Atlantis 2009
John held a cup of coffee in one hand, and was typing with the other. So far things have gone well, Rodney was making a new basecode to be the enemy of skynet, and John was trying to not think about what was going to happen the next day. Rodney came running into the control room.
"I think I got it" He yelled
"I hope it is not spreadable" John muttered
"Haha, look, Skynet is based in computers around the world, the only way it can go live is if one in the Air Force hit the yes command when asked to do so." Rodney said.
"Meaning what exactly?"
"Meaning we'd have to find a way to keep those bases from going live."
John looked at his watch. "two hours down four to go, good luck." He said before going back to shutting down radio systems to Atlantis. "Radios are offline by the way" he added.
"That is good, now what is this...." Rodneys tablet PC beeped and he started typing, a screen appeared on the wall nearby.
"What is it?"
"Its from Sian, or a maybe a friend of hers." He showed the screen to John, and then read what it said "it says 'Skynet has breached the Old Citys defenses at noon this morning, two nights ago men reported seeing a creature with red and black wings, a moth of sorts no doubt. Skynet nearly got to the main group, had I not taken off to send this note. Sian is missing, she still hasn't returned, somethings wrong, south Shanghai is covered in darkness.' That's all I can understand right now the rest of it is times and dates. Lets see, aha here we go." Rodney noticed a button that opened a folder that Snatcher sent, it was a picture taken from a HK as she called it. It showed what could have been something painted on the ground, but Rodney doubted that mostly because everything else was red and brown with radiation zones.
"Any idea what that is?"
"Might be that giant moth this person is reporting. What was that?" the water shook. Rodney looked at a clock, they still had more then four hours to shut down most of the air force machines.
"Tide coming in I think. Wait, water doesn't make thumping noises." John said Rodney nodded and they looked at Johns screen, Skynet had gone live an hor ago and nuclear weapons were heading everywhere. "its early." John and Rodney both said as reports begain flooding the news screen, bombs going off everywhere across America and Russia.
Rodney began to painic "We are dead meat"
"No we're not."
"Yes we are, we tried to shut down Skynet, it reacted and thus activated over 12 hours early!" Rodney yelled. "For all either of us now we are leaderless because Richard Woosley was on a conferance mission in LA."
"He could be in a bunker."
"Or he could be back already before everything went to hell" Said another voice as Woosley appeared in the controlroom, he had the look of a irked off man on his face. "Took a puddlejumper has fast as I could, when the missiles were fired from our side I knew something was wrong."
"When is that report dated?" John suddenly asked Rodney about the report he just got on his computer.
"uh.... June first, just over five months ago why?"
"Does it say anything of Sian?"
Rodney shook his head, "only thing it mentions was that Sweetheart was found, Sian is missing, and south Shanghai was covered in darkness." Rodney said. Then he got another report, this one labed october tenth at two am. From Sian herself. "Hang on a second Sian sent us something."He started reading it aloud. "'To those that helped me; I cannot thank you enough for helping me get back home, something is wrong, Skynet found the Old City two days before I was sent back through the data stream to your time. You must hide the city before Skynet finds it anywhere. The portals on Earth are destoryed or guarded, even magic can't hold back Skynet for long.' Magic? What does she mean by magic?" Rodney asked.
"Maybe Gandalf showed up at the turn of the tide?" John said which earned him a clout on the side of the head from Richard. "A Lord of the Rings hater I take it?"
Rodney ignored Sheppard and noticed something else sent along with the note or letter or whatever. "What the hell?!" He opened the datafile and noticed something, it was Sian, it had to be, a picture of her no doubt, in full color. "Those things can't possibly be real..... can they?" he showed the picture to Sheppard and Woosley. They just stared at the picture, those wings looked real enough from what they could see.
"You know, that might be what she means by 'even magic can't do much'. I think what she means is that without us going to her time the war would be over before it began. But that is definately Sian alright, no mistaking that face and hair color!" John said. "Can you send a note back?"
"I could try. Maybe even try to get into a text conversaion with her perhaps?" Rodney said already typing onto his computer screen.
"Yes you could try that" John said drinking down his coffee as he watched the news reports flood in on the computer screen about the bombs falling like crazy, apparently it was not just a movie, it was all real.
Taking but a few minutes Rodney smiled "got it, now to say something, voice activation is perfect." Rodney typed a few keys. "Are you there?" He typed, having turned off the voice activation.
Two seconds later there came "I am. Dr McKay, is that you?"
"Yes, its.... us" Rodney answered back. Sheppard and Woosley leaning over his shoulders as he took a seat and motioned to John to hook up the cable to the larger screen so they could all see. "Where are you? Are you safe?"
"I don't know about safe. As to where I am...." The screen shifted a moment to show a floorplan of what used to be a car factory, a little red dot with a spinning gold ring around it showed the only human like lifesign. Apparently Sian was inside a factory of sorts. ".... I'm in a Skynet factory, they poisoned the water supply here, we have shut them down and find Snatcher."
"What day is it where you are?" Rodney asked at Sheppards request. "Time too?"
"October Tenth, two ten am, why?" Sian replied from the future. She was right, conversations could indeed be held through time.
"So it works?" Rodney typed
"What works?" came the question from the future.
"Nevermind that, Can you tell us what's going on? What's with the picture of the red and black and gold thing Snatcher sent us?" Rodney asked.
"You mean my.... my wings?" Sian asked from the future. She had searched in the bullet marked Shanghai library, then had gone to what was left of Londons Library and found what she was seeking, the Hidden Faeries would be seen by the world when magic hidden for so long would come to light during the Machine Age. Meaning the war against the machines just got some help, but what could one lone human sized faerie do?
"Yeah, those." Rodney sent back.
"Uh..... Hard to explain, but let me just say that it is time for me to go and stop the water supply from being totally rank to everyone else, Thief is already very sick because of it." Sian sent to Rodney computer before sending a small note. "And yes before you ask, these wings are real, and painful at times too. See you soon"
The screen died as Sian left the computer in the future and began doing something.
"Well... She's fine, apparently." Rodney said, John and Woosley nodded, Sian could take care of herself, they weren't as confused as before.
"Yeah but what did she mean by 'see you soon'?" John asked, "It doesn't make sense." The others couldn't answer.
****
Shanghai Skynet Factory 2028
Sian smiled, so they finally figured it all out? She thought, what took them so long? It did not matter, what mattered was to find Snatcher before something bad happened. And if she couldn't find Snatcher, set off the bombs. At least they now know what happened to me. She thought. She herself was scared out of her wits over her new.... assets, she didn't know if Johnstone was joking or telling the truth when he said that her wings were sexy on her. Then again anything on her was sexy to him and she knew that, so she just took his word for it and tried to forget of how freakish they looked. That alone proved hard to even try to do.
Sian left the computer terminal and pulled out its wires, she was amazed that it did not die when she touched it, maybe Skynet was getting ready for something? She didn't care. She moved through the factory. Making her way towards the subspace transport, hopefully this one had the datastream through time if she could talk to the others over the machine.
