Stargate Atlantis: Hornet's Nest
"John? John, you need to see this!"
John Sheppard strolled into the bio lab, surprised to see Rodney McKay there sitting at a computer. He was attaching USB cords and wires between the alien neural interface and the machine. It was delicate work, and the physicist was frowning, hunched over and working with small tools as he attempted to join the two diverse technologies together.
Moira O'Meara was standing near, watching and chewing on her lower lip, hands thrust into the pockets of her white lab coat. She was clearly worried and glanced at John.
John raised a brow and stepped to stand next to her. "You okay?" he asked. She had left their bed early this morning, even before the alarm and John hadn't liked waking up alone like that.
Moira nodded, not trusting her voice. She eyed the blank computer screen.
"Rodney?" John asked, as his gaze also swung to the computer.
"I've almost got it! I should be able to upload the contents of this thing onto the computer and yes before you ask it is perfectly safe and isolated from every other system and yes the neural transmitter won't be on long enough to either send or receive a signal. Here we go."
"Okay." John glanced at Moira again and eyed the screen. "Well?"
"Just a second!" Rodney sat back and typed on the keyboard. He flicked a few switches and plugged in the USB to the computer. The neural interface began to glow red. "Here we go."
"Don't leave it on too long," John warned, gaze on the glowing object. He remembered it glowing like that when it had been attached to Moira and he suppressed a shudder. He glanced at her. She was staring at the computer screen, lost in herself, unreachable. He touched her arm briefly.
"Wow…wow…" Rodney muttered.
John looked back at the screen. It was filling with all kinds of data now…a mishmash of visual images and a language he couldn't even begin to understand. Scrolling data made no sense and it was flooding the screen. "Wow…" he echoed Rodney. "Moira, is that what you saw? Moira?"
"Yes," she whispered, staring.
John glanced at her, concerned, but he stepped closer to look over Rodney's shoulder. "Can you make heads or tails of any of that?"
"Are you kidding me? No! Except…except…those are mathematical equations! I'll isolate them to another screen. It's like a sensory overload."
"Yeah." John glanced at Moira again but her gaze had moved from the screen to nothing, or rather to the middle distance in the lab.
"Look at this, John! I can decipher some of this using simple algorithms to translate…there's audio!" He turned up the speaker. A harsh, garrulous voice was speaking. It sounded nothing like a language at all.
John shook his head at the noise. He glanced at Moira. She was staring at nothing, wide-eyed. "Turn it off. I said turn it off!"
"Okay, okay…" Rodney switched off the speaker. "I might be able to link this to the other device to find a common denominator and then—"
"John! John, how did it get here! John, do something!"
At Moira's panicked voice John whirled, hand going to his gun as Moira was staring at something behind them except there was nothing there. "Moira? Moira, what is it?" He stepped to her, exchanging a puzzled glance with Rodney.
"Don't you see it? How did it get here?" She pointed, voice rising in panic, in fear.
John looked to be sure but she was pointing at empty air, empty space in the lab. "Sweetheart, there's nothing there. Moira. Moira!" He gently yet forcefully turned her to him. "There's nothing there. What do you think you see? That fugly?" he guessed.
Moira looked at him, struggling in his grasp. She looked back. She stared. There was nothing where just a moment ago the injured alien had been standing. He had been bleeding, injured, one eye torn from a socket, tilting his head as he had been in that cell. It was beseeching her aid as an injured creature. It had lifted an arm, hand outstretched. She stopped struggling, swallowed. "You're right. There's nothing there." She met his gaze, shrugging free of his hold.
"Moira? Are you—"
"Fine! Quit asking me that!" She whirled and strode away from him. "Leave me alone!"
John watched her go. He scowled, made to follow her.
"John, wait! You have to see this!"
"Later, Rodney!"
"No, John, you have to see this!" Rodney insisted.
John swore and stepped to the computer. "Turn that damn thing off now!" Instead of waiting he grabbed the neural interface and yanked it free of the USB cable. The red light faded and was gone after emitting a protesting bleep.
"John! Damn it, there was much more on there! You're lucky the entire system didn't crash!" Rodney swore and grabbed the neural interface from the military commander. He turned it round in his hand but the device appeared to be unharmed. "A chance like this is unprecedented and I shouldn't have to tell you of all people that! I am going to link this with the recordings we have and just maybe we can begin to link sounds to words and sentences. Not that we can translate them yet but at least we will have an inkling of their syntax and structure."
"That's Atlantis."
John's terse words made the physicist stop scolding and he eyed the screen. Amid the overflowing data a hazy image could be seen, a drawing of the city. It was crude, as if based on mere hearsay or legends and wholly inaccurate in some areas but all the same it was recognizable. "Yes. Atlantis! Or a reasonable facsimile, maybe one of those sister cites? Maybe the one that visited them centuries ago?"
"Turnog," John said quietly, staring. "Isolate that and any relevant data!"
"I will…but it still doesn't make any sense!"
"Not yet." He made to leave.
"Wait!" The physicist's tone made John pause and turn back to him. "Did you just call her sweetheart? Is she your new—" Rodney didn't finish as John whirled and strode out of the lab to find Moira.
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Her mind was a maze of images and data and words she could barely comprehend. It was a whirlwind of confusion with an overflow of sensory data from planets and ships and the aliens themselves and words and equations and information that was a red tide threatening to drown her. She felt herself literally choking on the data and her head was pounding.
Moira wondered if this was how the insane felt.
She had fallen to her knees, hunching over and holding her head in both hands, as if she could squeeze out the information flooding it. The memories were vivid, too vivid, intercut with the injured alien beseeching her aid instead of harming her. There was an overwhelming sense of sorrow, of loss, as if cutting off its neural enhancer had somehow cut it off from the rest of its society and people. It was lost and alone and injured and could not communicate with its captors.
At the same time the flood of data was pounding, pounding as it pulsed behind her eyes and in her mind and her mind struggled, struggled to understand it, decipher it. Except it was like hitting a brick wall and nothing made sense.
"Moira."
The images were blurry, bathed in red like some nightmare. Groups of aliens were exploring new worlds, encountering humans that they did not recognize as being a similar species and the total incomprehension over the Wraith. These planets were rich and fertile and unlike any in their own galaxy. Yet still they continued searching, searching for the one ship, the one civilization that had stolen their technology from them, the holy relic of their expansion from their own world to several worlds to now this new galaxy.
"Moira!"
They were taking readings of everything, collecting as much data as they could about these new rich worlds and deciding which ones were worth conquering and which ones weren't. They were running comparisons to their own planets back home and they were especially interested in the alien populations of each planet. They were looking for something else as well.
"Moira!"
The alien technology was fascinating and somewhat similar to their own, yet very different too. So far they hadn't encountered much resistance except from those bug people but they knew that others like the invaders must be lurking somewhere and they were the real danger. They had called themselves a name that sounded like Anchants to their ears, but they did know one word. They knew the word of the place they needed to find, the home world of these Anchents.
Atlantis.