Author's note: After almost a month, it was about time I posted a new chapter of this story. Not sure when the next one will be finished though.

Guest: The Tollans are a great race, but there are only ten thousand of them left, which is too little to make a difference on a galactic scale, and they are also pretty busy rebuilding their society. So, except for maybe some sporadic mention of them, there won't be much Tollans in this story.

Eastwood6510: Well, since Gibbs didn't remember Jack like Hotchner did, it means that they won't meet, at least not in the past.

JD: At the beginning of the previous chapter, in the author's note, I wrote that this was one chapter meant to break the monotony and for me to have some fun, which means it won't be an every other chapter occurrence. And I think there's not much point in getting frustrated because of one chapter being a little different, is it?

mal1287: Thanks. It is a challenge sometimes, but I like challenges anyway so...

Thanks to my beta and hope you'll enjoy this chapter as well.

"Please, let me come with you! Please, please!"

This was awkward, and Liam definitely didn't like how the woman had wrapped her arms around his, while pleading no less. It was definitely and clearly an invasion of his private space and, although he wasn't big on protocol, this still felt far below proper decorum. And the way in which Jack was snickering like a child wasn't helping either. "Um… I'm very sorry, but this is something that only Jack and I can do. Alone."

"But, I'll be good. You want even notice I'm with you," Vala continued pleading, putting a hopeful smile.

Liam looked at Jack with a pleading look of his own, but he immediately noticed that Jack was still too amused by the whole situation to actually do anything to help. "Your behavior or how much we would notice you has no bearing on my decision."

"Why not?" Vala asked, still not giving up.

"Because you are not an Alterran."

Vala let go of Liam's left arm, now looking angry. "What's that supposed to mean? Is this some club rule of yours? Only members are allowed?"

Liam sighed. "Well, in a way I suppose it is, but-" Liam stopped, noticing Vala's expression change into a sad one, with eyes already tearing up. She managed to change expression in a blink of an eye.

'Damn the woman knows how the make you feel guilty, even when you're not guilty of anything!' Liam thought. 'If Adria inherited such traits from her, there will be trouble.'

"Please," Vala whispered in tears.

Liam sighed. This had gone long enough. "You can't come because The Clava Thessara Infinitas can be accessed only by Alterrans. There are security measures preventing other species from entering."

"Crap!" Vala shouted, now angry again and with no sadness present in her. "Why didn't you say that from the start?"

"I was trying, but-" Liam began replying, but Vala had already turned and was currently in the process of storming out of the conference room.

"Now you see what I have to deal with on a daily basis," Jack said.

"I do, but I wouldn't have minded some help from you, you know," Liam replied.

"Oh, not sure that there is anyone who could have helped. When Vala gets in her head that she wants something…" Jack replied, letting the sentence end for itself. "And she must still be hung on the Clavata… Tessa… whatever, from the Goa'uld-"

"Clava Thessara Infinitas, not that difficult to remember."

"Yeah, that one. Katesh must have searched a long time for it for her to want to go there so badly," Jack concluded.

"So, are we going or staying?"

"Oh, I'm ready if you are," Jack said.

The next moment, they were on the bridge of Liam's ship, with William already present there.

"I still can't get used to seeing the two of you together," Jack said the moment he saw William.

"That's strange, especially since there are two of you too."

"Oh, I haven't gotten used to that either. Probably never will," Jack explained. "So, where are we going? Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in-between galaxies?"

"No, we are going to a planet not far from her, relatively speaking."

"What? I thought you said the Clavata is somewhere in-between the Milky Way and the Pegasus?"

"Clava Thessara Infinitas. Again, not that difficult." Liam was starting to think that Jack was doing it on purpose.

"Uh-huh, sure, whatever. So?"

"It is, but it would be impossible to locate it. Space is too big, and after five million years, its location has drifted away. Instead of having to search for it, my brethren had placed a… um… sort of gate hidden on a planet that can take us there."

"When did you find out about this?" Jack asked.

"Well, this morning I had a sort of epiphany. The pendulum Daniel gave me helped a lot. The symbols on it actually show where the planet is."

"Huh? That sounds too simple. I mean, if from the symbols you can get the location, isn't that sort of a security hole. Somebody else could have figured it out."

"No, not really. The pendulum has more constellations depicted on it than it is needed to pinpoint the exact location – you need only six for that - and there are simply too many combinations to check them all out. And, even if somebody checks the system where the gate is located, they still have an entire system full of planets to search. The gate is also located on a barren planet and buried deep underground. So, scans wouldn't show anything if you don't know exactly where to look."

"So, how did the pendulum help you then?"

"I left it behind more to jog my memory than anything else. If I didn't already possess the knowledge of where it is or what to do once there, the pendulum alone wouldn't have helped me much. Well, ten more minutes and we are there. Just enough time for me to check that bracelet of yours."

"Oh, you mean the time-traveling thingy that's stuck on my forearm."

"Yup, that thingy."

Jack concentrated, willing the bracelet to appear. It did, as if from thin air. "Here it is."

Liam approached, grabbing Jack's arm and beginning to scrutinize the device. "William, can you please scan the bracelet."

"Scanning is already in progress," William said while approaching the two of them. "Huh, that's strange."

"What's strange?" Liam asked.

"The scan is able to map the device, but it appears there's more to it than what's visible. Or maybe it is better to say, what's in our dimension. I think that what's present here is only the interface that somehow manages to connect to the rest that's not even present in our dimension. Very complex looking design."

"And it sounds very useful too. The ability to have a device that has most of its components hidden inside a different dimension could be very useful. It would give a completely new meaning to the term miniaturization."

"It would, but the problem is that I won't be able to understand how it's able to do that if I can't see the rest of it," William explained.

"Yes, I too believe we won't be able to understand it without being able to see the other components. Theoretically, I should be able to find the dimension where the real components are and make that dimension visible to us. Unfortunately, I don't think that we have the time necessary to do that right now," Liam explained. There were simply too many dimensions, and he would need first to build a device capable of bringing the other dimension into the visible spectrum in order to inspect the device. Somehow, he wasn't about to spend days in the lab for that, not right now anyway.

"So, no way to take it off then?" Jack asked, still hoping.

"I wasn't planning on taking it off in any case, even if I knew how. The bracelet could be damaged in the process and the mission you've been given is too important to risk that," Liam replied. "Any more time traveling after the first time it happened?"

"Nope, the bracelet has been silent ever since," Jack said. "Any insight about what Sam explained to you about what I'm facing? Or how to take it down?"

Liam sighed. "No, nothing that can be construed as useful. If I understand what this anti-entropic field is correctly, I have no idea on how to destroy it. The Alterrans did very little work on it, since we quickly found out that such field could be incredibly dangerous. In a way, it defies some of the fundamental laws of the universe, and we abandoned any research in the area the moment we've understood that."

"And what about your time as an ascended being? Have you done any research while being one?"

Liam chuckled.

"What?"

"Jack, being an ascended being is very different from being a mortal and in this plane of existence. You don't have a lab to make experiments in the higher plane."

"You don't? So, what's that all about ascended beings having incredible knowledge and understanding if you're not experimenting with anything? How do you get such knowledge?"

"Being an ascended being can be thought as being an observer. An ascended being has the ability to observe anything that happens in this plane of existence as well as in others, watching natural phenomena as they happen with clear understanding, or even watch others perform some experiment and understand what happens better than even those who made the experiment. But, since an anti-entropic field doesn't happen in nature, and we haven't witnessed any race performing experiments with such field, I have no knowledge of it from the time when I was an ascended being."

"Oh, that sucks," Jack said. It meant no help from Liam.

"Still, what I'm certain of is that Sam's theory is the correct one. Essentially, an anti-entropic field has the ability to revert any change that happens inside it, which should make it very difficult to destroy whatever is inside. And the fact that an anti-entropic field allows travel into the past is new to me, so, not sure what the consequences of that will be, but I really don't like that the field and whoever or whatever is inside it is traveling back in time in the same reality. And another thing is certain as well. Whoever brought you the bracelet must be from a very distant future, and not only years from now. The level of technology this alien race used to create the field, and how the bracelet is made, are clear indication that we are dealing with technology you can't come up with in a year or two. I think the bracelet originates from decades if not centuries into the future."

"Not helping here. I really want to know why somebody from possibly centuries into the future came all the way back to our time to give the bracelet to me specifically. Why not give it to somebody else?"

"I don't have an answer to that question, but if they gave it to you, it means that they think that you can do something that others can't. It means that you can stop this Shrike, somehow."

"Yeah, but the somehow part is what troubles me. Because, if that dude knows… knew… will know – Gah! Whenever - on how to stop this thing, why haven't he told me?"

"Another question I have no answer to. I think you'll have to find out the hard way. Can you show me the armor now please."

Jack was annoyed. Except for feeling like a guinea pig, he wasn't getting anything useful from Liam. "Fine!"

Jack concentrated, willing the armor to form around him. It did. "So, what's this thing? Some kind of nanite armor or something?"

"Something," William replied as he had scanned the whole process of the armor covering Jack's body. "These are not nanites at all. This is liquid Neutronium and there is some kind of energy field that is able to manipulate the Neutronium to change shape and density. I'm detecting covalent bonds between molecules in the armor that are actually stronger than what is normal for Neutronium. This is amazing."

"If you say so. It didn't look that amazing when that monster kicked me. It shredded the armor like butter."

"I assure you that it didn't. If you were wearing anything else, it would have cut you in half. Whatever that thing used, maybe even the influence of this anti-entropic field had something to do with it, it must allow the Shrike to penetrate practically anything, but I can guarantee you that even if I shoot you right now with a plasma torch, it wouldn't even dent the armor."

"So, this field you are detecting is capable of manipulating the Neutronium, its shape and density."

"It does and I would rather say the apparent density than actual density, because I'm not detecting an increase in mass, but only an increase in the bonding force between molecules."

"This is very interesting. Can we replicate this field?" Liam asked, already thinking of possible applications.

"I don't know. This is something we never encountered before. I have the field pattern stored, but how to replicate it without actually knowing how the bracelet works, it will be a trial and error process. A very long and tedious one."

"I thought as much," Liam said, a little deflated. "Still, we should at least try."

"You're not thinking of body armor, aren't you?" Jack said, noticing Liam's glinting eyes. "You're thinking of something much bigger."

Liam smiled, "I'm becoming too transparent. Yes, I'm thinking of ship's armor. The ability of an energy field to strengthen the bonds between molecules of our existing ship's armor plating or the ability to create a sort of liquid ablative armor that can spread around a ship and also capable of reforming if the hull is damaged, well, I don't have to tell you what that could mean."

"No, you don't. What are the chances of us being able to recreate such a field?"

"I don't know and I'm sure it won't be easy - this is technology far ahead of what we have - but one thing is certain. I'm going to try. Also, the use of technology that is clearly eons ahead could be very dangerous. It could change the future in unpredictable ways."

"I don't care! We know about it and I would feel like the biggest idiot if I lost some ships or the war because we decided not to use something readily available to us just because we didn't know what could change in the future if we did," Jack stated.

"You're actually right. I would feel like an idiot too," Liam said, immediately hearing a beeping sound from a console. "But right now we have reached the system, so, we have other things to do."

The ship entered orbit above an arid and desolate red planet, clearly with no breathable atmosphere present there. There was no life on the planet. Liam worked on a console for a few moments before the two of them beamed inside the planet.

Jack found himself standing in utter darkness. He literally couldn't see his fingers. It lasted for only a moment though, just until some kind of artificial illumination filled the entire room from many sources located on the walls. Jack squinted, as his eyes were trying to get accustomed to the new brightness.

The room wasn't large, maybe 400 square feet in total and rectangular in shape. The only thing of any notice present there was the strange shape near one of the walls. It was an elongated pyramid with only three sides, entirely made of a metallic silver material. The weirdest part was that the pyramid was floating in midair while slowly rotating. There were no inscriptions on it or anything else that could have been construed as an interface that they could use.

Without saying anything, both Jack and Liam walked in front of the floating object. As they stopped in front of it, Jack suddenly felt strange, as if he was hearing whispers in his mind. "What's that?"

"You can feel it?"

"The whispers? Yeah. Getting pretty loud for whispers too. What is it?" Jack was a little confused.

"The device is trying to connect to you telepathically as the only interface available. In order to use the device, we also need to pass a test first,"

"A test? Oh, I'm not good at those."

"Don't worry. I'll answer the questions. It is asking questions that only a former ascended being who's also an Alterran can know anyway. Just let me concentrate for a moment."

Jack waited, watching as Liam closed his eyes and remained motionless for at least a few minutes. He decided to stay silent. Apparently, the device needed some convincing that at least one of them was an Alterran and a former ascended being.

"Done," Liam replied as he opened his eyes once again.

"Great, but you said that there would be a gate here to take us where we need to go?" Jack asked. There was only the freakish floating pyramid in the room and no gate to speak of.

"The device is the gate, Jack. It can create a micro wormhole and, sort of beam us through it."

"I didn't know that was possible."

"You need to take into account that this device was built by ascended beings and that their knowledge when they built it was far greater than what we knew about wormhole physics when we made the gate network," Liam explained. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I can ever be."

The next instant, the pyramid began glowing more and more intensely until a blinding flash of light washed over the entire room. When the flash vanished, the room was empty, without Jack or Liam being there anymore.

"So, we are now inside this pocket universe?" Jack asked, the moment they reappeared inside another, almost identical, room. The only difference was that there was a door on the opposite wall of where the pyramidal device was floating.

"No, not yet. We should now be somewhere in-between galaxies and on a space station. We should be able to access the pocket universe from here," Liam answered, at the end mumbling something that Jack couldn't understand.

"Wait! What was that? And why did you say should be instead of we are?" Jack asked. There was something fishy going on here.

"Well, I said I had an epiphany this morning and not that I read an instruction manual on how to find the pocket universe… or what we will find inside."

"Oh, so we are going blind here? Just great!" Jack said, he as well mumbling something at the end.

"No need to swear, Jack."

"How in the hell did you hear that?"

"The force is strong in you, but there is still much that you need to learn, young padawan."

"Tell me who was it? Teal'c, wasn't it? He gave you those DVDs."

"He did. But let's now proceed further and see what's behind door number one, shall we?"

"Well, since there's no door number two, I don't see that we have much of a choice."

Both, Jack and Liam proceeded to the door, which promptly opened as they approached it. As they stepped into the next room, Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing. They were inside a large, oval room, with various consoles placed here and there, and the room was easily dwarfing the control room in Atlantis or the one on Liam's space station in size. Everywhere around them, at the far ends of the large oval room, there was nothing but space. It appeared as if the room was open to it, with no walls anywhere, and there was only darkness around them, with no stars anywhere to be seen.

Jack turned to his left, and saw the Milky Way galaxy, far in the distance. It was the only thing to give him some bearings. "Why do people need to design these places so creepy? It is like standing on an oval surface in the middle of empty space. I like it when there are walls around me."

"I believe that what we are seeing is a very realistic holographic projection, and I don't find it creepy at all. We can breathe and there is light in the room, so everything is fine. I can assure you, we are not open to space. It is probably an ascended thing. Ascended beings like open spaces."

"Okay, I'll take you word for it. So, what now?"

Without answering, Liam moved near the closest console only a few meters in front of them. As he touched the console, a three dimensional holographic display immediately sprang to life above it. He quickly began typing on the console, retrieving the systems' logs and the operating procedures. It was very easy to find what he needed, with the display actually having depth. "Huh?"

"Huh, what?" Jack asked.

"I always thought there would be some kind of door through which we can access the pocket universe, but it seems that's not the case here."

"Then what?"

"The entire station shifts into the pocket universe, and look at this."

Jack approached from behind and looked at what the holographic display was showing. "What am I looking at?"

"Do you see that tiny red dot?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's the room where we are."

Jack was trying to get a sense of the size. "It's massive! The station must be at least ten miles long!"

"Umm… closer to fifteen miles."

"Why would you build something so massive?"

"I'm not completely sure, but you see how the station is cylindrical and hollow inside. I think the station can open up and allow ships to dock inside. You need to remember that the idea behind the station was for the Alterrans to escape the Ori. I believe it was planned this way so it can dock hundreds of ships and accommodate maybe even millions of Alterrans inside itself and then all together shift into the pocket universe at once."

"Or we can go with your people always liking to build things big and be done with theorizing."

"Hey! You weren't even a full-blown Alterran and you already liked big things. Or was it just Sam and Daniel making fun of you when they said that you like big guns?"

"They were making fun of me! When?"

"Umm… you want the exact dates?"

Jack frowned. "Maybe it's better not to know. Besides, I just like big guns and that's all."

"And how else do you think it all starts? You need big guns, then you need big reactors to power the big guns, then you need big ships to hold the big guns and big reactors, and then finally you need big space stations to hold the big ships."

"Can we please get on with it and find this damn pocket universe? I'm fed up with it and I haven't even set foot in it yet."

"I already initialized the process, but it takes ten minutes for the station to enter the final stage before it can transition into the pocket universe. I was just making conversation to pass the time more quickly."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "You always have an answer for everything, don't you?"

"Most of the times, yes."

They spent the next three minutes in complete silence.

The bright flash of light happened, and suddenly Jack could see much more than just empty space. There was no Milky Way galaxy anywhere he looked, but he could clearly see two stars now, one much closer than the other. "Are we…"

"Yes, we are inside the pocket universe. I am detecting two stars, one G1V star and one F7IV star farther away. It appears we are inside a binary system, and I'm not detecting any other stars anywhere around us.

"G1V? What's that?" Jack asked.

"Your Sun is a G2V star, which mean it is a yellow star, two-tenths to orange, and the roman number five stands for main sequence star. This star is very similar to your Sun, only with little less orange in it, sort of speak. The more distant F7IV star is a yellow-white star, seven-tenths to yellow, and the roman number four means that the star is in-between being a giant and a main sequence star. The star is much brighter and almost 1.4 times bigger than the G type we have here or of your Sun. Both systems appear to have habitable planets in them. To be more precise, six out of 27 planets are habitable."

"Wow, a pretty nice system we have here."

"I believe it was chosen because of how many habitable planets there are inside. It was envisioned as the Alterran last hiding place. A place our race could possibly have to spend the rest of their existence if no solution to the Ori problem was found. At the time of conception, our plan also envisioned asking the Nox, Asgard and Furling if they wanted to escape the Ori with us. Therefore, six planets are not that many if you think about it. There are probably more habitable moons though."

"Okay, so, we are here now. What's next?"

"I'm detecting energy emissions from the nearest habitable planet, very similar to Earth. Our next move should be to check it out."

"Okay, how?"

"Good question. I don't think that firing the main engines of this monstrosity called a space station is our best course of action. The station wasn't built with speed in mind, or to be moved at all for that matter, so…"

"So…"

"I'm checking, give me one minute," Liam replied, while working on the console. "Ah-ha!"

"Ah-ha, what?" Jack replied, but even before receiving a reply, a puddle jumper lowered from the ceiling, which was still showing only space. The small ship had passed through the holographic projection of the space outside without making even the slightest disturbance.

"Ah-ha, that. Let's go," Liam said, already moving toward the puddle jumper.

Jack followed shortly behind.

The puddle jumper sped into space, quickly steadying into a course for the closest habitable planet. While on course, Jack got a glimpse of how the station looked like. It was massive, a 15 miles long cylinder with one end narrowing into a single point and he could clearly see the six sections that could open the station.

It looked almost like an elongated, closed flower waiting to blossom.

The trip lasted for almost an hour, but they'd finally made it. They were inside of the pocket universe and currently in the process of touching down on what they believed to be the main planet in the system. During the final leg of their approach, they could already see a building in the distance. It stood alone, surrounded with nothing but low green grass and a few sporadic trees here and there.

"Isn't this a little strange?" Jack asked.

"What's strange?"

"There's only one building on the entire planet that we saw, and even the building is not much from the look of it. Shouldn't there be an entire infrastructure waiting for when your people decided to come here? Like, some living arrangements at least?"

"Now that you mentioned it, it does look strange to find only this building here," Liam replied, but he knew there wasn't much point in pondering why that was now that they were in front of the building. "Well, let's go inside and find out."

"Okay, I'm just saying, something doesn't fit here."

Liam and Jack walked the fifty meters that separated them from the large entrance of the only building on the planet. And Jack had been right. The building didn't look like much. It was flat, only ground level, rectangular in shape and with no more than a thousand square feet total. Definitely not something that needed five million years to be built. As they neared the entrance, the doors literally disappeared in front of them, showing the room inside.

"Holographic doors. That's a first," Jack said a little puzzled.

"Unusual, yes. They probably feel solid when visible, but I still don't see the need for them. It seems as a waste of energy to keep holographic doors, but at least it means that the place has power."

"Well, let's hope we find something more positive than that, because I can tell you right now, the inside doesn't inspire much confidence," Jack replied as he stepped inside.

The room, a single one, a thousand square feet in size, had nothing in it except for four walls and a pedestal in the center.

"This is starting to feel really strange. Even a spartan arrangement doesn't mean this," Jack added.

They walked near the pedestal, which wasn't very interesting. It was hexagonal in shape, raised maybe a meter and a half from the floor, silver and no more than half a meter in diameter. And there was nothing on it.

"Okay, so, now what?" Jack asked.

Liam frowned. Was he supposed to do something in this room? "Well, sometimes you just need to touch things."

Liam stepped in front of the pedestal and placed his hand on top of it.

"Who are you?"

Liam bolted as if he'd stuck his fingers in an electric outlet, swiftly turning by 180 degrees. There was a man standing there, or probably a hologram of a man, only two meters from him, and he was sure there hadn't been anyone standing there before. "Umm…"

"Visitors? I have visitors. I never had visitors before. How long has it been? Four… no, five-million-one-hundred-and-seven-thousand-and-fo rty-eight-years and, oh yes, two days also. That's long… that's too long. But no, I don't get visitors, never get visitors. You can't be visitors. Oh no! The Ori have come, the plan. We must…"

"Okaaay, now we know what happens when you get stuck alone for five million years, and change. You go nuts," Jack explained his first impression of the man standing in front of them.

On the other hand, Liam was pensive. He was looking at the man who was blabbing incoherently, very curious about him for some reason. "Argos? Is that you?"

"Argos? What's Argos? Argos is a name, a personal name. Accessing personal file of Custodian, file ID, 43988-II. Yes! Argos is Custodian's name. I am Custodian, ergo, my name is Argos," the man turned to face Liam. "Hello, I'm Argos, what can I do for you?"

"What?" Jack blurted out. "What is he talking about accessing personal file?"

"He's a virtual intelligence, Jack. The consciousness of a man I knew a long time ago and of an artificial intelligence. Similar to William."

"Well, it seems that this virtual intelligence doesn't work properly."

"From the moment we created the first true VI, we were worried what would happen when it collected too much data. In short, we worried what would happen to it when it gets too old. We were concerned that the artificial intelligence would try to retain all acquired knowledge, trying to keep perfect integrity of the data, while the consciousness would try to erase, sort out or filter what it deemed irrelevant data. We believed that there was a chance that the two sides would get into a conflict if that happened, resulting in apparent madness."

"Why would the VI need to delete any data? It doesn't have enough memory space or something?" Jack asked. Maybe the solution was to plug another memory card.

"No, the problem isn't the storage space, the problem is how our consciousness works and how an artificial intelligence does. We sleep, and when we do, we sort out what is important and what isn't. Sort of placing what's less important on the back shelf in our mind so that the relevant data is in the front and easier to access. To us it is easy, because we know what's important to us and what isn't on a subconscious level. Even while we are awake, we see or hear our surroundings, but remember only what's important to us. We don't remember every branch or tree we see inside a forest, we discard a lot of what we see or hear immediately instead of filling our head with it.

"An artificial intelligence works differently. An AI doesn't have that instinctual ability to sort relevant from irrelevant data. To an AI, everything is simply data, and it all must be stored and indexed in some way, but never deleted or changed into a more abstract memory of an event. While this isn't a problem with young VIs, five million years puts Argos in the very old age category, and here we see the consequences. The battle between the two sides must have created considerable memory fragmentation."

"Yes, yes, memory fragmentation was first detected 3.574.322 years ago. Memory fragmentation increase of one percent on average every hundred thousand years for the next 1.5 million years. Who are you? Unacceptable levels had been reached. Solution had to be found before more memory fragmentation could occur. I never had visitors before." Argos replied.

Argos wasn't even capable of composing a straight thought, much less work efficiently. "Argos, grant me administrative privileges."

"Processing… scanning… visitors are here!... subject authenticated as Alterran. Administrative privileges granted."

"Argos, please enter safe mode of operation," Liam said.

"Argos is now working in safe modality. Please state your inquiry." The consciousness of Argos was now completely shut down, as well as all AI's higher functions.

"You mentioned a solution, Argos. What was it?" Liam asked. It seemed that the VI had detected the problem in time, but for some reason hadn't solved it.

"No permanent solution was found after 1.210 years of inquiry due to conflict with prime directive. Only partial solution was found."

"What's your prime directive and what was the partial solution?"

"Prime directive of Argos Custodian is to perform maintenance and improvements of pocket universe in anticipation of Alterrans arrival while attempting to find solution to Ori threat. Only possible permanent solution to Argos' memory fragmentation was the complete deactivation of Argos Custodian, and reactivation after purge. The chance of Argos Custodian not activating correctly or malfunctioning after purge was calculated at 15.7%. Prime directive prevents Argos Custodian from taking such risk. Maintenance of pocket universe and finding a solution to Ori threat is paramount.

"Paradox has been detected. After additional one thousand years the memory fragmentation would have reached unacceptable levels. Prime directive prevented Argos from allowing that to happen, yet prime directive prevented Argos from enacting permanent solution. Only suboptimal solution was possible, the distribution of tasks to secondary AIs, while Argos Custodian goes in standby modality."

"So, you went into standby while other secondary AIs worked on finding a solution to the Ori threat and maintained this place?"

"Affirmative. Argos Custodian spends one thousand years in standby and one year in normal operational modality, during which time the progress done by secondary AIs is evaluated and new instructions are given."

"What is the calculated drop in efficiency because of Argos' need to go into standby for such long periods of time?" Liam was curious to know.

"87 percent drop in efficiency."

"Oy," Liam said, shaking his head, "This is really not good."

"New permanent solution is now available to Argos Custodian's memory fragmentation problem," Argos replied.

"It is? What changed?"

"More Alterrans are now present inside pocket universe. Argos' natural lifespan is not a detrimental factor anymore."

"What? Wait! Natural lifespan? Does that mean that Argos' body is here and that he can be revived?"

"Yes," Argos replied.

"Wait! I lost both of you. What's going on?" Jack asked. The conversation had been weird from the beginning, but the last part he really didn't get.

"Jack, Argos' body is here and he can be revived."

"Okay, but why hasn't he done it before then, when he first found out about his memory leak or whatever you call it?"

"Because if he'd reconnected Argos' consciousness to his body, he would maybe have been able to survive for another thousand years and that's it, there wouldn't have been any Custodian here anymore, and that is in direct violation of the prime directive. Because of the prime directive, Argos needed to survive for millions of years and he couldn't have done that while in physical form.

"But now that we are here, Argos' eventual death only means that somebody else would need to take his place, and he now knows there are more Alterrans who can do that if and when that happens. That's why he said that there is a new solution now available. Not that it matters much though."

"What do you mean?"

"Jack, Argos doesn't know it, but we do. The Ori are gone and we are here, which means the prime directive is irrelevant now."

"Oh, yeah. With all the VI, AI, memory here, fragmentation there talks, I forgot about the Ori being gone."

"Well, let's go revive an old friend of mine, shall we?"

It had turned out that the building wasn't so small after all. It simply wasn't above ground. Once they were teleported bellow, they'd quickly found the central nexus where the body of Argus had been stored inside a pod specifically designed for long-term stasis.

The process of reviving him wasn't a quick one and it had lasted for almost five hours until Liam's acquaintance from a time almost completely forgotten had finally opened his eyes. Confusion was to be expected, and it had taken another two hours of in and out consciousness for Argos to begin felling normal again.

"Argos, how do you feel?" Liam asked, this time certain Argos would remain awake.

"Still confused," Argos answered while lying on the small medical bed.

"That was to be expected. It has been more than five million years since the last time you opened your eyes. What can you remember of the time you spent as a VI?"

"That's the confusing part. I feel I'm missing a part of me. I think that's the part of me able to access the data core of this place through the AI, and something else too. As if some memories shouldn't be as they are."

"That is probably because of the memory fragmentation that has occurred."

"Memory fragmentation? What are you talking about?"

"As a VI you encountered a problem after the first two million years of being in this place. Your consciousness began fighting the AIs logic of retaining memory, which had caused your memory to fragment."

"Oh, that doesn't sound good. Wait! You're here! That means the Ori…"

"No-no, don't strain yourself. Everything is fine and there's no need to worry about the Ori," Liam replied, trying to calm Argos down.

"No need to worry? What does that mean?"

"It means that the Ori are gone. They have been defeated, Argos."

"Defeated? Defeated how?"

"It is a long story Argos. Let just say that a battle was fought in the higher plane and that our side won."

Argos was pensive, and even a little sad. "I'm glad to hear the Ori are gone, but I'm a little ambivalent about my feelings because that also means that I spent five million years frozen like a Popsicle in this pocket universe for nothing."

"I can only try to imagine how you feel, but do not think for a moment that the time you spent here was for nothing. You gave our people security that if the worst happened, we would have a safe place to hide, and possibly even a way to fight back. That was of great comfort to us all."

"Good, although I'm not sure that what I've come up with would be enough to win against the Ori. I was able to create a device capable of destroying them, or at least I think it would work, but it doesn't discriminate. It destroys everything in the higher plane in a thousand light-year radius. I was trying to perfect it in order to increase its range and find a way to focus it on a specific target, but then everything started to feel confusing and I remember having delegated the job to secondary AIs for some reason, but they weren't able to come up with anything new. They are great at making complex calculations, but when you need some ingenuity, they fall short. And this place doesn't have a higher plane of existence, being only a pocket universe inside subspace and all, so it wasn't possible to even test it properly."

"It doesn't matter right now. The Ori are gone," Liam replied, reassuringly. "By the way, I was a little startled at seeing only this building on the planet. I mean, you've been here for more than five million years, so…"

Argos grinned. "Most of the time I spent in the virtual world, so not much need for building anything made of real matter, but even so, I did spend some time working on some hobbies of mine."

"Hobbies?"

Argos shrugged. "Well, after countless years working exclusively on finding ways to fight the Ori, I needed to do other things to clear my head, sort of. There were unforeseen problems too that I had to deal with."

"Unforeseen problems? Like?"

"Like the fact that this pocket universe is only as big as a binary star system plus a little more."

"And that is a problem because?"

"Because there are two stars emitting a lot of energy and nowhere for the said energy to go."

Liam thought about it, and understood the problem. The stars had constantly emitted large amounts of EM radiation, which would quickly reach the boundary of the pocket universe and then continue following the space-time curvature of the bubble. With time, the amount of energy would reach critical levels, which meant that energy would be slowly emitted back toward the binary system, usually in the form of heat radiation. Such problem doesn't occur in normal space simply because of its massive size. "Okay, so you had a kind of overheating problem."

"Kinda did, and had to find a way to extract that energy and store it in some form."

Liam though how that could actually be a good thing. "So, you spend millions of years storing excess energy? ZPMs?" It was the most logical way to store energy.

"Uh, that would have been great, if possible, but I quickly found out that you can't make a working ZPM in here. You can't make a pocket of subspace to store energy when you are already inside a pocket universe inside subspace."

"Yeah, it does make sense. So, what did you do?"

"I made antimatter, and a lot of it," Argos said grinning.

"Oh, you sneaky dog. No wonder you have doors made of holograms. You have antimatter reactors with plenty of fuel to spend."

"I do indeed."

"How much are we talking about, antimatter I mean?"

"Liam, we are talking about five million years of two suns spending their hydrogen in a fissile nuclear reaction that is then converted into antimatter."

"Tons? No, we are talking about millions of tons here, am I right?"

"We are."

"Damn! You must be careful it doesn't blow up. It can have a pretty strong impact on the pocket universe."

"I had millions of years to think on how to do it and to improve upon it. Give me some credit, please. And to answer your other question. The infrastructure is here, you just can't see it."

"How?"

"Let just say that I had a lot of time to play with holograms and to find ways on how to use them. I have to admit though that, at some point, I was so bored that I even started making furniture out of holograms. Not the best of ways to spend time, but you really need to find a lot of hobbies to fill five million years."

"So, there is an infrastructure on the planet?"

"Planet? Liam, there's an infrastructure on all planets, even on the uninhabitable ones and on the moons as well. There are accommodations here for 50 billion people. And that's accommodations alone. There are other infrastructures built throughout the system… I'm certain of it. I'm just having some trouble remembering all the details right now."

"I'm sure it will come back to you, in time, no need to worry. Or if not, we will find some other way to retrieve the data from the core."

"You're right, there's no need to worry. It is just so frustrating to know you knew something, but being unable to access that memory anymore. But, enough about this place. Tell me about our people?"

"Not much to tell. They are still upstairs like always."

"So, what are you doing downstairs then?"

"Oh, that's a very long story."

"I have time."

"All right then," Liam said, taking a deep breath. "It all started around ten thousand years ago when…"

While Liam was talking to Argos, Jack had spent that time wondering the nexus. It was a big place, and he would have probably searched through much more of it if he hadn't found a star trek type food dispenser and decided that that was the place he wanted to be.

Later, he went back where Liam and Argos were, spending the next hour or so listening to Liam's recounting of the events that had led them here, from time to time, adding parts he had lived through. It was apparent to both Jack and Liam that Argos greatly appreciated spending time with them and to have somebody to talk to. But, the time came when they needed to return to the real universe, where both of them had a lot of work to do. Before leaving, Liam promised to Argos that soon he would return, with more people from Eden Prime, people that would remain here with him so that he wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

"How is it going, Rodney?"

Rodney glanced at the view screen showing Sam and quickly looked back down at what he was doing. He was a little pissed at the Council at the moment. After countless attempts to get the council on board with the Arcturus project - attempt number dos! - they finally caved, allowing him to make the Arcturus reactor become a reality. The only problem was their complete lack of confidence that he would actually be able to deliver what he'd promised. They were all of the opinion that he was going to blow himself up and no matter how much he'd tried to explain that everything would work just fine or that there was something like a gazillion safety measures that would prevent anything bad from happening, they were still of the general opinion that in the end they would all just be witnessing a very big fireworks.

That was the reason why he was currently standing inside a large cargo hold that had been turned into a mobile lab and that was currently floating in the void of space light-years from any nearest star. And he was here alone, with nobody there to help him. He was of the opinion that they were exaggerating with the precautionary measures, even in case something did go wrong, but that was just him. Sam talking to him while on the bridge of a Daedalus class ship stationed nearby and with its hyperdrive ready to be engaged if they detected even the smallest whiff of a problem with a push of a button, was even more annoying than the rest.

"Rodney, what's going on?"

"Everything is fine, I'm just making the last few adjustments, that's all."

"Good, just tell me when you are ready to start so we can be ready too."

"Yeah, ready to bail."

"If it comes to that, yes. Keep in mind that we are your safety net if something goes wrong. So, if you feel something is going wrong, tell us right away so we can beam you out, all right?"

"Nothing is going to go wrong."

"Let hope so. Just tell me when you start the test, will ya?"

"Sure, now let me work, please."

The connection ended, leaving Rodney finally in peace to continue with the delicate work. He was certain there wouldn't be any problems, but that still didn't mean that what he was doing didn't need delicate calibration. The Arcturus was a marvel of technology and the few new theories he'd somehow received should allow the reactor to dispense of the harmful and unpredictable exotic particles that formed during the collection of the zero point energy from our universe. The idea wasn't very difficult to understand, but the creation of the device in itself had been. The idea was to collect somehow the particles the moment they formed, and to shove them somewhere else. Now, since the idea of shoving the particles into another universe wasn't very healthy for that particular universe, he needed to find some other safe place where to put them.

The idea had come to him even before he had ascended and it was to store the particles in a subspace pocket, just like a ZPM stored energy. His knowledge of how a ZPM did what it did was still limited, but if it were just that, simply to use a ZPM for collecting the particles, the solution would have already been found. He had asked Liam about using a ZPM and he'd told him that the problem was that a ZPM worked in a way that allowed only energy to pass through it, from the subspace pocket and into our universe or the other way around, but nothing else. Energy but never matter, which meant that a ZPM wasn't the solution since exotic particles, as being matter, couldn't cross the ZPM's threshold between the two places.

That had been the point when he had exhausted all options available to him, and had almost given up. At the time, Liam didn't know anything on how to make a device that allowed particles to cross over. Now instead, Liam probably knew more than he did, especially since he now knew about the ascended beings' project of transferring an entire star system into a pocket universe, which was definitely comprised of matter. But now, Rodney also didn't need anyone's help anymore. Now, he had the knowledge he had sent to himself while he was an ascended being, depicting exactly how to make a device capable of doing what a ZPM did, just with the transfer of particles instead of energy. The device he had created actually didn't allow energy to cross the threshold, just particles, and that was exactly what he needed.

Rodney established a connection with the Daedalus. "Sam, I already initialized the Exotic Particles Dumping Module (EPDM), and everything seems in order."

"Good Rodney, just please go slow and make sure that not even one exotic particle comes back. If you have a leak there…"

"I know, I know, it could be catastrophic. I made the EPDM to allow particles to go only in one direction for that exact reason."

"I know you did, but you have never tested it when there's an actual buildup of exotic particles on the other side."

"I know, I know, and that is why I added extremely sensitive sensors that are constantly monitoring if there's a buildup in the EPDM's internal pressure."

"And even if there isn't a buildup, the exotic particles will form in an unpredictable fashion, so there is a chance there will be more of them than what the EPDM can take."

"I know, I know, and that is why I added a secondary EPDM to take the load off of the first one if that happens."

"And even then there's a…"

"I know, I know, and that's why if the secondary EPDM engages, the system automatically shuts down everything, why there's a strong shield encompassing the whole device, another one as backup and at last why there's an ejection system for the whole reactor and a hyperdrive that will immediately shove the entire thing into hyperspace where the Arcturus cannot work because there's no zero point energy in hyperspace. I know it all, Sam."

"I'm just saying…"

"I know what you're saying, we went through all this together a million times and I went through it a few million times before and after that by myself. So, we can start checking everything another million times or we can actually start this thing and see what happens. But, one thing is certain, there's no chance any new test we make will give us a different result. We tried them all, Sam."

"All right, Rodney. Fire it up."

Rodney rubbed his hands together, grinning. It was finally time to fire his latest creation, and it wasn't a moment too late. Zelenka had created the new pulse grav-drive used on all newly built satellites, and that invention alone had put him already on the track for being scientist of the year. But, the partial debacle in the battle over Borealis against the Leptinians - where the Zat-cannons had caused an unexpected accumulation of energy in the debris field, which in turn had caused a discharge against the Fortress Shield - instead of remaining a debacle as it should have, it gave Zelenka an idea on how to use the Zat discharge to our advantage. He was already working on creating a new type of minefield composed of what he had named zat-mines, which in fact weren't exploding devices at all, but instead devices charged with the residual energy of a zat-discharge. If a ship were to enter inside such minefield, it would immediately get zatted. There were of course problems that needed to be worked out, there always were with new ideas, but even Rodney had to admit that such minefield could be very useful, especially since the zat-mines wouldn't be destroyed when a discharge occurred.

Therefore, Rodney needed a success. He needed the Arcturus to work because it had been more than a year since he had invented anything of any use and he needed it to work also because he had spent too many sleepless nights working on it, for it to be another failed project.

Rodney initialized the reactor located in the adjacent room. He could hear the humming coming from there, and he was glad to notice that the instruments thus far were not showing any anomaly. He increased the reactor's energy extraction rate to ten percent of its theoretical maximum.

As he noticed that at ten percent everything seemed completely stable, he pushed the energy extraction rate up to 20 percent. The reactor was already pumping a lot of energy, and the system had almost fully charged the onboard capacitors. The system had also detected that fact and it automatically diverted the flow of energy to an empty ZPM. At twenty percent, the Arcturus had already reached the minimum amount of power output that was needed for charging a ZPM. It took four ENI reactors working almost at full power to accomplish the same. The amount of power the reactor was delivering was staggering. At full power, even this prototype would be able to fully charge a ZPM in thirty months, half the time of what it takes for Liam's massive solar station to do the same. Chaining five Arcturus reactors, which Rodney had already made the necessary calculations on how to do, they could have a fully charged ZPM in six months. And the only limit was that no more than five Arcturus the strength of this one worked in close proximity. There was no limits on how many additional Arcturus Plants they could place in distant systems, like one on each of their colonies or even somewhere deep in the void of space where there was no risk for anyone. The only limit was that more than five reactors in close proximity would create a too big sort of dent in the zero point field, which would effectively result in the separate reactors stealing the same energy from one another.

"Rodney, I'm detecting a lot of energy emissions coming from your location. How much are you pushing the reactor?"

"40 percent, Sam."

"Rodney! We said we would take it to 25 percent and keep it there for at least a few hours."

"I know Sam, and I'm planning on doing exactly that. I just needed to push it a little further to see if there were spikes like the last time."

"And?"

"None, Sam. The EPDM is capable of collecting the exotic particles after only 1.6 microseconds on average, which is considerably lower than what our simulations have showed us."

"Leave the average and tell me what the peak is. What's the slowest time, Rodney?"

"1.9 microseconds."

"Wow, that's actually better than what the average in the simulations was. If our calculations are correct and if the collection of exotic particles is faster than 5.2 microseconds, there's no way for the particles to escape the containment field before being grabbed by the EPDM. What's the differential from now and when the reactor was at 25 percent?"

"Negligible."

"Which means that you haven't reached the critical saturation level yet. Even this is better than what we predicted."

"I know. We were certain critical saturation would occur at 30 percent and from there steadily slow the time it takes the EPDM to collect the particles. I wonder at which point it will occur."

"You can wonder how much you want, but you're not pushing the reactor any further, do you understand me?"

"All right, Sam, I'm lowering the output to 25 percent as we agreed upon and I'm keeping it there for the next two hours. Then I'll shut it down and we run more tests, again, as agreed upon."

"Good."

"And then maybe you'll get off that ship and come here to give me a hand."

"Actually, I'm coming there in a minute."

"Oh, does that mean that you think it is safe enough and that it won't blow up in my face as you all predicted."

"Fine Rodney, it works, be happy about it."

As the connection ended, Rodney went back to work on the console constantly monitoring the sensors data coming from inside the reactor's chamber. Sam joined Rodney in a minute and together they continued their work. It was a great accomplishment, even though there would be many more sleepless nights while performing a never-ending battery of test before the Arcturus was put into production, but even now they knew they'd done it. All of the collected data was already telling them that.

Rodney would finally be able to sleep peacefully now that he knew he had created something that nobody else could. And there was a chance that nobody else ever will.

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