Chapter 1 - Long Form Maintenance
Taking a moment to examine the figure inside the stasis-pod,
Major John Shepard couldn't help but wonder at the difference between the figure inside and the time traveling version of Doctor Weir they had found a couple days ago.
"Shouldn't he be old?" He finally asked as he turned to look at
Doctor Beckett.
"Aye." Beckett confirmed with a nod as he looked between the man in the pod and the tablet he was holding in his hands. "Even if he was a wee bae when he was put in there he should be in his fifties or sixties by now."
"That's not necessarily true."
Doctor McKay interjected in a distracted tone as he worked through something on his own tablet. "There was an
ancient discovered in Antarctica who had been on ice for over a million years and still looked like she was in her mid twenties when the researchers thawed her out."
"There is an Ancient on Earth?" Doctor Weir asked as she turned a look that was equal parts confusion and annoyance to McKay. "Why wasn't she included in the expedition?"
"Hold on." Shepard interrupted as he turned a suddenly wary look to the pod, very much not wanting to go through another quarantine event after the last. "I think I remember reading about that, didn't she die of a plague?"
"Yes." McKay confirmed as he glanced between the tablet and pod. "But I'm pretty sure this isn't that."
Shepherd rolled his eyes, knowing McKay wouldn't be saying that without reason but not able to help himself taking a dig at the walking ego. "Only pretty sure? I certainly feel reassured now."
McKay gestured to the object the man was holding in front of his chest. "He's holding a sign. And after our run in with the nano-virus I made sure to memorize every single sigil the Ancients used for biological hazards, and none of what's written on there says that."
"Also the pod's bio-monitors aren't showing anything that would suggest a plague." Beckett added in as an aside.
"Does it say something about Janus?" Weir inquired as she squinted at one portion of the tightly packed squiggles. "I thought I was getting a handle on Ancient, but this almost reads like an entirely different language."
"That's because it's Ancient shorthand." McKay explained. "You mostly see it on those big control panels of theirs. I've been running it through our translation program and it's just about finished."
"Well." Shepherd prodded after nearly a minute of awkward silence passed.
"Give it a moment!" McKay exclaimed as he made a circular motion with one of his hands. "It's working… And… Done."
"Okay, if the sign is to be believed it looks like the guy was an Ancient who got left behind because Janus was…"
"Janus was what?" Weir asked when McKay didn't continue.
"Keep in mind." McKay finally continued shooting a worried look to Weir. "These are his words, not mine."
"Just get on with it McKay." Shepherd ordered as he glared at the man.
"All right all right." McKay muttered defensively. "Because Janus was too busy making eyes of love at the lady who showed up from the future, to remember to do the final evacuation check like he was supposed to."
The glare Weir sent McKay at that was more than a little amusing.
"After that." He quickly continued. "It's basically just a couple paragraphs cursing out the rest of the Ancients for locking down outbound gate travel and not coming back to get him."
"That's very…" Shepherd began, wracking his mind to think of the right word to describe the feeling before settling on one in particular. "Normal."
"Yes well, I suppose it was too much to hope he would write down the secrets of the universe." McKay offered with a sarcastic lilt. "So are we yay or nay on waking him up? Because I've got an ever growing list of people who need me to solve their problems for them."
"Is there likely to be any problems with doing so, Carson?" Weir asked Doctor Beckett as she walked up to the pod and took a moment to just stare contemplatively at the person inside.
Beckett took a moment to consider the question before giving a slow nod. "I'd like to use the hazmat gear to be a wee bit on the safe side, but other than that I can't see anything that would cause any problems."
"Let's do it then." Weir finally said.
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Eventus Iuxta Devera had gone into stasis safe in the knowledge that he was living in a timeline where humans from Earth would eventually show up and pull him out.
Because lord knew the Ascended one's wouldn't, though he hoped they enjoy reading the sign he wrote when they inevitably remembered his existence and stopped by to see what had happened.
That didn't mean he liked stasis, quite the opposite really, the few times he'd experienced it he'd been left with a pounding headache from the drawn out use of his abilities and an unfortunate craving for a type of food that was thousands of years away from being invented.
"It looks like he's coming around." A somewhat muffled voice announced in standard language A-13, likely known in this time period as English.
Opening his eyes, he squinted a moment at the bright light before a man in a large red suit leaned over his head blocking it before shining a smaller light directly into his eyes.
"Pupil response is good." He continued.
"You really couldn't have just checked the scanner results for that?" Eventus asked as held up a hand to shield his eyes from further intrusion.
The man above him paused, and Eventus got the distinct sense that he was surprised by what he'd just said. "You're already coignizant?"
"Is there any reason I shouldn't be?" Eventus asked in concern as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, noting as he did that for some reason they had apparently decided to bring him to one of the city's anti-gravity meditation chambers. "Because reading minds isn't one of my abilities, so it's going to have to be verbal communications if there's something you want to say."
Honestly, out of all the abilities to get it still rankled him that he had ended up with the one that was functionally the most useless since it had been analyzed and dissected to the point there were a multitude of common handheld devices that did the same thing without any of the downsides.
"No." The man said as he motioned to the pair of similarly attired people flanking the door to lower their weapons. "I just expected it to take a wee bit longer."
"Yes, well, gift of healing." Eventus offered with a shrug as he began to stretch to try and get the kinks out of his muscles. "Useful for keeping you healthy in perpetuity so long as you don't run your energy down too much using it on others."
"Now, since you've woken me up I guess propriety must be followed, so what is your wish mortal? Tell me quick, as I will soon ascend and leave this mortal plane forever."
Which was complete bullshit since he couldn't grant wishes and was nowhere near the self realization needed to do that even if he had a particular desire to. But he was still more than a little salty at being left behind, so was feeling the understandable desire to deflate whatever mythic reverence they might have for the others in a take that.
"What? I? Wish?" The man in the suit stuttered, clearly confused by the particular turn things had taken.
"Yes, wish." Eventus confirmed with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "Power, riches, longevity, attractive women or men willing to serve your every desire. You know, that sort of thing."
"Hey Doc." One of the two men flanking the door interrupted before the first man could say more. "I've seen this movie before, and it's probably for the best if you just don't say anything till Doctor Weir gets here."
"If it helps I'm a largely benevolent wish granter." Eventus offered in a peppy tone as he swung his legs over the side of the primitive gurney they had brought him in on.
Silence was all that greeted him, and he let out an annoyed sigh because it really wasn't any fun when they didn't at least play along.
"All right then, I guess we'll just wait here silently. Not like I don't have solar cycles of experience with that or anything."
After all, his people had perfected the art of silent contemplation so hard they'd figured out how to transcend this plane of existence.
He was halfway through mentally reciting Latonas second principle of holographic artistry when the recognizable form of what had to be this timelines Elizabeth Weir walked into the room.
"So we meet for the first time once again." He greeted the woman with a smile, wondering as he did whether she would comprehend the reasoning behind his statement.
Elizabeth paused in her step as a confused look passed across her features only to quickly resolve itself into one of realization. "You knew the other me."
"I was one of the ones who pulled your mostly dead body from the wreckage of Janus's time ship." Eventus confirmed with a grin, though he doubted they'd be nearly as impressed with the feat if he told them he had done so because none of the important people wanted to bother risking their lives going on a deep dive outside the city's shield.
"Well, ah, thank you I guess." Weir returned, clearly not sure what else to say about that. "Now what's this about a wish?"
The way she said the last word made it clear she didn't quite believe whoever had informed her about it, rather fair all things considered given his people hadn't been known for their sense of humor or giving nature even when they'd actually been around doing things.
"As the one who revived me from my ten thousand cycles of slumber, I offered to grant your Doc a wish before I ascend to a higher plane of existence." Eventus explained in an amused tone.
A very odd look came over Elizabeth's face. "That's… Your people do that?"
"Not generally." Eventus admitted. "But I'm not them. And I do."
He turned to look at the still suited man that had been doing his level best to be generally unobtrusive. "So what will it be Doc?"
Elizabeth glanced over to the man for a moment before returning her gaze to Eventus. "Do you mind if I take… Doc, for a bit of a talk?"
"Go ahead." Eventus told the pair as he gave a permissive wave. "I'll just wait here. Not like I have anything better to do since everyone I know is probably either ascended, dead, or traveling through time somewhere in their illegal time machine."
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Watching the encounter through the cameras they'd set up in the isolation chamber, John Shepherd couldn't help but feel that something about Weir's brief encounter with the maybe Ancient wasn't passing the smell test.
Unfortunately he couldn't put his finger on just what that something was, though a quick look over to the way
Teyla was staring at the monitor with a slight tilt to her head at least told him he wasn't the only one feeling that something was off.
"If you don't want the wish can I have it?" McKay asked hopefully as Beckett began to remove the hazmat suit.
"Rodney." Weir scolded, shooting a disappointed glare at the man. "We're not going to take advantage of an Ancient like that.
"Hey." McKay said as he motioned towards the isolation chamber. "He's offering. And it's not like I would wish for anything bad."
"We could certainly use a ZPM or three." Shepherd added in to prod everyone towards the more useful possibilities such an offer presented them with.
"Exactly!" McKay agreed with a nod. "Shepherd gets it."
"Are we sure he is actually one of the ancestors?" Teyla finally asked as she turned away from the monitor.
"Blood tests confirmed the presence of the
Ancient Technology Activation Gene." Beckett confirmed as he walked over to the security feed to check what the maybe Ancient was doing now. "And what other tests I was able to run before he woke up show a level of health I would charitably call perfect."
"For perfect, are we talking Olympic athlete perfect? Or Captain America perfect?" Shepherd asked as the sudden worry hit that the two guards they had in the room might not be enough to actually stop the man if he decided he wanted out.
Beckett furrowed his brow as he considered the question. "It's just preliminary testing mind, but I'd say he's closer to the former than the latter."
"That roughly matches what the Stargate Command's files mentioned about the Ancient they discovered in Antarctica." Weir added in with a nod.
"So added to everything else I'd say there's a good chance that yes, he's an Ancient." Shepherd said, knowing by now the beginning of a lengthy digression when he heard it. "And that means it's probably safe to assume he has ancienty abilities and knowledge."
McKay held up a finger and shook it. "Which is why we shouldn't discount the possibility that he might be able to grant one of us a wish."
"Let's put that to the side for now." Weir finally decided. "He mentioned wanting to ascend, but if that was all there was to it, why did he put himself into stasis?"
"I'd say he was probably hoping the other Ancients would come back for him before it came to that." Shepherd speculated, the somewhat bitter way the man had mentioned lacking anything better to do, reminding him more than a bit of various soldiers he'd known over the years who felt they had been abandoned by their teams.
"We could just ask." Teyla put forward in an impish tone that suggested she had decided their caution was reaching the point of being silly. "At the very least, would learning his name not at least allow us to look him up in Atlantis's records?"
"We probably should have done that." Shepherd muttered, not nearly as surprised as he probably should have been that they had so focused on other things that they had overlooked that it was an option.
"If it's alright with you all, I'd rather avoid going back in there till we can get this whole wish thing sorted out." Beckett requested with a grimace. "I keep thinkin I'll say the wrong thing an he'll take it as an excuse ta turn everyone into a wee babe or something."
"He can't do that." McKay insisted reflexively, only to pause and frown in a way Shepherd had come to recognize as one of his many 'running the numbers' faces. "Okay, he can maybe do that depending on what level his abilities allow him to manipulate biological structures. But the SGC reports state Ayiana could only heal people she was in physical contact with. So the most he'd be able to do that to, would be whoever he was touching at the time."
Shepherd turned a glare to the man. "Not helping McKay."
"If nobody else desires to, I would not be against conversing with our guest." Teyla volunteered as a small smile graced her lips.
Shepherd wanted to object to Teyla's offer on principle given all the unknowns still involved, but she was their team's people person for a reason, so if anyone would be able to prod the Ancient into an open conversation it would be her.
"Any objections Major?" Weir asked him in an almost expectant tone.
"I'd like to move him somewhere we could put a bit more space between him and the guards." Shepherd admitted, the possibility the man might try to charge the pair still bothering him a bit.
Weir considered that for a moment. "What about the break room?"
"People will probably start complaining if we keep him in there for too long." Shepherd returned, having experienced first hand over the past few months just how annoyed their medical staff could get if kept from their coffee. "But a couple hours should be doable, so long as he doesn't turn all the coffee into wine or something."
"Also not a thing he can do." McKay interjected in annoyance.
Shepherd let out a sigh of annoyance. "It was a joke, Rodney."
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The fact that the Atlantis expedition had decided to use one of the tower's ejectable hazardous material storage chambers for what looked like a break room of some kind, was moderately amusing on several levels.
Though Eventus supposed the blame for that lay at least partially on whichever generation of the council had decided it was a good idea to move away from physical labels under the belief that anyone who was actually supposed to be in the city would just be able to download the current iteration of the general city map directly into their brain.
"I like what your people have done with the space." He offered honestly to the pair of guards who were doing their level best to stand as far away as physically possible from him.
"Their people?" Teyla inquired as she gave him an odd look.
"Your accent marks you as Athosian." Eventus told her, still moderately surprised, that there had been so little linguistic drift from her people over the past ten millennia. "While the expedition itself is from Earth."
Teyla's eyes widened in surprise. "You know my people?"
A complicated question with an easy answer.
"I know your accent." He explained. "But barring a large amount of cultural stagnation, I know functionally nothing about your people."
And while some of the cultural experimentation he'd viewed others doing hadn't exactly suggested against the idea that cultural stagnation of that level was possible, the Athosian's of his day very much hadn't venerated them like he could vaguely recall her people currently doing.
"I would be very interested in hearing what my people were like ten thousand years ago." Teyla put forward, only to quickly clarify when he began to open his mouth to offer what he knew. "Later. Now, I was hoping to find out more about you."
Eventus bit back his immediate urge to make a joke about her flirting with him, not that it wouldn't have amusing results, because it always did. But his hundreds of years of life had taught him that making those types of jokes around cultures that venerated your people was a good way to end up with said people trying to marry into the family in one way or another.
He gave her an amused grin. "Eventus Iuxta Devera, city maintenance engineer at your service." Which was a nice way of saying that he had been one of the city's literal handful of janitors. A position which was ironically the most exciting job in said city, since they had always seemed to end up doing everything dangerous that nobody else wanted to do.
"Just call me Eventus, or Evan if you want something shorter. Because Iuxta Devera is really just a way of saying "by Devera", who was my mother."
Technically it should have been Iuxta mother autem father to create two points of reference, but when your mother ends up with a surprise spontaneous pregnancy due to an experiment gone awry you make do with what you have.
"So you kept up the city." Teyla mused as she glanced over his shoulders to one of the not so stealthily set up cameras.
"The city mostly kept up itself." Eventus corrected as he walked over to take a seat in one of the standard design armchairs they had dragged in from somewhere. "Our job was mainly to keep up after the others who lived here."
There was nothing quite like having to clean up a test chamber after a weapon scientist working on developing a tailored radiation projector that would cause wraith ships to grow explosive tumors accidentally exposed himself during testing and had to be scraped off the walls.
On the up side, his people had in fact invented never-clog toilets several million years before he had been born, so there had never been any need to perform that particular staple of the job outside of the one time someone had accidentally flushed a wraith viral sample that had begun growing in the waste transport pipes.
"What about you all?" He inquired to not make things any more awkward then they were currently trending towards. "Are the Wraith still a problem? Or did the others eventually come back and wipe them out?"
Teyla visibly winced at the question as she followed his lead and took a seat. "I regret to say that the Wraith are still very much active."
He'd known for multiple reasons they would be of course, after all, his people were about as incompetent at waging a war as they could come. Not their fault really given they had been at the top of the proverbial food chain for something approaching a hundred million years.
But it had still been extraordinarily annoying to live through since they had approached fighting the Wraith, once it became an actual fight, in the same manner they tended to go about trying to counteract a plague, looking for a targeted solution that would allow them to solve the problem in a single decisive move.
"Not really surprised." He confessed with an annoyed sigh that quickly transformed into an amused grin. "But hey, maybe the Earth people will do a better job fighting them then we did."
He paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully for a moment as he considered the other options available to them. "Assuming of course you wouldn't rather just fly the city back to the At galaxy."
"I do not believe that is an option that is being considered." Teyla returned in a diplomatic tone that suggested she didn't think particularly much of the idea in the first place.
"Sounds like they're good friends to have." Eventus said, deciding it was probably better to hold back for now that
High Councilor Moras absolutely would have decided to take the city with them back to Earth if there had been more than a ten percent chance of getting it out through the Wraith's planetary blockade.
"Yes." Teyla agreed with a fond smile. "The people of Earth place great value in helping others, even when doing so might place them at a less than advantageous position."
Eventus took a moment to consider the direction that was potentially leading the conversation towards. "Just to head things off, no, I can't destroy the Wraith."
He paused for a moment as a thought hit, and then gave an acknowledging incline of his head since that wasn't technically true now that he was probably one of the only members of his people left around. "At least, not unless you're also fine with wiping out all complex life in the galaxy."
Left unsaid was the fact that even if they wanted him to, he'd refuse, since that was absolutely monstrous and the type of thing that would risk one of the Ascended actually taking action despite the rules that would punish them for it.
A somewhat brittle look momentarily flashed across Teyla's face before being replaced by the diplomatically genial one she had been keeping up to that point. "If you do not mind me asking, just what is it you are offering Doctor Beckett?"
"So Beckett is his name?" Eventus mused as he leaned into the part he was currently playing a bit further before giving a shrug. "Exactly what I told him in the meditation chamber."
Teyla hummed lightly to herself. "So you would be able to say, return power to the city?"
"Of course." Eventus returned with an innocent smile to make it look like he wasn't aware the rest of Atlantis expeditions leadership was now likely hanging on his every word. "I take it the temporally displaced version of Elizabeth Weir wasn't able to solve that for you?"
"We are still in the process of investigating the addresses she provided us." Teyla admitted graciously.
"Sorry we couldn't do anything more for her." Eventus offered in honest apology since he actually had lodged several complaints about the whole thing. "But the Council was very strict when it came to temporal affairs. I think it connected back to something that happened in the At galaxy, but that was long before my time."
"It is what it is." Teyla acknowledged. "Though I am surprised she didn't tell us to wake you."
"She didn't know." Eventus confessed, not particularly ashamed of the act given they would have almost surely asked him to try and save her, which could have resulted in all sorts of problems. "Once I realized they'd forgotten to signal the final evacuation alert and locked me in, I just waited till she had finished performing the shutdown, and then snuck into one of the stasis units a few floors up."
And if Eventus ever found Janus he was absolutely going to punch him in the nose for not sending that signal, because taking over the final checks last minute, then bailing with the job half finished, all so the girl he had a thing for could try and slow boat it through time to try and save her people, was an absolute dick move of the highest order. Since part of those checks had involved sending out the final call for anyone who might have been busy down in the undercity doing important things like, say, making sure the long term water tight seals on the Stardrive were properly applied.
"So have we reached the part of the conversation where you ask whatever personal thing it is you're hoping I might be able to provide an answer to?" Eventus continued upon once more seeing the indecisive look that had been intermittently flitting across Teyla's face during their talk. "If not, I do have a few things I'd like to ask of those from Earth. Food, drink, and access to a bathroom would be particularly appreciated."
An embarrassed flush quickly made its way across Teyla's cheeks, and Eventus got the distinct sense that the Athosian woman hadn't even considered that he possessed the same general biological needs as everyone else.
"Apologies." She proffered with a slight bow of her head as she quickly recovered her composure. "We have been poor hosts."
Looking over her shoulder at the pair of guards still flanking the door, she put on a somewhat awkward smile before addressing the
younger looking of the pair. "Lieutenant Ford, would it be too much to ask to have meal and drink provided for our new friend."
"And access to a bathroom." Eventus added in helpfully, as after ten thousand years in stasis he really did have to go.
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"Eventus Iuxta Devera." Mckay began as he worked at his laptop, a mirror of the files being accessed displayed on the large lantean screen they'd brought into the conference room. "Four hundred twelve years old, born on Atlantis, outside of that his file's about as empty as all the others outside of an approval stamp for a proposal to install backup
cold-fusion generators in the piers."
The entire room turned a glare on McKay, and Shepherd voiced the obvious question they were likely all thinking. "The piers have backup generators? Why is this the first we're hearing about it?"
"Because they don't." McKay shot back in annoyance as the rapid typing of keys echoed out. "The work to install them was scheduled to begin fourteen months after the Ancients abandoned the city."
That was impressively unfortunate timing given all the problems they'd had due to a lack of power.
"I suppose even the Ancients weren't immune to civic planning delays." Weir joked with a wry grin.
"I don't suppose the parts for those generators are still laying around somewhere in the city?" Shepherd asked McKay, recalling that sometimes big projects on Earth would ready things like that in advance so they'd be ready to install immediately once the okay came down to do so.
McKay looked up from his laptop with a frown. "I mean, maybe, we've only explored a fraction of the city after all. But even if they are, and we can find them, we don't exactly have assembly and installation instructions."
"You're telling me the great McKay wouldn't be able to figure it out?" Shepherd put forward smugly, knowing with absolute certainty that the man would take his doubt as a challenge.
"Of course I could." McKay immediately snapped back. "It would just take awhile, and I don't exactly have time to spare putting together a ten million piece ancient jigsaw puzzle on top of everything else that people need my genius for."
Which was basically McKay admitting the best case with something like that was that it would likely take him years to figure out.
"What about just asking Evan ta do it?" Beckett inquired hopefully.
"We're not calling him Evan." McKay immediately objected with a near full body cringe at the name.
"What's wrong with Evan?" Shepherd asked, shooting McKay an odd look as he tried to piece together just what the man's problem was this time.
"I had a bad experience with an Evan in grad-school." McKay confessed, looking anywhere but at the rest of them, suggesting the bad experience had been more of the embarrassing sorts than anything else. "Haven't been able to work alongside people who have the name since."
"Well suck it up." Shepherd ordered McKay with a glare. "He's our only Ancient, and it's not like we can just–
Weir suddenly clapped her hands together with a loud crack. "Boys! Focus! We can work through the details of everything later when there's not an Ancient waiting for lunch in our break room."
"Now." She went on, shooting them a glare as if to dare them to continue their digression. "Assuming he doesn't ascend in the next twenty-four hours, what are our options if he decides to do something extreme?"
An honestly good question, and one Shepherd had been chewing on since they had thawed Evan out. Potential answers to it however kept circling back to the problem that the Ancient was an Ancient who knew the city better than they did.
McKay furrowed his brow as he visibly considered her question for a moment. "So long as we can keep him away from the control chair I should be able to lock him out of Atlantis's systems if it comes down to it."
"Feels like a pretty big should." Shepherd criticized with a frown. "How do you know he can't just override your lockout and revoke our access or something like that?"
"Hello." McKay singsonged as he pointed with both hands at himself. "It's me. Maybe if it was Janus I'd be worried. But this guy was just a maintenance engineer. There's no way he'd be able to beat me."
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Author's Notes: I may have been buried by several plot bunnies and this is my attempt to escape them. So don't expect regular updates, or follow up chapters as long as this one.
And of course, when chapter 2 comes out I will be doing the whole "
My Patreon is one chapter ahead" thing with this story.
