This is part one of Echo, a three-parter and the second instalment in the Stargate Universe: Ninth series. Part two, entitled Emptiness, will be up on Monday 15th April! The third and final part, Fate, will be up on Monday 22nd. Flashbacks and thoughts are in italics. This is my interpretation of Eli's fate after the season two finale. I hope I've managed to do it justice. Feedback is much appreciated, hope you enjoy! After Echo comes the first in a multichapter trilogy - Stargate Universe: Light. This final adventure will take the crew of the Destiny into the darkest depths of the universe, where they will all be changed forever. Some evils are never meant to be woken.
You must have read Glass for this to make sense.
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Stargate Universe: Echo
Part One: Potential.
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There never really was another choice. He realises that now. That's why he didn't hesitate, why those three words just slipped out of his mouth so easily: I'll do it. He would never have let Rush be the one to stay behind, not when it came down to it. And without Colonel Young they would all be completely lost. But he's the Boy Genius. He might not have a PhD or a military badge, but he can do this. He can – he can feel it in his bones. No, there never really was another choice, and Eli doesn't regret that at all.
The corridors and rooms around him are lifeless, creaking and groaning, echoing with the grinding seizure of Ancient mechanics as Destiny slowly shuts down. The ship he has called home for the past year is steadily losing all affordable power; he pictures the empty corridors, the mess, the infirmary, the bridge – places where so much has happened, now devoid of life and laughter. The gate room is plunged into darkness, and although he can't see it, not physically, the mental image is enough to squeeze his heart with a sudden sadness that he wasn't at all expecting to feel. Flexing his fingers around the cool metal guard rail of the observation deck, Eli looks out at the swirling shimmers of Destiny's FTL stream; flickering blues and purples and whites roll endlessly past him, casting shadows on the wall, and he tells himself not to be stupid.
Don't be sad, he thinks, unwilling to break the strangely comforting silence blanketing him. Be grateful. Be grateful that you, Eli Wallace, got the chance to be here. Of all the people in the world, he is one of the few who will get to see the universe. A handful of human beings will ever explorethis beautiful, vast thing that they are all a part of, and he is one of them. And then his face, carefully schooled into an expression of serious determination and thoughtfulness, breaks into a smile. A genuine, bright grin of disbelief and gratitude that he feels right down to the very core of his being. He is so lucky to have this chance to see such things, to see the universe in a way he only ever dreamed of, to do something that matters. But first – and now his smile falters a fraction – he has to fix the pod, and go into stasis with the others.
He has two weeks. Two weeks to figure out what's wrong with the pod, solve the problem, and join the rest of the crew in the long, three-year sleep until the next galaxy. After that life support has been set to go into automatic shutdown, asphyxiating anyone left out of stasis. He can stop that, of course, in order to live a little longer. But he won't. In his pocket sits a small, rectangular panel that Rush gave to him in his quarters. It's a handheld timer, programmed to count down his two week window. Minimum life support can only be powered for this set amount of time; the more he talks the more oxygen has to be supplied, which will cause the power to run out faster and his window to shrink. Using any of the ship's systems will also have the same effect. He swears he can feel the timer burning him through his shirt. Eli still feels pretty confident, but fourteen days really isn't that much time, not when he thinks about it. Any number of things can go wrong. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he lets go of the guard rail, tearing his eyes away from the FTL stream. Even as he stands here thinking the precious seconds are ticking away. Without a word, Eli turns his back on the shimmers and heads determinedly into the darkness of the ship. He'd better make those seconds count.
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Loneliness, he knows, might set in fast – so before he even makes his way to the stasis hall he grabs the kino from his quarters, deciding he should document some of the repair. This is pretty much the biggest thing to happen to them all since arriving on Destiny, so it seems obvious that it should make it into the final cut of his documentary. The weight of the familiar, metal sphere in his hand is a welcome comfort. Eli pauses for a moment in the doorway, and then doubles back to pick up the lamp from the floor beside his bunk.
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"I can't talk much," he tells the kino as he tries to hold it in a good position, "'cause talking uses oxygen and I sorta need that." Grinning at his own words, Eli gestures over his shoulder with his head at one of the pods behind him, and adds, "Rush's idea." The man probably remembered Eli's tendency to talk to himself if left alone for very long. Eli kicked himself for not being the one to think of it, but that doesn't matter now. Bigger things to deal with. Much bigger. "It's so quiet," he whispers, looking towards the door at the end of the room, his gaze drifting over the sleeping crew members. "I mean, I can barely hear the engines, and except for that there's just...nothing." He can't remember ever hearing or feeling such a level of stillness, such near-silence on board the ship; then it occurs to him that this same noiselessness would have filled Destiny's corridors for millions of years before they showed up here, and the sheer eeriness of that thought makes him turn back to the kino. Forcing a smile to help shake the feeling off, he continues, "I'm gonna take a look at the pod now, figure out the problem. I'll update you when I know what's up."
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At first Eli can't establish anything. He can get the lights in the pod to come on, get the individual system of the pod to run the stasis program – but nothing actually happens. The activation announcement scrolls across the screen in front of him, quickly followed by a sharp beeeee! and a system failure notice. He tries again and again, carefully entering the activation code one digit at a time before he presses the execution button, but every one of his attempts is unsuccessful. When the frustration becomes unbearable he employs another tactic. There's always more than one way to do things, he assures himself, and starts trying a different sequence of commands. He takes the main interface back to the simple System Online screen at the very beginning, and takes a step away from the panel. Sighing, Eli rubs his forehead as if to erase the confused frown there with his fingertips, needing to clear his mind for a moment. This thing can't be his defeat. After everything he's been able to do since Icarus – unlocking the ninth chevron, weapons and shields work, data transfers, holograms, quarantines, system interactions that shouldn't have been possible – this stasis pod can't be the thing that beats him. Boy Genius, he reminds himself. Boy Genius. Smarter than Rush. A hint of a smile briefly appears on his lips. Smarter than Rush indeed. And even the man himself had admitted that Eli had 'potential'. Feeling a little more confident, Eli steps back up to the interface. The rest of the stasis program has presented no problem at all, so it makes sense that the issue could be with this particular area of the program. Somewhere previously in the sequence he must have encountered a command that no longer works. The damage to the pod could mean that this certain way of reaching the activation menu is not possible anymore, but there has to be another way to get there, some kind of backup. Figuring he's just wasting time by standing here and wondering, Eli avoids the Activations option and selects another option instead. He only has everything to lose, after all.
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It takes him hours before he finally manages to circumnavigate the obvious sequence and find a secondary route to activation. Beyond relieved, he enters the code for the millionth time, sure it must be burned into his memory by now. Holding onto the tendril of hope growing inside his chest, he presses the button to execute the command and waits for the hiss of the door to give him the all-clear. It never comes. Instead all he gets is a distinct beeeee! tearing abruptly through the quiet of the ship, and scrolling text that tells him System Failure.
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It's a setback. He can't work with System Failure. The pod won't work with System Failure. With no idea yet of what else he can do, Eli leaves the interface to run diagnostics while he retreats, kino and lamp in hand, to his quarters.
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When he sleeps his dreams are restless, filled with uncomfortable memories and torturous images, different versions of how this situation might play out, none of them good. Diagnostics proves his earlier theory wrong by the end of the second day; there's no issue with the stasis program, or even with the pod system at all. Eli checks four times, using up precious hours but afraid to miss the slightest thing, and each time diagnostics comes up clear. In some ways he supposes he should be more worried, but he's not. Instead, he actually feels a little better – because if there's no problem with the individual system, then it means the issue must be with physical damage to the pod itself. And although he's no engineer, if he can figure out how the components of the pod work, pinpoint the damage and successfully repair it, then the stasis program should run perfectly and it will all be okay.
The smile is still on his face as he presses the record button on the kino panel, and sets off into the ship. The camera drifts lazily alongside him as he walks, holding the lamp up so that he can see where he's going. "It's been two days," he begins, unfazed by the way his voice carries throughout the empty corridors. Eli glances at the panel, checking that his face his visible enough in the faint light before looking up at the kino itself. "Twelve days left on the clock, but I'm feeling good about it." He turns right down an unfamiliar passageway and guides the floating sphere with the panel so that it follows him round the bend. Once on track, he continues, "Diagnostics shows there's no damage to the individual stasis program of the pod, but the program still won't run. Which means the physical damage to the pod is what's causing the problem." Lifting the lamp higher, he peers at the walls of the corridor, searching for a door. Finding nothing after a minute or so of examination, he lowers the lamp again. There must still be a way to go. He wouldn't have thought it, but in the darkness – even with a little light – navigating Destiny's halls can be seriously disorientating. "It also means that if I can fix the damage, then the stasis program will run fine." A left this time, and Eli starts to regain his bearings. Scrutinising the walls again he mutters, almost as if to himself, "For that I need tools. And it would really help if I could find the closet."
The 'closet', as referred to by the scientists on board the ship, is really more of a storage room in which the science team have stowed an assortment of equipment and paraphernalia, to keep it all together in their three-year absence. In a small crate in one of the corners are bundled several more kinos that Eli had found lying about, leftover from recon missions and off-world trips. The kino he's using now, he likes to think of as his own personal device; sneaking it into stasis had been the original plan. But in amongst the variety of working machines and failed creations lies Brody's collection of tools, and that's what Eli needs to find if he's going to stand any chance of mending the damage to the final stasis pod. Eli may not be an engineer, but Brody was – is, is, Brody is – and if the right tech for the job is anywhere on this ship, it'll be in that box of equipment. He leaves the kino to capture his search without further conversation, not forgetting the issue of using up oxygen through speech. Another turn comes up suddenly on his right and he pauses, tapping the panel to stop the kino before it can zoom on out of reach. Eli tries to draw up a mental map of his location, his surroundings having felt more familiar since turning into this corridor. As he looks down the new passage, squinting to try and see further than the light will allow, he thinks back to just a few days previously when he and the rest of the science team were down here putting their things into storage. As soon as he pictures it, he remembers this turn-off quite distinctly, and knows that he's in the right place. He recalls dragging some of Brody's less successful inventions along this passage with Dale, Rush repeatedly barking at them to be careful from nearby. Yep, definitely the right place. Without any further hesitation Eli sets off down the new corridor, tapping the panel again to let the kino hover along obediently beside him.
There's a confidence, a determination to his strides as he moves forward, looking for the door that he knows is here somewhere. He has a way to save himself now, a way to survive this, and he refuses to fail. He's Eli Wallace: Math Boy, Boy Genius, un-locker of the ninth chevron and co-founder of an entire race of people on Novus – at least, in an alternate timeline he is. Not the slacker, not the drop-out, not the quitter. He matters now. He won't know failure anymore. No sooner has a smile started to appear on his face than the lamp throws its faint light over the unmistakeable shape of a door, and Eli's sigh of relief echoes along the pitch black corridor around him. Before it can fly away, Eli catches the kino in his fingers and hits a few keys on the portable control panel. Instantly the camera stops recording and shuts off, its weight falling into his hand, and he slips it into one of his jacket pockets for safekeeping. The panel goes into the other pocket, his grip on the light tightening as he reaches out into the surrounding shadows for the large control on the wall. The sharp grinding noise of the doors when they slide open seems almost deafening in the thick silence of the ship, but Eli doesn't let it perturb him. He has a job to do. Stepping into the storage room, he holds the lamp up as high as he can, shaking his head at the fading light; unable to run the recharge plates if he wants to keep his full two-week window, he knows he'll have to find another lamp soon. The idea of stumbling around in the darkness without one doesn't appeal to him, but he may well have to spend a few hours unable to see now and then if the lamps are going to run out so quickly. This one had been fully-charged – he doubts very much that many of the others will be, too. For now, though, this lamp will do the job.
The light falls on an array of hurriedly stacked crates and piled objects, casting odd, misshapen shadows around the room. Even with the limited visibility it's obvious that there's a lot of stuff to sift through, but thankfully the sizeable metal box shouldn't be too hard to find. Conscious of the clock ticking away what could possibly be the remaining days of his life, Eli starts looking.
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He trips over the kino crate and a stack of boards within minutes, and nearly drops a box of what turns out to be all their radios on his foot. He also narrowly escapes knocking the case of communication stones to the floor when he accidently shoulders the shelf it sits on, preferring not to think about what Rush would have done to him had it actually fallen. But finally, after nearly half an hour of somewhat clumsy yet meticulous searching, he discovers Brody's box of tools hidden underneath the prototype of his paper-making machine in a corner. Eli carefully lifts the heavy machine off, struggling a little with the weight, and moves it out of the way. Setting the lamp on the floor beside him as he kneels down, he flips the catch on the box and pops the lid, peering inside at the contents. It's full of items, just like he remembers: everything from the Earth tools that Brody brought with him to Ancient devices they found already here, and even some custom bits and pieces Brody put together from materials on board the ship. If he really squints he can just see the plasma-cutter Scott and Colonel Young used on Hoth in there, too. Everything he needs should be in this box – and if it's not, then he'll have to find a way around it, fast. Eli closes the lid and locks it again, getting to his feet. The only problem now is how to get the box back to the stasis hall without giving himself a hernia in the process. There's no way he'll be able to lift it, and attempting to drag it there will take an eternity. Plus it'll probably leave some great scrape-marks on the floor, and somehow he doesn't think Rush would be too pleased about that.
Sighing, he slowly sits down on the nearest crate, looking around at the other contents of the room. If he was some kind of superhero – or even just a plain old hero for that matter – he'd already have fixed the pod by now. Not to mention he could use his super-strength, if he was that kind of hero, to carry the box himself. Or levitate it with his telekinesis. But no, that's just wishful thinking. "I'm no hero," he murmurs to himself in the semi-darkness, "Even if it would be cool to fly." He surveys the piles of equipment that fill the space around him, imagining how helpful that would be. No, he's not a hero. But, he reminds himself as his gaze falls on the stack of boards he knocked over earlier, I am a genius. And I already know how to fly.
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He's back in the stasis hall less than fifteen minutes later, the box having pushed along easily on its board, supported by floating kinos. Under his arm he carries his and Rush's laptops, grabbed as an afterthought from the shelf. Chances are Rush has something on his that could be of use, and Eli will need his own computer for the small amount of the stasis manual he was able to transfer from Destiny's archives in time. He sets them down out of the way on the ground; the kino and panel from his pockets he rests on top of the main stasis interface at the end of the room, and returns his attention to the box. Easing it to the floor is a little tricky as he has to take most of the weight while he slides the kinos out from underneath, one at a time, but eventually he has it safely deposited next to the broken stasis pod. Now comes the real hard part – attempting to take the pod apart, find and repair any internal damage, and put it back together all without breaking the whole thing entirely. And all within twelve days. It's a daunting challenge to say the least, but he knows he can do it. He can.
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"Can you even see me in here?" he mutters, holding the kino higher up and further to his right in the hope that a different angle will do the trick. The light is now so dim that his face can barely be seen on the kino; he's been reduced to sitting in a small pool of weak glowing white light on the floor, and he makes a mental note to go find another lamp as soon as he's done with this. Checking the panel screen in his lap, he's finally satisfied with the semi-dark picture in which his expression is just about visible. "Me again!" he announces with a little wave, as if anyone watching wouldn't already be able to tell. "I found the closet and Brody's box of tools. I figure if I by some miracle managed to transfer some blueprints or...or diagrams of the pods, when I did the download from the mainframe archives to my laptop, then I can use those to help me poke around and...well, hopefully locate and mend the problem. Or problems." Raising his eyebrows and inclining his head slightly in admittance that there is highly likely to be more than one issue, Eli glances over his shoulder at the patch of darkness where he knows the two laptops sit. Better just say it. He doesn't really have any other choice. Turning back to the kino in his hand, he quickly adds, "Sorry Rush, I'm gonna need to use your laptop too. Sorry." Then, with a sheepish smile, "And yes, I know it's password-protected. You really think that's gonna stop me?" Eli shrugs, and points the kino at the dying lamp next to his leg. "First though," he explains, "I gotta find a new light. This one's nearly dead." He tries to sound chipper, so that whenever this is played back in the future – by himself, by the crew, by documentary-watchers – the viewer will know that it's all okay, that he has faith in his plan. And if they've managed to stick around this long, they would know by now that self-belief is a relatively new thing for Eli. New, but refreshing. To prove his point, he turns the kino back to himself and jokes, "I should probably take the individual system of the pod offline, too. Don't wanna electrocute myself." He can't afford to make any silly mistakes now; even the small ones would have dire consequences. "Guess I'd better make a start, go find a lamp," Eli continues, holding back a sigh. "Update soon."
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A few moments is all he needs to take the pod's system offline, removing the danger of accidental electrocution. Searching the information he transferred from the archives requires a while longer, however. He used a search program to isolate any information that could potentially be relevant to the stasis pods, but didn't have time to transfer all of that data over to his laptop. Eli begins to sift through the files, slowly and carefully, unable to afford missing the slightest useful detail.
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Hours pass. One. Two. Three. Four. And then after four and a half hours, two thirds of the way through the transferred data, it begins to dawn on Eli that he actually downloaded nothing of use. His heart has settled somewhere around his navel, a bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. Everything so far has only mentioned stasis or the pods in passing, or talked about stasis programs and protocols. That's not what he needs. Not what he needs at all. The only thing that will really help him now is physical structure information; component functions, or possibly a rough picture of how the pods structurally work. A description. An outline. Anything. Every unsuccessful second that passes he is painfully aware of his depleting battery power, hating that he can't speed up the process by running the search program again – the power required to run the program would drain his laptop completely, and the recharging plates are off limits. If charging a lamp would cost him hours, he doesn't want to think what a laptop would cut from his two weeks. He notes down a variety of numerical codes as he searches, anything that looks like it may be useful.
782451110
308026885
10295
551370846
487707532
914
675284301
9
There are enough codes to fill an entire page, until he's scribbling in the corners and around the edges. A lot of numbers. No information. But he carries on.
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Nine more files to search. Eleven days to live.
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And then, like some unbelievable God-sent miracle, Eli finds what he's been looking for. He opens the first of the final two, largest files, and bingo – he's met with a sizeable, detailed diagram of the pod's physical composition, and a whole lot of text. His understanding of Ancient isn't perfect, but it's passable; his eyes land on the title Internal Structure and all at once he feels as if an enormous weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Scrolling down, he discovers more diagrams, each corresponding to a layer of structure. Eli can't help but grin in relief, and as he continues scrolling the grin turns into a laugh and the laugh into a loud whoop of glee and success. He quickly remembers the problem with using up oxygen and goes silent, but he is no less pleased with himself. I knew it! I freakin' knew it! But the best part is when he opens the final file, and it turns out to be the Ancient equivalent of a troubleshooting manual. Issue after issue, listed in considerable detail with full solutions and instructions. He could cry.
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It's a strange feeling, standing in the pod. Enclosed, but not threatening. Small, but not suffocating. An unsettling combination of safety and entrapment. As he looks out into the dark stasis hall, Eli can't quite decide whether he likes the feeling or not; but either way he has no choice but to be in here sooner or later, so he might as well suck it up and get on with it. Just outside the pod doors, taking up the whole top step, is a lighter crate he managed to fly in from the storage room. On top of the crate sits his laptop, screen set on part of the troubleshooting file that explains causes and solutions for System Failure Arising From Pod Damage. The new lamp is considerably brighter than the dying glow he was left with yesterday, enabling him to see what he's doing quite clearly. But the light has noticeably dimmed these past few hours, and Eli is beginning to be seriously concerned about the rate he'll use up lamps. Brody's box of tools is also outside, too big to fit in here with him – but from the sound of it, he may not need any equipment just yet. According to the slowly-translated text, system failure can result from physical damage to one, several, or all of three places. Firstly, the door. It won't close if the glass has sustained even the slightest injury, due to the extreme danger to the user if the glass were to break completely during stasis. Eli has checked the door to his pod thoroughly, however, and there are no issues there. Perfect condition. Second of all, damage to the wiring connecting the individual interface to the pod. Faulty or degraded wiring could result in a command delivery failure, but he knows it can't be that. If dodgy wiring was the problem then none of the actions he has carried out on the pod's individual interface so far would have worked, but they have. He can successfully order a number of commands; it's just when asked to activate stasis that the system fails, the same as when he tries with the main interface. Which means there is only one possible explanation. Damage to the core plate.
Made from erellium, a substance previously unknown to Eli, the plate is located deep in the back of the pod and is not only responsible for the wave of energy that 'freezes' the user, but also keeping the user alive while they are in this state. In short, it is the heart of the pod technology, despite being no bigger than a postcard. Erellium, however, is incredibly dangerous. Highly conductive, the metal in its liquid form must be kept away from all open sources of power or energy to prevent short-outs, shutdowns, and even explosions. Once subjected to considerably cold temperatures the erellium solidifies, becoming far safer but no less conductive. Two large cables clamped onto either end of the rectangular plate input a carefully monitored amount of power, whilst smaller cables clamped along the edges take the power out of the plate and on to the important components that oversee time-length, body condition and health, and a unique kind of life support. It all sounds well and good – but the solidification of the erellium can sometimes render the plates weaker than they should be, and an uncontrolled surge of power – even in installation testing or initial start-up – would be more than enough to tear a hole or create a crack in the plate. And unless the core plate is in working order, stasis can't be activated. So the obvious thing that he must do first, of course, is get to the plate inside the pod and study any damage that has been sustained.
Eli peers carefully at the back wall of the pod, holding the lamp close. Although the wall appears smooth and plain save for the decorative swirl, according to the initial diagram there should be a hidden panel somewhere, the first protective layer of many. He tentatively reaches out a hand, pressing it against the centre of the wall at waist-height like the diagram depicts, and moves to the right. His hand has barely moved three inches when his fingertips suddenly press down on something solid, but moveable. Glancing over his shoulder at the diagram on the screen, Eli confirms it as the panel. So he turns back to the wall, presses down sharply and then removes his hand, just as a hiss and a beep signal the opening of the panel as it moves abruptly out of the wall and slides to the left. A rectangular space roughly ten inches by ten inches in size is left behind, but all it reveals is a plain sheet of silver metal, set an inch into the wall and stretching from edge to edge, secured with numerous odd-looking bolts. Eli stands and stares at it for a few moments, having half-expected a frightening tangle of Ancient wiring. A little thrown, he turns back to the laptop, setting the lamp down on the floor and scrolling further on through the file. He's met with several more diagrams, indicating that this metal sheet is the first layer of five; each is different, a separate way of protecting the plate from external damage or interference. And all completely ineffective against problems caused from within. He has to hand it to the Ancients – their engineering is definitely...unique. But there's no time to sit around and admire it. Confident as he feels, Eli doesn't exactly have all the time in the world. Better make a start, he decides, and after studying the tiny Ancient bolts for several moments more he edges out of the pod and around the crate, to rummage through Brody's box of tools while he records an update on the kino.
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It takes him an unexpectedly long time to remove the first layer. The bolts are so small and so fiddly, and he's working with tools made for Earth machines. His speed isn't aided by the fact that he has to get up and go in search of a small tin to put the bolts in as he wheedles them out of the metal. Prising the sheet out of the space with some difficulty, weighing the light material in his hands, a small knot begins to tie itself in his stomach as he studies the next layer he has revealed: a whole panel of intricate electronics, something like a computer chip from back on Earth. It's smaller than the metal sheet, secured by four bolts in the centre. Six or seven cables connect to sockets on the panel, and when Eli traces their origin with his eyes he realises they all run into the inch-deep walls of the space, into the internal structure of the back wall itself. It's fine, he tells himself. Totally fine. You can work this. Just follow the instructions. Trying to suppress the feeling of uncertainty this task is creating in him, Eli turns around and leans the first layer against the crate behind him to keep it out of the way. But when he lifts his gaze to his laptop, the screen is a resolute, ominous black. "Oh no," he breathes, his heart plummeting southwards. "Oh no." Grabbing his laptop, Eli taps desperately on the keys, pressing the start button and running his fingertips over the touchpad. No result. The battery is completely dead. "You can't be serious!?" he demands of the machine, eyebrows drawing together in concern and disbelief, but his efforts are useless. His laptop is dead, the already depleted battery having drained much faster than he'd anticipated, and the information is gone.
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He feels like such a fool. He should have worked faster, should have written some of the information down, should have done something – because now he's really, truly in trouble. He can keep on taking the pod apart, sure, but even if he manages to get to the source of the problem without damaging the machine even more in the process, he has no idea how to fix it whatsoever. It's late. Maybe, Eli figures, some dinner and some rest will help him think of a solution. Figures. Hopes. Even as he lies awake in his bunk in the dark, waiting for sleep to take him, Eli is painfully aware of how eleven days is about to become ten days, and how quickly that ten will become zero.
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'Morning' finds Eli already up and in the stasis hall, exploring Rush's desktop with renewed determination. Cracking the password was no problem; he is, after all, the Boy Genius. Knowing that he doesn't have the option to just sit around and feel like an idiot, Eli reminds himself of Rush's words – "You do have tremendous potential." – and summons all of his slowly growing self-confidence. Yeah, he messed up. Pretty bad. And he's costing himself more precious time. But he's Eli Wallace, Math Boy: the Machiavellian scientist Dr Nicholas Rush has faith in him, and didn't Eli tell Colonel Young that he's smarter than Rush? He made a mistake, but he can fix it.
The scientist has always been secretive about his work, what it is that he gets up to on this laptop in his spare time; and whenever they encounter any kind of problem, whether it's something to do with their own work or an alien attack on the ship, 99 times out of 100 Rush will be there with an answer. A coincidence? Eli is starting to think not. Despite having previously apologised to Rush on kino, Eli's guilt is minimal as he snoops through the older man's files, desperately searching for anything that might be of use. He simply can't turn the mainframe computer on, to retrieve the manual and the solutions that way. The drain on power would eat considerably into his remaining time, and he can't afford that. For all he knows, he could require every second he has left to carry out the plate repairs in time. Every single second. And if the way to save his life is anywhere attainable on this ship, it will be here, on Rush's computer.
The first few folders he checks look promising, all coming under the umbrella of "Ancient Tech"; he reads through every file, taking care not to miss anything, but in the end they're useless. Detailed reports on the Stargate, the bridge, the infirmary, even the toilets. Nothing about the stasis pods. Eli's not too surprised. The pods are such a relatively recent discovery, he knows he's taking a chance by hoping that there'll be any information about them at all. Continuing his search, he makes sure to stay away from anything that looks personal. He knows very little of Rush's private life, his life Before This, but he knows that the man has kept it to himself for his own reasons, and Eli respects that. Had his alternate self not revealed his mother's illness on one of the abandoned kinos all those months ago, he doesn't doubt that he wouldn't have told anyone for a while longer. If he ever told anyone at all. Apart from Ginn – that's a no-brainer. If they'd had the time, he'd have told her before her apparent death. As it was he made do with their sharing sessions, explaining his mom's condition and his father's leaving to the hologram of the woman he loves, and smiling sadly when the story and her inability to physically comfort him had made her upset. She hadn't cried, though. The only tear he's ever seen her shed was at their second goodbye, the memory of it making his heart feel heavy and yet empty in his chest. Ginn was – is – always so brave. So strong in the face of all troubles. She's counting on him to fix this pod, to be here in three years' time to work out how to put her into a body. If she were able to see what's happening, she would believe in him. And that thought makes Eli believe in himself just a little bit more.
He's still giving himself an internal pep talk when he hovers the cursor over a folder intriguingly named, "In Case Of Emergency." This instantly prods Eli's curiosity. Sounds ominous. What could Rush possibly have had planned for an 'emergency'? Thoroughly interested now, Eli double-taps and opens the folder. Inside are nine rather large files. Hopeful, he moves to open the first one, when the name of one of the other files catches his eye. For a moment or so, Eli just looks at it. Blinks. Closes his eyes. Shakes his head comically. Looks again. It can't be, he thinks. It can't be the same one. He double-taps a second time with an almost amusing amount of caution, certain that his eyes are playing tricks on him, waiting for the file to open and prove that he's starting to lose it. Seconds later, the file loads. He scrolls down, down, down. Stops at the right page. Reads the title. Re-reads it. A long, long minute passes, and all he can do is just sit and stare at the words on his screen. System Failure Arising From Pod Damage. It's the same file. It's the same goddamn file. Eli continues scrolling, revealing the diagrams of the pod structure, how to reach the core plate, and – thank you, oh, Christ, thank you universe! – the blessed instructions on how to repair any damage. It's all here, right in front of him. This time, Eli almost does cry. Well done, you moronic genius! he congratulates himself as he grins, unable to suppress a sigh of immense relief. You found it. You did it, you lucky son of a gun.
The feeling of success is short-lived, however. He checks the remaining battery life, finds that it's worryingly low, and frantically dashes off to find some of Brody's homemade paper and a pencil. By the time he returns, scrambling to note down the remaining instructions as quickly as he can, a thought has already begun to germinate in his mind. Rush didn't use his laptop at all on that last day before he went into stasis. He put it into storage before they knew there was any further problem with the last pod, and that's where it had stayed until Eli retrieved it. Even if he had used the machine, he couldn't have transferred anything from the mainframe archives on that final day; power only allowed for a single transfer, and that was Eli's. It simply could not have been done, not without Eli or Young's knowledge, even by Rush. Not on that last day...
...Okay, let's leave it for now. Let's go...
...Given recent events it may be wise to check over the ship's data in this compartment before proceeding...
...The biggest discovery aboard this ship since the bridge and now we're supposed to ignore it because Rush says so?
It hits him, then, realisation crashing down on his already overloaded brain like a tidal wave. Rush knew. Rush knew about the stasis pods. Eli goes back to the folder and right-clicks on the file. The download date is just over a month ago. The relief evaporates, in its place seeping in a cold, clammy wisp of understanding. Rush had known about the pods for a month. A whole month and he had said nothing, done nothing, kept it to himself – that's why he had been so insistent that Brody and Eli not explore the stasis hall. Not because it might be dangerous for them, no, but because it posed a problem for his personal plans. Their stumbling across his private discovery had ruined his secret, though he obviously thought they wouldn't find it. What the hell would he have done, had the two of them not crashed the party? And then, as if this knowledge hasn't already made Eli's navel twist with betrayal, he realises something that makes the bottom drop out of his stomach and a sick feeling claw its way up his throat: Rush knew what was wrong with the pod. Rush knew how to fix the problem, when Eli volunteered to stay behind. Rush knew how to save his life.
But he didn't.
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Sleep doesn't come too easily after that.
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Taking the pod apart requires an intense amount of concentration; the further Eli gets into the internal structure the smaller the pieces become, the more fragile, and before long he has a collection of small pots and boxes surrounding him, filled with the various different delicate components. It's surprisingly hard work, and he soon becomes so absorbed that he stops noticing the passage of time. He's so focused on what he's doing that for a little while he forgets where he is, forgets why he has to do this, forgets what the consequences will be if he fails.
It's late, very late: not that differentiating between night and day matters much to him anymore. He's trying to jimmy a tiny bolt loose with a screwdriver that was clearly not meant for Ancient machinery, attempting to ease the tip of the tool under the bolt. His left index finger and thumb have been failing to get a grip on the thing for ten long minutes, but he refuses to give up. After a few minutes longer he finally manages to slip the tip under the edge of the bolt, gaining leverage, feeling like he might just be able to make progress now – and then the screwdriver slips, the tip losing its traction on the surface of the bolt, and jerks forwards to lodge itself in Eli's finger.
Immediately he drops the tool as if it were red hot, letting it clatter to the floor as he leaps up from his seat on the crate and yelps in an unpleasant combination of pain and surprise. For several minutes or so he can't even speak, clutching his injured finger to his chest and trying to stem the flow of blood with his other hand, doubling over every few seconds in a surge of agony. To make matters even worse he nearly stumbles over his own laptop on the floor, leading him to accidentally kick the foot of the main stasis interface. Crying out a second time, he ends up backing into a corner away from other possible sources of injury, his face screwed up against the pain. When at long last it subsides enough for him to form coherent words, the first thing Eli blurts out is, "Son of a bitch!" and quickly follows it up with a slew of other loud curses as he straightens up, sucking in a shaky breath. Watery-eyed, he examines the wound as closely as possible in the limited light. It's not deep, but it stings enough to bring tears to his eyes, and is bleeding profusely; his shirt is splotched with numerous dark stains, right across You Are Here, and that makes him curse again because now his favourite shirt – and really his only shirt – is ruined. "Damn it," he breathes into the shadows. "Damn it." Blood continues to ooze down his finger from under his right thumb. The sight of it makes his stomach roll uncomfortably. Throwing one last glare at the bloodied screwdriver on the floor, Eli snatches the lamp from next to his laptop and limps off in search of the infirmary and a band-aid.
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Sometimes, he'll lose himself in his thoughts entirely. When he does, more often than not he ends up thinking of Ginn. He'll remember her smile, her voice, her touch. He'll remember the fact that she loves him, and he'll smile brightly to himself as he eats alone in the dark mess hall at the usual table. He'll remember that she is still alive, her consciousness stored in Destiny's computer, away from harm. One day he'll restore her to a body. One day they can be together, properly; she can come back to Earth with him when they get home, meet his mother, see his world. And even if they don't get back to Earth soon, it doesn't matter. He will gladly spend years more on board this ship if he'll have Ginn to share it with. It's these thoughts that really give him belief, that make him feel confident in his ability to survive this. These are the thoughts he holds onto as he works on the pod, one piece at a time. These are the thoughts that give him hope.
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He has nine days left to live when he drops the last bolt into the correct tin with a clatter, and eases the fifth metal layer out from the space. 216 hours and counting when Eli finally lays eyes on the small Ancient core plate, and the inch-wide fracture that cuts across the middle.
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For the first real time in his life, Eli wishes he'd been more into cars and building things than comic books and Star Trek growing up – because now, as he wandersthe dark, empty corridors of Destiny and peers at pages of scribbled notes and roughly-sketched diagrams, he feels just a little out of his depth. It's one thing to have successfully gotten to the point of the damage to the stasis pod, but it's another thing entirely to successfully repair that damage. Although the instructions tell him what to do, Eli wishes he at least had some experience with this stuff. And although the man's knowledge of the Ancient tech on this ship is limited to just a year of tinkering, Eli wishes he'd paid more attention to Brody when he'd discussed his creations. According to the careful notes he took from the file on Rush's laptop the fracture in the plate needs to be refilled with pure erellium. There's a small stock of erellium bars stowed in a special box in a cabinet; the cabinet is in what appears to be a kind of repairs bay, which is located in one of the as yet unexplored areas of the ship. But it's not as simple as that. The erellium has to be melted down into liquid form using a certain heating tool, and then applied one single drop at a time inside the fracture with an applicator. After every two to four drops the erellium has to be solidified, for which he needs a specific cooling press, to be held against the fracture immediately for thirty seconds. The energy wave from the press will hold the liquid erellium static until it solidifies, preventing it from just running out of the fracture again. To power the press he'll need two energy cells from another box. And then, after all that, he'll have to leave the erellium to properly set for twenty minutes before he can even attempt to add the next few drops. Everything he requires should be in the repairs bay. If only he could find it.
The barely legible map he scrawled has led him into unknown sections of Destiny, so he figures he must be going in the right direction, but Eli is beginning to think he's gotten himself hopelessly lost with his useless drawing. It can't have been too long since he set off from the stasis hall, yet it still feels like an eternity. He left behind the recognisable corridors long ago, and is now far beyond even those doors marked with chalk by the soldiers who checked the compartments for damage. "Well done, Eli," he mutters to himself in the darkness. "You're totally gonna fix the damn pod like this." He is about to turn around to try and find his way back when he comes upon the first doorway in a good minute or so, and he stops to throw an exasperated last glance at his poor excuse for a map. Door located on my left-hand side? Check. Turn off to the right up ahead? Eli looks quickly up and lifts his lamp as high as he can. If he squints, he can just make out a right-hand turn not ten feet in front of him. Raising his eyebrows in surprise, he returns to the paper. Check. A corridor intersection just behind? He doesn't need to turn to remember that the corridors do intersect just behind him, providing both a left and right turn off. Well, he thinks to himself as a pleased smile begins to appear on his face, maybe I'm not so lost after all. Eli steps up to the door and presses the control on the wall, hoping that the universe will have cut him some slack and kept the repairs bay intact and undamaged, and his prayers are answered when the door opens onto a reasonably-sized room full of crates, shelves, workstations and strange tech. There is a large, metal cabinet just visible against the far wall. Bingo.
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Eli can only assume that erellium must have been of some value once upon a time. Energy cells, too, because the boxes are equipped with security interfaces and require individual numerical codes to open them. He shuffles through his notes to find them, and after some further searching around the place manages to gather together everything he needs. He returns to the stasis hall half an hour after he left, carrying an assortment of objects in a small crate: one erellium bar, an inch thick but barely ten centimetres in length; two thin, square energy cells that are made out of a glimmering white crystal and aren't even half the size of his palm; the applicator, a thin metal rod with a carved handle and curved tip, almost like a tiny spoon, to apply the drops; a delicate-looking metal bowl with a crystal set into the side, and a soft mat for it to sit on, made out of a material Eli can't name; and the cooling press, a strange-looking device. The energy cells slot into the surface of a centimetre-thick plate, secured by tiny catches. This side is held against the fracture, whilst a large handle protrudes from the other side, just below a selection of several small keys.
The update Eli records on the kino is more of a means to buy time than an actual explanation for the documentary. He's intimidated, to say the least. He's no engineer, and if he messes this up – and there is a lot here that he can mess up – then it could all be over for him. Nonetheless, he can't afford to just sit around and do nothing. He spends an hour just getting ready; fumbling with the fragile energy cells to get them into the press, figuring out which key will turn the tool on and cause the cells to glow an eerie blue in the darkness. He taps in vain on the crystal of the bowl, eventually just setting it down on the mat and placing an erellium bar inside, with the intention of taking a break. He comes back from the mess with some water less than ten minutes later, and finds the crystal glowing blue, the erellium slo-w-l-y beginning to melt.
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The first time Eli tries to transfer a large drop of liquid erellium with the applicator, he lifts it halfway to the fracture – and then yelps as it drops from the end of the rod and, still hot, burns a neat, hissing hole in the knee of his jeans.
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The fourth time, he applies it carefully within the fracture, and smiles.