The Monster in the City
Title: The Monster in the City
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: A snippet from the Keri ‘verse: post Panor
Characters: Lorne, Parrish, The Monster, Chuck
Rating: Gen
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 2,629
Notes: Happy Birthday 8 days late for clwilson2006. Here’s a little tiny spoiler story that takes place post Panor. Hopefully I shall be forgiven the lack of porn for the other story elements. Hopefully.
Prompts: for AC Bingo: “Life in Minature”
Evan jolted awake as the com in his ear buzzed. “Yeah! Lorne!” He had been using his day off to try to get some of his backlog of work done, but his need for sleep had overridden his ambition and he’d apparently fallen asleep again at the desk in his quarters. Parenthood had turned out to be quite exhausting, both he and David were fraying at the edges these days.
“Sub Commander, the transporter system is offline,” Chuck said.
“And?” Evan growled, wondering why they were calling him on his day off about an issue that should be taken up with Engineering.
Chuck cleared his throat and replied quietly, “Sir, we thought you might like the opportunity to see to the matter before Doctor McKay found out about it.”
See to the matter? What the…? Oh, damn. “Yeah, Chuck, let me look into it.”
“Thank you sir,” Chuck replied with relief. He had become a good friend over the past few years, and Evan appreciated the heads up from friendlier corners than the Science Department.
Evan tapped his com as he left his desk and started to the door. “David, where is The Monster?”
His keri’s voice was very weary when he replied, “In the sandbox with Torra and the others.” It was David’s day to babysit the large group of children they and their friends had produced.
“Are you sure about that?” He went straight to the stairwell and started jogging down the eight flights that would take him to the level the outdoor playground was on.
The responding pause was too long, “Crap! He was right there a minute ago, I swear it, Ev!”
It was a growing problem having a child that had not only been born with the ATA gene but with an insatiable curiosity and penchant for trouble. His son had not been nicknamed The Monster without just cause. The science team alternately wanted to dissect him to see how he worked or hire him. If he wasn't just a short time out of diapers, Lorne had no doubt the boy would be working for McKay, or overthrowing the city; one or the other.
It did not help that the city adored The Monster. Since he had started crawling, doors had opened at his whim; lights came on, even the environmental controls answered to the boy's desires. The day the children had been read a story about snow in the nursery, The Monster had coerced the city into creating an artificial snowstorm in the playroom. McKay was still scratching his head trying to figure that one out. Evan was willing to admit that he was jealous that his son had a natural ability and connection to the city that he lacked. It made him feel better that Sheppard was in the same boat with his kid; Sheppard’s kid was just better behaved.
There was an Ancient classroom on this level so Evan went there knowing that David would thoroughly search the playground. He held onto the vague hope that the boy was still in the playground, because if he was inside, the city was a willing participant in aiding and abetting the fugitive. The city would hide him from everyone until it was time for the boy to eat, only then would the AI notify Evan of his son’s whereabouts. It was nerve-wracking, trying to keep the boy safe when their home was at odds with Evan’s wishes.
He put both hands on the console in the room, and concentrated, trying to get the attention of the city’s AI. He had been having more luck at this lately, accessing the AI without being in the chair, finding this room only a few levels from their quarters had been a blessing. The console was the next best thing to being in the chair.
*Operator identified, pilot Lorne authorized*
All right, you electronic enabler, where is he?
*Operator syntax error*
Location of additional operator Lorne? The AI paused, as if considering the request and Evan fumed silently.
*Operator Lorne is located in corridor four seven three*
Restart all transporters on all levels.
*All transporter units reactivated.* It was no use trying to get the city to revoke authorization from the Monster, it would only be temporary, it would be reissued within a day or so.
Apparently, The Monster had not thought to hide himself when he made his break today. The Monster was heading for the Mess Hall, which made sense since it was Wednesday. On Wednesdays, Momma Mitchell usually made chocolate pudding from their Atlantis grown cocoa beans. The Monster particularly loved chocolate pudding. And Momma Mitchell, the other bane of his existence when it came to spoiling the boy horribly, would give it to him as soon as he turned up in her kitchen.
“He’s going for pudding,” Evan hit his radio and informed David so his keri knew he could stop looking. “I’ll round him up and take him home.”
“You should take the pudding away as punishment for not waiting. I told him we would go on our way home from the park!” David was at the end of his rope with The Monster, the boy challenged him at every turn, and it burned David that Evan had to be the one to use the AI to find him all the time.
He jogged to the transporter and hit the controls. He exited on the Mess Hall level and ran down the corridor, but when he crossed the dining hall and went to the kitchen, he found Momma Mitchell there by herself, calmly cleaning up after the lunch shift.
“Well Evan, this is a surprise, I was expecting David to bring the children for snacks today.” He leaned in to accept the kiss she placed on his cheek and then bent down to look under the steel table.
“He’s not here?”
“Who, dear?”
“The Monster,” Evan replied, opening the pantry to see if he was hiding in there, he’d done that before, it was a favored hiding place since it usually came with cookies from Momma.
Wendy sighed and crossed her arms as Evan searched the kitchen. “I do wish you boys would stop calling him that. He is a perfectly normal child.”
He hoped his snort conveyed his opinion on that matter. The Monster was anything but normal. He had a mind like a steel trap, an ability to problem solve that was years beyond what it should be at his age and an electronic cohort that helped to cover his tracks as well as feed him ideas for mischief. “Momma, did he come in here for pudding yet? The AI said he was heading this way.”
“He hasn’t been here. Did you pass him?”
Evan chewed his lip, could the AI have blatantly lied to him about the location? That would be a first. Usually it just refused to answer until he gave up the query in disgust. Or had his son gone somewhere else? “Momma, please keep an eye out for him, David and the others will be by when they’re done at the playground. If he comes in here, would you let me know?” Evan waved a hand towards his radio.
“I will. Run along and find the scamp.”
Scamp? He was far beyond scamp. Evan thought as he went out into the dining hall and crouched down to get a better view of the Mess hall at his son’s level. He didn’t see a tousled head of sandy hair anywhere in the room. Where else would he have gone on pudding day? Especially since he knew it was pudding day?
He walked to the doorway, looking to see if he had possibly passed the boy, but it was empty. As he started looking in each of the rooms along the corridor, his radio crackled and he heard a little voice say, “Daddy, come look!”
“Look where, buddy?” He was relieved; it seemed his fugitive was turning himself in for a change.
“Pretty people; come see the pretty people in the lights.” Oh, this could not be good, his relief turned to concern. He came to a decision. He was overriding David’s wishes, when he found The Monster, he was taking him to Medical and having Beckett inject an emergency transponder into the boy, he was tired of tracking him all over the city. He’d deal with the arguments from his keri after the fact, this was getting dangerous. “Where are you, is there a number on the wall?”
“Outside the transporter.”
Wonderful, he could be anywhere. “Hey Buddy, could you tell the city to bring me there?” He crossed his fingers, hoping both The Monster and the city agreed.
“Okay.”
When he stepped out of the transporter, he heard a little voice calling him from the left. “Daddy, Daddy, come here, hurry!”
The hollow thumping of his boots on the floor echoed back at him as he ran. The lower levels were still largely unexplored and dangerous, and the AI wasn’t always the best judge of danger to people. He swept his son up into his arms and hugged him tight as he chastised, “How many times do I have to tell you not to wander off, you little monster?”
The boy wriggled to get down, clearly eager to point out what he had found to his father. Evan set him on his feet and followed him to frosted glass wall. Behind it, he could see shadows and as he drew closer, he saw that there were people there, and The Monster was correct, they were pretty people. Their dress was unlike any of the garb he had seen on any of the Ancients he had viewed in photographs or holograms since coming here.
When his son reached a hand out to press it to the glass, Evan caught it and shook his head. “Maybe we shouldn’t touch anything. Let’s call a science team to see the people, huh?”
“The City says they have to come out of there, they’re going to get sick if they don’t.”
Evan rolled his eyes and tapped his radio, calling for both science and medical teams to come to his location. “We’ll get them out, son, don’t worry.”
He scooped the boy up and stepped back to give the medical team space to work. They determined that the room was a cryo-stasis lab, one they had previously had no record of. Evan didn’t bother asking how his son had found it; it was obvious the AI had led the boy here.
There were six people in the chambers around the room. Doctor Beckett and Doctor Lam were heatedly discussing turning the units off and releasing the people. When it looked as if Beckett’s caution might win out, The Monster threw a tantrum.
“The city said NOW!” The Atlantis AI added a touch of drama by choosing that moment to cut power to the units, taking the choice of doing so away from Beckett and his team.
When the units were opened, they found that one of the people was beyond help; the body dried out and long dead. The other five were loaded onto gurneys and quickly taken away to the infirmary. Held firmly in Evan’s arms, The Monster stared as Doctor Biro zipped the closure on the body bag of the deceased stasis person.
“He was very sick,” the boy said solemnly as the body was wheeled out at a much slower pace than the others.
“Yes, it was too late to help him. But the others are going to the infirmary and the doctors will do everything they can to make them better.”
Deflated after the excitement, the boy curled against Evan’s neck and held on tightly as he was carried to the transporter. Deciding that the sight of any more of the medical team’s efforts might further traumatize the boy, Evan decided to delay his plan for an emergency transponder. But tomorrow, it would be straight to Medical with him, first thing.
“Buddy, next time, please tell Papa or call Daddy before you go where the city tells you, okay? Promise?” Evan knew he was pleading, but he was worn out from chasing his son.
There was a tiny nod against his neck and he heard a whispered, “Okay Daddy, that was kinda scary.”
“For me too, buddy. For me too. And since you promised not to do it again, I think I’ll let you have your chocolate pudding.”
“I don’t want any. I want to go home now, I want my blankie.”
~*~
When David got to their quarters, leaving the other children with Momma Mitchell, he found Evan dozing with The Monster wrapped up in his baby blankie, cuddled against his chest, his thumb in his mouth. Waking when the warm weight was lifted off him, Evan said quietly, “He saw a dead guy today. I would expect nightmares.”
Rather than exploding in anger and carrying on as Evan expected him to, David just nodded at his words and rocked the boy in his arms for a while before taking him to his bed and tucking him in. He returned to the living room and stretched out beside Evan on the sofa, pressing up against his side and resting his chin on one hand as he looked at his panor’eten.
“I will concede that perhaps we need to tag The Monster,” David said as Evan stared at him expectantly.
“Thank you. Honestly, I doubt it would have helped today; the city led him down below deliberately to find some malfunctioning cryo units.” Evan sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “I wish it wouldn’t use the kids like this.”
David nodded, it bothered all of the parents of the children that had been born here and were ATA positive. They were growing up with a facility to use the city that the adults could never hope to have. They inherently understood things about Atlantis that were incomprehensible to those born and raised on Earth. The City was more than their home; it seemed to be in their blood. “Sheppard said the only choice we have is to shut the AI down. There is no way to cut it off from the children.”
“I know. And I agree with him that it would be a bad idea for everyone. We’ll just have to learn to keep better track of The Monster. He did promise me that he wouldn’t wander off without telling us again. I think maybe he had enough of a scare that he might hold to it for a while.”
David looked up at his partner and frowned. “I cannot say I approve of scare tactics as a parenting tool.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose! I’m just saying maybe he’ll behave for a while.”
“Maybe.” But David doubted it. There would be some new device or panel or room that would draw The Monster’s attention and off he would go again.
Sighing as he snuggled close to Evan to soak up a few moments of private time, David said, “He is going to be the death of us.”
“Either that or give McKay a run for the money on the genius track. Take a nap David.”
A nap was an excellent idea.
The End
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: A snippet from the Keri ‘verse: post Panor
Characters: Lorne, Parrish, The Monster, Chuck
Rating: Gen
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 2,629
Notes: Happy Birthday 8 days late for clwilson2006. Here’s a little tiny spoiler story that takes place post Panor. Hopefully I shall be forgiven the lack of porn for the other story elements. Hopefully.
Prompts: for AC Bingo: “Life in Minature”
Evan jolted awake as the com in his ear buzzed. “Yeah! Lorne!” He had been using his day off to try to get some of his backlog of work done, but his need for sleep had overridden his ambition and he’d apparently fallen asleep again at the desk in his quarters. Parenthood had turned out to be quite exhausting, both he and David were fraying at the edges these days.
“Sub Commander, the transporter system is offline,” Chuck said.
“And?” Evan growled, wondering why they were calling him on his day off about an issue that should be taken up with Engineering.
Chuck cleared his throat and replied quietly, “Sir, we thought you might like the opportunity to see to the matter before Doctor McKay found out about it.”
See to the matter? What the…? Oh, damn. “Yeah, Chuck, let me look into it.”
“Thank you sir,” Chuck replied with relief. He had become a good friend over the past few years, and Evan appreciated the heads up from friendlier corners than the Science Department.
Evan tapped his com as he left his desk and started to the door. “David, where is The Monster?”
His keri’s voice was very weary when he replied, “In the sandbox with Torra and the others.” It was David’s day to babysit the large group of children they and their friends had produced.
“Are you sure about that?” He went straight to the stairwell and started jogging down the eight flights that would take him to the level the outdoor playground was on.
The responding pause was too long, “Crap! He was right there a minute ago, I swear it, Ev!”
It was a growing problem having a child that had not only been born with the ATA gene but with an insatiable curiosity and penchant for trouble. His son had not been nicknamed The Monster without just cause. The science team alternately wanted to dissect him to see how he worked or hire him. If he wasn't just a short time out of diapers, Lorne had no doubt the boy would be working for McKay, or overthrowing the city; one or the other.
It did not help that the city adored The Monster. Since he had started crawling, doors had opened at his whim; lights came on, even the environmental controls answered to the boy's desires. The day the children had been read a story about snow in the nursery, The Monster had coerced the city into creating an artificial snowstorm in the playroom. McKay was still scratching his head trying to figure that one out. Evan was willing to admit that he was jealous that his son had a natural ability and connection to the city that he lacked. It made him feel better that Sheppard was in the same boat with his kid; Sheppard’s kid was just better behaved.
There was an Ancient classroom on this level so Evan went there knowing that David would thoroughly search the playground. He held onto the vague hope that the boy was still in the playground, because if he was inside, the city was a willing participant in aiding and abetting the fugitive. The city would hide him from everyone until it was time for the boy to eat, only then would the AI notify Evan of his son’s whereabouts. It was nerve-wracking, trying to keep the boy safe when their home was at odds with Evan’s wishes.
He put both hands on the console in the room, and concentrated, trying to get the attention of the city’s AI. He had been having more luck at this lately, accessing the AI without being in the chair, finding this room only a few levels from their quarters had been a blessing. The console was the next best thing to being in the chair.
*Operator identified, pilot Lorne authorized*
All right, you electronic enabler, where is he?
*Operator syntax error*
Location of additional operator Lorne? The AI paused, as if considering the request and Evan fumed silently.
*Operator Lorne is located in corridor four seven three*
Restart all transporters on all levels.
*All transporter units reactivated.* It was no use trying to get the city to revoke authorization from the Monster, it would only be temporary, it would be reissued within a day or so.
Apparently, The Monster had not thought to hide himself when he made his break today. The Monster was heading for the Mess Hall, which made sense since it was Wednesday. On Wednesdays, Momma Mitchell usually made chocolate pudding from their Atlantis grown cocoa beans. The Monster particularly loved chocolate pudding. And Momma Mitchell, the other bane of his existence when it came to spoiling the boy horribly, would give it to him as soon as he turned up in her kitchen.
“He’s going for pudding,” Evan hit his radio and informed David so his keri knew he could stop looking. “I’ll round him up and take him home.”
“You should take the pudding away as punishment for not waiting. I told him we would go on our way home from the park!” David was at the end of his rope with The Monster, the boy challenged him at every turn, and it burned David that Evan had to be the one to use the AI to find him all the time.
He jogged to the transporter and hit the controls. He exited on the Mess Hall level and ran down the corridor, but when he crossed the dining hall and went to the kitchen, he found Momma Mitchell there by herself, calmly cleaning up after the lunch shift.
“Well Evan, this is a surprise, I was expecting David to bring the children for snacks today.” He leaned in to accept the kiss she placed on his cheek and then bent down to look under the steel table.
“He’s not here?”
“Who, dear?”
“The Monster,” Evan replied, opening the pantry to see if he was hiding in there, he’d done that before, it was a favored hiding place since it usually came with cookies from Momma.
Wendy sighed and crossed her arms as Evan searched the kitchen. “I do wish you boys would stop calling him that. He is a perfectly normal child.”
He hoped his snort conveyed his opinion on that matter. The Monster was anything but normal. He had a mind like a steel trap, an ability to problem solve that was years beyond what it should be at his age and an electronic cohort that helped to cover his tracks as well as feed him ideas for mischief. “Momma, did he come in here for pudding yet? The AI said he was heading this way.”
“He hasn’t been here. Did you pass him?”
Evan chewed his lip, could the AI have blatantly lied to him about the location? That would be a first. Usually it just refused to answer until he gave up the query in disgust. Or had his son gone somewhere else? “Momma, please keep an eye out for him, David and the others will be by when they’re done at the playground. If he comes in here, would you let me know?” Evan waved a hand towards his radio.
“I will. Run along and find the scamp.”
Scamp? He was far beyond scamp. Evan thought as he went out into the dining hall and crouched down to get a better view of the Mess hall at his son’s level. He didn’t see a tousled head of sandy hair anywhere in the room. Where else would he have gone on pudding day? Especially since he knew it was pudding day?
He walked to the doorway, looking to see if he had possibly passed the boy, but it was empty. As he started looking in each of the rooms along the corridor, his radio crackled and he heard a little voice say, “Daddy, come look!”
“Look where, buddy?” He was relieved; it seemed his fugitive was turning himself in for a change.
“Pretty people; come see the pretty people in the lights.” Oh, this could not be good, his relief turned to concern. He came to a decision. He was overriding David’s wishes, when he found The Monster, he was taking him to Medical and having Beckett inject an emergency transponder into the boy, he was tired of tracking him all over the city. He’d deal with the arguments from his keri after the fact, this was getting dangerous. “Where are you, is there a number on the wall?”
“Outside the transporter.”
Wonderful, he could be anywhere. “Hey Buddy, could you tell the city to bring me there?” He crossed his fingers, hoping both The Monster and the city agreed.
“Okay.”
When he stepped out of the transporter, he heard a little voice calling him from the left. “Daddy, Daddy, come here, hurry!”
The hollow thumping of his boots on the floor echoed back at him as he ran. The lower levels were still largely unexplored and dangerous, and the AI wasn’t always the best judge of danger to people. He swept his son up into his arms and hugged him tight as he chastised, “How many times do I have to tell you not to wander off, you little monster?”
The boy wriggled to get down, clearly eager to point out what he had found to his father. Evan set him on his feet and followed him to frosted glass wall. Behind it, he could see shadows and as he drew closer, he saw that there were people there, and The Monster was correct, they were pretty people. Their dress was unlike any of the garb he had seen on any of the Ancients he had viewed in photographs or holograms since coming here.
When his son reached a hand out to press it to the glass, Evan caught it and shook his head. “Maybe we shouldn’t touch anything. Let’s call a science team to see the people, huh?”
“The City says they have to come out of there, they’re going to get sick if they don’t.”
Evan rolled his eyes and tapped his radio, calling for both science and medical teams to come to his location. “We’ll get them out, son, don’t worry.”
He scooped the boy up and stepped back to give the medical team space to work. They determined that the room was a cryo-stasis lab, one they had previously had no record of. Evan didn’t bother asking how his son had found it; it was obvious the AI had led the boy here.
There were six people in the chambers around the room. Doctor Beckett and Doctor Lam were heatedly discussing turning the units off and releasing the people. When it looked as if Beckett’s caution might win out, The Monster threw a tantrum.
“The city said NOW!” The Atlantis AI added a touch of drama by choosing that moment to cut power to the units, taking the choice of doing so away from Beckett and his team.
When the units were opened, they found that one of the people was beyond help; the body dried out and long dead. The other five were loaded onto gurneys and quickly taken away to the infirmary. Held firmly in Evan’s arms, The Monster stared as Doctor Biro zipped the closure on the body bag of the deceased stasis person.
“He was very sick,” the boy said solemnly as the body was wheeled out at a much slower pace than the others.
“Yes, it was too late to help him. But the others are going to the infirmary and the doctors will do everything they can to make them better.”
Deflated after the excitement, the boy curled against Evan’s neck and held on tightly as he was carried to the transporter. Deciding that the sight of any more of the medical team’s efforts might further traumatize the boy, Evan decided to delay his plan for an emergency transponder. But tomorrow, it would be straight to Medical with him, first thing.
“Buddy, next time, please tell Papa or call Daddy before you go where the city tells you, okay? Promise?” Evan knew he was pleading, but he was worn out from chasing his son.
There was a tiny nod against his neck and he heard a whispered, “Okay Daddy, that was kinda scary.”
“For me too, buddy. For me too. And since you promised not to do it again, I think I’ll let you have your chocolate pudding.”
“I don’t want any. I want to go home now, I want my blankie.”
~*~
When David got to their quarters, leaving the other children with Momma Mitchell, he found Evan dozing with The Monster wrapped up in his baby blankie, cuddled against his chest, his thumb in his mouth. Waking when the warm weight was lifted off him, Evan said quietly, “He saw a dead guy today. I would expect nightmares.”
Rather than exploding in anger and carrying on as Evan expected him to, David just nodded at his words and rocked the boy in his arms for a while before taking him to his bed and tucking him in. He returned to the living room and stretched out beside Evan on the sofa, pressing up against his side and resting his chin on one hand as he looked at his panor’eten.
“I will concede that perhaps we need to tag The Monster,” David said as Evan stared at him expectantly.
“Thank you. Honestly, I doubt it would have helped today; the city led him down below deliberately to find some malfunctioning cryo units.” Evan sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “I wish it wouldn’t use the kids like this.”
David nodded, it bothered all of the parents of the children that had been born here and were ATA positive. They were growing up with a facility to use the city that the adults could never hope to have. They inherently understood things about Atlantis that were incomprehensible to those born and raised on Earth. The City was more than their home; it seemed to be in their blood. “Sheppard said the only choice we have is to shut the AI down. There is no way to cut it off from the children.”
“I know. And I agree with him that it would be a bad idea for everyone. We’ll just have to learn to keep better track of The Monster. He did promise me that he wouldn’t wander off without telling us again. I think maybe he had enough of a scare that he might hold to it for a while.”
David looked up at his partner and frowned. “I cannot say I approve of scare tactics as a parenting tool.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose! I’m just saying maybe he’ll behave for a while.”
“Maybe.” But David doubted it. There would be some new device or panel or room that would draw The Monster’s attention and off he would go again.
Sighing as he snuggled close to Evan to soak up a few moments of private time, David said, “He is going to be the death of us.”
“Either that or give McKay a run for the money on the genius track. Take a nap David.”
A nap was an excellent idea.
The End