Cleaning Up After The Ancients (Stargate SI)

[Vaermina]

Chapter 79 - Assistance Welcome​

In hindsight Eventus probably should have expected Daniel to rush his newly raised suspicion about Arthur's Mantle to O'Neill and Landry. After all, from what he remembered Stargate Command didn't exactly have the best track record when it came to dealing with the machinations of Ascended beings.

The following request that he take a look at the device was perfectly logical given the Lantean had been openly using a somewhat similar laptop while trying to fix the body swapped pair two days ago.

He'd said yes of course, as the roundabout suggestion from Ganos Lal that he try to find the High Council's classified archives was still fresh in his mind. And if anyone knew where that ended up, it was the formerly Ascended High Councilor.

So he and Daniel had left a pair of soldiers to babysit Rayla and Vala before heading over to Samatha Carters nearby lab, where Eventus had spent a good twenty minutes discussing potential optimizations of the bare bones charging pad design he'd provided them before General O'Neill had arrived with a somewhat put upon looking Sergeant Silar carrying the device behind him.

Carter motioned the sergeant towards the testing bench. "Set it there."

Silar nodded and set the device down on the metal table before showing a remarkable sense of caution and making a hasty retreat from the room.

"Jack?" Daniel inquired of the General in obvious confusion at his presence here.

"Wanted to see what the big hullabaloo was about." O'Neill returned simply.

There was probably more to it than that, but Eventus wasn't going to pry given it didn't really matter to him how many people watched this particular attempt.

Reaching into one of his pockets he pulled out the thin 6 inch long rod inside, squeezing it slightly, he ignored the odd looks the three were giving him as the rod telescoped out to its full 60 inch length.

"That can't be what it looks like." Carter muttered skeptically.

"It's a high strength, low weight, non-conductive alloy rod used for testing various unknowns that might be encountered during maintenance team field work." Eventus offered helpfully as he maneuvered the rod towards Merlin's laptop and used the end to gently press down what on a normal model would have been the power button.

"Sam?" O'Neill prodded after a moment passed with absolutely nothing happening.

"A high tech stick to poke things with, sir." Carter explained, sounding almost like she couldn't believe she had just said those words out loud.

"You'd be surprised how often it proved useful in my previous profession." Eventus offered, retracting the rod and letting out a slightly annoyed sigh. "I didn't think it would work, mind you, but it never hurts to try things like that before moving on to more risky options."

"Eh, fair enough." O'Neill said, frowning slightly as he glanced between Eventus and the device. "There a reason you were poking it though? Cause we've had Siler carrying it around, and if he's going to turn into a frog or something it would be nice to know beforehand."

"If that happens it's probably just an airborne hallucinogen at work." Eventus returned idly, taking a moment to steel himself before inching towards the device.

"You know." Daniel put forward awkwardly. "You don't have to help with this, I'm sure Sam can handle it."

"No, it's fine." Eventus returned as he cautiously reached forward and tapped the power button with his actual finger.

Nothing happened, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "No response at all from the standard power button. So either the power crystals dead, the system is locked up, or he set up some sort of nonstandard power on method."

"A surprisingly standard set of options." Carter mused half to herself.

Eventus held back a chuckle. "I don't know about you, but a good ten percent of the problems I had to fix over the centuries involved turning a thing off and then back on again."

"The standard forced reset command involves holding down the power button, At symbol, and zero key for twelve seconds." He narrated, using the words as a distraction while he performed the procedure to a complete lack of any viable effect.

"So." O'Neill drawled after a moment. "Dead battery?"

It wasn't, though if Eventus recalled right the power crystal was in fact nearing the point of depletion since there had been an episode of the show about that.

"Maybe." He lied, turning to Daniel with a semi-hopeful look on his face. "Would it be too much to hope that you found something which could be Moros's password?"

"Maybe try password?" O'Neill joked.

Daniel shook his head apologetically. "There was nothing like that in the book I found."

Eventus frowned in thought, because he really didn't want to try his last option. "Did your people's myths about Merlin say whether he had any children? Lovers? Maybe a representative word associated with him?"

After all, Moros had obviously wanted regular people to be able to access the device given he had left it with relatively easy to access treasure, so it wasn't likely to be something impossible for them to guess.

Pursing his lips, Daniel unconsciously began reaching up to adjust a non-existent pair of glasses before catching himself. "Well, assuming the myths about him having to remain a virgin to maintain his powers weren't actually true."

"I can fully confirm that a lack of virginity has absolutely no effect on psionic abilities." Eventus interjected, unable to keep the grin off his face.

"In which case he had a number of potential relationships." Daniel continued without missing a beat. "Nimue, Morgan Le Fay, Sebile, Gwendolen. If you include non-romantic linked relationships there's the obvious of Arthur, and some stories which suggest he might be Mordred's uncle due to Morgan Le Fay actually being Merlin's sister."

"Morgan Le Fay was just Ganos Lal by another name." Eventus offered, not seeing any reason to hold that particular bit of information back. "She was the head archivist of Atlantis, and really didn't get along with Moros too well due to the way his interventionist policies during the early days of the Wraith war directly led to the death of her wife."

"Her wife?" O'Neill repeated in a tone of mild intrigue, only to give an exaggerated wince when Carter lightly elbowed him in the side.

Eventus bit his lip to keep from laughing as he entered each of the names into the keyboard in turn. "If you want a breakdown of Lantean romance practices I'm sure Doctor Weir would be more than happy to send you some documentation on the subject."

Letting out a sigh as once more there was no response from the device, he turned to the onlookers before grimacing slightly. "I was really hoping to avoid trying to mentally connect with the device, since if there was anything Moros would set up a security feature to protect against it would be another Lantean attempting that. But it's the only thing left to try short of recharging the power crystal or attempting to engineer some sort of manual workaround."

"There's no need to push yourself if you don't think it's safe." Daniel put forward, giving a somewhat awkward smile that looked very much out of place on Vala's face. "I'm sure Sam can figure something out given some time to work at it."

Shaking his head, Eventus tossed the trio a wry grin. "Given everything McKay has said about Samatha Carter's genius I have very little doubt that she would be able to figure something out given a few days to work on it. I'm just hesitant to let it go without trying because there's also a very real possibility that Moros left a message behind on it for any survivors who might discover the device. "

"Mckay talks about me?" Carter asked, her tone making it clear that she didn't know how to feel about that idea.

"It's inevitable." Eventus confirmed with a pitying shake of his head. "His inferiority complex is constantly being agitated by the fact that he can't actually tell the rest of your world about all the good he's doing. Because of which he's basically latched onto you as the only peer he can reliably compare himself too."

"Oh." Carter muttered, clearly not expecting the direction Eventus had gone with that.

"Given how important feelings of pride and accomplishment are to the type of human personalities attracted to work like your Atlantis expedition. You might want to start handing out at least some openly public awards to your civilian contractors. Or at the very least let them publish the various scientific papers they write under their own names instead of the pseudonyms you make up to hide their participation in the Stargate program."

There was a lot more he wanted to say about the subject given that sort of "credit theft" was almost antithetical to the way his people had done things. However that could wait till sometime when he wasn't just delaying things due to his own uncertainty.

"Okay, so, if I pass out or get tossed across the room don't be overly alarmed unless I don't wake up by tomorrow."

With that warning given Eventus set his hands on the device and attempted to link his mind to the neural interface.

The concrete and metal room he was standing in vanished, and Eventus was left blinking muted in surprise at the endless expanse of darkness he found himself standing in.

"Well this is unexpected." A recognizable voice muttered from behind him, and Eventus spun around to see the very normal form of High Councilor Moros standing before him.

"Huh."


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Author's Notes: Always expect the unexpected I say.

 

[Vaermina]

Chapter 80 - Old Annoyances​

The being standing in front of Eventus obviously wasn't the real Moros, as he was still cycling around the stargate loop Ganos Lal had hidden him in. Even knowing that however, Eventus still felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as it stared at him.

"The possibility of a surviving unascended Lantean or direct Lantean descendant discovering this device was calculated as a roughly 1 in 32 chance. With the most likely options being either Janus, or one of Mefitis's daughters."

"Mefitis had kids." Eventus muttered in shock, the sheer idea of the solitary woman finding someone she could get along with almost impossible for him to fathom.

"As such." The Moros shaped being continued. "I prepared a number of responses for someone other than me attempting to access this device's neural architecture ranging from gentle and chiding to direct and punitive."

It paused for a moment, and Eventus got the distinct sense of an non-sentient yet adaptive response program working through its list of available options.

"The primary factor I used to identify me as me was the High Councilor imprint which you also possess."

It would be moderately nice if things were that easy, only the lazy relied on single factor factor authentication however, and Eventus could sense the but coming.

"However the remaining identification factors confirm that you are not me. That means you are either someone who has successfully forged the High Councilor imprint, or a Lantean survivor from Atlantis."

"The second." Eventus immediately confirmed, absolutely not wanting to know what the program would do to someone at caught trying to fake that particular authorization.

Seemingly ignoring this response they program continued speaking. "The most likely to be capable of the first is Janus, however the hidden identifying factors I have been loaded with to detect such an attempt have come up negative. That leaves the remaining possibility that you are a Lantean survivor from Atlantis."

"Which I am." Eventus told it again, not even remotely surprised that Moros had put targeted countermeasures in place for the possibility of Janus showing up.

"The only known Lantean survivor that possesses the potential to fit those criteria is Eventus Iuxta Deverah. Who would have been woken by the Atlantis Expedition's arrival in the city."

"Actually." Eventus interjected, feeling slightly petty given just whose program he was dealing with. "Rodney McKay overroad the automatic revival sequence, so I only woke up about a month ago."

"The probability of Eventus Iuxta Deverah taking on the responsibilities of High Councilor however is 1 in 1,632,967, as such it was deemed unnecessary to include the possibility in my response tree."

"Hold on a minute." Eventus said, feeling oddly insulted at the fact that Moros had apparently considered it that unlikely that Evengus would step up and take over running Atlantis. "Just what kind of person did Moros think I was?"

"If you are Eventus Iuxta Deverah, please confirm your identity now by verbally reciting your personal maintenance officer passphrase."

Narrowing his eyes at the program for a moment, Eventus shook his head and let out an annoyed sigh. "The answer to life the universe and everything, is forty two."

"Passphrase confirmed." The program returned. "Accessing proper response branch."

The placid look on the program's face transformed into an annoyed scowl. "The information within this device is not for one such as you."

Eventus felt his eye twitch at the immediate dismissal and he was about to tell the program where it could shove hits rejection before a suspicion hit.

"You were supposed to kick me out of this data layer after saying that, weren't you?"

The program's only response was silence.

"But you can't do that, because me being High Councilor triggered additional higher priority branches in your response tree that need to be resolved before you can end the interface session without my input."

More silence.

"I'll take that as a yes." He continued with a grin. "In which case, are you able to provide me with the last known location of the Council Archive Core?"

The look of placidness returned to the program's features "Query unrecognized."

Which could mean any number of things, but given he had no idea whether any acceleration was going on in the data layer it was probably better to slip directly to the one subject he was absolutely sure Moros would have covered.

"The Ori are invading the Avalon galaxy and I'm working with the humans of Earth to try and drive them back."

The program blinked, a clear enough sign to Eventus at this point in their conversation that his words had triggered some kind of programing response.

"Please repeat your statement." The program finally said as Eventus felt a recognizable tickle in the back of his brain.

"Unwilling class three brain scans are illegal, you know." Eventus complained, fully aware he was just being petty at this point.

"But fine, the Ori are invading the Avalon galaxy and I'm working with the humans of Earth to try and drive them back."

"You truly believe that." The program said, the tingling feeling disappearing as it spoke. "If you encounter Ganos Lal after this, please make it known that I told her so."

What that last bit of pettiness both the darkness and simulacrum of Moros vanished, returning Eventus to Carter's lab where an orange holographic screen was now projecting itself out of octangular crystal at the center of Arthur's Mantle.

"Okay, that worked out sli–"

"Carter." O'Neill interrupted, and Eventus turned to see all three of the others staring at him with varying degrees of alarm. "Please tell me the Ancient didn't just accidentally vaporize himself."

Carter shook her head "The flash looked more like some sort of teleportation effect."

Given nobody could see him right now, Eventus had no qualms about allowing his palm to meet his face, and spent a full ten seconds just wallowing in the fact that he'd momentarily forgotten that part of how Arthur's Mantle worked.

"So he's what." Daniel began with a frown as he looked around the room. "Back in Merlin's cave?"

"Maybe." Carter said as she moved over to her laptop and began looking over the information being displayed on it.

Taking a moment to glance back over at the holographic display, Eventus let out a sigh of relief at the phase control instructions displayed as part of a convenient sidebar next to page one of some sort of journal entry.

"It looks like the lab's sensors didn't pick up any of the typical energy signatures emitted by various types of teleportation technology." Carter said. "They did however record a burst of lepton radiation at the same moment Eventus disappeared."

O'Neill nodded in understanding. "Ah, those things.

"It's like the thing with Doctor Ballard and the Crystal Skull, Jack." Daniel reminded him

"I knew that." O'Neill returned, walking over to bend down slightly next to Carter. "So he's here but just invisible?"

"Very likely, sir." Carter confirmed as she glanced over her shoulder at him.

O'Neill nodded again, straightening up and looking over in the general direction of where Eventus was currently standing. "Hey? Don't go anywhere. And if there's no obvious way to reverse it over there, don't worry about it, Carter will get you out."

Smiling slightly at the words, Eventus couldn't help but enjoy the rare feeling of other competent people working to fix a problem.

"Let's see." He muttered to himself as he glanced back at the instructions. "To activate, hold down the table key for six seconds." He took a moment to glare at the device out of sheer principle. "A round table pun? Really Moros."

Even though he supposed it made sense in the context of association for various less advanced groups that might find the device, a feeling of general embarrassment at the choice still washed over him. And the Lantean shook his head in bemusement before reading the final line. "Warning, this device will not activate when in physical contact with felids."

Eventus couldn't help himself and broke out laughing at the absurd picture that painted in his mind of the great Moros chasing a cat off his keyboard consistently enough that he had needed to program "cat sitting on keyboard" in as an activation exception.

"All right then." He said as he held down the table key. "Here goes nothing."

A flash of light momentarily filled his vision and then the holographic display was gone.

"Hey, you're back." O'Neill exclaimed happily. "Good work Carter."

Carter shook her head. "Wasn't me, sir."

"Moros left instructions in the other dimension." Eventus explained. "The phase effect can be activated by holding down the table key for six seconds." He paused, his lips twitching slightly at the memory. "Unless there is a cat on the keyboard."


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Author's Note: Tell the truth, if you could program your keyboard to ignore accidental cat inputs you'd absolutely do it too.

 

[Vaermina]

Chapter 81 - An Hour In The Life Part 1

The Visitor​

When Teyla had experienced Earth through the people of mist's enforced dream, it had been a generally pleasant endeavor outside of the very end of things when John had pulled a weapon on his dead friends. However the past two days of waiting for various circumstances to line up so she could actually leave the SGC, had done a rather remarkable job of showing her just how obviously dreamlike that first experience had actually been.

So far she had sat though several interviews with people asking her various questions about why she wished to visit Earth, multiple hours of an extraordinarily dull man explaining all the things she wasn't supposed to talk about to others, and an extensive series of medical tests that had left her missing the talkative friendliness of the Doctors on Atlantis.

Unfortunately that last had for some reason necessitated a return to the infirmary today, something that was more than a little worrying given the many things that request could connect back too.

"I believed you wished to speak with me about something?" She inquired, eyeing Doctor Carolyn Lam with a bit more caution then was probably warranted given the general friendliness the people of the SGC had so far shown her.

"Yes." Doctor Lam confirmed, taking a moment to set the clipboard she had been reading down on a nearby table. "Something came up in your blood tests, Miss Emmagan. And well." She paused, glancing around at the various other people in the infirmary before frowning. "It might be better if we go into one of the private exam rooms to talk about this."

The wish to talk about the issue without others around suggested the Doctor thought the problem fell into the realm of various privacy considerations that Earth based medical officers so heavily valued. It also suggested however that the issue wasn't of the type to require a military or quarantine response, which was reassuring.

"All right." Teyla agreed with a permissive nod.

Following the doctor to one of the small rooms off the side of the main infirmary, Teyla offered the other woman a somewhat wane smile as she closed the door behind them.

Doctor Lam took a breath as she turned to Teyla. "This is somewhat awkward to talk about given you're not exactly from our planet. But as you know a full blood workup is part of the standard battery of tests we run on anyone returning through the gate."

"Yes." Teyla confirmed. "Doctor Beckett performs the same sort of tests."

"Well" Doctor Lam continued, oddly hesitant in her tone all of the sudden. "Your blood test shows that you're pregnant."

Teyla's heart skipped a beat at the doctor's words, and for a moment everything seemed to narrow down to a single point.

"Apologies, Doctor." She finally got out, suddenly more than a little glad for the fact that they had an entire small room to themselves for this. "Did you say pregnant?"

Doctor Lam nodded. "Your blood test showed elevated levels of hCG congruent with a woman in the beginning stages of pregnancy."

Teyla had no idea what that hgc was, but she supposed the idea that she was in the beginning stages of things would have done have done an adequate job of putting a very firm timeline on when if it wasn't for the fact her bed had been empty for nearly half a year prior to her string of encounters with John over the past couple weeks.

"I… I see. And you are sure?"

"As sure as can be given the circumstances." Doctor Lam confirmed.

Taking a moment to try and dispel the shock by centering herself, the morbid thought briefly flashed across Teyla's mind that it had to be as much of a curse as a blessing to know this early given the rate at which such things were known to go bad in the early months.

"That is… Unexpected."

Which was putting it mildly, the only time she and John had not used protection had been their first somewhat drunken night together. And while she was fully aware that once was often enough when it came to such things, she had not thought she would ever be on that particular end of things given the care she usually took with partners.

"I don't know how your people do things." The doctor began in a sympathetic tone. "But I know Atlantis has at least one fully qualified OBGYN on staff, so they should be able to handle things if you decide you want to go through with the pregnancy." She paused, glancing furtively over at the still closed door. "And if you don't, there are a few drugs I can prescribe which can take care of the issue."

Teyla flinched, her hand almost unconsciously covering her lower abdomen at the thought. "Thank you, but my people do not practice such things outside of a few very unfortunate circumstances."

Given the constant depopulation by the Wraith very few peoples could afford to limit their births in such a way. And truth be told, even if that wasn't the case she wasn't exactly adverse to the idea of being a mother.

The real question on her mind at the moment however was just how John would respond.

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The Diplomat​

The twenty four year old version of Shen Xiaoyi that had just begun working at the ministry of foreign affairs would have likely accepted the praise Ambassador Wang Guangya was giving her for her quick thinking in securing the attention of the visiting Ancient without question.

The thirty nine year old Shen Xiaoyi however could pick out the undertones of distaste whenever the Ambassador mentioned her success and all but see him planning out various ways to try and sideline her from what may very well be their first real chance to get a leg up on the Americans since the Stargate program had begun.

Ambassador Guangya gave a dismissive wave. "Yet again you think too highly of yourself Xiaoyi. If this Ancient can indeed be seduced, there are any number of younger and much more impressive women we can turn to the task."

The fact he had glanced dismissively down at Xiaoyi's chest while saying the last grated on her nerves at several different levels.

"Ones who have been trained in the intricacies of such spycraft since they were young at that." He finished with a huff.

Xiaoyi bit back her immediate urge to call the man a blind idiot, knowing with absolute certainty that as satisfying as it would be, it would only make what she was trying to do that much harder to accomplish in the long run.

Resting a hand on her hip, she began to pace the width of the small room to burn off some of her outrage to the more normal simmer of anger. "You assume much about a man whose personality we know dangerously little about."

She turned abruptly to stare directly at the sitting man and threw up her hands. "He has shown interest in me! That is fact."

"Yes, of course there are younger and better looking women we could put to the task." And she hated herself just a little for judging herself like that even as nothing more than a talking point to manipulate the Ambassador with. "But the question you are not asking yourself is why me?"

A question Xiaoyi had been doggedly trying to work out the answer to since she had first noticed the Ancient actively responding to her flirtations.

"Because we can't afford to line up women for him only to find out as he leaves that the only reason he cared in the first place was because I look like his dead girlfriend."

Guangya grimaced, and she could see the slow realization settle over him about just where the blame would fall in such a circumstance.

"It would be just our luck that he was a romantic." He muttered, running a hand over his bald head before letting out a sigh. "But you're right, we can't risk that sort of failure." He turned a scornful glare on her. "However we also can't risk resting all our hopes on your limited seduction abilities."

Xiaoyi felt her eye twitch slightly despite the iron crontrol she was using to keep her outrage from showing, so she covered her true feelings further by bowing her head in feigned acquiesce to his point.

"Be glad." He continued, completely oblivious to anything but her outward showing. "I will support the idea of giving you lead in this, and we can use the chance to plumb the truths of the Ancient's personality."

She could tell from the calculating look on Guangya's face that he was already working out various ways to make sure any blame fell on her. But she had expected that going in, after all, someone like her didn't get where they were without being willing to face the consequences of other people's incompetence.

Something seemed to occur to Guangya, and Xiaoyi suddenly felt her gut hitch in some premonition of alarm as he suddenly grinned up at her. "And I suppose having the child of an Ancient would be an achievement to be proud of for many reasons. Even if it means you would no longer be suitable for your position as our people's representative to the IOA."


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Author's Notes: Something a bit different for this and next chapter with four small perspective switches to show what's going on outside of the main storyline. This was Teyla and Shen Xiaoyi, and Tuesday's chapter will have Rodney and Ba'al.

And as always the next two chapters are available on my Patreon.