Reconstructing Rome

By Indygodusk


Chapter 27


"Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?"

WILL ROGERS


Almost two months later, Meredith was still trapped in Manudia. Every day she worked on their machine. She was making progress, but it was slow. Very slow.

Her belly kept getting bigger though. Way bigger. There was no way to hide it under a muumuu now.

There was also no point in trying to escape because the shield hadn't disappeared since that first day, trapping her inside with everyone else. The shield had teased her that first day by going down one last time for about five minutes when she'd ridden the trolley away from the hospital, just long enough for the rain to dampen the streets and the ends of her hair before the rain stopped, leaving behind a blanket of low gray clouds that smothered the sky in gloom. Then the shield popped back up and refused to come down again. For some reason, the color had darkened from copper to bronze.

After that, the sky always looked the same. Even at midnight, you looked up and saw a faintly glowing bronze dome beneath low-hanging gray clouds. She didn't think Ancient shields were supposed to work this way, and according to Julian it hadn't in the past, but she couldn't figure out why because she didn't have the stupid Ancient gene to get complete system access so she could barely skim the surface of the program tree.

After her first week in Manudia, everyone knew who she was and that she was there to fix the God Machine. Meredith stuck out like a sore thumb with her blond hair and cheeks that went bright pink with cold or temper compared to everyone else's dark hair and golden skin that tinted the merest red when they blushed. Rude children kept sneaking up to touch her hair to see if it felt as stiff as gold or the yellow brick that made up most of the buildings, giggling instead of crying when she smacked their fingers away and scowled. It was irritating, especially since her hair, as one of her least impressive features, was getting most of the attention. No one stopped the kids either, not even her dour guards, who never left her alone except for when she was in the lab at the AEC or at the Aquila's house where she slept.

With the Stargate located outside of the malfunctioning shield, there was no way to rescue herself without fixing the machine first. She shouldn't have to depend only on herself, but there'd been no sign of any rescue from the SGC. It was disheartening. Meredith knew she wasn't well-liked but usually she didn't really care what most people thought. Maybe that had been a mistake. She tried not to think about it too often since she already had enough problems in Manudia to be depressed and panicked about without making herself vulnerable to self-esteem issues too. She knew she was amazing and Earth and the SGC would obviously want her genius self back. The explanation had to be that the military was just being slow-witted and incompetent.

O'Neill supposedly never left anyone behind. She had to trust in that or she'd turn into a hysterical mess and never get out of bed in the mornings. With the growing size of her belly and the swelling in her ankles, that task was already hard enough.

It felt like most of her waking hours were spent either in the Ancient console room at the AEC or getting poked at by Dr. Gallus. The baby wasn't really something Meredith could ignore anymore, but she was giving it her best shot anyway because she refused to give birth in this backwater. Any day now she'd either figure the problem out to drop the shield or be rescued. She had to believe that.

Delicately pushing a bundle of thin filaments out of her way to examine what was behind them, Meredith bent over—as much as her belly would allow— to see more clearly before grunting with dismay. "It's no good, Julian. None of these wires are independent enough. The layering is too close. Besides, I don't think we can even risk nudging aside those filaments on the right because the connections look like they're barely attached as is and the solder you use here isn't conductive enough to repair it with the same efficiency. Messing with this section is too risky."

Tugging at his dark hair, Julian frowned down at the exposed wiring. He put a hand on her shoulder and pointed to a small bundle of filaments in the bottom corner, leaning close. Julian was a very tactile person. She went back and forth on whether she liked it or hated it depending on the day. Today it was tolerable.

"What if we broke the connection on purpose and removed just that bit of wire?" he asked.

"To what effect?" A voice cut in, making the two of them jump.

Luckily Meredith had already pulled out her probe or she might've broken one of the delicate wires and made the debate moot. "Don't do that!" She snapped, turning around. Four men were staring down at them, none wearing the blue work robe Julian insisted upon in the lab.

Julian's lips went thin as he looked up at the man who'd spoken. "Councilor Santoro."

"Dr. Aquila," he replied cooly. Councilor Santoro, a fit man in his fifties, wore a more elaborate version of the guard's navy uniform, with white piping up the legs and gold embroidered on his elaborate tunic. His dark hair was slicked back and secured in a short tail. Heavy brows shadowed his dark eyes and combined with an iron-gray beard to give his face a severe expression.

Two bland-looking men that looked like brothers stood at his back in a similar uniform except without any decoration on the navy tunic and a thinner line of piping on the pants. Their expressions were a strange mix of curiosity, awe, and disapproval. Each had a clipboard in hand and were scribbling down notes as their eyes jumped around the room.

The final man looked different. He stood off to the side with his hands clasped behind his back, wide eyes locked on the God machine. Dressed in white, his knee-length tunic was embroidered in gold, scarlet, and silver. He had a face that required more than one look, with an oval face with a small mouth, heavy-lidded hazel eyes, and a large nose that demanded attention without making him ugly. Dark hair sat in a high bun on top of his head inside a dull gray cage with a shining gold door propped open over the crown of his head. It looked like one of those birdcages that suburban moms used to decorate side tables. No one else seemed to think it strange.

Unclenching his teeth, Julian moved his gaze from Councilor Santoro to birdcage man. Nostrils flaring, he forced his expression to calm as he touched his fingers to lips and forehead. "Holy one, you should have told me that you desired a visit when last we spoke."

Birdcage man dragged his eyes away from the golden projection above the Ancient console to look at Julian. When he spoke, his voice had a faintly lilting accent. " The temple and college have always chosen to respect each other's secrets, but the Council decided that in the current crisis certain traditions must be broken for the greater good. I am here at their request." He glanced back at the machine. "The mysteries of God are varied and vast." The holy man touched his lips and heart, gliding his hand out into the air with a flapping thumb and pinky like a bird taking flight. His golden skin looked very pale compared to what she was used to seeing on people, but Meredith had no way of knowing if that was normal for the man or not. He could be about to faint or he could be merely in need of some sun.

Meredith wondered if they worshiped birds in Manudia or if the birdcage on his head and the flapping fingers had some other special meaning. Ava was devoutly religious but Meredith always tuned her out when she started waxing enthusiastic about it. Since Manudia's religious superstitions didn't really matter when it came to Meredith's current troubles, she decided not to bother asking for what was sure to be a long-winded explanation. Besides, she didn't want Ava and Julian to make her go to church and then get angry when she asked too many questions. She didn't do well with organized religion—there weren't enough observable, repeatable results or accolades for disproving theories. Meredith also had no interest in worshipping a bird unless it was in the form of a chicken about to become one with her mouth and stomach. She really missed fried chicken.

Julian tipped his chin to the birdcage man and returned to Councilor Santoro. "Why didn't the Council discuss this with me first? And who let you in?"

"I let myself in, Dr. Aquila," Santoro answered snidely. "As the Council's Minister of Science, I should have full access to anywhere in this city, anywhere excepting the Temple of Enlightenment, of course." He touched his lips and brow, flicking his fingers towards the temple outside and then holy birdcage man. "You may be the senior surviving Aquila, but that doesn't mean you rule anything but your family and the administration of this college, and that only at the Council's sufferance. For too long we've let you keep this place private to yourselves and look where it has gotten us!"

"My family has served the people of Manudia long and loyally, our devotion sanctified by God through the gift of the blessed ones." Julian's hand tightened uncomfortably on Meredith's shoulder. She dropped her shoulder to escape but he didn't let go, just loosened his grip.

Sniffing, Santoro arched one brow and then swept a look around, pausing briefly on the two blessed recorders working in the front of the room. "Yet current attendance on the God machine seems quite sparse compared to what it once was and you yourself are not a blessed one able to commune with the machine, nor most of your surviving family members. Perhaps this is a sign that your decisions have been flawed and God has turned against you."

Julian's eyes turned to ice.

Santoro looked at Meredith's blond hair and pregnant body with obvious distaste. "That you've let in this useless outsider before any of the Council is practically blasphemous. She's yet to prove herself as anything more than one of your personal," he lingered on the word as his eyes turned to Julian's hand on Meredith's shoulder, "indulgences."

"Now wait just a minute!" Meredith pointed her finger. "I've been extremely useful! I'm working with less than advanced diagnostic tools here and despite that, I've figured out that the shield program is now slaved to a glitching program that is rapidly draining your ZPM's remaining charge, though with the Ancients that could mean failure within the week or a thousand years from now. You can't expect me to find the physical location of your ZPM in a month when you didn't even know about its existence, much less find it yourselves despite having over a hundred years of using this machine. I clearly told both Julian and your Council last month that having the location of the ZPM and/or the other God Machine running the glitching program, the one I hypothesize is interfering with the workings of your shield, would greatly expedite the repair process even in the absence of a gene carrier, one of your so-called blessed ones!"

"Be that as it may," Councilor Santoro's lips thinned, almost disappearing beneath his mustache as he turned back to Julian, "Manudia's currently dire situation could be a judgment from on high on the Aquila family's worthiness, a supposition that has weighed heavily on several councilor's minds, my own not excepted. Perhaps it is time for stewardship to pass to a different branch of the family. Leaving your work on the God machine unobserved has become too great of a risk."

Santoro turned cold eyes on Meredith. She wrestled with her self-control and won, biting her tongue to keep from responding. Santoro had the power to make her stay here a lot more unpleasant, trading out her comfy guest quarters in the Aquila family mansion for a cold prison cell with shackles and thumbscrews.

Julian abruptly stood. "I have nothing to hide from the Council or the Temple, my loyalty and faith are as firm as ever." Julian flicked his fingers and touched his lips and brow toward the temple and the holy man. "I'm pursuing every option available to help our people, which includes personal meetings with holy leaders like Solutus Cantus—" without taking his eyes from the machine, birdcage man bent his head in acknowledgment, making Councilor Santoro frown in surprise "—and recruiting the engineering genius of Dr. Mckay. If you know of a solution that I am missing, pray enlighten me." Eyes bright with challenge, Julian stared Councilor Santoro down.

Recruiting was putting a rather positive spin on the whole kidnapping thing, Meredith thought sourly, though at least he'd prominently mentioned the genius part. She crossed her arms, reminding herself that being woken up by an icy bucket of water thrown in her face by an ugly prison guard was still a lot worse than her current routine of waking up to the cheerful babbling and thumping of Lucas, Ava's rambunctious three-year-old. Things could always get worse.

"Hn." Councilor Santoro dropped his eyes from Julian's challenge and looked back at the open panel they'd been examining, abruptly demanding, "Explain to me this option of disconnecting part of the God machine to fix our problems."

Nostrils flaring, Julian inhaled and crouched down to point at the area. "Removing this bundle could disrupt the shield's ability to anchor to the ground in the area around the main gate, giving us a gap to move people and supplies in and out. It wouldn't solve everything, but it could help."

Frowning at Julian, Meredith sat back on her stool and rubbed the persistent ache in the small of her back. "But as I told Julian, could doesn't mean will. The chances of that working instead of making everything a whole lot worse are extremely low, especially since there's probably another machine out there sending commands to this one that we haven't been able to access."

Councilor Santoro leaned down to examine the wiring in question more closely. "Hn, I don't know that I believe in the existence of a second God Machine. Are you sure that isn't just an excuse to cover your own inadequacy? Or some hormone-driven delusion?" He cut a look at her belly and curled his lip.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Meredith's tirade was cut off by Julian's hurried response, "With all due respect, Councilor, Dr. Mckay has been right in everything else she's hypothesized so far in regards to the God machine, despite the short amount of time she's been studying it. Although as the leading expert I don't think the chances of disaster are quite as high as she's making them out to be—"

Meredith scoffed. "The shield could contract violently, knocking down buildings and trapping all of us in a smaller area with even fewer resources!"

Raising his voice, Julian spoke over her "—things aren't yet dire enough for me to be willing to risk proving her right. We are making progress, supplies are still plentiful, and the Albissians don't seem to have harmed any of our people trapped outside the shield as far as anyone has observed."

"For what such observations are worth," Councilor Santoro said sourly, "considering that the only thing we can see outside are blurry gray clouds and a sun that never seems to move, much less revolve between night and day over our exiled brethren."

Meredith had multiple hypotheses about the unchanging sky. The main two were either complications from invisibility or a time distortion. Both hypotheses would explain why the SGC hadn't rescued her yet (they had to be trying to rescue her). Since everyone who heard her hypothesizing got rather panicky and she hadn't figured out how to test anything yet, Julian had ordered her to stop mentioning her theories altogether if she didn't want to risk inciting a mob. She'd be more bitter about the suppression of knowledge if she wasn't too busy fighting a low-grade panic over her baby's impending birth and how things might change once Manudia's Council had another hostage to motivate her to work harder, as if she wasn't already working herself to the point of exhaustion trying to get out of this place.

"Even so," Julian told Santoro, "as the President of the AEC appointed by the Council and the person in charge of the remaining Aquila family members and the God machine, I will do as I see best. Dr. Mckay and I will continue to seek out the best solution to shutting down the shield and freeing our people. To that end, your presence breathing down our necks will only serve to distract and slow our efforts."

Brow arching, Councilor Santoro took two slow steps backward before planting his feet and crossing his arms. "Our breathing should be undetectable at this distance, Dr. Aquila. As professionals, I'm sure you and Dr. Mckay can bring yourselves to focus. Feel free to continue your work. We will merely… observe."


Going forward, Councilor Santoro and his two assistants made sure to come by every day to lurk around the edges of the room, look disappointed, and take notes. Birdcage man, Solutus Cantus, didn't make another appearance. Meredith mostly ignored them but Julian didn't seem to have the knack. The shadows beneath his eyes got darker and his smiles tenser every time they appeared.

For a kidnapper, Julian wasn't too bad. They made a pretty good team once they got used to working with each other and Julian accepted that Meredith was almost always right. Of course, he didn't have Meredith's genius or expert training, but he worked hard, praised her regularly, and surprised her several times with intelligent leaps of thought.

Meredith also found herself quite fond of his sister Ava and his nephew Lucas despite her best intentions to stay standoffish, though that might stem from the fact that they were the only people to treat her normally instead of like a prisoner or potential savior.

Her feelings for Julian were complicated, but whenever she was tempted to start liking him too much or even feel sorry for him, she remembered that all the bad things were his fault. He was to blame for trapping her on an alien planet with a baby about to be born, medical care at least fifty years behind the times, no distracting tv or video games, and increasingly rationed alien food with no fried chicken or hot chocolate. Of course, there was also the ruling council to fear, who might take off the kid gloves at any moment and try to motivate her with cruelty instead of kindness. Food and water could also run out, making the current food rationing even worse. When she let herself think too hard about her situation, she could barely restrain herself from reaching out and clawing off Julian's face (in her imaginings she let herself claw at Troy and Jack O'Neill too).

The grey glow overhead never changed, day or night, and she was expected to work every day including weekends, so the days blurred and got away from her. Otherwise, Meredith might've been prepared when Dr. Gallus gave her the bad news. "The baby's dropped and your cervix is dilating. She'll be coming soon."

"What?!" Meredith squawked, pressing her hands on her stomach and looking down. "No, make her stop!" Her belly button poked out between her fingers, almost like the baby was flipping her off. Meredith missed her cute innie belly button, secretly fearing it might never come back. "She can't come out, the shield's not down yet!" Hyperventilating, Meredith jumped to her feet and looked around in a panic, but there was no good escape.

Unfazed, Ava handed Meredith a paper bag from her purse. Meredith popped it open and pressed it over her mouth, the paper soft and wrinkled from all of the use it'd been getting lately. The crinkly sound was annoying, but breaking into it helped slow down her breathing.

Washing her hands at the sink, Dr. Gallus shrugged. "There's nothing I can do. Your daughter will come when she wills it, not you or me, but she seems healthy. Focus on that. Until then, we'll have you come in more often."

Back on the trolley, Ava dug into her purse for over a minute before handing Meredith a piece of candy. "Here, I've been saving this but I think you need it more than Lucas does."

Popping the sweet into her mouth, Meredith closed her eyes and concentrated on the pleasant taste instead of her panic, trying to slow down the hammer of her heart and tremble in her fingertips. "Have I mentioned lately that you're my favorite person here? Because you are. It might be Stockholm Syndrome but I don't even care. I even like Lucas half the time and usually I can't stand children."

Opening her eyes, Meredith saw Ava looking wistful. "I wish we could've become friends in different circumstances, but I find I quite like you too." She reached out and clasped Meredith's trembling fingers. "Now, do you want to go home with me and rest for a bit? I can send Lucas to go and play at his friend Martin's house for the afternoon. You could nap or I could read a few more chapters of my novel out loud? I know you say it's rubbish but I can tell you enjoy mocking the plot and your quoting of the characters leaves me in stitches."

Meredith took strength from the warmth of Ava's grip, breathing in and out through barely parted lips to send a sweet rush of air down her throat. "What I want to do and what I need to do are vastly different things right now. Take me back to the AEC. Maybe the bubbling panic will give me an epiphany with the shield. Stranger things have happened."

Giving the guards direction, Ava patted Meredith's hand. "I admire you a lot. I hope you know that. No matter what happens, I won't let you or your hard work be forgotten."

Back at the AEC, Meredith discovered that the worm program she'd input before leaving for her appointment had been deleted by the system and a new program in a directory she'd never even seen before was running in the background. When she tried to get access to it she was denied. After banging her head against it for thirty minutes, the program abruptly ended and the root directory disappeared as if it had never existed.

Aggravated, Meredith took a break to switch to examining schematics of the inner workings of the two consoles. She'd been working on updating them to pinpoint accuracy. The actual machinery generating the shield wasn't accessible when the shield was operational, so she was limited to the control panels in here. The smaller console was a projector that allowed manipulation of the image and program using bare hands or mental commands if you had the right Ancient gene, which no one but a toddler with bad impulse control possessed right now. The longer console had a keyboard and a physical screen to input and review programs, only a few of which she had access to as a blessed recorder. There were a number of redundancies in the system and many parts neither she nor Julian understood, so turning the shield off wasn't a simple matter of cutting a single wire or removing a crystal no matter what Julian hoped for.

Forced by her body to take a mandatory pee break in the bathroom down the hall, she heard a great racket building outside, barely muffled despite the many walls. It sounded like an angry mob. Finishing, she didn't take the long hallway back to stretch her legs like normal, instead taking the shortest path back to the safety of familiar machinery and layers of guards between her and any trouble.

As she walked quickly down the hallway, Councilor Santoro and his aides appeared from behind the curtain of the main lab. It looked like they were heading out. Noticing Meredith, Santoro screwed up his face like he'd found something disgusting on the tip of his shoe.

From what she could tell, he'd gotten the job of Minister of Science by doing a correspondence course. She'd certainly seen no evidence of intelligence or competence. Lifting her chin, Meredith curled her lip and glared as she passed him by.

Meeting her eyes, Santoro abruptly grabbed her arm, wrenched it behind her back, and slammed her face-first against the wall. Meredith cried out at the pain in her belly and cheek. The men guarding the metal door looked away from her, not doing anything to stop him. Santoro pulled back and slammed her a second time against the wall. Meredith sobbed for air, the pressure and pain making it hard to breathe.

He planted his forearm against her shoulders like an iron band, not letting her up despite her struggles. Her skin scraped against the rough wall. "You need to learn some respect, outsider. That fool Aquila is too soft on you. You aren't trying hard enough. As soon as that baby's out of your belly the council's going to give you to me and you'll either do your job or I'll hurt you." He ground her head against the wall with his large hand, scraping her ear against the brick and making her cry out again. His mouth moved up next to her cheek as he spoke. "Save. My. People. I throw away useless things, but only after I break them."

The pain and terror made her white-out for a moment, a moment where she found herself in a disorienting white space with other white lights. One of the lights pulsed with violence and shadow. She should be afraid, but something told her that the fury wasn't directed her way. Somehow she knew that the pain was going to get worse and she feared it. She reached out for the shadow, trying to hide behind his fury, only to find her light quenching his shadowy struggle instead and—

Sobbing, she opened swimming eyes, her body still held against the rough wall by Santoro. "I won't warn you again," he told her menacingly. Dropping his hands abruptly, he stepped back and watched her fall to the floor. Meredith curled up into a ball, terrified he might start kicking.

Santoro raised a hand into the air and she cowered back. One of his aides placed a handkerchief in his open palm. He cleaned his hands finger by finger as if touching her had somehow contaminated him before discarding the handkerchief at her feet. He adjusted his cuffs and moved off at an unhurried pace down the hall. Breath hitching, she watched warily from the floor until he and his aids turned a corner and disappeared.

Then Meredith put her head down and wept.


AN: I know things are tough for Meredith right now. Thank you so much for taking this journey with her and sending me supportive comments! Remember that I post pictures on Tumblr of the cast for almost every chapter.

Casting—

Dr. Rodney Meredith Mckay / Rome (Kate Winslet)

Dr. Julian Aquila (Marius Hordijk)

Ava Aquila (Rachel Weisz)

Councilor Santoro (Antonio Banderas)

Solutus Cantus / Birdcage man (Adrien Brody)

Sgt. James Kindall (Eric Bana)

Major Alex McLean (Vin Diesel)

Captain Robin King (Lucy Lawless)

Dr. Rigoberto Diaz (Antonio Sabato Jr.)

Lt. Roni Cohen (Gal Gadot)

Dr. Troy Forrester (Jude Law)

Col. Marsha Sumner (Wendy Davis)

Capt. Harrison Seward (Joaquin Phoenix)