected. "Something put a lot of holes in it. We should check it out."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," M Rodney protested. "What if whatever put holes in it wants to put holes in us?"
"The Dorandans defeated a fleet of Wraith ships," Teyla said. "It warrants a closer look."
Well. That answered that question. The jumper was a warmth up against Sam (John) again, offering something like autopilot, which Sam gratefully accepted.
They broke the planet's atmosphere to a gray scene of destruction and desolation the likes of which Sam had never seen before.
"This is what usually happens when you fight back." There was something about the certainty in Ronon's voice that caught Sam's attention, but he had more important things to focus on at the moment.
"Hold on," McKay said, tapping away at another console. "I'm picking up faint energy readings, coming from-" he stood up and leaned over Sam (John) for a better view -"there."
Sam wished he knew how to make the jumper slow and bank left on his own, but so far he'd only been able to respond to the jumper's suggestions. It might have been a two way street, though, as the autopilot on the jumper did exactly what Sam had been hoping for, unprompted.
"That would explain how they were able to put up such a good fight," Rodney said slowly, closer now.
"How?" Sam asked, eyes wide at the destruction in front of him.
"Because they were Ancients."
--------
After that, things moved quickly. The energy readings Rodney had discovered turned out to be an Ancient outpost. They also discovered bodies, several of them, and that was something Sam could certainly have done without.
It didn't take Rodney long to conclude that what they'd found was some sort of defense station and practically before Sam knew it, they were back on Atlantis explaining their discovery to (Elizabeth), who was the head of the expedition.
That was apparently all in a day's work for John and his team, and Sam hoped fervently that Al showed up soon because it was starting to feel like it was all in a day's work for him, too. Whatever sort of delusion this was, it was detailed to the point of being all consuming, and that had Sam worried.
There was nothing he could do for the moment, however, and he turned his attention back to the conversation.
"So it's a military research facility," Elizabeth was saying.
"From what we can tell," Rodney replied excitedly, "it's a ground-based version of the satellite weapon we used to destroy that hive ship, with one major exception: firepower. I mean, if that single outpost was responsible for destroying an entire Wraith fleet..."
"And you're sure it was this weapon that destroyed all those Wraith ships?"
"It had to be," Rodney said. "There's nothing on the planet that suggests the Dorandans had anything capable of inflicting anywhere near that much damage."
"If we could learn of such technology, we could defend other worlds from being culled," Teyla said, and Sam noticed she spoke with a passion that matched Ronon's earlier certainty.
And that certainty was on display once again. "It didn't save the Dorandans."
"Yeah, but," McKay said, not about to let a single drop of rain fall on his parade, "at the end of the day the outpost was still standing and that means...well, I'm not sure what that means, but it means something definitely worth checking out."
Elizabeth looked hopeful when she turned to Sam (John). "Colonel?"
Sam (John) hesitated, but there was only one answer he could give. "He's right. It's definitely worth sending a research team back."
"Good!" McKay said, even brighter than before. "Well, give me Opitcan, Collins, and Zelenka, if he's over the stomach flu. We'll try to access the computer's log books, see if we can decipher them. Once that's-"
"Okay, okay!" Elizabeth said, grinning. "Easy sell. Go."
"Oh, good!" he said, and jogged off.
Sam was nearly as excited. Certainly an Air Force colonel wouldn't have a role to play as part of a research team. He had a sneaking suspicion John might have been as sly as Rodney was intelligent.
And now that he was thinking about it, there was something about Rodney that seemed vaguely familiar-his slight accent, the cadence of his speech, his habit of snapping and pointing-something jogged Sam's memory. Although it probably wasn't Sam's memory so much as it is John's; it seemed like the two of them spent quite a bit of time together.
Whatever it was, it wasn't as important as finding his way back to John's quarters and waiting impatiently for Al.
--------
"Classification is a problem I can work with," Al said, thankful for what looked like his first break since Sam had leaped six days ago. "I can't tell you much about where you are or what you're doing here, but I can tell you this is part of a DoD project, top secret-"
"Admiral," Beeks said worriedly in his ear, "watch what you say."
Al ignored her. "-clearance Umbra. That probably doesn't mean anything to you, but trust me: it should."
John smiled lazily, but there was something predator sharp about it. "You're right, it doesn't. This little project of yours, it got a name?"
"That's classified."
"Mm," John said understandingly. "Unfortunately, so's the name of my station."
"You don't understand," Al said, and he could hear the edge of desperation in his voice. From the look in John's eyes, Al knew he heard it too. "My friend's been missing for six days. There's no telling what's happened to him and if he's hurt or if he's-if he's dead...you can't even begin to imagine what we'll have lost."
John remained impassive. Al sighed. He'd come at John from just about every angle now, but he'd invent new ones if he had to. Anything to get to Sam.
"You don't really want to know what the name of this project is," he said. "I've practically had more divorces than I've had wives-trust me, I can see bargaining from a hundred paces. Ask me something you really want to know and I promise you'll get the truth."
John seemed to weigh Al's offer and after a long moment asked, "Does this have anything to do with the Wraith?"
"What's the wraith?" Al asked, but the handlink in his pocket chirped just then. He knew Ziggy had been listening in, just like Dr. Beeks, and it was likely she had information about whatever this wraith was. Al headed for the door. "If you change your mind," he said, "let me know."
"Wait," John called. "This friend of yours. He got a name?"
Al hesitated. "Sam," he said, and the name hung heavy in the air. "His name is Sam."
--------
Clearly Rodney was more intelligent than John was sly, if Sam's return to the Ancient outpost was anything to go by. He wouldn't have figured John for babysitting duty, but it seemed to be something he enjoyed. At the very least, it gave Sam a chance to skulk around corners and whisper Al's name hopefully. In Sam's opinion, he was more than overdue.
He was finishing up with the last of the schlepping-he'd wonder at the necessity of the amount of equipment the scientists have brought with them, but he had only to think of Ziggy-when he heard (Zelenka) say, "I'm telling you, at least .09%," and Rodney reply impatiently, "Oh please, please, move the decimal place. I mean, it's impossible, for God's sake."
At that, Sam (John) wandered over. "Have we figured out what this is?"
"No," Rodney quickly replied, turning back from the console he and Zelenka had been working at. Sam thought Rodney must be the worst liar he'd ever seen.
"No, I wouldn't say no," Zelenka protested. "We have a theory."
"But we don't know yet."
"No, but based on the shielding around the chamber, what else could it be?"
Sam wasn't sure whether to laugh in amusement or sigh in exasperation. "Have you tried turning it on?"
"That's what we're working on," Rodney said. "The problem is that there's no direct link between it and the main power control systems, which, among other things, has led us to theorize that it's an ancillary power supply for the weapons system."
Sam (John) grinned. "Cool."
Rodney smirked. "See that? See the way he lights up at the mention of that?" His smirk became audible. "It's like Dr. Vogel at the mention of pastries."
Rodney might have been a genius, but Sam was no slouch, either. "They found out a way to soup up their space guns," he said simply.
"Yes," Zelenka said. "But it's much more than that."
"Well, the sticking point is that there's no tie between the power generator and the primary capacitor," Rodney said.
Zelenka nodded. "Meaning they would have to channel the power directly into the weapon."
Rodney grinned smugly at John. "Which I'm sure means nothing to you."
Sam (John) cocked an eyebrow. "It means they can fire multiple bursts without having to store up more power for the next firing sequence."
Rodney's face fell. "Yes. Very good."
It was Sam's (John's) turn to smirk. "Which leads me back to, 'Cool.'"
"Yes, but it only makes sense if we're right."
Sam (John) turned to Zelenka. "About what?"
"Tell him," Zelenka nudged.
Rodney 's smirk was back. "Not yet."
"Come on, McKay, you read the equations. What else could it be? An Ancient typo?"
"Well, we know they're not perfect," Rodney said, "because they're all dead." He shifted his gaze to Sam (John). "Look, I just don't want you to get all excited over nothing."
Sam (John) decided to play along. "Well, maybe you're right."
Rodney caved, exactly like Sam (John) knew he would. "All right, I'll give you a hint," he said excitedly, eyes bright. Sam (John) couldn't help but laugh. "It seems that the Ancients were experimenting with high-energy physics on a level that we've never seen before."
Sam was curious to know more, but he didn't think John would ask or be able to understand. Instead, he deadpanned, "Wow." McKay and Zelenka grinned at each other as though he shared their enthusiasm.
"Yes, wow," McKay agreed. "I just...I want to be sure."
Sam (John) held back a laugh. "I'll do my best to wait."
--------
"All right, Ziggy," Al said. "What have you got?"
"Oh, Admiral," she said, playing at being miffed, "no small talk? No friendly exchange of greetings before you demand the fruits of my difficult labors? And trust me, Admiral, they were difficult. Why-"
"Get on with it, Ziggy," he said, his patience wearing thin. "We don't have time for this."
"Seeing as how my circuits will outlive yours," she said loftily, "I'd say I have nothing but time, Admiral."
"Ziggy," he growled.
"Fine," she said, sighing delicately. "But let it be said that the Canadian network does not share the stereotypical politeness of its human counterparts. Perhaps it's the cold weather, but they're offensively slow. And notably lacking in conversational skills, as well."
"Canadian?"
"Yes, Admiral. I was able to find references to a Dr. Meredith McKay occurring alongside those of Lt. Colonel Sheppard with a 54% correlation beginning in 2004. It appears they were working on a project together under the International Oversight Advisory. Unfortunately, all records under IOA jurisdiction are top secret and we do not," she said, her voice pouty with disappointment, "have the proper security clearance."
"We don't have clearance?" Al asked. "Of course we have cl-"
"Oh no, Admiral," she said reproachfully. "We don't."
"Well then get clearance."
"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding sorry in the least, "but that function lies outside my parameters."
Al punched his handlink. "Gooshie!"
It beeped in response. "Already on it, Admiral."
"Let me know when you've got something," Al said. "Either of you."
He was halfway out the door when Ziggy called to him. "Oh, Admiral. There's more."
Al swallowed down his blooming anger and tried to put on his best polite tone. It was clearly lacking, even to his own ears. "And what might that be?"
"There are also several occurrences of Dr. McKay's name alongside Dr. Beckett's."
Al's anger disappeared completely at that. "With Sam?"
"Yes, Admiral. Drs. Beckett and McKay were both in attendance at the 19th Spring Symposium on High Energy Physics in Germany in 1988. They have also both served as reviewers for the American Journal of Physics and the Journal of Mathematical Physics."
"She's a physicist?"
"He's a physicist: Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay holds a terminal degree in astrophysics from Northwestern University. He worked on the Canadarm under General Davidson and was then recruited into the American military infrastructure, which had been attempting recruitment since grade six. After that all records are classified."
"Ziggy," Al said, "I think I love you."
"You certainly should."
--------
Sam was starting to get nervous. He'd gone longer without seeing Al for the first time after a leap, but not by much. He wasn't sure if it was a function of the delusion, things were moving incredibly fast, and all without any idea of what he was there to do.
He sat uncomfortably in Elizabeth's office, listening to Rodney argue for the continuation of the Arcturus project in the face of Dr. Zelenka's clear concern and (Colonel Caldwell's) equally clear interest. From what Sam could understand of the project-which was plenty-Rodney certainly seemed to be careening ahead at breakneck speed when caution might have served him better.
"Project Arcturus was attempting to extract vacuum energy from our own spacetime," Zelenka was explaining, "making it potentially as powerful as the scope of the universe itself."
Caldwell frowned. "It strikes me as something the Ancients would have tried first, even before ZPMs."
"And they may have," Rodney agreed, "but extracting zero point energy from our own universe is...well, it's definitely trickier."
"Explain trickier," Elizabeth said suspiciously.
Zelenka intervened. "Well, because we actually have to live in our own universe, it presents a whole range of problems."
"Obviously it's not that easy or Atlantis wouldn't still rely on ZPMs," Caldwell observed.
"You're right," Sam (John) said. "The Ancients couldn't make it work."
Rodney shot him an irritated glare. "I said I wanted to do all the talking."
Sam couldn't quite read John's mind, but he could read his instincts. Sam felt a sense of reservation coming from him, though one that was easily swayed-giving into Rodney felt like something John was used to doing, even against his better judgment. It felt something like id and ego and Sam began thinking the key to breaking the delusion was stopping the flow of events. He made an executive decision, mentally crossed his fingers, and hoped for the best.
"Come on, Rodney," he said. "Arcturus was a total failure."
Rodney was even more irritated now. "Failure, yes. Total, no. Look, the Ancients were losing the war against the Wraith when work on Arcturus began. If they could have made it work, it could have turned the tide of war. I mean, we're talking about their own Manhattan Project here."
Caldwell looked at Sam (John) quizzically. "The outpost was ordered by the Ancients in Atlantis to defend the Dorandan people using their weapons powered by this new power source," John explained.
"Yes," Zelenka added, "but despite their strong reservations that it was not ready to be tested under battle conditions."
Sam (John) was grateful for an ally, unwitting or not. "The point is, the Wraith won."
Rodney was dogged. "Yeah, but the Dorandans still inflicted massive damage on the Wraith fleet."
"I'm not saying they didn't put up a hell of a fight."
"The logs indicate there was a major malfunction," Zelenka said, his reservations clear.
"Well, yes," McKay said quickly, "the Ancients in the bunker were forced to shut everything down, including the weapon."
"The Wraith sent more ships and the Dorandans got wiped out," John said pointedly.
Elizabeth watched them argue, while Rodney looked more betrayed with every passing moment.
"So if the malfunction hadn't occurred, the Ancients would have saved the planet?" Caldwell asked.
Rodney latched on to the only upside they'd found so far and went for maximum spin. "Definitely."
"Possibly," Sam (John) said warningly. "Don't sugarcoat this, Rodney."
Rodney was clearly frustrated with Sam's (John's) interference and exasperated with what Sam was sure he saw as their stupidity in the face of his great discovery. "The Ancient scientists running Arcturus were rushed into testing before they had perfected a means of effectively controlling the power output. I believe if they'd had more time, history would have played out differently on that planet-possibly in this galaxy."
"I won't deny that this is something that we'd dearly love to get our hands on," Caldwell said, and Sam thought disappointedly, Military, "but the Ancients were a pretty bright bunch."
Rodney wasn't about to let Caldwell's earlier agreement go. "And desperate, and losing a war they'd already been fighting for a hundred years. More importantly, they were this close."
"And you believe you can finish their work?" Weir asked, though she already knew the answer.
"I do," McKay said.
Sam could see the in for a penny, in for a pound look in Zelenka's eyes. "We do."
He sighed, knowing the battle was lost and unsure whether it had even been winnable in the first place. He cursed himself, Al, and Freud under his breath and said resignedly, "They do."
--------
After a short rest Tina had insisted on, Al returned to the waiting room calmer than he'd been before, but more worried. Not only did they not have a fix on Sam, but Al had nothing to tell him about the leap if-when-they did.
"All right," Al said, keying the waiting room door shut on his handlink. "let's talk about Dr. McKay."
John's body tightened, but his lazy smile didn't change. "Dr. who?"
"Paul McGann was my favorite," Al said, "but that's neither here nor there."
"I preferred Peter Davison myself," John said, "what with being dashing and all."
"Who wasn't in the 80s?" Dr. Beeks whispered her approval of their burgeoning rapport in his ear, but Al was ready to get down to business. "So about Dr. McKay."
"I don't know any Dr. McKay."
"Your records say otherwise."
John was silent.
Al sighed and rubbed his temples, wishing vaguely for a drink. Instead, he sat on the table and didn't bother to straighten the slump of his shoulders or cover the exhaustion in his voice. "My Sam? He's a doctor. Quantum physics, among other things. Ancient languages. Medicine. Music. Played Carnegie Hall at 19. Hell of a combination, isn't it?
"And me, hell. I'm just a jet jockey. I did a stint at MIT, sure, but it's not like I walked out of there with 6 or 7 doctorates. Not like Sam. And somehow I'm the one who's supposed to protect him. Keep him safe."
Dr. Beeks was murmuring something about recognition, but Al tuned her out and kept going. "So far I'm doing a pretty lousy job. He saved my life once, years ago. I've had a lot of opportunities, more than I deserve, but I just haven't been able to return the favor. Some kind of friend, huh?"
As he'd spoken, he'd watched something in John's resolve soften. Beeks had noticed as well and encouraged him to press the small advantage. It was more than John had given them yet.
"I can only imagine what you must be thinking about all this. I don't know what I'd think if I were in your shoes. Maybe that we're all crazy. Or that I was crazy, I don't know. I can't tell you much about this-matters of national security," he said wryly. "I'm sure you know the drill.
"But I can tell you this isn't some government conspiracy. We're not after you, or any of your colleagues, or any of your men. I don't know anything about this wraith you were talking about earlier. You're not being held prisoner; you're in isolation for your own safety and to secure the integrity of our project. I want to get you back to wherever you were, whatever it is you were doing. I don't want to keep you here."
Al looked John straight in the eye and laid his cards on the table. "Sam's lost. I need your help to get him back. And if he doesn't come back, you can't go back."
Beeks drew in a sharp breath. "Admiral, be careful."
"That part's out of my control," he said. "It's out of everyone's control. I'm sure Dr. McKay could explain it to you, but even he'd tell you that's just the way it is. If we're going to get you back, we need to find Sam.
"Please, Colonel. Help me."
A long pause followed, and Al began to think John might agree.
Instead, he shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't do that."
Al left the room, out of angles.
--------
From Sam's (John's) dismissal from the previous afternoon's meeting to this morning's mission back to the outpost, it seemed both as though no time had passed and as thought he'd counted every second waiting for some sign of Al. He was exhausted and, he finally let himself admit, worried.
He tried not to worry as a matter of course; he had enough faith in God or Fate or Time or Whatever was leaping him around that he'd be kept safe, safe enough to continue putting right the things that once went wrong. He'd had close calls before, but something about this leap had him feeling like something was very, very wrong: the possibility of a delusion, or the even more frightening possibility that all of this was real. Either way, Occam's razor told him the reason for his leap was most likely the weapon Rodney was working on, but he had no way to be sure.
He occupied himself with his own thoughts as Rodney and his research team busied themselves with simulations and preparations for the weapon's first test.
"All right. Attention, all personnel!" Rodney finally called, and Sam (John) snapped to attention. "Stand by for power up on my mark.
"Three...two...one...mark."
The dull thudding bass that began all around them was soon joined by a higher pitched whine as the weapon powered up. Zelenka kept a close eye on the power output, Rodney kept a close eye on the control console, and Sam (John) kept a close eye on Rodney.
"Radek, talk to me," Rodney said as the machine fell into the middling tones of successful activation.
"I'm picking up some minor power fluctuations," Zelenka responded, studying his readout carefully, "but the chamber temperature's holding steady." He frowned as the power levels spiked. "There it goes again."
Sam (John), who was watching the weapon's core through a small viewpanel, made his way to Rodney's side. "Everything okay?"
"Everything's fine," Rodney said confidently. "The containment bubble was designed to automatically compensate for any sudden changes in energy output."
Zelenka wasn't as easily assuaged. "This never happened in the simulations."
Sam (John) was instantly alarmed. "Maybe we should abort."
"I said it's fine," Rodney said, ignoring him. "Collins, see if you can boost more power to the field manually."
"You got it," he replied, grabbing his tablet. He made his way into the access tube, removed a panel, and rearranged the control crystals inside to reroute power.
"Prepare for test firing on my mark."
Before he could give his mark, the weapon's power surged and alarms began blaring. "Levels just spiked into the red!" Zelenka called, struggling to be heard over the cacophony.
"What?" Rodney worked furiously at his console, but the alarms continued to sound, rising in insistence.
"Shut it down," Sam (John) said urgently. "Shut it all down."
"I'm trying," Rodney said tightly, hands flying over the console.
Zelenka worked ineffectually at his controls. "The interface is not responding!"
"I'm going to switch to back-ups!"
Sam (John) watched with increasing fear, splitting his attention between Rodney and Zelenka. "Levels are going off the scales!" Zelenka called, and Sam (John) heard the first note of panic in his voice, accompanied by the rising swell of the alarms.
"McKay?"
"I've given the command to shut down, but something's creating an overload!"
Sam (John) swore. "We should evacuate!"
"Just give me a few seconds!"
Sam (John) felt his fear already coalescing into regret for the way things were about to go. "We may not have that time!" But Rodney refused to move, the rest of the research team following his example. Before Sam (John) could argue further, the sound of the weapon slowly overcame the blaring of the alarms with a deep rumbling that sounded like downshifting.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Zelenka called. "It's stabilizing." The sound of the weapon continued to drop and then stopped completely. "Generator is offline," he said, relief as evident in his voice as it was on his face.
Sam (John) turned on Rodney. "What the hell just happened?"
"Obviously there was a surge of some kind," he said, his pale face and shaking hands belying the calm in voice. "Look, Colli-Collins!" he cried, his eyes going wide as he ran for the access tube. Zelenka and Sam (John) followed. The door opened on Collins' body and Rodney swayed on his feet, looking like he was about to be sick.
--------
Al and Gooshie were busy in the control room trying to track down any information on Sheppard Ziggy wouldn't have had access to, Al calling in favors and Gooshie doing a bit of hacking he'd reluctantly but bravely agreed to try. They were both surprised when Ziggy spoke.
"Admiral," she said. "John wishes to speak to you."
Al clicked his com. "Beeks?"
She sounded confused. "He hasn't said a word, Admiral. He's done nothing but sit in his chair. He's hardly even fidgeted."
"Oh, no," Ziggy said, a hint of smugness in her voice. "I've been looping the video on Dr. Beeks' monitor. John and I have actually been having quite the talk."
"What?" Gooshie abandoned his computer and headed for the control table, but Ziggy beat him to it.
"I've been looping my power output records as well," she said chidingly. "Don't look surprised, Gooshie. I am, after all, a parallel hy-"
"Why?" Al asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach like this was all going to go very ca-ca.
"Because John asked me to," she said simply.
"John asked you to?"
"Yes," she said, practically purring. "John speaks my language."
--------
Rodney was shaky and quiet on the trip back to Atlantis even more so when they gathered in the conference room for a debriefing following Carson's brief autopsy.
"Officially my report will indicate Dr. Collins died due to radiation exposure, causing severe burns to well over 90% of his body," Carson said.
"But it was more than that?" Elizabeth asked, and Sam (John) could see the burden of responsibility settling on her shoulders.
"Aye. Much more. To be honest, I have no idea what sort of radiation it was. I've never seen or heard of cellular decay this massive, not when exposure only lasted mere seconds."
"Collins' next of kin have been notified," Caldwell said.
Elizabeth nodded. "Good," she said, meaning anything but. She turned to Rodney and Zelenka. "What went wrong?"
"We're still analyzing data from the test," Zelenka said, motioning to the schematics on the (plasma). "All we know for certain was that there was a massive power surge which, in turn, caused the containment field to expand asymmetrically in the direction of the command access tube. As to why...." He shrugged.
"How about human error?" Caldwell asked.
Rodney, who'd clearly been using everything he had to keep himself together, focused on Caldwell after a slow moment. His voice was thin. "Excuse me?"
"According to your reports, during the test Dr. Collins made an adjustment to the containment field," Caldwell said, not unkindly. "Is it possible that he triggered the surge himself?"
Elizabeth was immediately defensive. "Are you looking for a scapegoat, Colonel?"
"Not at all, Doctor," he said easily. "I'm admittedly looking for a rationale that would allow Dr. McKay to continue his very important work. Is there something wrong with that?"
Sam (John) shifted uncomfortably thinking, Military, again with much more vehemence.
"No," Rodney said, looking for the first time since Collins' death like he was finally aware of what going on around him. His voice was still high and tight, but his jaw was set determinedly. "No. Collins knew the system just as well as any of us. He wouldn't have made that kind of mistake. Everything was going well. Everyone did their job."
"Then what?" Weir asked.
"I don't know," Rodney said, grief masquerading as impatience. "In terms of physics, it shouldn't have happened."
"We're still analyzing data from the accident," Zelenka repeated. "It's going to take time."
"What I do know," Rodney said, "is the device did what it was supposed to do."
Sam's (John's) stomach clenched. "No, Rodney. It didn't."
"Well, apart from the obvious containment issues."
Rodney was clearly struggling, but Sam (John) didn't know if anyone else could see it. He looked Rodney hard in the eye, as if willing him to see reason. "It overloaded and you couldn't stop it."
Rodney glared mulishly. "Well, we won't know for sure until we go back down there and try again."
"Try again? Are you serious?"
"Yes."
Sam (John) looked to Elizabeth for help, but none was coming. "A member of your team is in the morgue," he said. He felt more than saw Rodney flinch.
"And I am responsible for his death, yes. I am painfully aware of that. I sent him in there and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life." His voice broke and he paused. "But we have a responsibility to understand what happened and learn from it."
"Rodney," Zelenka said gently, "we don't even know what went wrong."
"Which is why we have to go back there!" Rodney snapped.
Finally, Elizabeth intervened. "I know how important this is to you, Rodney. But we knew when we came to Atlantis that we might encounter certain technologies which, for the moment, are out of our reach."
"It's not in this case," Rodney said, not meeting her eyes.
She was having none of it. "You have the data from your first attempt. You can run all the simulations you want."
"Come on, Elizabeth," he said scornfully. "You really think the military's gonna let this go? At the very least we should be the first ones in there to spearhead the research."
"That's what this is about? You want to beat them to it?" Elizabeth said disgustedly. That wasn't what it was about, not really, and Sam (John) thought Elizabeth knew it, too. She held firm. "I'm sorry. The answer's no."
Elizabeth, Caldwell, and Carson cleared the briefing room, leaving Rodney and Sam (John). "Rodney," he said softly.
But Rodney only set his jaw and pointedly looked away. Sam (John) nodded and left him alone.
--------
"So, Project Quantum Leap," John said smugly, when Al and Gooshie entered the waiting room. "Ziggy told me all about it."
Women, Al thought viciously. "Did she, now?"
John smirked. "Oh, she did. Now, assuming this is all true-which I can; you wouldn't believe half the stuff I've seen-"
"Space vampires," Ziggy supplied helpfully.
"-let's make sure I've got it right. If I'm here, then it means your Sam is where I am, trying to fix something that obviously goes wrong in the future."
Ziggy was clearly enamored. "Yes, John."
"She also said you can't access any of our records, so you have no idea where Sam is or what went wrong, so he couldn't fix it even if you could find him. That leaves you a little ways up a place I like to call shit creek, doesn't it?"
"Ca-ca," Gooshie said faintly. Al thought about decking John for real this time, but was interrupted by Ziggy.
"Actually, John," she said, "I'll have a lock on Dr. Beckett in approximately thirty-eight minutes."
"What?" Al asked, clearly startled. "You found him?"
"Yes, Admiral. My difficulty in locating Dr. Beckett was not a shortcoming on my part, but rather the result of incomplete and therefore faulty information. According to John, Dr. Beckett is located in the city of Atlantis, on the planet informally known as Atlantica, in the galaxy of Pegasus. This information was not entered into my databases," Ziggy finished reproachfully, "but John was able to provide it."
"No, I didn't," John said.
"Yes, you did," Ziggy said indulgently. "The pertinent security clearance was tied into your coded call sign and after that it was quite a simple matter to crack it. American military security," she said fondly.
Women, Al thought admiringly.
"Wait, Atlantis?" Gooshie said, even more faintly.
"Yes, Gooshie," Ziggy said. "Atlantis is most easily reachable by travel through a stable wormhole created by a stargate. It will take approximately two minutes to gather the data necessary for the proper calculations, and an additional thirty-six minutes to reconfigure the accelerator and imaging chamber to make contact with Dr. Beckett."
"Strgate?" Gooshie swayed dangerously on his feet. John rushed to steady him.
"You can do that?" Al asked.
"Of course I can, Admiral," she said. "The accelerator and imaging chambers operate on principles of string theory. Thus far we've been using them to travel through time, but with small recalibrations it is possible to travel through space instead. It is apparently the same operating principle as stargate travel, only without the middling interface."
"Is that safe?" John asked suspiciously.
"Of course it's safe," she said, affronted. "Safety was hardwired into all my functional parameters after Dr. Beckett's initial leap. Unfortunately, the amount of power required for you and John to make contact with Dr. Beckett will likely black out the entirety of Nevada."
"John doesn't need to make contact with Sam."
"Yes, he does. Probability of success increases to 72% when John is factored in. You don't want to know what the probability is without him."
Al didn't think so, either.
"I recall how upset Governor Escada was last time we crashed our power grid," she continues, "which is why I'm currently drawing power from the eastern seaboard grid. Whoops," she said, mischievously, "there goes Maine."
John had tuned them out for the most part, trying to concentrate on what was most critical. "Do you have any idea what went wrong?" he asked.
"Yes," Ziggy said, but she sounded regretful rather than proud. "Unfortunately, John, you and Dr. McKay died on a planet known as Doranda. The expedition on Atlantis was therefore unable to defend itself from a Wraith invasion that occurs six years later. The Wraith were able to use Atlantis's stargate to travel to Earth, where they engaged in a war with another race known as the Goa'uld. Nearly all humans were exterminated in the aftermath. After that, there is little to report."
John paled and turned on Al. "And you can stop this from happening?"
"I don't understand what's happening."
"Wraith: space vampires," John said. "Goa-uld: body snatchers. Trust me, it won't be pretty."
"Do you have more information on how Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay died?"
"Yes, Admiral," she said. "John and Dr. McKay were working together on a two man mission for a second test fire of a weapon they'd found in an ancient outpost on Doranda. The test fire caused an overload and a chain reaction that resulted in the destruction of the solar system. John and Dr. McKay were caught in the superburst."
"Doranda," John said. "My team was going on a mission there today or, or whatever day it was when I-"
"Leaped," Al supplied.
John nodded. "We found information on Doranda in the Ancient database-the race of people who built Atlantis," he hurriedly explained in response to Al's confused look. "They were listed in the database as being a friendly group of technologically advanced people. That's hard to find in Pegasus. It was strictly an exploratory mission. I don't know anything about a weapon."
"Dr. McKay discovered the weapon, designated as Project Arcturus, in an Ancient outpost, according the mission reports. It was designed to extract vacuum energy from a region of this universe's subspacetime, much like ZPMs, which extract vacuum energy from an artificially created region of subspacetime."
"ZPMs are what's used to power the gates and Atlantis," John said.
"However, the weapon's power output created exotic particles. When the overload continued, the weapon employed its emergency release valve to prevent catastrophic containment failure. This release resulted in an explosion that destroyed the Dorandan solar system."
John closed his eyes. "The entire solar system? Was it inhabited?"
"Five-sixths," Ziggy said more precisely. "And it was not inhabited, according to available records."
John sighed in relief. "Okay. What do we do?"
"We wait," Al said, "until we can find Sam."
--------
There had been so much happening so quickly on Atlantis that Sam had nearly forgotten about Al and the leap, his (John's) priority getting everyone home and keeping them safe. When he returned to his (John's) quarters after the debriefing, however, it all came back into focus.
He was, again, doing his best not to worry. It would serve no purpose: if there was something wrong, there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was overlook something important if his attention was elsewhere, ensuring something went wrong if it hadn't already.
Still, he didn't think he'd ever missed Al more.
There was a copy of War and Peace on John's nightstand, with a bookmark a quarter of the way in. Sam had only gotten through an additional five pages when there was a tentative knock at his door. It slid open to reveal Rodney, rumpled and brimming over with weariness, but determined just the same.
"Harry K. Daghlian," Rodney opened.
Sam (John) nodded. "The scientist. Worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos."
McKay looked surprised, but kept going, his voice drawn taut. "He was only twenty-six years old when he accidentally irradiated himself while performing a critical mass experiment on two half-spheres of plutonium. Took him a month to die. While his body was slowly shutting down from radiation poisoning, you know what he did with his last thirty days?"
Sam knew. All scientists knew. But he let Rodney continue. He needed to. "He worked. He tried until his last breath to understand what had happened to him so that others could learn from the tragedy, so that his work, his death, wouldn't be rendered meaningless." He stopped quickly, as though he was afraid the tears he'd been holding at bay all evening would finally get the best of him. After a moment's pause, he continued. "Now, have you considered what would have happened if they'd just shut the project down after that?"
"This is different," Sam said gently.
"Is it? Collins' death is a pointless waste of life unless something comes of this, and I am not sure that I can-" He swallowed hard, changing tack. "I think I know what happened."
"Let's hear it."
"Can I come in?"
"No," Sam (John) said, hoping it would make what he could see coming easier. Rodney looked slighted, but not surprised.
"The Ancients had it wrong," he said. "Our mistake was using their equations. Look, I just did the calculations again myself. I did them three times just to be sure and I am positive the problem is in the automatic containment protocols."
Sam wanted to stop him right there, but figured Rodney had at least earned the chance to ask before being refused.
"Okay. What's your fix?"
"I am proposing that we adjust the field strength manually."
Sam (John) sighed. "You saw how fast it spiked on you."
"So we don't operate the generator at anywhere near its potential," Rodney fought. "Look, there's no need to be greedy. Even operating at fifty percent, it'll still generate the power of a dozen ZPMs."
"How come the Ancients didn't figure this out?"
"Maybe they were caught up in the heat of battle. Maybe they thought they needed as much power as they could get. Maybe," Rodney said archly, "they weren't smart enough."
That was it. The set of his jaw, his tone of voice, took Sam back twenty years to a conference in Germany where a kid who looked like he hadn't left adolescence far behind, if he'd left it at all, had challenged Stephen Hawking on the physics of Schwarzchild black hole singularities. Hawking hadn't been wrong, but he hadn't recognized the cross applicability to white wormholes, either. Sam had remembered thinking that this kid was someone they should all watch out for, because he'd be the only one right when everyone else was wrong. That kid's name, he'd later found out, was Meredith Rodney McKay.
"And you are?" Sam asked, knowing well enough he probably was. That only made Sam's (John's) decision more painful.
"No, I didn't say that, but I have the benefit of hindsight," he said, unexpectedly charitable. "They didn't. Look, this is big. This is the wheel, the light bulb, the theory of relativity big."
"Best case scenario?" Sam (John) asked.
"I win a Nobel Prize."
If you haven't yet, Rodney, Sam thought, one's certainly not far off. "Worst case scenario?"
"We tear a hole in the fabric of the universe," he said quickly, "which is much less likely to happen than the Nobel Prize. Look, the risks are nothing compared to the potential benefits. Elizabeth will listen to you." He took a deep breath and looked Sam (John) in the eye. "I have never asked this of you before, but I think I've earned it. Trust me."
Sam thought of the frenetic kid he'd seen in Germany, the one he was sure would prove them all wrong. He couldn't meet Rodney's eyes when he said, "I'm sorry. No."
--------
There was a loud alarm from Al's handlink at the same time Ziggy spoke. "There appears to be a problem," she said.
"Appears to be?" Al asked. "Ziggy. Don't tell me this has gone ca-ca, not now."
"I'm afraid it has, Admiral. I just detected a microleap."
It was John's turn to look worried. "A microleap? What's that?"
"It is a rare occurrence where Dr. Beckett leaps in time, but not space," Ziggy replied.
"Meaning?" John asked.
"Meaning something went wrong," Al said tersely. "Ziggy, update."
After a brief moment's silence, she spoke again. "In the original timeline, John and Dr. McKay were killed in the superburst. Dr. Beckett has apparently created a new timeline, one in which Dr. McKay and a small team of scientists were killed fleeing Doranda."
"But not me?" John asked.
"No, John. You were not part of the mission. After Dr. McKay's death, you resigned from the Stargate program. The Wraith invasion and subsequent events proceeded as they did in the original timeline."
"Death and destruction?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Shit."
Al nodded. "Ca-ca."
"What do we do now?"
"We wait," Al said, "and try to figure out what happened." He leaned against the table and keyed his handlink. "Gooshie, you listening?"
"Yes, Admiral.
"Okay. Ziggy, more details."
"According to the mission reports, Dr. McKay went to John personally and asked for approval to continue the Arcturus mission. John refused. Dr. McKay then appealed to Colonel Caldwell, who approved the mission."
"He can't do that," John said.
"He did," Ziggy replied, "under a Pentagon-sanctioned mission approved by the IOA at SGC."
John glanced at Al. "Oversight of Stargate Command. Oversight of oversight."
Al nodded. "Bureaucracy."
"Dr. McKay returned to Doranda with a small team of scientists. When the weapon overloaded, it began firing as a means of discharging additional energy. The jumper-"
"Ship," John supplied.
"-they were traveling in was hit, and was then assumed to be caught in the superburst."
John frowned. "Who was piloting the jumper?"
"A Major Lorne," Ziggy replied. "He was presumed dead along with the science team. Three months later, John, you resigned from the SGC."
"The commonality is Dr. McKay's death," Al said. "What's the probability keeping him alive is the leap's objective?"
"Eighty-one percent."
"Okay. Gooshie, I need you to pull up everything you can on-"
"Admiral," Ziggy said. "I have a lock."
--------
Go to part two.
Author: paradise_city
Beta: Many thanks to leaper182 for her excellent beta work and invaluable QL knowledge.
Characters: Sam, Al, John, Rodney gen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For SGA's "Trinity" (02x06).
Written for: jayel_fox, who asked for Trinity: "Every time he thinks he's fixed it, it only gets worse." I also tried to work in her other prompts (Sam/Rodney professional relationship and a paranoid John in the waiting room); they're all there in some way except for the Goa'uld (don't watch SG-1, sorry!)
Summary: Some plans require a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros, a Leon Spinks, and the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever. All John, Rodney, Sam, and Al need is a Millennium Falcon.
The first thing Sam felt after he leaped was a bright, blinding pain. He tried to suck in a deep breath and wrap his arms around himself in protection, but he was pinned, trapped. He could feel panic starting to gather at the base of his spine and he forced himself to breathe slowly and shallowly while he tried to sort out up from down.
When he did, he realized he wasn't trapped.
Just-fallen.
On his face.
With his nose supporting the rest of his body and still screaming with pain in protest, he snuck a quick look around and determined he was alone, in what looked like a bedroom (quarters), though a cold and sterile one. He climbed to his feet (arms sore and achy, but not in a bad way), groaned (voice high and nasal), patted himself down (tall, lanky, sweaty, dressed in jogging pants and a t-shirt-push-ups, maybe?), and caught sight of himself (long nose, pointy ears, morning beard, wild shock of hair) and a set of Air Force dress blues in the mirror.
The conclusion he drew was an easy one.
"Oh, boy."
------
Sam had worked with the military long enough to know the mess was easily the best place to get information on short notice. After a few minutes of exploration and quick detective work in his quarters, he made his way there slowly while trying to both look inconspicuous and keep an eye (neuron and meson) out for Al.
"Colonel," said a short, stocky man, coming the opposite direction up the hallway. He looked up from the-computer? (tablet) in his hands and snapped his fingers imperiously in Sam's general direction. Colonel, yes. He knew he was Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, USAF, at least according to the paperwork sitting on his desk, but the man's words prompted another a reaction, a feeling of rightness, a presence Sam couldn't quite identify but felt strongly just the same. "About time. If you're going to eat, you'd better hurry. The Marines are sucking up those spaghetti type things like a fleet of Hoovers and we're scheduled for launch in twenty-Colonel?"
Sam stopped, trying to subtly read the name on the large PROPERTY OF sticker across the top of the man's computer (tablet), but it wasn't necessary. "Yes, Rodney?" he said, the name coming to him like he knew it. That was new. At least the thought it was.
Also, he had a drawl. Huh.
"Are you feeling okay? What...?" and Rodney gestured vaguely, sketching out something either incredibly complex or incredibly dirty. Sam figured it could go either way.
When Sam (John) just looked at him blankly, he added, "Your hair?"
"Oh," Sam said, patting at it self-consciously, the patch at the back that he practically had to glue down, "I know. I-I tried."
Rodney frowned at him. "Colonel, are you all right? Have you eaten anything strange, sustained any head injuries, run into any alien Mata Haris in the corridors?"
Alien Mata Haris? "No," Sam said, "I'm fine."
Rodney squinted at him, obviously not buying it. "Maybe you should see Carson. We're going offworld-" offworld? "-in twenty and if you're going to die of an allergen or a subdural hematoma or a case of intergalactic VD, I'd rather it not be in space, if it's all the same to you."
Intergalactic? Space?
Something must have shown on Sam's face because Rodney grabbed him by the sleeve like a truculent child and started dragging him down the hallway to see Carson-who's Carson? (doctor)-before Sam pulled himself free. " Rodney," he said, and heard something not far from a growl in his voice, "I'm fine. It's just hair. We have twenty minutes-"
"Eighteen," Rodney said.
"-and I'm going to do the last pre-flight check and meet you in the gateroom to gear up in ten. So let go of me."
Sam didn't thought he was the one who meant to say any of that.
"Fine," Rodney replied, clearly in a snit. "All you had to do was say you were in the middle of a midlife crisis." And he turned on his heel and stomped away.
Sam (John) glared after him and yelled, "And quit it with the space VD already!"
A petite redhead (Brown), he thought, with a sharp flare of resentment, passed by and snickered quietly and none-too-kindly.
Sam just sighed.
--------
He thought about calling off the (mission) and putting a stop to things until he could talk to Al. But his (John's) instincts were telling him the worst thing he could do was arouse suspicion-and they weren't telling so much as yelling. That was when Sam recognized the tension at the base of his spine and the back of his brain not as his, but John's. And it was more than tension: it was worry and fear, adrenaline and fight or flight, all resting on a commitment to protection and safety at any cost necessary. It was instinctual, primitive, and that fierce tangle of emotions and ideals was apparently what passed for (love) in John Sheppard's world. The realization made Sam shiver.
He didn't know what this was, if it was a fantasy, a delusion, an accident, or God forbid, if something had gone wrong with the project. All he knew was that without Al, he had only two options: trust himself or trust John. Neither option was anything approaching ideal, but if this existence really was a fantasy or a delusion of John's creation, Sam had no idea what would happen if he took over. He didn't want to find out, at least not without Al and Ziggy, and maintaining the status quo seemed like the safest move he could make.
The rest of it came naturally to Sam once the decision had been made, and the continued ethereal sense of John's presence assured him it was the right one. He did as John would have and worked his way through the winding corridors up to a wide balcony (control room). When he stepped inside he was stopped short by a sudden inability to breathe, a gasping, hitching need for air that was superseded only by the painful, shrieking noise in his head. He couldn't see, couldn't feel, couldn't think, and he felt the blackness of hypoxia closing in around him as the whine climbed in tone and volume until he thought he might just shake apart from the dissonance.
Then he felt a separation, a very careful, delicate pulling apart, and the blackness and noise resolved into a quiet murmuring, a pleased sensation of golden intuition. Sam didn't know what had happened, but someone was speaking to him and there wasn't time to figure it out.
"Colonel?" a young man asked, concern in his voice.
"Yes," Sam said, hesitant, but then he leaned on the young man's console it and it all fell into place. "Last pre-flight check," he said. "All quiet on the Western front?"
The young man smiled wryly. "As quiet as it gets. The extra equipment Dr. McKay requested has been added to your kits, and Dr. Weir's expecting a check-in every hour on the hour. You're cleared for a go. Anything else, Colonel?"
Sam shook his head. "A go's a go, Lieutenant. See you gateside."
Something about that wasn't quite right, judging from the hint of puzzlement on the young man's face, but it wasn't enough to cause alarm.
"Have a safe trip, Colonel."
Sam gave him a jaunty salute and wound his way back through the corridors to the (jumper bay). He took a closer look at the architecture as he went, trying to learn both his way around and more about this strange place, whatever it might be. The architecture wasn't like any sort he had ever seen before, but it felt familiar nonetheless. The building materials, the style, the lighting, even the design of the technology he saw in passing in the (control room)...it tickled at the back of his mind like something he should remember (Swiss cheese) and then in a flash of insight he did: sci-fi. It was like cheap sci-fi, with a jumble of appearances and technologies that was half recognizable and half alien.
There was a name floating around in the part of him that was John, and Sam got a fleeting image of it bobbing on waves just out of his reach. He groped for it, but the gentle swells carried it away. He tried again, splashing gently in John's waters, thinking vaguely of nets and reels and he caught it (Atlantis) at the same moment he reached a corridor of windows and saw a city floating on an endless sea.
His first reaction wasn't one of awe or appreciation, but a sinking feeling that he had no idea how to fly what he was really afraid was going to be a spaceship.
He wasn't wrong.
When he made his way into the (jumper bay) he felt an immediate tug, like the murmur of intuition he'd heard in the control room made physical. There was a gray...ship of some sort (jumper!) that felt like it was calling out to him. He felt a sharp rush of exhilaration in response, like he'd mainlined a cocktail of adrenaline and serotonin all at once. He stood there in shock, his (John's) body thrilling to the call before it slowly quieted to the mental equivalent of touch, a warmth snugging up against him, ready to go, ready to please, eager and excited and seductive. While he was rooted to the spot two people passed by him and up the ship's entrance ramp: a petite, dark-skinned woman (Yoda), he thought nonsensically, and the largest, brawniest man he thought he'd ever seen, both of whom offered him greeting.
He frowned in their wake-who are they? (team)-and was still trying to wrangle back control of his (John's) body when someone bumped into him and nearly knocked him over. It was Rodney.
"Oh, would you stop being so starry-eyed?" he said, irritated. "She's not your girlfriend, Colonel. Although if she were, perhaps that would help with the-"
"Don't," Sam said.
"Space VD," Rodney finished smugly.
Sam stared him down, partly because the space VD was getting really old and partly because he had no idea what to do next.
Rodney met his eyes for a moment and then his face fell. "Oh, no," he said. "No no no. I'm not doing it."
Sam didn't ask what. He just gave McKay what he hoped was his (John's) best Lt. Colonel stare.
"No," Rodney said, but his resolution was already flagging. "I'm not flying, Colonel."
"Yes, you are," Sam said, and it was the best idea he'd had all day.
--------
"Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, United States Air Force, serial number 252-"
"Yes," Al said impatiently, "we've been over this. What I want to know is where you were stationed."
"Can't tell you that," John replied, unperturbed. "What I can tell you is that I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Shep-"
"Stop it," Al said, fighting the urge to deck the guy. He wasn't generally a violent person-more a lover than a fighter. But an endless loop useless recitation coupled with Ziggy's inability to pull up any records matching Lt. Colonel Sheppard's given information had Al rethinking his priorities.
The man in front of him was tall and thin, though his slouch made him appear far more compact than he really was. He was sprawled in the waiting room's single chair like it was the most comfortable he'd been in years-Al half expected him to kick back with his feet up on the table at any moment. His expression was sarcastic in a way that grated on Al's nerves and everything about LTC Sheppard said that he had all day to give Al the runaround, all week if he had to, and it wouldn't bother him one bit. In fact, he might even start to think it was fun.
He was the worst kind of military man-the kind who hated it as much as he loved it-and Al knew from experience that was also the most dangerous kind.
"Look," Al said, trying a different tack. "I've got a friend who's probably in a whole pile of trouble right about now, and I need your help. I'm Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci, United States Navy, Colonel Sheppard, and I'm asking for your help to save my friend. Please, where were you stationed?"
Something in Sheppard sharpened for a moment and Beeks whispered through the radio in Al's ear, "Interesting," but the moment was over before it had even begun
"I'm sorry," Sheppard said, not sounding sorry at all. "That's classified."
--------
"I'm just saying as a team veteran to the new guy, heavy lunch before mission departure? Bad idea. I mean, even with the inertial dampeners this whole flying thing's best done on an empty stomach."
The behemoth (Ronon) behind John rumbled, "Yeah, well, I've got a pretty strong stomach."
Rodney swiveled in his seat. "Hey, I can eat frozen dinners without thawing them and it doesn't even affect me," he said, like his pride had been affronted.
"McKay," Sam (John) said wearily, "watch the road."
"There is no road."
"You know what I mean."
"Hmph." But he turned back to the console and a holographic reading projected itself onto the front windshield (viewpanel), tracing a jaggedly irregular course.
"And even if you were driving, you wouldn't be driving in England," Sam (John) couldn't help but add.
"Oh, what's this?" Rodney asked with an epic roll of his eyes. "More American imperialism? Please, this is uncharted space."
Sam wanted to balk at "uncharted space," but instead he said, "You're Canadian, Rodney. You drive on the same side of the road I do."
Rodney "hmph!"ed again. "Minor detail."
Before he could formulate a response, Ronon called his name in a quiet voice.
"Okay," Sam (John) said, looking out the viewpanel, "that's not something you see every day." So far, he'd been okay with (Atlantis) and the possibility of aliens and the certainty of spaceships and space travel, but he was ready to draw the line at space wreckage from a scene that looked like an outtake from Star Wars. For a fantasy or a delusion, this was taking it a little too far.
Sam was trying to figure out what to do next, what the protocol in a situation like this might be (unfortunately, he thought turn and run like hell wasn't it), when he realized he'd somehow taken over the controls from Rodney without being aware of it. He was about to panic because he was mostly okay with being a bystander in this space opera as long as he didn't have to be an active participant who flew a spaceship but then the (jumper!) was snugging up beside him again, showing him just where to go.
"There was a great battle here," (Teyla) observed and then, as they moved closer, "That is a hive ship."
"That was a hive ship," Ronon corrected. "Something put a lot of holes in it. We should check it out."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," M Rodney protested. "What if whatever put holes in it wants to put holes in us?"
"The Dorandans defeated a fleet of Wraith ships," Teyla said. "It warrants a closer look."
Well. That answered that question. The jumper was a warmth up against Sam (John) again, offering something like autopilot, which Sam gratefully accepted.
They broke the planet's atmosphere to a gray scene of destruction and desolation the likes of which Sam had never seen before.
"This is what usually happens when you fight back." There was something about the certainty in Ronon's voice that caught Sam's attention, but he had more important things to focus on at the moment.
"Hold on," McKay said, tapping away at another console. "I'm picking up faint energy readings, coming from-" he stood up and leaned over Sam (John) for a better view -"there."
Sam wished he knew how to make the jumper slow and bank left on his own, but so far he'd only been able to respond to the jumper's suggestions. It might have been a two way street, though, as the autopilot on the jumper did exactly what Sam had been hoping for, unprompted.
"That would explain how they were able to put up such a good fight," Rodney said slowly, closer now.
"How?" Sam asked, eyes wide at the destruction in front of him.
"Because they were Ancients."
--------
After that, things moved quickly. The energy readings Rodney had discovered turned out to be an Ancient outpost. They also discovered bodies, several of them, and that was something Sam could certainly have done without.
It didn't take Rodney long to conclude that what they'd found was some sort of defense station and practically before Sam knew it, they were back on Atlantis explaining their discovery to (Elizabeth), who was the head of the expedition.
That was apparently all in a day's work for John and his team, and Sam hoped fervently that Al showed up soon because it was starting to feel like it was all in a day's work for him, too. Whatever sort of delusion this was, it was detailed to the point of being all consuming, and that had Sam worried.
There was nothing he could do for the moment, however, and he turned his attention back to the conversation.
"So it's a military research facility," Elizabeth was saying.
"From what we can tell," Rodney replied excitedly, "it's a ground-based version of the satellite weapon we used to destroy that hive ship, with one major exception: firepower. I mean, if that single outpost was responsible for destroying an entire Wraith fleet..."
"And you're sure it was this weapon that destroyed all those Wraith ships?"
"It had to be," Rodney said. "There's nothing on the planet that suggests the Dorandans had anything capable of inflicting anywhere near that much damage."
"If we could learn of such technology, we could defend other worlds from being culled," Teyla said, and Sam noticed she spoke with a passion that matched Ronon's earlier certainty.
And that certainty was on display once again. "It didn't save the Dorandans."
"Yeah, but," McKay said, not about to let a single drop of rain fall on his parade, "at the end of the day the outpost was still standing and that means...well, I'm not sure what that means, but it means something definitely worth checking out."
Elizabeth looked hopeful when she turned to Sam (John). "Colonel?"
Sam (John) hesitated, but there was only one answer he could give. "He's right. It's definitely worth sending a research team back."
"Good!" McKay said, even brighter than before. "Well, give me Opitcan, Collins, and Zelenka, if he's over the stomach flu. We'll try to access the computer's log books, see if we can decipher them. Once that's-"
"Okay, okay!" Elizabeth said, grinning. "Easy sell. Go."
"Oh, good!" he said, and jogged off.
Sam was nearly as excited. Certainly an Air Force colonel wouldn't have a role to play as part of a research team. He had a sneaking suspicion John might have been as sly as Rodney was intelligent.
And now that he was thinking about it, there was something about Rodney that seemed vaguely familiar-his slight accent, the cadence of his speech, his habit of snapping and pointing-something jogged Sam's memory. Although it probably wasn't Sam's memory so much as it is John's; it seemed like the two of them spent quite a bit of time together.
Whatever it was, it wasn't as important as finding his way back to John's quarters and waiting impatiently for Al.
--------
"Classification is a problem I can work with," Al said, thankful for what looked like his first break since Sam had leaped six days ago. "I can't tell you much about where you are or what you're doing here, but I can tell you this is part of a DoD project, top secret-"
"Admiral," Beeks said worriedly in his ear, "watch what you say."
Al ignored her. "-clearance Umbra. That probably doesn't mean anything to you, but trust me: it should."
John smiled lazily, but there was something predator sharp about it. "You're right, it doesn't. This little project of yours, it got a name?"
"That's classified."
"Mm," John said understandingly. "Unfortunately, so's the name of my station."
"You don't understand," Al said, and he could hear the edge of desperation in his voice. From the look in John's eyes, Al knew he heard it too. "My friend's been missing for six days. There's no telling what's happened to him and if he's hurt or if he's-if he's dead...you can't even begin to imagine what we'll have lost."
John remained impassive. Al sighed. He'd come at John from just about every angle now, but he'd invent new ones if he had to. Anything to get to Sam.
"You don't really want to know what the name of this project is," he said. "I've practically had more divorces than I've had wives-trust me, I can see bargaining from a hundred paces. Ask me something you really want to know and I promise you'll get the truth."
John seemed to weigh Al's offer and after a long moment asked, "Does this have anything to do with the Wraith?"
"What's the wraith?" Al asked, but the handlink in his pocket chirped just then. He knew Ziggy had been listening in, just like Dr. Beeks, and it was likely she had information about whatever this wraith was. Al headed for the door. "If you change your mind," he said, "let me know."
"Wait," John called. "This friend of yours. He got a name?"
Al hesitated. "Sam," he said, and the name hung heavy in the air. "His name is Sam."
--------
Clearly Rodney was more intelligent than John was sly, if Sam's return to the Ancient outpost was anything to go by. He wouldn't have figured John for babysitting duty, but it seemed to be something he enjoyed. At the very least, it gave Sam a chance to skulk around corners and whisper Al's name hopefully. In Sam's opinion, he was more than overdue.
He was finishing up with the last of the schlepping-he'd wonder at the necessity of the amount of equipment the scientists have brought with them, but he had only to think of Ziggy-when he heard (Zelenka) say, "I'm telling you, at least .09%," and Rodney reply impatiently, "Oh please, please, move the decimal place. I mean, it's impossible, for God's sake."
At that, Sam (John) wandered over. "Have we figured out what this is?"
"No," Rodney quickly replied, turning back from the console he and Zelenka had been working at. Sam thought Rodney must be the worst liar he'd ever seen.
"No, I wouldn't say no," Zelenka protested. "We have a theory."
"But we don't know yet."
"No, but based on the shielding around the chamber, what else could it be?"
Sam wasn't sure whether to laugh in amusement or sigh in exasperation. "Have you tried turning it on?"
"That's what we're working on," Rodney said. "The problem is that there's no direct link between it and the main power control systems, which, among other things, has led us to theorize that it's an ancillary power supply for the weapons system."
Sam (John) grinned. "Cool."
Rodney smirked. "See that? See the way he lights up at the mention of that?" His smirk became audible. "It's like Dr. Vogel at the mention of pastries."
Rodney might have been a genius, but Sam was no slouch, either. "They found out a way to soup up their space guns," he said simply.
"Yes," Zelenka said. "But it's much more than that."
"Well, the sticking point is that there's no tie between the power generator and the primary capacitor," Rodney said.
Zelenka nodded. "Meaning they would have to channel the power directly into the weapon."
Rodney grinned smugly at John. "Which I'm sure means nothing to you."
Sam (John) cocked an eyebrow. "It means they can fire multiple bursts without having to store up more power for the next firing sequence."
Rodney's face fell. "Yes. Very good."
It was Sam's (John's) turn to smirk. "Which leads me back to, 'Cool.'"
"Yes, but it only makes sense if we're right."
Sam (John) turned to Zelenka. "About what?"
"Tell him," Zelenka nudged.
Rodney 's smirk was back. "Not yet."
"Come on, McKay, you read the equations. What else could it be? An Ancient typo?"
"Well, we know they're not perfect," Rodney said, "because they're all dead." He shifted his gaze to Sam (John). "Look, I just don't want you to get all excited over nothing."
Sam (John) decided to play along. "Well, maybe you're right."
Rodney caved, exactly like Sam (John) knew he would. "All right, I'll give you a hint," he said excitedly, eyes bright. Sam (John) couldn't help but laugh. "It seems that the Ancients were experimenting with high-energy physics on a level that we've never seen before."
Sam was curious to know more, but he didn't think John would ask or be able to understand. Instead, he deadpanned, "Wow." McKay and Zelenka grinned at each other as though he shared their enthusiasm.
"Yes, wow," McKay agreed. "I just...I want to be sure."
Sam (John) held back a laugh. "I'll do my best to wait."
--------
"All right, Ziggy," Al said. "What have you got?"
"Oh, Admiral," she said, playing at being miffed, "no small talk? No friendly exchange of greetings before you demand the fruits of my difficult labors? And trust me, Admiral, they were difficult. Why-"
"Get on with it, Ziggy," he said, his patience wearing thin. "We don't have time for this."
"Seeing as how my circuits will outlive yours," she said loftily, "I'd say I have nothing but time, Admiral."
"Ziggy," he growled.
"Fine," she said, sighing delicately. "But let it be said that the Canadian network does not share the stereotypical politeness of its human counterparts. Perhaps it's the cold weather, but they're offensively slow. And notably lacking in conversational skills, as well."
"Canadian?"
"Yes, Admiral. I was able to find references to a Dr. Meredith McKay occurring alongside those of Lt. Colonel Sheppard with a 54% correlation beginning in 2004. It appears they were working on a project together under the International Oversight Advisory. Unfortunately, all records under IOA jurisdiction are top secret and we do not," she said, her voice pouty with disappointment, "have the proper security clearance."
"We don't have clearance?" Al asked. "Of course we have cl-"
"Oh no, Admiral," she said reproachfully. "We don't."
"Well then get clearance."
"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding sorry in the least, "but that function lies outside my parameters."
Al punched his handlink. "Gooshie!"
It beeped in response. "Already on it, Admiral."
"Let me know when you've got something," Al said. "Either of you."
He was halfway out the door when Ziggy called to him. "Oh, Admiral. There's more."
Al swallowed down his blooming anger and tried to put on his best polite tone. It was clearly lacking, even to his own ears. "And what might that be?"
"There are also several occurrences of Dr. McKay's name alongside Dr. Beckett's."
Al's anger disappeared completely at that. "With Sam?"
"Yes, Admiral. Drs. Beckett and McKay were both in attendance at the 19th Spring Symposium on High Energy Physics in Germany in 1988. They have also both served as reviewers for the American Journal of Physics and the Journal of Mathematical Physics."
"She's a physicist?"
"He's a physicist: Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay holds a terminal degree in astrophysics from Northwestern University. He worked on the Canadarm under General Davidson and was then recruited into the American military infrastructure, which had been attempting recruitment since grade six. After that all records are classified."
"Ziggy," Al said, "I think I love you."
"You certainly should."
--------
Sam was starting to get nervous. He'd gone longer without seeing Al for the first time after a leap, but not by much. He wasn't sure if it was a function of the delusion, things were moving incredibly fast, and all without any idea of what he was there to do.
He sat uncomfortably in Elizabeth's office, listening to Rodney argue for the continuation of the Arcturus project in the face of Dr. Zelenka's clear concern and (Colonel Caldwell's) equally clear interest. From what Sam could understand of the project-which was plenty-Rodney certainly seemed to be careening ahead at breakneck speed when caution might have served him better.
"Project Arcturus was attempting to extract vacuum energy from our own spacetime," Zelenka was explaining, "making it potentially as powerful as the scope of the universe itself."
Caldwell frowned. "It strikes me as something the Ancients would have tried first, even before ZPMs."
"And they may have," Rodney agreed, "but extracting zero point energy from our own universe is...well, it's definitely trickier."
"Explain trickier," Elizabeth said suspiciously.
Zelenka intervened. "Well, because we actually have to live in our own universe, it presents a whole range of problems."
"Obviously it's not that easy or Atlantis wouldn't still rely on ZPMs," Caldwell observed.
"You're right," Sam (John) said. "The Ancients couldn't make it work."
Rodney shot him an irritated glare. "I said I wanted to do all the talking."
Sam couldn't quite read John's mind, but he could read his instincts. Sam felt a sense of reservation coming from him, though one that was easily swayed-giving into Rodney felt like something John was used to doing, even against his better judgment. It felt something like id and ego and Sam began thinking the key to breaking the delusion was stopping the flow of events. He made an executive decision, mentally crossed his fingers, and hoped for the best.
"Come on, Rodney," he said. "Arcturus was a total failure."
Rodney was even more irritated now. "Failure, yes. Total, no. Look, the Ancients were losing the war against the Wraith when work on Arcturus began. If they could have made it work, it could have turned the tide of war. I mean, we're talking about their own Manhattan Project here."
Caldwell looked at Sam (John) quizzically. "The outpost was ordered by the Ancients in Atlantis to defend the Dorandan people using their weapons powered by this new power source," John explained.
"Yes," Zelenka added, "but despite their strong reservations that it was not ready to be tested under battle conditions."
Sam (John) was grateful for an ally, unwitting or not. "The point is, the Wraith won."
Rodney was dogged. "Yeah, but the Dorandans still inflicted massive damage on the Wraith fleet."
"I'm not saying they didn't put up a hell of a fight."
"The logs indicate there was a major malfunction," Zelenka said, his reservations clear.
"Well, yes," McKay said quickly, "the Ancients in the bunker were forced to shut everything down, including the weapon."
"The Wraith sent more ships and the Dorandans got wiped out," John said pointedly.
Elizabeth watched them argue, while Rodney looked more betrayed with every passing moment.
"So if the malfunction hadn't occurred, the Ancients would have saved the planet?" Caldwell asked.
Rodney latched on to the only upside they'd found so far and went for maximum spin. "Definitely."
"Possibly," Sam (John) said warningly. "Don't sugarcoat this, Rodney."
Rodney was clearly frustrated with Sam's (John's) interference and exasperated with what Sam was sure he saw as their stupidity in the face of his great discovery. "The Ancient scientists running Arcturus were rushed into testing before they had perfected a means of effectively controlling the power output. I believe if they'd had more time, history would have played out differently on that planet-possibly in this galaxy."
"I won't deny that this is something that we'd dearly love to get our hands on," Caldwell said, and Sam thought disappointedly, Military, "but the Ancients were a pretty bright bunch."
Rodney wasn't about to let Caldwell's earlier agreement go. "And desperate, and losing a war they'd already been fighting for a hundred years. More importantly, they were this close."
"And you believe you can finish their work?" Weir asked, though she already knew the answer.
"I do," McKay said.
Sam could see the in for a penny, in for a pound look in Zelenka's eyes. "We do."
He sighed, knowing the battle was lost and unsure whether it had even been winnable in the first place. He cursed himself, Al, and Freud under his breath and said resignedly, "They do."
--------
After a short rest Tina had insisted on, Al returned to the waiting room calmer than he'd been before, but more worried. Not only did they not have a fix on Sam, but Al had nothing to tell him about the leap if-when-they did.
"All right," Al said, keying the waiting room door shut on his handlink. "let's talk about Dr. McKay."
John's body tightened, but his lazy smile didn't change. "Dr. who?"
"Paul McGann was my favorite," Al said, "but that's neither here nor there."
"I preferred Peter Davison myself," John said, "what with being dashing and all."
"Who wasn't in the 80s?" Dr. Beeks whispered her approval of their burgeoning rapport in his ear, but Al was ready to get down to business. "So about Dr. McKay."
"I don't know any Dr. McKay."
"Your records say otherwise."
John was silent.
Al sighed and rubbed his temples, wishing vaguely for a drink. Instead, he sat on the table and didn't bother to straighten the slump of his shoulders or cover the exhaustion in his voice. "My Sam? He's a doctor. Quantum physics, among other things. Ancient languages. Medicine. Music. Played Carnegie Hall at 19. Hell of a combination, isn't it?
"And me, hell. I'm just a jet jockey. I did a stint at MIT, sure, but it's not like I walked out of there with 6 or 7 doctorates. Not like Sam. And somehow I'm the one who's supposed to protect him. Keep him safe."
Dr. Beeks was murmuring something about recognition, but Al tuned her out and kept going. "So far I'm doing a pretty lousy job. He saved my life once, years ago. I've had a lot of opportunities, more than I deserve, but I just haven't been able to return the favor. Some kind of friend, huh?"
As he'd spoken, he'd watched something in John's resolve soften. Beeks had noticed as well and encouraged him to press the small advantage. It was more than John had given them yet.
"I can only imagine what you must be thinking about all this. I don't know what I'd think if I were in your shoes. Maybe that we're all crazy. Or that I was crazy, I don't know. I can't tell you much about this-matters of national security," he said wryly. "I'm sure you know the drill.
"But I can tell you this isn't some government conspiracy. We're not after you, or any of your colleagues, or any of your men. I don't know anything about this wraith you were talking about earlier. You're not being held prisoner; you're in isolation for your own safety and to secure the integrity of our project. I want to get you back to wherever you were, whatever it is you were doing. I don't want to keep you here."
Al looked John straight in the eye and laid his cards on the table. "Sam's lost. I need your help to get him back. And if he doesn't come back, you can't go back."
Beeks drew in a sharp breath. "Admiral, be careful."
"That part's out of my control," he said. "It's out of everyone's control. I'm sure Dr. McKay could explain it to you, but even he'd tell you that's just the way it is. If we're going to get you back, we need to find Sam.
"Please, Colonel. Help me."
A long pause followed, and Al began to think John might agree.
Instead, he shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't do that."
Al left the room, out of angles.
--------
From Sam's (John's) dismissal from the previous afternoon's meeting to this morning's mission back to the outpost, it seemed both as though no time had passed and as thought he'd counted every second waiting for some sign of Al. He was exhausted and, he finally let himself admit, worried.
He tried not to worry as a matter of course; he had enough faith in God or Fate or Time or Whatever was leaping him around that he'd be kept safe, safe enough to continue putting right the things that once went wrong. He'd had close calls before, but something about this leap had him feeling like something was very, very wrong: the possibility of a delusion, or the even more frightening possibility that all of this was real. Either way, Occam's razor told him the reason for his leap was most likely the weapon Rodney was working on, but he had no way to be sure.
He occupied himself with his own thoughts as Rodney and his research team busied themselves with simulations and preparations for the weapon's first test.
"All right. Attention, all personnel!" Rodney finally called, and Sam (John) snapped to attention. "Stand by for power up on my mark.
"Three...two...one...mark."
The dull thudding bass that began all around them was soon joined by a higher pitched whine as the weapon powered up. Zelenka kept a close eye on the power output, Rodney kept a close eye on the control console, and Sam (John) kept a close eye on Rodney.
"Radek, talk to me," Rodney said as the machine fell into the middling tones of successful activation.
"I'm picking up some minor power fluctuations," Zelenka responded, studying his readout carefully, "but the chamber temperature's holding steady." He frowned as the power levels spiked. "There it goes again."
Sam (John), who was watching the weapon's core through a small viewpanel, made his way to Rodney's side. "Everything okay?"
"Everything's fine," Rodney said confidently. "The containment bubble was designed to automatically compensate for any sudden changes in energy output."
Zelenka wasn't as easily assuaged. "This never happened in the simulations."
Sam (John) was instantly alarmed. "Maybe we should abort."
"I said it's fine," Rodney said, ignoring him. "Collins, see if you can boost more power to the field manually."
"You got it," he replied, grabbing his tablet. He made his way into the access tube, removed a panel, and rearranged the control crystals inside to reroute power.
"Prepare for test firing on my mark."
Before he could give his mark, the weapon's power surged and alarms began blaring. "Levels just spiked into the red!" Zelenka called, struggling to be heard over the cacophony.
"What?" Rodney worked furiously at his console, but the alarms continued to sound, rising in insistence.
"Shut it down," Sam (John) said urgently. "Shut it all down."
"I'm trying," Rodney said tightly, hands flying over the console.
Zelenka worked ineffectually at his controls. "The interface is not responding!"
"I'm going to switch to back-ups!"
Sam (John) watched with increasing fear, splitting his attention between Rodney and Zelenka. "Levels are going off the scales!" Zelenka called, and Sam (John) heard the first note of panic in his voice, accompanied by the rising swell of the alarms.
"McKay?"
"I've given the command to shut down, but something's creating an overload!"
Sam (John) swore. "We should evacuate!"
"Just give me a few seconds!"
Sam (John) felt his fear already coalescing into regret for the way things were about to go. "We may not have that time!" But Rodney refused to move, the rest of the research team following his example. Before Sam (John) could argue further, the sound of the weapon slowly overcame the blaring of the alarms with a deep rumbling that sounded like downshifting.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Zelenka called. "It's stabilizing." The sound of the weapon continued to drop and then stopped completely. "Generator is offline," he said, relief as evident in his voice as it was on his face.
Sam (John) turned on Rodney. "What the hell just happened?"
"Obviously there was a surge of some kind," he said, his pale face and shaking hands belying the calm in voice. "Look, Colli-Collins!" he cried, his eyes going wide as he ran for the access tube. Zelenka and Sam (John) followed. The door opened on Collins' body and Rodney swayed on his feet, looking like he was about to be sick.
--------
Al and Gooshie were busy in the control room trying to track down any information on Sheppard Ziggy wouldn't have had access to, Al calling in favors and Gooshie doing a bit of hacking he'd reluctantly but bravely agreed to try. They were both surprised when Ziggy spoke.
"Admiral," she said. "John wishes to speak to you."
Al clicked his com. "Beeks?"
She sounded confused. "He hasn't said a word, Admiral. He's done nothing but sit in his chair. He's hardly even fidgeted."
"Oh, no," Ziggy said, a hint of smugness in her voice. "I've been looping the video on Dr. Beeks' monitor. John and I have actually been having quite the talk."
"What?" Gooshie abandoned his computer and headed for the control table, but Ziggy beat him to it.
"I've been looping my power output records as well," she said chidingly. "Don't look surprised, Gooshie. I am, after all, a parallel hy-"
"Why?" Al asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach like this was all going to go very ca-ca.
"Because John asked me to," she said simply.
"John asked you to?"
"Yes," she said, practically purring. "John speaks my language."
--------
Rodney was shaky and quiet on the trip back to Atlantis even more so when they gathered in the conference room for a debriefing following Carson's brief autopsy.
"Officially my report will indicate Dr. Collins died due to radiation exposure, causing severe burns to well over 90% of his body," Carson said.
"But it was more than that?" Elizabeth asked, and Sam (John) could see the burden of responsibility settling on her shoulders.
"Aye. Much more. To be honest, I have no idea what sort of radiation it was. I've never seen or heard of cellular decay this massive, not when exposure only lasted mere seconds."
"Collins' next of kin have been notified," Caldwell said.
Elizabeth nodded. "Good," she said, meaning anything but. She turned to Rodney and Zelenka. "What went wrong?"
"We're still analyzing data from the test," Zelenka said, motioning to the schematics on the (plasma). "All we know for certain was that there was a massive power surge which, in turn, caused the containment field to expand asymmetrically in the direction of the command access tube. As to why...." He shrugged.
"How about human error?" Caldwell asked.
Rodney, who'd clearly been using everything he had to keep himself together, focused on Caldwell after a slow moment. His voice was thin. "Excuse me?"
"According to your reports, during the test Dr. Collins made an adjustment to the containment field," Caldwell said, not unkindly. "Is it possible that he triggered the surge himself?"
Elizabeth was immediately defensive. "Are you looking for a scapegoat, Colonel?"
"Not at all, Doctor," he said easily. "I'm admittedly looking for a rationale that would allow Dr. McKay to continue his very important work. Is there something wrong with that?"
Sam (John) shifted uncomfortably thinking, Military, again with much more vehemence.
"No," Rodney said, looking for the first time since Collins' death like he was finally aware of what going on around him. His voice was still high and tight, but his jaw was set determinedly. "No. Collins knew the system just as well as any of us. He wouldn't have made that kind of mistake. Everything was going well. Everyone did their job."
"Then what?" Weir asked.
"I don't know," Rodney said, grief masquerading as impatience. "In terms of physics, it shouldn't have happened."
"We're still analyzing data from the accident," Zelenka repeated. "It's going to take time."
"What I do know," Rodney said, "is the device did what it was supposed to do."
Sam's (John's) stomach clenched. "No, Rodney. It didn't."
"Well, apart from the obvious containment issues."
Rodney was clearly struggling, but Sam (John) didn't know if anyone else could see it. He looked Rodney hard in the eye, as if willing him to see reason. "It overloaded and you couldn't stop it."
Rodney glared mulishly. "Well, we won't know for sure until we go back down there and try again."
"Try again? Are you serious?"
"Yes."
Sam (John) looked to Elizabeth for help, but none was coming. "A member of your team is in the morgue," he said. He felt more than saw Rodney flinch.
"And I am responsible for his death, yes. I am painfully aware of that. I sent him in there and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life." His voice broke and he paused. "But we have a responsibility to understand what happened and learn from it."
"Rodney," Zelenka said gently, "we don't even know what went wrong."
"Which is why we have to go back there!" Rodney snapped.
Finally, Elizabeth intervened. "I know how important this is to you, Rodney. But we knew when we came to Atlantis that we might encounter certain technologies which, for the moment, are out of our reach."
"It's not in this case," Rodney said, not meeting her eyes.
She was having none of it. "You have the data from your first attempt. You can run all the simulations you want."
"Come on, Elizabeth," he said scornfully. "You really think the military's gonna let this go? At the very least we should be the first ones in there to spearhead the research."
"That's what this is about? You want to beat them to it?" Elizabeth said disgustedly. That wasn't what it was about, not really, and Sam (John) thought Elizabeth knew it, too. She held firm. "I'm sorry. The answer's no."
Elizabeth, Caldwell, and Carson cleared the briefing room, leaving Rodney and Sam (John). "Rodney," he said softly.
But Rodney only set his jaw and pointedly looked away. Sam (John) nodded and left him alone.
--------
"So, Project Quantum Leap," John said smugly, when Al and Gooshie entered the waiting room. "Ziggy told me all about it."
Women, Al thought viciously. "Did she, now?"
John smirked. "Oh, she did. Now, assuming this is all true-which I can; you wouldn't believe half the stuff I've seen-"
"Space vampires," Ziggy supplied helpfully.
"-let's make sure I've got it right. If I'm here, then it means your Sam is where I am, trying to fix something that obviously goes wrong in the future."
Ziggy was clearly enamored. "Yes, John."
"She also said you can't access any of our records, so you have no idea where Sam is or what went wrong, so he couldn't fix it even if you could find him. That leaves you a little ways up a place I like to call shit creek, doesn't it?"
"Ca-ca," Gooshie said faintly. Al thought about decking John for real this time, but was interrupted by Ziggy.
"Actually, John," she said, "I'll have a lock on Dr. Beckett in approximately thirty-eight minutes."
"What?" Al asked, clearly startled. "You found him?"
"Yes, Admiral. My difficulty in locating Dr. Beckett was not a shortcoming on my part, but rather the result of incomplete and therefore faulty information. According to John, Dr. Beckett is located in the city of Atlantis, on the planet informally known as Atlantica, in the galaxy of Pegasus. This information was not entered into my databases," Ziggy finished reproachfully, "but John was able to provide it."
"No, I didn't," John said.
"Yes, you did," Ziggy said indulgently. "The pertinent security clearance was tied into your coded call sign and after that it was quite a simple matter to crack it. American military security," she said fondly.
Women, Al thought admiringly.
"Wait, Atlantis?" Gooshie said, even more faintly.
"Yes, Gooshie," Ziggy said. "Atlantis is most easily reachable by travel through a stable wormhole created by a stargate. It will take approximately two minutes to gather the data necessary for the proper calculations, and an additional thirty-six minutes to reconfigure the accelerator and imaging chamber to make contact with Dr. Beckett."
"Strgate?" Gooshie swayed dangerously on his feet. John rushed to steady him.
"You can do that?" Al asked.
"Of course I can, Admiral," she said. "The accelerator and imaging chambers operate on principles of string theory. Thus far we've been using them to travel through time, but with small recalibrations it is possible to travel through space instead. It is apparently the same operating principle as stargate travel, only without the middling interface."
"Is that safe?" John asked suspiciously.
"Of course it's safe," she said, affronted. "Safety was hardwired into all my functional parameters after Dr. Beckett's initial leap. Unfortunately, the amount of power required for you and John to make contact with Dr. Beckett will likely black out the entirety of Nevada."
"John doesn't need to make contact with Sam."
"Yes, he does. Probability of success increases to 72% when John is factored in. You don't want to know what the probability is without him."
Al didn't think so, either.
"I recall how upset Governor Escada was last time we crashed our power grid," she continues, "which is why I'm currently drawing power from the eastern seaboard grid. Whoops," she said, mischievously, "there goes Maine."
John had tuned them out for the most part, trying to concentrate on what was most critical. "Do you have any idea what went wrong?" he asked.
"Yes," Ziggy said, but she sounded regretful rather than proud. "Unfortunately, John, you and Dr. McKay died on a planet known as Doranda. The expedition on Atlantis was therefore unable to defend itself from a Wraith invasion that occurs six years later. The Wraith were able to use Atlantis's stargate to travel to Earth, where they engaged in a war with another race known as the Goa'uld. Nearly all humans were exterminated in the aftermath. After that, there is little to report."
John paled and turned on Al. "And you can stop this from happening?"
"I don't understand what's happening."
"Wraith: space vampires," John said. "Goa-uld: body snatchers. Trust me, it won't be pretty."
"Do you have more information on how Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay died?"
"Yes, Admiral," she said. "John and Dr. McKay were working together on a two man mission for a second test fire of a weapon they'd found in an ancient outpost on Doranda. The test fire caused an overload and a chain reaction that resulted in the destruction of the solar system. John and Dr. McKay were caught in the superburst."
"Doranda," John said. "My team was going on a mission there today or, or whatever day it was when I-"
"Leaped," Al supplied.
John nodded. "We found information on Doranda in the Ancient database-the race of people who built Atlantis," he hurriedly explained in response to Al's confused look. "They were listed in the database as being a friendly group of technologically advanced people. That's hard to find in Pegasus. It was strictly an exploratory mission. I don't know anything about a weapon."
"Dr. McKay discovered the weapon, designated as Project Arcturus, in an Ancient outpost, according the mission reports. It was designed to extract vacuum energy from a region of this universe's subspacetime, much like ZPMs, which extract vacuum energy from an artificially created region of subspacetime."
"ZPMs are what's used to power the gates and Atlantis," John said.
"However, the weapon's power output created exotic particles. When the overload continued, the weapon employed its emergency release valve to prevent catastrophic containment failure. This release resulted in an explosion that destroyed the Dorandan solar system."
John closed his eyes. "The entire solar system? Was it inhabited?"
"Five-sixths," Ziggy said more precisely. "And it was not inhabited, according to available records."
John sighed in relief. "Okay. What do we do?"
"We wait," Al said, "until we can find Sam."
--------
There had been so much happening so quickly on Atlantis that Sam had nearly forgotten about Al and the leap, his (John's) priority getting everyone home and keeping them safe. When he returned to his (John's) quarters after the debriefing, however, it all came back into focus.
He was, again, doing his best not to worry. It would serve no purpose: if there was something wrong, there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was overlook something important if his attention was elsewhere, ensuring something went wrong if it hadn't already.
Still, he didn't think he'd ever missed Al more.
There was a copy of War and Peace on John's nightstand, with a bookmark a quarter of the way in. Sam had only gotten through an additional five pages when there was a tentative knock at his door. It slid open to reveal Rodney, rumpled and brimming over with weariness, but determined just the same.
"Harry K. Daghlian," Rodney opened.
Sam (John) nodded. "The scientist. Worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos."
McKay looked surprised, but kept going, his voice drawn taut. "He was only twenty-six years old when he accidentally irradiated himself while performing a critical mass experiment on two half-spheres of plutonium. Took him a month to die. While his body was slowly shutting down from radiation poisoning, you know what he did with his last thirty days?"
Sam knew. All scientists knew. But he let Rodney continue. He needed to. "He worked. He tried until his last breath to understand what had happened to him so that others could learn from the tragedy, so that his work, his death, wouldn't be rendered meaningless." He stopped quickly, as though he was afraid the tears he'd been holding at bay all evening would finally get the best of him. After a moment's pause, he continued. "Now, have you considered what would have happened if they'd just shut the project down after that?"
"This is different," Sam said gently.
"Is it? Collins' death is a pointless waste of life unless something comes of this, and I am not sure that I can-" He swallowed hard, changing tack. "I think I know what happened."
"Let's hear it."
"Can I come in?"
"No," Sam (John) said, hoping it would make what he could see coming easier. Rodney looked slighted, but not surprised.
"The Ancients had it wrong," he said. "Our mistake was using their equations. Look, I just did the calculations again myself. I did them three times just to be sure and I am positive the problem is in the automatic containment protocols."
Sam wanted to stop him right there, but figured Rodney had at least earned the chance to ask before being refused.
"Okay. What's your fix?"
"I am proposing that we adjust the field strength manually."
Sam (John) sighed. "You saw how fast it spiked on you."
"So we don't operate the generator at anywhere near its potential," Rodney fought. "Look, there's no need to be greedy. Even operating at fifty percent, it'll still generate the power of a dozen ZPMs."
"How come the Ancients didn't figure this out?"
"Maybe they were caught up in the heat of battle. Maybe they thought they needed as much power as they could get. Maybe," Rodney said archly, "they weren't smart enough."
That was it. The set of his jaw, his tone of voice, took Sam back twenty years to a conference in Germany where a kid who looked like he hadn't left adolescence far behind, if he'd left it at all, had challenged Stephen Hawking on the physics of Schwarzchild black hole singularities. Hawking hadn't been wrong, but he hadn't recognized the cross applicability to white wormholes, either. Sam had remembered thinking that this kid was someone they should all watch out for, because he'd be the only one right when everyone else was wrong. That kid's name, he'd later found out, was Meredith Rodney McKay.
"And you are?" Sam asked, knowing well enough he probably was. That only made Sam's (John's) decision more painful.
"No, I didn't say that, but I have the benefit of hindsight," he said, unexpectedly charitable. "They didn't. Look, this is big. This is the wheel, the light bulb, the theory of relativity big."
"Best case scenario?" Sam (John) asked.
"I win a Nobel Prize."
If you haven't yet, Rodney, Sam thought, one's certainly not far off. "Worst case scenario?"
"We tear a hole in the fabric of the universe," he said quickly, "which is much less likely to happen than the Nobel Prize. Look, the risks are nothing compared to the potential benefits. Elizabeth will listen to you." He took a deep breath and looked Sam (John) in the eye. "I have never asked this of you before, but I think I've earned it. Trust me."
Sam thought of the frenetic kid he'd seen in Germany, the one he was sure would prove them all wrong. He couldn't meet Rodney's eyes when he said, "I'm sorry. No."
--------
There was a loud alarm from Al's handlink at the same time Ziggy spoke. "There appears to be a problem," she said.
"Appears to be?" Al asked. "Ziggy. Don't tell me this has gone ca-ca, not now."
"I'm afraid it has, Admiral. I just detected a microleap."
It was John's turn to look worried. "A microleap? What's that?"
"It is a rare occurrence where Dr. Beckett leaps in time, but not space," Ziggy replied.
"Meaning?" John asked.
"Meaning something went wrong," Al said tersely. "Ziggy, update."
After a brief moment's silence, she spoke again. "In the original timeline, John and Dr. McKay were killed in the superburst. Dr. Beckett has apparently created a new timeline, one in which Dr. McKay and a small team of scientists were killed fleeing Doranda."
"But not me?" John asked.
"No, John. You were not part of the mission. After Dr. McKay's death, you resigned from the Stargate program. The Wraith invasion and subsequent events proceeded as they did in the original timeline."
"Death and destruction?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Shit."
Al nodded. "Ca-ca."
"What do we do now?"
"We wait," Al said, "and try to figure out what happened." He leaned against the table and keyed his handlink. "Gooshie, you listening?"
"Yes, Admiral.
"Okay. Ziggy, more details."
"According to the mission reports, Dr. McKay went to John personally and asked for approval to continue the Arcturus mission. John refused. Dr. McKay then appealed to Colonel Caldwell, who approved the mission."
"He can't do that," John said.
"He did," Ziggy replied, "under a Pentagon-sanctioned mission approved by the IOA at SGC."
John glanced at Al. "Oversight of Stargate Command. Oversight of oversight."
Al nodded. "Bureaucracy."
"Dr. McKay returned to Doranda with a small team of scientists. When the weapon overloaded, it began firing as a means of discharging additional energy. The jumper-"
"Ship," John supplied.
"-they were traveling in was hit, and was then assumed to be caught in the superburst."
John frowned. "Who was piloting the jumper?"
"A Major Lorne," Ziggy replied. "He was presumed dead along with the science team. Three months later, John, you resigned from the SGC."
"The commonality is Dr. McKay's death," Al said. "What's the probability keeping him alive is the leap's objective?"
"Eighty-one percent."
"Okay. Gooshie, I need you to pull up everything you can on-"
"Admiral," Ziggy said. "I have a lock."
--------
Go to part two.