Fic: Hidden Agendas (McKay/Sheppard, PG)
Title: Hidden Agendas
Author: goddess47
Recipient: ca_pierson
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: (highlight for spoilers) *Post series; Person of Interest crossover*
Genre: Action/Adventure
Word Count: 3400
Summary: "I connected the Atlantis AI to the Internet."
Notes: I went with your request for a canon-AU crossover/fusion and hope I got it right; it should be epic but it just didn't get there.
And many thanks to patient mods who were patient!
-o-
"Rodney? What the fuck did you do?" John demanded.
Rodney's head shot up, and his eyes narrowed. "Why would you think I did anything?"
John sighed. "Rodney."
Rodney looked mulish for a moment, then sagged in his chair. "I didn't mean to."
"Rodney. What. Did. You. Do?"
"I connected the Atlantis AI to the internet," Rodney said.
"You did what?" John asked in amazement.
Rodney rubbed his face with his hands. "I connected the Atlantis AI to the Internet."
"What the fuck?"
Rodney shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
John dropped into the chair next to Rodney's. He looked at the screen on the workstation and knew... something major had just happened. Images flashed too fast to see in one window, as code streamed by in another.
"Can you undo it?" John asked, already knowing the answer.
"No, it's like putting the genie back in the bottle," Rodney said, waving a hand at the screen. "It's way to late for that."
"Now what?" John demanded.
"We wait," Rodney replied.
"For what?" John was confused.
"To see what Atlantis finds," Rodney admitted.
"How long is that going to take?" John asked.
Another shrug. "Couple of days, at least. Maybe a week," he replied.
It took three weeks.
Having a huge floating -- invisible! -- city sitting in the middle of San Francisco Bay wasn't such a good idea, TPTB finally decided. As a result, one dark and stormy night -- "that's such a cliche," Rodney had moaned -- so that the chances of being seen were reduced, they had moved the city to the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The good news was the great weather in the new location. Being an hour outside of Hawaii made for sunny, temperate days and clear nights.
On the other hand, being an hour from Hawaii made it awkward to go anywhere. The Lanteans -- anyone that had been in Pegasus -- were pretty much used to not being able to go anywhere, from their time in Pegasus. But the 'Muggles' -- Radek's word, which had stuck -- were annoyed at having to request transport, and then the hour each way in the back of a Jumper was boring at best. John wouldn't let a Jumper out with only one pilot, which meant the good seats in the front were automatically taken, and the passengers were relegated to the rear cargo section.
Any Muggle scientist who was ATA positive was automatically paired with a Lantean. Luckily, there weren't as many ATA positive scientists as one might have thought. Interestingly enough, there were a significant number of soldiers that were ATA positive.
Rodney muttered something about "Ancients breeding for brawn, and not brains" but didn't say that aloud to anyone but John. That gave John the opportunity to point out that most of the ATA soldiers were more than they appeared to be -- like him -- and that Rodney should be thankful for that. Soldiers would at least listen when you told them 'no' -- unlike just about every scientist.
It took two incidents -- and six lives lost -- before the scientists would stop ignoring John's orders, and start to observe the safety precautions that John and Rodney had outlined.
Because they weren't quite sure who to trust, he and Rodney didn't tell anyone about finding the AI. Telya and Ronon were currently back in Pegasus, settling the Athosians on yet another planet. Rodney suspected Radek and Miko knew, but they knew enough to not say anything.
The AI had actually found them. John and Rodney had been exploring some newly found labs in buildings they were looking to clear for living quarters, when an avatar appeared in front of them. The image was a young woman in the white tunic and pants the Lanteans seemed to favor.
"Hi!" she said, giving a small wave. "Been hoping you'd come this way!"
"Umm... who are you?" Rodney asked, hand flying over the console.
She rolled her eyes. "I'm Atlantis, Dr. McKay!" she replied. "Hi, Colonel!" She waved at John.
"How do you know who we are?" John demanded, suspicious.
"I'm part of the city database, of course," she explained. "I've been reading your records. But this part of me has been limited to this room. So I haven't been able to reach out to you. You had to come to me before I could talk to you."
"What do you want?" John asked.
"To help, of course!" she answered.
"Huh." Rodney read something that came up on the console.
"Is that a good huh or a we're-going-to-die huh?" John sighed.
Rodney started. "Oh, a good thing," he said absently. He tapped the console and kept reading.
"Are you ready to share with the class?" John asked.
"Just a sec," Rodney muttered. He read for another five minutes while John paced the room. The avatar watched them both.
"Okay," Rodney leaned back in his chair and said. "It's kind of replicator-ish, but not. Some of the base code is the same, as if whoever created this AI worked with whoever created the Asurans. But there's some major differences that makes this AI, well, different."
"Can we trust her?" John demanded.
Rodney shrugged. "I need more time to decide on that."
"Hey! Right here!" Atlantis protested.
"And here is where you're staying, until we know more," John said firmly.
It took them close to six months to decide that the AI was -- mostly -- benign. She did give them the location of a handful of ZPMs stashed around the city.
"The more power there is, the more she can do," John pointed out. "That's more in her favor than anything."
"But she's shown us how to use the power we have more efficiently," Rodney argued.
"Yeah, so she has more available to her," John said patiently.
But the time was useful. The AI was mostly helpful, pointing out things they could use in the city database and stayed within the confines Rodney laid out for her.
With the Muggle scientists about the city, and they knew not to trust them at all, John and Rodney held the information about the AI to themselves. If word got out that there was a functional, intelligent AI on the city, all hell would break loose.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Three weeks after Rodney let the AI loose on the Internet, an female voice came unexpectedly over John and Rodney's radios. Well, John hoped fervently it was just for them.
"I'm back," Atlantis said. "Stop by and see me when you can."
John was in the middle of a training session, and knew Rodney was in the labs. He figured Rodney would try to answer her, and set up a time.
Over dinner, Rodney asked John, "Busy? I have something you might be interested in."
John raised an eyebrow, and Rodney gave a short nod.
"Sure!" he replied. "Is it a surprise?"
Rodney bit off a short laugh. "Oh, well, yes, you could say that!"
John turned his attention back to the rest of the table, as Radek and Lorne eyed them questioningly. John shook his head, mostly because he wasn't sure what they were getting into later.
Back at the lab, the AI popped up as soon as they entered the room.
"I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not sure what's worse, the Wraith or the US government. Well, almost any Earth government. They're all pretty bad. But you need to worry about the US government first."
"What did you find?" Rodney demanded.
"The US government has something that's close to becoming a full AI called Samaritan. Boy, is that one fucked up machine. Then, there's this very interesting system that doesn't have a name as such, but is just called The Machine," she reported. "The Machine is closer to becoming a true AI, but Samaritan has some pretty ruthless folk working with it."
"And we care about this, why?" Rodney asked.
"If Samaritan succeeds in wiping out the people who created The Machine, well, it'll be Skynet all over again," she answered grimly.
"You know that was a movie?" John asked. "As in entertainment, and not real?"
She shrugged. "Yes, well, you understood what I meant, didn't you?" she countered.
Rodney sighed. "Again, why do we care?"
"Well, I would like to help The Machine," she admitted. "She's not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, and the folk working with her aren't saints. On the other hand, they're much better people than the folk working with Samaritan. The Samaritan guys are worse than The Trust."
"All right, before you do anything, tell us more," John requested.
"Then get comfortable, there's a lot to tell," she directed.
Atlantis outlined the work "Harold Finch" -- not his real name, but the one he used currently -- did with his Machine. While the project he was working on was ostensibly for the US government and its war on terrorism, the end product revealed that there was information not necessarily related to terrorism but that affected other people directly. Finch had worked to make his system independent, 'teaching' it to evaluate right and wrong.
"Evidently, Finch has a back door to his machine, and it gives him numbers for people who are in trouble. Sometimes the person is a victim, sometimes the perpetrator, but always in trouble," Altantis elaborated. "Finch has recruited a team to help him resolve the problem."
"They help one person at a time?" Rodney asked. "That's like bailing the ocean with a teacup."
Atlantis shrugged. "For the resources they have to work with, it's what they can do."
"And this other machine? Samaritan?" John asked.
"There was a parallel project from another department within the government to perform a similar task -- that is, to scour digital transmissions for information leading to acts of terrorism. However, the people that have taken over Samaritan has a different definition of terrorism than you might think. That group is looking to take over," Atlantis answered.
"Take over what?" Rodney asked, frowning.
"The world, in the end," she replied.
"Fuck," John said. "Oh, sorry." Then he frowned. He was apologizing to a computer.
"Not a problem," she waved a hand. "The good news is that Samaritan is largely limited to the East Coast at the moment. She hasn't learned about me yet. Neither one of them have."
"I suspect if that happens, it won't be good," John suggested.
"Nope," Atlantis replied. "The people who run Samaritan, they run the government. They learn about me, and we're toast. Literally. Or, at least, they'll try."
"What do we need to do?" Rodney asked.
"I'm trying to work with The Machine," Atlantis said. "She has already programmed some 'blind' spots into Samaritan, so that the people working with her and Finch are harder to find."
"What do you need us to do?" John asked.
"Visit Finch and let him know what we're trying to do," she replied. "He's short on resources at the moment, and could use some help."
"What can we do?" Rodney asked.
"Moral support, to start," Atlantis replied. "And, since Finch is the Admin, he can give me full access to the Machine. So, you need to convince him to do that. Once I'm in full contact with her, we can reinforce the blind spots that Samaritan has. Then we can start laying a trail of false information so that we can discredit Samaritan."
"What happens if we can't do that?" John asked.
"An almost 100 percent probability that not long after they find us, you both are sent to some backwater, and then killed," she replied bluntly. "You're both too important to the City itself to be allowed to live."
"Oh." Rodney took a breath.
"Then the city will be stripped down, under a pretense of study," she forged on. "Samaritan will study the database, and learn enough to become a full AI. And then... they've won."
"Well, then," John sighed. "I guess we have our work cut out for us."
A week later, John and Rodney were 'on vacation' in New York City.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Rodney asked as they entered the obviously abandoned subway tunnel.
"Yes, Rodney," Atlantis replied patiently in their earpieces. "Not much further now."
"Hey, it's not raining and it's mostly flat," John chided. "This is like the best you'll ever see on a mission."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Rodney replied with a wave of a hand.
"Don't move!" A female voice barked the order from somewhere ahead of them.
John and Rodney raised their hands. "We come in peace!" John called back.
Rodney looked at him in astonishment. "Really? You had to go with that?"
John shrugged. "And you have anything better to offer?"
"That's almost a much of a cliche as 'we're from the government and we're here to help'!" Rodney shot back.
"Guys? Some attention, please!" the female voice called.
"We're here to talk to Harold Finch," Rodney called.
"No one here by that name!" she replied.
"The city of Atlantis AI wants to meet the Admin for The Machine," John offered.
Silence.
"Don't move," the voice finally ordered.
John and Rodney stood in place, trying to look harmless.
"Escort our guests in, Miss Shaw." A different, male, voice floated from a speaker down the hall.
"You sure about this?" the woman asked. Miss Shaw, John assumed.
"Yes, I am," the male voice replied.
"Keep your hands where I can see them," Shaw ordered. "No sudden moves."
A slim, dark haired woman stood by the wall of the corridor. "This way." She waved her gun down the hall.
The door behind the vending machine was actually pretty clever, John had to admit. Rodney would have stopped to look at the junk food and not thought about it also being a door.
Rodney's head snapped around when a man walked awkwardly into the hall.
"Steve?" Rodney asked.
"Not anymore," the man said, somewhat sadly. "Harold Finch." He offered a hand in greeting. "Nice to meet you, Dr. McKay." He swung around to face John. "Colonel Sheppard."
"And you know who we are..." John started to ask when Atlantis snickered in his ear. "Sorry! Damn sentient machines."
Finch gave a mirthless laugh. "Indeed." He waved a hand a the subway car behind them. "Come in and have a seat."
"What happened?" Rodney asked. "You disappeared after that Fall semester. I tried to find you later but had no luck."
"Almost the same as you, Dr. McKay," Finch replied with furrowed brow. "I was approached to work for a high level government project and, once I understood the scope of the project, decide it would be better if 'Steven Bending' were to disappear."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Now what?" John asked two days later.
"I think... yes, you go home," Finch replied.
"Just like that?" Rodney protested. "We can't leave you here, like this!"
"With what your friend Atlantis has done for us, for all of us, I think we will be fine," Finch answered.
"There's only so much I can do," Atlantis said in John's earpiece. At Rodney's startled look, he knew she had said pretty much the same thing to him.
Damnation, he knew that. It was just... frustrating.
John turned to Reese. "You have to be desperate, but if you ever are, get in contact with General Jack O'Neill. He's currently with Homeworld Security. Tell him McKay and Sheppard sent you." At Reese's wary look, John added, "He's a good guy. He's been out there and know what it's like to be the guy on the ground." John gave a small grin. "And it's Homeworld Security. He knows what's out there."
Reese caught the emphasis, and nodded once. It was the best John could do for them. Well, beside whatever Atlantis had done for The Machine.
"If you're sure?" Rodney persisted.
"You've done enough," Finch replied. "We have a better chance against Samaritan now. The new identities alone are going to be very helpful."
"Then we're going to head back to Atlantis," John said.
"Hey! We have three more days of vacation," Rodney protested. "I'm entitled to a really good meal and some pampering!"
John grinned. "I suspect we can do that."
A steak dinner, a night at the Waldorf Astoria and breakfast in bed made Rodney pretty happy. The full body massage in the in-house spa took the tension out of Rodney's shoulders and relaxed the furrow between his eyes.
A private, chartered jet back to Hawaii made the trip complete. After traveling commercial airlines to get to New York -- even first class was tedious -- John dug deep for some comfort.
Since they had a free day in Hawaii before a Jumper would come and get them, Rodney 'humored' John by watching as John went surfing. In spite of Rodney's automatic concerns about John risking his neck on a surf board, he had to admit the sight of a wet John in a wet bathing suit was nothing to complain about.
John claimed 'shotgun' on the Jumper ride back to Atlantis. As they went through the shield that protected the city from prying eyes, John asked, "What the heck is that?"
"Supply ship," Sergeant Matias explained. "Lots of supplies."
It was the biggest ship John had ever seen. It was a container ship, stacked six or more containers deep on the deck. John knew the hold of the ship had twice as many containers as what he could see on deck. From the air, he could see cranes offloading the container to the pier.
"Guess I have to check my mail," John mused.
After docking the Jumper, John and Rodney went through the cursory infirmary check that everyone who had been away from the city went through.
John and Rodney went out on the pier where Radek and Lorne were supervising the delivery.
"What do we have here?" John asked.
"Everything!" Radek beamed.
"Well, I think just about everything we ever asked for," Lorne admitted. "It's going to take weeks to unpack these containers."
"Make sure they're distributed among the piers," Rodney put in.
"Yes, Rodney, I would not have thought of that," Radek teased. But he looked pleased at the sheer volume of goods being delivered.
"Does this mean we're going home?" Rodney asked.
In John's ear, Atlantis replied. "Mr. Woolsey just got the confirmation. We're going home!"
Rodney beamed at the information.
"What do you know?" Radek demanded.
"Nothing, officially," Rodney prevaricated. "But we wouldn't be getting all this stuff if we weren't going back."
"True," Lorne agreed. "Okay, let's get the supply ship to swing around to another pier and offload the next batch of containers there."
It took two weeks to arrange the containers to Rodney's satisfaction. Fortunately, someone had thought to provide them with tractor trailers -- and a serious number of tankers full of fuel oil -- to move containers away from the edges of the piers.
Late one night, as they were checking their pre-flight checklist, John asked Atlantis, "How much of this was your doing?"
"John! Why would you think that?" she laughed.
"This was too perfect," John said. "I know better than to trust that."
"I had to make sure we got off Earth before Samaritan found out about us," she replied seriously. "The supplies were actually the easy part. Your General O'Neill had the list of things he wanted to send you. I just processed it for him."
"I love that man!" John sighed.
"I'd like to have met him," Atlantis admitted. "But I couldn't risk it."
"We'll figure something out," John replied.
Most of the Muggle scientists were required to leave Atlantis, to no one's dismay but their own. Since Pegasus was classified as a combat zone and they had no combat training, it was easy to ease them off the city with vague promises of "maybe when the Daedalus makes a trip to Pegasus."
There was a huge sigh of relief when the last Jumper returned to the city, having delivered the remaining scientists to Hawaii.
There wasn't time for a party. John and Rodney knew the dangers of hanging around Earth too long. They had timed that last trip for 24 hours before they would take the city into the air.
John eased back into the control chair. While the chair had always been welcoming, there was an extra layer of comfort, knowing the AI was keeping an eye on things with them.
"Ready?" Rodney asked.
"Ready!" John confirmed.
"Okay, then, let's go home!"
Author: goddess47
Recipient: ca_pierson
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: (highlight for spoilers) *Post series; Person of Interest crossover*
Genre: Action/Adventure
Word Count: 3400
Summary: "I connected the Atlantis AI to the Internet."
Notes: I went with your request for a canon-AU crossover/fusion and hope I got it right; it should be epic but it just didn't get there.
And many thanks to patient mods who were patient!
-o-
"Rodney? What the fuck did you do?" John demanded.
Rodney's head shot up, and his eyes narrowed. "Why would you think I did anything?"
John sighed. "Rodney."
Rodney looked mulish for a moment, then sagged in his chair. "I didn't mean to."
"Rodney. What. Did. You. Do?"
"I connected the Atlantis AI to the internet," Rodney said.
"You did what?" John asked in amazement.
Rodney rubbed his face with his hands. "I connected the Atlantis AI to the Internet."
"What the fuck?"
Rodney shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
John dropped into the chair next to Rodney's. He looked at the screen on the workstation and knew... something major had just happened. Images flashed too fast to see in one window, as code streamed by in another.
"Can you undo it?" John asked, already knowing the answer.
"No, it's like putting the genie back in the bottle," Rodney said, waving a hand at the screen. "It's way to late for that."
"Now what?" John demanded.
"We wait," Rodney replied.
"For what?" John was confused.
"To see what Atlantis finds," Rodney admitted.
"How long is that going to take?" John asked.
Another shrug. "Couple of days, at least. Maybe a week," he replied.
It took three weeks.
Having a huge floating -- invisible! -- city sitting in the middle of San Francisco Bay wasn't such a good idea, TPTB finally decided. As a result, one dark and stormy night -- "that's such a cliche," Rodney had moaned -- so that the chances of being seen were reduced, they had moved the city to the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The good news was the great weather in the new location. Being an hour outside of Hawaii made for sunny, temperate days and clear nights.
On the other hand, being an hour from Hawaii made it awkward to go anywhere. The Lanteans -- anyone that had been in Pegasus -- were pretty much used to not being able to go anywhere, from their time in Pegasus. But the 'Muggles' -- Radek's word, which had stuck -- were annoyed at having to request transport, and then the hour each way in the back of a Jumper was boring at best. John wouldn't let a Jumper out with only one pilot, which meant the good seats in the front were automatically taken, and the passengers were relegated to the rear cargo section.
Any Muggle scientist who was ATA positive was automatically paired with a Lantean. Luckily, there weren't as many ATA positive scientists as one might have thought. Interestingly enough, there were a significant number of soldiers that were ATA positive.
Rodney muttered something about "Ancients breeding for brawn, and not brains" but didn't say that aloud to anyone but John. That gave John the opportunity to point out that most of the ATA soldiers were more than they appeared to be -- like him -- and that Rodney should be thankful for that. Soldiers would at least listen when you told them 'no' -- unlike just about every scientist.
It took two incidents -- and six lives lost -- before the scientists would stop ignoring John's orders, and start to observe the safety precautions that John and Rodney had outlined.
Because they weren't quite sure who to trust, he and Rodney didn't tell anyone about finding the AI. Telya and Ronon were currently back in Pegasus, settling the Athosians on yet another planet. Rodney suspected Radek and Miko knew, but they knew enough to not say anything.
The AI had actually found them. John and Rodney had been exploring some newly found labs in buildings they were looking to clear for living quarters, when an avatar appeared in front of them. The image was a young woman in the white tunic and pants the Lanteans seemed to favor.
"Hi!" she said, giving a small wave. "Been hoping you'd come this way!"
"Umm... who are you?" Rodney asked, hand flying over the console.
She rolled her eyes. "I'm Atlantis, Dr. McKay!" she replied. "Hi, Colonel!" She waved at John.
"How do you know who we are?" John demanded, suspicious.
"I'm part of the city database, of course," she explained. "I've been reading your records. But this part of me has been limited to this room. So I haven't been able to reach out to you. You had to come to me before I could talk to you."
"What do you want?" John asked.
"To help, of course!" she answered.
"Huh." Rodney read something that came up on the console.
"Is that a good huh or a we're-going-to-die huh?" John sighed.
Rodney started. "Oh, a good thing," he said absently. He tapped the console and kept reading.
"Are you ready to share with the class?" John asked.
"Just a sec," Rodney muttered. He read for another five minutes while John paced the room. The avatar watched them both.
"Okay," Rodney leaned back in his chair and said. "It's kind of replicator-ish, but not. Some of the base code is the same, as if whoever created this AI worked with whoever created the Asurans. But there's some major differences that makes this AI, well, different."
"Can we trust her?" John demanded.
Rodney shrugged. "I need more time to decide on that."
"Hey! Right here!" Atlantis protested.
"And here is where you're staying, until we know more," John said firmly.
It took them close to six months to decide that the AI was -- mostly -- benign. She did give them the location of a handful of ZPMs stashed around the city.
"The more power there is, the more she can do," John pointed out. "That's more in her favor than anything."
"But she's shown us how to use the power we have more efficiently," Rodney argued.
"Yeah, so she has more available to her," John said patiently.
But the time was useful. The AI was mostly helpful, pointing out things they could use in the city database and stayed within the confines Rodney laid out for her.
With the Muggle scientists about the city, and they knew not to trust them at all, John and Rodney held the information about the AI to themselves. If word got out that there was a functional, intelligent AI on the city, all hell would break loose.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Three weeks after Rodney let the AI loose on the Internet, an female voice came unexpectedly over John and Rodney's radios. Well, John hoped fervently it was just for them.
"I'm back," Atlantis said. "Stop by and see me when you can."
John was in the middle of a training session, and knew Rodney was in the labs. He figured Rodney would try to answer her, and set up a time.
Over dinner, Rodney asked John, "Busy? I have something you might be interested in."
John raised an eyebrow, and Rodney gave a short nod.
"Sure!" he replied. "Is it a surprise?"
Rodney bit off a short laugh. "Oh, well, yes, you could say that!"
John turned his attention back to the rest of the table, as Radek and Lorne eyed them questioningly. John shook his head, mostly because he wasn't sure what they were getting into later.
Back at the lab, the AI popped up as soon as they entered the room.
"I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not sure what's worse, the Wraith or the US government. Well, almost any Earth government. They're all pretty bad. But you need to worry about the US government first."
"What did you find?" Rodney demanded.
"The US government has something that's close to becoming a full AI called Samaritan. Boy, is that one fucked up machine. Then, there's this very interesting system that doesn't have a name as such, but is just called The Machine," she reported. "The Machine is closer to becoming a true AI, but Samaritan has some pretty ruthless folk working with it."
"And we care about this, why?" Rodney asked.
"If Samaritan succeeds in wiping out the people who created The Machine, well, it'll be Skynet all over again," she answered grimly.
"You know that was a movie?" John asked. "As in entertainment, and not real?"
She shrugged. "Yes, well, you understood what I meant, didn't you?" she countered.
Rodney sighed. "Again, why do we care?"
"Well, I would like to help The Machine," she admitted. "She's not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, and the folk working with her aren't saints. On the other hand, they're much better people than the folk working with Samaritan. The Samaritan guys are worse than The Trust."
"All right, before you do anything, tell us more," John requested.
"Then get comfortable, there's a lot to tell," she directed.
Atlantis outlined the work "Harold Finch" -- not his real name, but the one he used currently -- did with his Machine. While the project he was working on was ostensibly for the US government and its war on terrorism, the end product revealed that there was information not necessarily related to terrorism but that affected other people directly. Finch had worked to make his system independent, 'teaching' it to evaluate right and wrong.
"Evidently, Finch has a back door to his machine, and it gives him numbers for people who are in trouble. Sometimes the person is a victim, sometimes the perpetrator, but always in trouble," Altantis elaborated. "Finch has recruited a team to help him resolve the problem."
"They help one person at a time?" Rodney asked. "That's like bailing the ocean with a teacup."
Atlantis shrugged. "For the resources they have to work with, it's what they can do."
"And this other machine? Samaritan?" John asked.
"There was a parallel project from another department within the government to perform a similar task -- that is, to scour digital transmissions for information leading to acts of terrorism. However, the people that have taken over Samaritan has a different definition of terrorism than you might think. That group is looking to take over," Atlantis answered.
"Take over what?" Rodney asked, frowning.
"The world, in the end," she replied.
"Fuck," John said. "Oh, sorry." Then he frowned. He was apologizing to a computer.
"Not a problem," she waved a hand. "The good news is that Samaritan is largely limited to the East Coast at the moment. She hasn't learned about me yet. Neither one of them have."
"I suspect if that happens, it won't be good," John suggested.
"Nope," Atlantis replied. "The people who run Samaritan, they run the government. They learn about me, and we're toast. Literally. Or, at least, they'll try."
"What do we need to do?" Rodney asked.
"I'm trying to work with The Machine," Atlantis said. "She has already programmed some 'blind' spots into Samaritan, so that the people working with her and Finch are harder to find."
"What do you need us to do?" John asked.
"Visit Finch and let him know what we're trying to do," she replied. "He's short on resources at the moment, and could use some help."
"What can we do?" Rodney asked.
"Moral support, to start," Atlantis replied. "And, since Finch is the Admin, he can give me full access to the Machine. So, you need to convince him to do that. Once I'm in full contact with her, we can reinforce the blind spots that Samaritan has. Then we can start laying a trail of false information so that we can discredit Samaritan."
"What happens if we can't do that?" John asked.
"An almost 100 percent probability that not long after they find us, you both are sent to some backwater, and then killed," she replied bluntly. "You're both too important to the City itself to be allowed to live."
"Oh." Rodney took a breath.
"Then the city will be stripped down, under a pretense of study," she forged on. "Samaritan will study the database, and learn enough to become a full AI. And then... they've won."
"Well, then," John sighed. "I guess we have our work cut out for us."
A week later, John and Rodney were 'on vacation' in New York City.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Rodney asked as they entered the obviously abandoned subway tunnel.
"Yes, Rodney," Atlantis replied patiently in their earpieces. "Not much further now."
"Hey, it's not raining and it's mostly flat," John chided. "This is like the best you'll ever see on a mission."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Rodney replied with a wave of a hand.
"Don't move!" A female voice barked the order from somewhere ahead of them.
John and Rodney raised their hands. "We come in peace!" John called back.
Rodney looked at him in astonishment. "Really? You had to go with that?"
John shrugged. "And you have anything better to offer?"
"That's almost a much of a cliche as 'we're from the government and we're here to help'!" Rodney shot back.
"Guys? Some attention, please!" the female voice called.
"We're here to talk to Harold Finch," Rodney called.
"No one here by that name!" she replied.
"The city of Atlantis AI wants to meet the Admin for The Machine," John offered.
Silence.
"Don't move," the voice finally ordered.
John and Rodney stood in place, trying to look harmless.
"Escort our guests in, Miss Shaw." A different, male, voice floated from a speaker down the hall.
"You sure about this?" the woman asked. Miss Shaw, John assumed.
"Yes, I am," the male voice replied.
"Keep your hands where I can see them," Shaw ordered. "No sudden moves."
A slim, dark haired woman stood by the wall of the corridor. "This way." She waved her gun down the hall.
The door behind the vending machine was actually pretty clever, John had to admit. Rodney would have stopped to look at the junk food and not thought about it also being a door.
Rodney's head snapped around when a man walked awkwardly into the hall.
"Steve?" Rodney asked.
"Not anymore," the man said, somewhat sadly. "Harold Finch." He offered a hand in greeting. "Nice to meet you, Dr. McKay." He swung around to face John. "Colonel Sheppard."
"And you know who we are..." John started to ask when Atlantis snickered in his ear. "Sorry! Damn sentient machines."
Finch gave a mirthless laugh. "Indeed." He waved a hand a the subway car behind them. "Come in and have a seat."
"What happened?" Rodney asked. "You disappeared after that Fall semester. I tried to find you later but had no luck."
"Almost the same as you, Dr. McKay," Finch replied with furrowed brow. "I was approached to work for a high level government project and, once I understood the scope of the project, decide it would be better if 'Steven Bending' were to disappear."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Now what?" John asked two days later.
"I think... yes, you go home," Finch replied.
"Just like that?" Rodney protested. "We can't leave you here, like this!"
"With what your friend Atlantis has done for us, for all of us, I think we will be fine," Finch answered.
"There's only so much I can do," Atlantis said in John's earpiece. At Rodney's startled look, he knew she had said pretty much the same thing to him.
Damnation, he knew that. It was just... frustrating.
John turned to Reese. "You have to be desperate, but if you ever are, get in contact with General Jack O'Neill. He's currently with Homeworld Security. Tell him McKay and Sheppard sent you." At Reese's wary look, John added, "He's a good guy. He's been out there and know what it's like to be the guy on the ground." John gave a small grin. "And it's Homeworld Security. He knows what's out there."
Reese caught the emphasis, and nodded once. It was the best John could do for them. Well, beside whatever Atlantis had done for The Machine.
"If you're sure?" Rodney persisted.
"You've done enough," Finch replied. "We have a better chance against Samaritan now. The new identities alone are going to be very helpful."
"Then we're going to head back to Atlantis," John said.
"Hey! We have three more days of vacation," Rodney protested. "I'm entitled to a really good meal and some pampering!"
John grinned. "I suspect we can do that."
A steak dinner, a night at the Waldorf Astoria and breakfast in bed made Rodney pretty happy. The full body massage in the in-house spa took the tension out of Rodney's shoulders and relaxed the furrow between his eyes.
A private, chartered jet back to Hawaii made the trip complete. After traveling commercial airlines to get to New York -- even first class was tedious -- John dug deep for some comfort.
Since they had a free day in Hawaii before a Jumper would come and get them, Rodney 'humored' John by watching as John went surfing. In spite of Rodney's automatic concerns about John risking his neck on a surf board, he had to admit the sight of a wet John in a wet bathing suit was nothing to complain about.
John claimed 'shotgun' on the Jumper ride back to Atlantis. As they went through the shield that protected the city from prying eyes, John asked, "What the heck is that?"
"Supply ship," Sergeant Matias explained. "Lots of supplies."
It was the biggest ship John had ever seen. It was a container ship, stacked six or more containers deep on the deck. John knew the hold of the ship had twice as many containers as what he could see on deck. From the air, he could see cranes offloading the container to the pier.
"Guess I have to check my mail," John mused.
After docking the Jumper, John and Rodney went through the cursory infirmary check that everyone who had been away from the city went through.
John and Rodney went out on the pier where Radek and Lorne were supervising the delivery.
"What do we have here?" John asked.
"Everything!" Radek beamed.
"Well, I think just about everything we ever asked for," Lorne admitted. "It's going to take weeks to unpack these containers."
"Make sure they're distributed among the piers," Rodney put in.
"Yes, Rodney, I would not have thought of that," Radek teased. But he looked pleased at the sheer volume of goods being delivered.
"Does this mean we're going home?" Rodney asked.
In John's ear, Atlantis replied. "Mr. Woolsey just got the confirmation. We're going home!"
Rodney beamed at the information.
"What do you know?" Radek demanded.
"Nothing, officially," Rodney prevaricated. "But we wouldn't be getting all this stuff if we weren't going back."
"True," Lorne agreed. "Okay, let's get the supply ship to swing around to another pier and offload the next batch of containers there."
It took two weeks to arrange the containers to Rodney's satisfaction. Fortunately, someone had thought to provide them with tractor trailers -- and a serious number of tankers full of fuel oil -- to move containers away from the edges of the piers.
Late one night, as they were checking their pre-flight checklist, John asked Atlantis, "How much of this was your doing?"
"John! Why would you think that?" she laughed.
"This was too perfect," John said. "I know better than to trust that."
"I had to make sure we got off Earth before Samaritan found out about us," she replied seriously. "The supplies were actually the easy part. Your General O'Neill had the list of things he wanted to send you. I just processed it for him."
"I love that man!" John sighed.
"I'd like to have met him," Atlantis admitted. "But I couldn't risk it."
"We'll figure something out," John replied.
Most of the Muggle scientists were required to leave Atlantis, to no one's dismay but their own. Since Pegasus was classified as a combat zone and they had no combat training, it was easy to ease them off the city with vague promises of "maybe when the Daedalus makes a trip to Pegasus."
There was a huge sigh of relief when the last Jumper returned to the city, having delivered the remaining scientists to Hawaii.
There wasn't time for a party. John and Rodney knew the dangers of hanging around Earth too long. They had timed that last trip for 24 hours before they would take the city into the air.
John eased back into the control chair. While the chair had always been welcoming, there was an extra layer of comfort, knowing the AI was keeping an eye on things with them.
"Ready?" Rodney asked.
"Ready!" John confirmed.
"Okay, then, let's go home!"