The next time the door opens, it is not the woman who walks through, but a man, compact and well muscled with a long mustache that reaches down past his chin. A blue tattoo curls around the side of his face, along his eye, disappearing into dark hair pulled into a pony tail.
He carries a pile of clothing, which he places on the small table.
"You are to get dressed. Commander Larrin requests your presence," the man says, turning around to give Elizabeth a resemblance of privacy.
Elizabeth gets up from the cot and walks to the clothes. Her muscles respond better than they did before, and though hunger gnaws at her backbone, the dizziness has largely subsided.
She doesn't think about the impossibility of her hunger, or the twinge along her spine when she reaches down for the clothes, instead, she wonders about the little bit of information the man has given her.
Commander Larrin, she thinks, picking up the black pants and the black tunic. The name sounds familiar, but she cannot place it. She lets the blanket drop and pulls the clothing on over her naked body. The fabric is slightly scratchy, but no worse than the blanket. She remains barefoot.
"Okay," Elizabeth says, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. She wishes she had something to pull her hair back with, the length a lot longer than she is used to.
The man opens the door and then stands at the entrance, waiting for her.
Elizabeth walks out of the small room. She isn't entirely surprised to find herself underground, torches lining the tunnel walls. Outside her door another man stands, younger, thinner.
He flinches when Elizabeth passes him.
She pretends like she doesn't notice.
Instead she focuses on where they are going. The tunnel is long, curving, first descending and then ascending, the stone smooth under her bare feet. Every so often they pass another heavy door, the torchlight flickering against the dark wood, but the man continues to walk until the tunnel ends in a stairwell.
She follows him upwards to a steel door, watching in curiosity as the man enters in a punch code at a small terminal mounted on the wall. The door beeps and then swings open.
Electric light greets them, a hallway stretching outwards.
The man leads her down the hallway; pass more closed doors and then to another stairwell. Opening the door, he indicates she should precede him and she does, pausing slightly as she walks into the stairwell.
"Down the stairs," he says behind her.
She takes the stairs. There is a musty smell in the stairwell and she wrinkles her nose at it.
Elizabeth tries to figure out where they are, tries to look for indication of familiarity, but largely, there is nothing that is overly defining. If anything, the hallway they entered and the stairwell they now take is like a military base. Sterile.
After descending three flights of stairs, the man opens another door to another hallway. This hallway has windows and Elizabeth pauses as the sunlight through the glass touches her skin.
She closes her eyes, feels the warmth of the light against her face, against her bare arms. Living heat, she thinks.
"I would imagine the sun is a change from what you've been used to," a quiet male voice remarks.
Elizabeth opens her eyes and looks in the direction of the voice. Standing there is a tall thin man, about her age, dark brown eyes watching her in a face aged in tiredness. Unlike the other two Elizabeth has encountered, the man is not wearing dark fabric and leather, but rather loose fitting trousers and a tunic much like the one she wears.
The man smiles and approaches her. He walks with a slight limp but in his manner, in his approach, there is smoothness, a glide.
The man turns towards the other with the tattoo.
"Commander Larrin has granted me leave to examine my patient. She is waiting for you in the patrol room. I will bring Dr. Weir there once finished," he says.
The man with the blue tattoo nods and leaves without question.
Elizabeth takes notice of it, watching the other man leave even as Mathis, who she surmises the other man is, turns towards her.
"Please, follow me," Mathis says.
Elizabeth does so, falling into step with him easily, the slight limp allowing her to keep up, though Mathis walks with a long stride.
"I suppose you have a great many questions," Mathis continues as they walk down the hallway.
"A few," Elizabeth answers.
Mathis smiles and glances at her out of the corner of his eye.
"I would think you would have more than a few," he continues, stopping halfway down the hallway and opening a door. Elizabeth follows him into a room, looking around even as he closes the door behind them.
She looks at the lab set out in front of her, the bookcases lining the walls and the desk in the corner overflowing with paper. Natural light flows in from the far wall, which is made up entirely of glass.
"You are the doctor?" She asks.
"No one calls me a doctor, I don't really heal people," Mathis says, making his way towards his desk. "More like what you would call a scientist. Similar, if not the same, to your Dr. McKay."
"Mathis," Elizabeth answers.
He nods. "Quite. Please, take a seat at one of the stools," he says, indicating the stools next to the tall lab tables.
Elizabeth goes to a stool and sits down. She looks over the lab table, not entirely surprised to see different kinds of equipment littered about, including what appears to be Ancient technology along side cruder technology.
"Here," Mathis says, walking towards her, a file in one hand and in the other hand a loaf of bread.
Elizabeth's stomach growls. Mathis hears it and smiles, handing the bread over.
She tears off a piece, ignoring the warning signals in her head, warning signals telling her she should probably not eat anything until she knows she can trust the man.
She puts a piece of the bread in her mouth.
"I thought you might be hungry. Larrin forgets that you aren't a machine and need to be fed," Mathis says, sitting down on a stool in front of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth finishes chewing, the taste in her mouth suddenly that of sawdust.
"Not a machine?" She asks.
Mathis gives her another smile. She notices there is a scar along the right side of his jaw. The scar is thin and barely visible but is obvious in the sunlight, puckered skin from the tip of his jaw up towards his ear.
"No. Not a machine. That's why you're hungry, why, more than likely, your muscles are stiff and you've been having periods of dizziness," he surmises. "Not very machine-like reactions," he continues.
Elizabeth puts the bread down on top of the lab table.
"Who am I?" She asks. There is fear, in the pit of her stomach. Uncertainty as well. Because she feels like Elizabeth Weir. She has her memories. She has her habits. But Elizabeth Weir, the real Elizabeth Weir, died on an operating table in Atlantis with a swollen brain.
The resulting Elizabeth Weir was consumed by nanites until she was no longer a human, but a machine with something like an aura of Elizabeth Weir about her.
The last body that housed her aura had not even been her body, but a construct. A fake. False.
"You are who you think you are," he answers.
Elizabeth shakes her head. Irritated.
Mathis sighs, putting down the file.
"You are Elizabeth Weir. Your being, your person, the very things that make you who you are, they are Elizabeth Weir. Your conscious, say, your soul, is there, is you. All I have done is recreate your body, placed your soul, your being, back into the vessel in which it feels the most at home, the most familiar," he answers.
"Am I clone?" She asks.
Mathis shakes his head. "No. Clones, even if identically the same beings, their essence, it is separate. No two clones are the same because their spirits are not the same. Close, perhaps even indistinguishable, but not the same. You are who you were when we picked you up floating in space."
Elizabeth looks down at her hands clasped in her lap. She unclasps them, holding them out in front of her. They are the hands she knows. Long fingers, slightly rounded at the tip, small wrists.
She lets them fall back to her lap.
"So, I am a nanite construction," she says.
Mathis shakes his head. "There is a minimal amount of nanites in your body, and those that are in your body, I have deactivated them."
Elizabeth shakes her head. "This doesn't make any sense. I was, the other body, it was entirely made up of nanites. That is the only way for me to exist, to mold and create the nanites in such a way, in such an order, to create human form."
"That is the only way that is known to you," Mathis says gently.
Elizabeth studies him, the man sitting in front of her. Studies him, his face, his eyes, the scar.
"Who are you?" She asks.
Mathis smiles, leaning back so his long legs stick out before him. "My name is Mathis Alorus. I am from Proculus."
Elizabeth frowns. Proculus. She knows that name, her memory scanning through the years, trying to place it.
She does. Quickly.
"Chaya," she says, the one thing she remembers most from that particular mission. She feels a familiar twinge upon thinking of the woman who had not actually been a woman. An old familiar twinge made up of the uncertainty she'd felt at the time and a dislike bred in jealousy.
Ridiculous, she scolds herself mentally.
"Yes, what you call Chaya and whom I call benefactor and teacher," Mathis says.
Elizabeth picks up the loaf of bread, tears off another piece and waits for the explanation.
Mathis complies.
"There is a blood line, a family line on Proculus, that is blessed by the Gods and Goddesses, who you call the Ancients. We are given a particular gift, an ability to use the old technology and when we gain maturity, we are granted access to great learning. Chaya is the teacher. I am one of her students," Mathis says.
"The ATA gene," Elizabeth murmurs. It makes sense for the Ascended to have a group of people with the ability to use Ancient technology, just in case the Ascended cannot complete her task of protecting the population.
Mathis continues.
"Several years ago we were given the task to go and collect Ancient technology. Chaya did not give us a reason, just asked that we do so and we did, without question. We traveled all over the galaxy for Ancient technology, avoiding those from Atlantis at all cost, as was Chaya's request. We collected much. Some of the items we were able to use for everyday things, but largely, the items we collected seemed to serve no purpose beyond that of taking up space; however, about a year ago we collected several different items, items that all contained a crystal power source and after finding those items, Chaya told us we no longer needed to collect items and that she had what she needed. The crystals and the technology, I was to learn from Chaya, was for the regeneration of cell growth through the use of nano technology. She explained to me what happened with the Replicators, the horrible things that had occurred, not only while the Ancients lived in Atlantis, but also more recently, with the Atlantis expedition. She explained that at the end of the Replicator wars, the wars between the Ancients and the Replicators, an Ancient had discovered that through certain manipulations he was able to turn the nanite body, those bodies the replicators were using to imagine themselves as Ancients, back into living forms," Mathis pauses, looking at the woman sitting before him.
He leans forward slightly. "Human forms," he says quietly. "Through this research, those who were made of nanites could be transformed into living, human forms. The research was not complete, but Chaya insisted I complete it, which I did, with her help."
Mathis falls silent, watching Elizabeth take in the information. Frown lines appear between her eyes and she stares outwards, not seeing anything.
Mathis lets the silence stretch.
"Why?" She finally asks, refocusing on Mathis before her. "Why did Chaya insist on completing the research?"
Mathis shakes his head. "I don't know and she never said. She just insisted it must be done. Perhaps she knew of what was to come and knew you would be needed. Perhaps she knew that you would not contact Atlantis if you were nothing more than a Replicator, but might if once more of human flesh."
Elizabeth feels another sting of irritation at what Mathis says because, truly, it does change things, if only slightly, and only if it is truth and not just an elaborate story to get her to comply with the request to contact Atlantis.
Mathis reaches out and places a hand over Elizabeth's. His hand his smooth, warm and comforting. Reassuring.
Elizabeth resists the urge to move her hand out from under his.
"I did not know the reason, not until the Travelers arrived on our planet asking for help after one of their planets had been destroyed by the Wraith. Through the many hours of talking with them, I realized why I had been asked to complete the research," he says, quietly.
"And you know now that this was Chaya's intent all along?" Elizabeth asks, not able to keep the doubt from coloring her tones.
Mathis nods. Solemn. "I believe there is a purpose in all we do, and that the purpose for me, for the last ten years of my life, was to be able to bring you back, Dr. Elizabeth Weir, and have you sit in front of me, whole, complete and as human as you once were."
Elizabeth studies the man before her, studies the dark brown eyes, the set of his mouth, the fall of his hair against his forehead. She looks for doubt, for lies, for something other than the belief she sees there.
But all she sees is a man who appears to not have slept in some time, who has a slightly crooked nose and who believes in everything he says.
She inhales, feels the air in her lungs, tastes the remnants of bread on her tongue, exhales, hearing her heart beat sound, feeling it in her chest.
Mathis takes his hand away, standing up and grabbing a stethoscope from the top of the table.
She lets him put her through a physical, a normal, everyday physical; to check for her pulse, to listen to her lungs, to inquire after her dizziness and hunger. She lets him prod at the muscles in her arms, at her stomach and along her thigh. She lets him check her reflexes.
All of it is normal. Her reactions are normal. Even the slight tendency towards being too ticklish along her ribs is normal.
All of what she remembers, knows.
Normal.
"How do I know you're telling me the truth and you have not reprogrammed the nanites to appear as if I am once more human?" Elizabeth asks suddenly.
Mathis turns from where he is jotting down numbers in the folder. A frown mars his forehead as he looks at her. He places the folder down on the counter and turns to face her fully.
"Trust," he says.
Elizabeth shakes her head. "Trust in what?"
"Trust that we need you enough to not lie, that we need you enough to tell you the truth," he answers.
Elizabeth looks around, looks over the material on the lab counter and picks up a scalpel. She puts it to her wrist, the sharpness cold against her skin.
Mathis does not move, freezes, the frown on his face turning to alarm.
"So if I cut myself, along my wrist, I will feel pain, I will bleed and if you do nothing about it, I will die?" Elizabeth asks.
Mathis takes a step towards her and Elizabeth presses the edge to her skin, to the point of breaking the surface.
It hurts.
Mathis stops.
"You will bleed, you will feel pain, you will die," Mathis answers.
There is a pause, a moment, the air tense and heavy as they look at one another.
"I can prove it," Mathis says finally, putting his hands up. "I will take you to Proculus, there, I have a scanner, an Ancient scanner, I can prove to you that you are no longer made of nanites. If I do that, if I arrange that, will you please put the scalpel down?"
Elizabeth looks for lies again, for any sort of deception, but the man is honest, almost achingly so. She takes the sharp edge from the softness of her skin but doesn't put the scalpel down.
"Now," she demands.
Mathis hesitates and then nods. "Yes," he says. He turns then and walks back towards his desk, moving about files and paper until he pulls up what looks like a walky-talky.
"Commander Larrin," he says into the device.
Immediately, the woman answers. "Yes, what is it Mathis? We are waiting for you."
Mathis looks over to where Elizabeth still sits, scalpel still in her hand. "We're going to have a bit of delay."
There is no answer on the other end but within moments the door to the lab opens and Larrin enters, ill humor clear on her face.
She glances towards Mathis at his desk and then towards Elizabeth with the scalpel.
Larrin pulls her gun.
Elizabeth tilts her head. "Why bring me back if you are just going to shoot me every time I make you angry?" Elizabeth asks.
Larrin scowls, but replaces her gun.
"I need to take her to Proculus," Mathis explains from where he stands.
"Why?" Larrin asks.
"Because I'm not going to help you until I know for sure that what Mathis has done is in fact complete and I know that I don't pose a threat, at least a Replicator threat, for those you wish me to contact," Elizabeth answers.
"I am going to scan her," Mathis further explains.
Larrin shakes her head. "There is no time."
"Then you will not get my help," Elizabeth retorts.
Another pause, as Larrin looks at the woman standing before her. Something strange flickers across the other woman's face, almost like amusement.
"Fine," Larrin answers. "You leave now."
