Chapter Four

John laid the sketch pad down on Rodney's desk and took Teyla's hand. She gave him a squeeze. "We have both seen this place before, but we can't remember where. What about you? Does this seem familiar at all?"

Rodney picked up the drawing and tilted his head to one side. "To be honest ...yes."

"Where is it Rodney?" Teyla asked.

"I have no idea." Teyla's face fell. "But I am reasonably sure I've seen it before too, so that is good news."

"How is it good news if none of us remember where we have seen it?"

"Because this means you're not crazy. Mass delusions are really pretty rare."

Teyla frowned lightly. "I never thought I was crazy, Rodney."

"Oh I wasn't implying - never mind." Rodney set the sketch book aside and walked over to his work bench. "I do have an idea though."

He picked up a handheld probe with a small computer screen on it. "I've been working on resonance fields, to understand the unique signatures different objects and organisms emit in order to develop a better detection device. It has incredible potential for security systems, research, you name it."

John nodded for Rodney to continue. "Right. So, this morning I tested it on steel, iron, copper, and even bamboo. Each gave a unique signature, if you will, with a consistent underlying pattern. I hypothesized that this pattern was our universal signature, but of course there is no way to test that short of pulling something from another universe into this one, and since the mulit-verse theory has so many variations, and no real consensus-"

"McKay!" John interrupted.

"Right, sorry. The point is, I pointed it at myself and I didn't have the pattern." Rodney looked smugly happy at this piece of intelligence.

"Maybe it doesn't work on people?" John suggested.

"Oh it works," Rodney insisted confidently. "I used it on Agnes on my coffee break. She had it. Yeah, and Patrick in the supply office? He's got it too." Rodney studied the screen on the device, waving it around the room.

"Well, we always knew you were a bit of a freak of nature," John teased.

"I'm not the only one," Rodney said seriously. He held the device still, aimed at Teyla. "She doesn't have it either."

All business now, John ordered Rodney to point it at himself. "And neither do you." John and Teyla looked at each other, silently communicating their fears. They both looked down at Torren who was sleeping in his car seat carrier. Rodney saw their fear and for once didn't have to be told what was what. He knelt down in front of the baby and scanned him. A small smile touched his lips and he straightened. "He's like us."

"So either we are not real, or none of this is" John swept his arm around the room.

"Actually, those are not the only choices. This could be completely real, we could be completely real, just layered wrong."

"What does that mean?" Teyla asked.

"Well, we might have had some sort of accident or experienced an event that dumped us into the wrong reality and we've been integrated into it," Rodney suggested.

"How is that even possible? I thought you said it was all just a theory with no agreement." John countered.

"It is, but one possibility would be a black hole. If we were close to one, the possibility exists that given enough power we might have 'jumped' from one universe to another rather than being crushed alive."

"We are on Earth, nowhere close to a black hole," John said, feeling exasperated. "I fly commercial jets, not space shuttles. I'm not even in the military, McKay. And neither are you."

"I am just suggesting a possibility. You have to try to think three dimensionally. What you do here may simply be a reflection of how this reality adjusted to your presence. If, for example, we were passing through an Einstein-Rosen bridge, and said bridge extended through the event horizon of a black hole..." Rodney trailed off when he saw their faces.

John blew a breath out and Teyla took a seat on one of Rodney's stools. Rodney worked in research and development for an up and coming tech company and was responsible for at least a dozen recent patents owned by the company. He had access to more toys than a kid in a 'Toys-R-Us' store after hours. If anyone could figure this out, it was him. John shouldn't be so hard on him, he knew.

"Okay, let's just pretend we were out in space, and we flew past this black hole and ended up here, what do we do about it? How do we fix it?" John tried to be patient. Teyla was rubbing her forehead. They were both exhausted. After Teyla's nightmare and then both of them recognizing the room John had drawn, well, neither had slept much last night.

"We would have to recreate the exact events that brought us here," Rodney began and John groaned.

"That is impossible. Not only do we have no idea how we got here, we're not even sure your idea is correct and beyond that we can't just skip out into space to find one of those bridges to ride on through the event horizon of a black hole." John rolled his shoulders.

"That is a probl-" the scanning device fell to the floor as Rodney disappeared. Teyla jumped to her feet and they both stared in horror at the spot where Rodney had just been standing. He was just gone.

"That is not normal!" John practically shouted.

Teyla stretched her arms out in front of her feeling the air where Rodney had stood. "I cannot even sense him, John." Tears spring to her eyes. "It is like he never existed."

"Excuse me?"

John and Teyla turned to a voice behind them. A woman with a name tag that read, "Agnes" was in the doorway. "What are you doing in this room? Only approved visitors are allowed in this wing."

Teyla and John shared a look before John spoke. "We are here as guests of Dr. McKay. He's, uhm, just out for a second."

"You need to come with me," Agnes straightened herself up. "I don't know who you are, but there is no Dr. McKay working here."


"Dr. Zalenka, how's it coming?" Woolsey asked. The Czech scientist nodded at the leader of Atlantis.

"I think I have a fix on the last possible location of the jumper," he told him. Pointing at the view screen in front of them, he indicated a point on the grid.

"Given the distance from the space gate, and the ion storm the Daedalus detected, I am reasonably sure they went in this direction."

"What sector is that?" Woolsey asked.

"The Kalani system. I found this," he pulled up another screen, "in the Ancient database, once I had an idea where to look."

The screen displayed information on the Kalani sector. "It's a smallish system, with a type II star, and five planets. If they were drifting only, they would have entered the edges of it in a week. But it would have taken another month to reach the planet the Ancients record as being habitable."

"Five weeks? They've only been missing for two," Woolsey pointed out.

"True, which is why I think they may be here."

"We have to consider the possibility that they weren't drifting" Woolsey examined the coordinate map in front of them.

"Col Sheppard would have taken them back to the space gate." Woolsey had to agree.

"Alright, I'll contact the Daedalus. This is the first good lead that we've had." Woolsey hurried out of the lab.