Under cover of darkness, Sam, Daniel and Michael broke into the warehouse; much to the bewilderment of the latter. He remarked,

"Why are we breaking and entering?"

Before they could reply, he spotted the Stargate, and stood there with an awed expression on his face. They smiled at him, and she said,

"This, Michael Johnson, is the device that I told you about."

When he eventually managed to pry his eyes from the stone structure, he said, confused,

"But… an Einstein-Rosen bridge isn't stable enough to allow matter through! For a stable wormhole, theoretically, you would require a shell of exotic matter… and I don't think even the Air Force could be able to get their hands on that!"

She shook her head and replied with a smile, "The device doesn't produce an Einstein-Rosen bridge… nor does it require exotic matter. It does require a certain amount of raw electricity… as we have no dialling computer; we have to dial it by hand."

Michael stared at them for a few seconds, before asking,

"Wait… dialling? You mean like a telephone?"

Daniel nodded with a smile, and replied, "Exactly. We use a combination of six of those symbols as an address, with an extra symbol to represent the point of origin."

Michael exclaimed almost instantly, "Dear God! That's just under two million destinations?!"

He looked up at the ceiling and asked in an awed voice,

"You mean that travel to different planets is possible? I always thought that it would take too long using conventional means, and that wormholes would be too unstable to allow safe passage for humans!"

He turned to look at their amused faces, and continued,

"Do you even know what this could mean for Astrophysics; not forgetting the other Sciences if there is life out there, with technological levels similar to or greater than our own?! This could change Earth forever!"

Sam and Daniel exchanged a brief concerned glance, and the former said with a serious expression,

"And that is why you can't tell anyone about this. Earth isn't ready for this now… nor will it be for a long time coming."

Daniel asked her quietly, "Do you think we should tell him?"

She nodded, and he said, "Michael, we have a confession to make. We're not exactly who you think we are…"

At Michael's puzzled expression, she added,

"We're with the Air Force but this isn't a current Air Force project. Do you know what happens when you speed up one end of a wormhole relative to the other end?"

Michael replied distractedly, "Um, yes… anyone entering via that end would emerge sometime in the past… I don't see how…"

Realisation hit him and he exclaimed, "You're from the future!?"

They both nodded, and Daniel said, "We accidentally came here with our friends, but due to an accident, our friends made it home without us… we need your help so we can go back, or rather forward, to our own time. If you power the 'gate, we can get some help from some friends of ours."

"Friends? There's life… out there?"

Sam remarked with a smile, "More than you could ever dream of, but you can't tell anyone about this."

She continued, "We need a sufficient enough power threshold to use the 'gate, and return if necessary."

Michael smiled at them and remarked, "Well, sign me up!"

Unbeknownst to all present, a certain auburn-haired girl, and a sandy haired boy had been listening to everything that had been said as they hid behind a door.