AN: Thanks to my best reviewers ever katmom and Byuu_chan!
Reconstructing Rome
By Indygodusk
Chapter 25
"I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble."
AUGUSTUS CAESAR
Meredith woke up in the middle of an argument.
"Ava—"
"No, Julian! This is wrong! I know things are looking grim, but you can't just go around kidnapping people." It was a woman's voice. Something clinked, sounding like a cup set down too hard. "Mother would be ashamed of you."
"I wish to God that she was around to be ashamed, but she's not!" A man's heavy breathing filled the room. "She's dead. Just like the rest of us will be if we don't get the God machine fixed."
Meredith opened gummy eyes and blinked at a pale green ceiling. The bright glass globe in the center looked like an electrical light. Her mouth felt more disgusting than a seventies shag carpet in a bathroom. She needed to vomit and pee at the same time.
Gently turning her head, she saw the no-longer-handsome trader and a dark-haired woman that looked similar enough to be his sister. The trader had exchanged his clothes for a severe-looking suit and jacket.
"Ava, this woman is our last hope. The council has agreed with me. It's done." Noticing Meredith's open eyes, he turned away from his sister.
Voice going from sharp to soft, he knelt down next to Meredith's bed like some concerned boyfriend instead of a crazy kidnapper and gave her a smile. "Good, I'm so glad you're awake. I'm Julian, Dr. Julian Aquila, President of the AEC." He tried to take her hand but she moved it away.
"And her? The nice one?" Meredith's voice rasped painfully. She winced and swallowed, rubbing at her throat.
Julian hesitated. "My sister. Ava." Shifting closer, he forced a brighter smile onto his face. "Welcome to Manudia, Dr. Mckay. How do you feel? I've been worried." Despite being forced, the smile made him look handsome and approachable. It invited trust.
What a snake.
Glaring at his traitorous face, Meredith pushed herself up into a sitting position. "You kidnapped me. Next time I vomit, I'm aiming at you."
He leaned back but otherwise didn't move away, his smile turning into a concerned frown. "The effects of the sedative should wear off quickly. Nausea isn't a common reaction, so if it persists you must tell me so I can take you to our doctors. Your health is important to me."
"I don't need your witch doctors and the nausea won't wear off because it's a horrible side-effect of being pregnant!" Whoops, she hadn't meant to say that. Well, here's hoping the idea of torturing a pregnant woman gave him pause. "Now let me go home or else my people will come and blow your planet up! That is if I don't do it first!"
Meredith threw off the blanket and swung her feet off the bed. Unfortunately, she failed to hit Julian with her boots, though she did knock into the side table hard enough to send the glass of water there spinning onto the floor and under the bed. Ignoring the puddle beneath her boots, Meredith looked down to take stock of herself. She felt a flutter of relief that they hadn't undressed her while she'd been unconscious beyond taking off her tac vest.
"You're pregnant?"
Meredith glanced up to see the lines at the corners of Julian's eyes deepening as he stared at her middle.
"Julian, this is too much, you must see that." Ava held her hands out beseechingly.
Meredith felt a moment of hope when he hesitated, eyes going dark, but then he shook his head sharply and threw back his shoulders. "That doesn't change anything. She's obviously not that far along. My plans and orders remain the same."
Ava's shoulders rounded as she looked away.
Meredith's heart dropped when Julian met her eyes implacably. "Let the pregnancy inspire you to work quickly, Dr. Mckay. I'll get you regular doctor visits while you're with us, but the sooner you fix the God machine, the sooner we let you go home to your husband."
"Ex-husband, not that it matters, because you can't just keep me here!" she cried. The sharp stab of pain from her bladder distracted Meredith from the panicked circling of her thoughts. She jumped up and shifted from foot to foot.
"You'll find that I can." Julian's lips went thin and pale like prison bars.
Meredith would've argued more, but she was about to burst. She turned to Ava, who at least seemed sympathetic. "I have to go pee. Now."
Casting a quick look at her brother, Ava gestured to a small door on the left. "The toilet's in there."
Rushing, Meredith slammed the door and locked it, pivoting to the toilet even as she frantically undid the rubber band and buttons at her waist. When she dropped onto the toilet, it felt like a dam had burst and the pee would never end. She clenched her hands on her knees and looked around.
Any hopes she had of escaping from in here were quickly dashed. The small room was only the size of her car. It held a toilet, sink, and a tiny shower stall. The level of technology and construction could've been a bathroom somewhere on Earth in the mid-1900s. There was no window to climb out of, no big vent in the ceiling to wiggle through to the outside, just four solid walls. Action movies had totally lied to her about how easy it was to escape the bad guys.
After flushing and washing her hands, she gulped down some water from the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face looked pale but surprisingly normal. Inside she was a jittering, panicking mess. Her mind spun like a hamster on a wheel, trying and failing to figure out how to escape from this situation. Trying not to think about things like torture and pain. She needed more information and she wasn't going to get it in here.
Opening the door, she forced herself to rejoin Julian. Not seeing Ava anymore, Meredith swallowed hard and looked around. "Where'd your sister go?"
"She is not needed for this discussion."
That felt ominous. Julian held out Meredith's tac vest and waited while she shrugged it on. They'd probably taken out anything that might be used as a weapon or for communication. She'd just have to get creative. She was a genius, wasn't she? There had to be a way to outsmart these guys and get away.
"Come, Dr. Mckay, and I will show you why you were brought here. I am not a cruel man, merely desperate. I'm an engineer, like yourself. Help us and no harm will come to you, I promise."
Unspoken was the threat of what would happen if she didn't cooperate. She was really better off not knowing specifics. Desperate people did desperate and very bad things. She could imagine too many horrors.
Wrapping her arms around herself, Meredith followed Julian out the door. Two more men she vaguely recognized from her kidnapping stood just outside the room in a pale gray corridor. They now wore navy blue uniforms and some sort of gun in holsters at their waists. They fell in on either side of Meredith, blocking any attempt to escape.
"Just what are you asking of me? You still haven't said." Meredith reached into her vest pocket and pulled out the stub of chocolate PowerBar she'd stashed there earlier. Her body needed fuel if she was going to think up a way out of this.
One of the guards turned and began to snatch for the package in her hand, but Julian held up his hand, waving the man back. "It's food. Let her keep it."
Before they could change their minds she shoved it into her mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly. It tasted amazing and scraped away the film of unconsciousness and drugs from her tongue. The faint nausea in her stomach settled, appeased by her offering.
They hustled her outside onto what looked like a streetcar, empty except for another man in the same navy uniform. She was in a city that looked similar to pictures of Vancouver at the turn of the twentieth century except for a few startlingly out of place touches like the display in a store window that looked like an early LCD screen in an elaborate frame displaying a still image and the man talking in front of the store to a customer while using a digital calculator. Brick buildings and powerlines stood on either side of the wide street. Water towers and makeshift wooden warehouses crowded between the brick buildings and looked recently added.
Overhead the sky seethed with dark, low-hanging clouds threatening rain, making the world seem dark and grim. She couldn't tell the time of day. A break in the clouds on the far horizon revealed three faint moons against a pale lavender-blue sky. Definitely not Earth, not that she'd expected otherwise. Unfortunately, there were too many planets with three moons for her to identify this place from that alone. She took note of it just in case it was a clue to the planet's gate address or origin symbol. If she had to rescue herself, she'd need the origin symbol to dial out.
Julian pressed her down into a seat on the trolley. "We need you to fix the God machine left by our Ancestors. Just a few minutes more and all will become clear," He sat across from her while the guards sat down on either side, boxing her in.
"Is it by the stargate?" she asked hopefully. No one answered.
As the trolley passed through the city, she saw people out on the streets. Many wore tunic-like tops and flat-cap hats, though the people without hats wore their hair long or in a braid or elaborate series of buns. Short hair was the exception. Most people were moving fast and had their heads down. Meredith thought about calling out for help, screaming that she was being kidnapped, but the one person whose eye she caught looked at the guards surrounding her and immediately ducked their head and disappeared inside the nearest door.
The cloud-backed skyline was dominated by a building with a tall golden spire with irregular bumps down its length. It seemed to be their destination. As they traveled closer, she saw that the spire topped an elaborately carved stone building. The large slabs of stone were a pale gray veined with white versus the small red and yellow bricks she'd seen everywhere else. The overlapping series of roofs were gold trimmed in scarlet. A staircase rose from the street to the front gate. It reminded her of temples in Thailand except it was missing the lion dog by the door, or were those only Chinese? Not that it mattered. "What's that big building, a temple?"
One of the guards made a superstitious gesture with his hand and then touched his lips and brow, flicking his fingers towards the building.
Julian inclined his head towards the spire and touched his brow, but didn't echo the rest of the gestures. "Yes, the Temple of Enlightenment. Only the most pious are allowed inside past the chapel. However, our destination is the AEC, the building across the street." He pointed to a long yellow brick building that took up the entire block across from the temple.
The trolley slowed to a stop and they exited. The words Aquila Engineering College were carved about the doors of the yellow building. Hadn't Julian said he was the president? That meant she probably wouldn't find many allies inside unless she got lucky and he turned out to be unpopular. Unfortunately, handsome men were rarely unpopular.
A crack of thunder was her only warning before the sky opened up with a deluge of rain. The guards jumped and the one on her right grabbed her arm hard and pulled, almost tripping her. Meredith raced forward, blinded by the wet hair covering her face. They ran up the steps and through the double doors to get inside, barely slowing as they dragged her over to a guarded elevator. The walls were the same yellow brick with soot stains showing that the building had been around before the installation of electricity.
"What, no towel?" She griped, trying to wring out the hem of her shirt and smooth back the cold clumps of her dripping hair while still being held by the upper arm. "If I get sick I won't be able to fix anything."
"You already have a doctor's appointment," Julian said dismissively. "This is more important."
Meredith did not find that comforting.
They got out several floors down and passed through a series of guarded doors that led them deep into the heart of the building. "Almost there," Julian said, leading her down a short series of steps to an open metal door that was ten feet tall and more than a foot thick. The two guards peeled off and took up station on either side.
There were too many guards in this place. If she was going to escape, it would have to be from somewhere else.
On the right of the metal door was a series of pegs holding coats and robes. Leading her over, Julian grabbed a pale blue robe and pulled it on, handing another to Meredith. She crisscrossed the fabric and secured it slightly above her rounded waist with a bright red belt tie. She may be wearing a fancy bathrobe but at least it made her look more official and helped her blend in. If she did get a chance to escape, she needed to not stand out so obviously in her SGC uniform.
"Come, Dr. Mckay, and see the reason we need you." They walked through the metal door to where a bronze, red, and gold patterned curtain hung from the ceiling about six feet in. Reaching out, Julian pulled the curtain aside and gestured her forward.
Stepping through, she saw a carved archway made of the same gray stone as the temple but she recognized the design as Ancient. Curious, she went inside and found two young men typing on what looked like strange and primitive computers. They had curling shoulder-length hair like Julian's and wore navy-blue robes with gold sashes instead of red. They stopped working and jumped to their feet at Julian's entrance.
"These are distant cousins of mine. They are newly trained but show great promise in keeping the blessed record," Julian told her, waving them back to their seats without offering any names.
Meredith didn't care. They weren't important. When they sat down she saw the rest of the room stretching out behind them. The important thing here was the pair of Ancient consoles: one a squat octagon hitting her about mid-thigh and the other a narrow rectangle reaching the top of her belly. Above the squat console she saw a translucent orange-gold projection of the city with the AEC and Temple in the central square. The projection looked patchy, but she had no idea if that was significant.
"So are these your so-called God machines? The ones you want me to fix?"
"Yes, Dr. Mckay."
Meredith circled the consoles, trying to see if the repair was something easy. No obviously broken wires or cloudy crystals popped out at her, though there were a few scorch marks here and there. Hopefully, they didn't expect her to access the console programming because she didn't have the right DNA. "What do they do? Do you even know?"
Back going straight, Julian's mouth became a thin slash. "I am the President of the AEC and an Aquila."
"So... what?"
Julian grimaced. "I suppose you are an outsider and couldn't possibly understand. Very well, I will explain. Our ancestors were once enslaved by a powerful alien who pretended to be a god. They rebelled and gained freedom, but there were more powers in the universe with armies and weapons too powerful to resist. Our Most Holy One fasted and prayed to the One True God before sending his sister, most revered Matriarch Aquila, on a divine mission to save our people. Matriarch Aquila found the God Machine, a shield for the faithful who covenant to always keep a record of God's blessings. Whenever our city has been attacked, whether from the stars, through the stargate, or across the land, a faithful Aquila has been blessed with the power to activate the God Machine and shield us until the threat is passed."
Studying the symbols on the taller console, Meredith wrinkled her nose. "Let's cut through the religious mumbo jumbo. You have an Ancient machine that creates a shield over your city that needs the Aquila family's bloodline to control. My people would love to trade for more information about this machine and get a blood sample from your family, so kidnapping was really unnecessary and rather idiotic. That aside, what seems to be the problem?"
Dropping to a crouch, she tried to pop open the panel holding the crystal matrix and found it sealed shut by some bulky locking mechanism obviously added by the locals. "Open this. And give me tools." She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers impatiently. "And get to the point."
Exhaling a quick breath through his nose, Julian moved forward and undid the catch on the door, twisting and turning several pieces that hadn't looked like they were supposed to move. She watched his fingers carefully so she could replicate it all later.
"The problem is that in our most recent war with the neighboring city of Albissia—a group of unbelievers who splintered off from us generations ago—we were forced to activate the shield to protect ourselves from attack." His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
"And? It's down now. I still don't see the point."
"Three years ago, my most honored mother the Matriarch Aquila, the woman blessed to operate the God machine, went to lower the shield so our leaders might sue for peace. However, during the process, a dissenter broke in and—" Julian's voice wavered "—set off a bomb. She and all the blessed recorders died. The shield hasn't worked right since."
Looking over the placement of crystals in the console, Meredith frowned. There'd obviously been attempts to insert more of the clunky local tech inside. One of the pieces looked like it might be made of naquada, but its placement wasn't ideal, making her think they didn't really know how to use it to its full potential. Some of the crystals seemed slightly cloudy and two had hairline fractures. "I'm going to need my tablet. Did you grab it when you grabbed me?"
Huffing, Julian pounded his hand on his thigh. "No, I didn't think to take it, just you. You'll have to work with our equipment."
"Well that was stupid. It's going to take me twice as long to do anything without my own tools."
"I'm sure you'll adapt. Now, I've nominated your name to the God machine as a blessed recorder. Usually, a blessed one has to be present to nominate new members, but thankfully I've been in the system for so long that it designated me as a senior recorder and let me add you myself so you can access the programming on this console."
"That won't work. I don't have the right genes." Standing up, Meredith rubbed a hand over her aching back before moving over to the taller console. She keyed in a query, not expecting a response.
A box popped up on the screen in Ancient inviting her to record her observations. Eyebrows rising, it took her a second to get over her shock. She typed in a few sentences about the room she stood in and hit submit. A menu popped up. Grinning with excitement at the chance to personally interact with an Ancient system, she dived into the menu. She'd definitely have to figure out how this blessed recorder business worked so she could access Ancient tech back on Earth. Certain areas stayed frustratingly off-limits but it was amazing to have access at all.
Maybe something good would come out of this kidnapping business.
