When Emmett entered the control room to conduct his next interview, he was surprised to see Major Carter there, typing something complicated-looking into a computer. She glanced at him and typed a bit more before saying to the others, "OK, we're set. Looks good everyone."
Emmett checked his watch. "Am I interrupting something?"
She shook her head. "Routine checks. I was just leaving."
Emmett took a chance. "Before you do—Major, I'm sorry. I was out of line before."
When he saw the rest of the room looking curious, he regretted his hasty words, but the major actually smiled.
"Well, I might have overreacted a little. We'll talk later." Although he knew he probably wasn't wholly forgiven yet, Emmett was relieved. He'd made the first step, and it looked like his apology would be accepted. He hadn't completely screwed up the documentary yet.
As he talked to one of the long-time stargate technicians, a Sergeant Walter Harriman, Emmett remained constantly aware of the object in the room in front of them. The Stargate teased his peripheral vision and he tried not to stare, mostly unsuccessfully.
A simple circle shouldn't be so impressive, he thought. Yet somehow he found the blue-gray material compelling, and he didn't think it was just because he knew what the Stargate did. He could imagine Catherine Langford, the driving force behind the start of the Stargate Project, coming to look at it well before anyone had any idea what it did. He forced his attention back to the interview.
"The iris is a metal plate of titanium strengthened with trinium. Now, it sits just in front of where the event horizon is formed—less than three micrometers, in fact—and that prevents material from reintegrating."
"Whoa- it what?" Emmett asked. "I don't see any metal plate, Sergeant."
"Oh, it's open right now, and uh, call me Walter. Nobody calls me Sergeant. See that slightly different shade at the inside edge of the Gate? That's not part of the Gate, that's where the iris is attached." When he pointed, Emmett was able to see what he meant.
"Oh, OK. Uh, trinium?" The futuristic name made Emmett think of Star Trek or maybe Superman.
"Oh, it's an element that we found offworld. It's brittle in its raw state, but we can refine it into a material 100 times lighter and stronger than steel."
"Wow, that would be really useful in industry," Emmett said.
"You know, that's what a lot of us thought at first. But actually, no. Because it's so scarce and using the Stargate to get it is so expensive, it's far more expensive than steel. We only use it in situations where steel simply isn't strong enough, and steel is generally enough for the public market."
"Oh. Right. Thanks. Please, go on."
Seeing that Emmett was still somewhat confused, Walter explained, "Matter can only travel one way through an open wormhole, but some forms of energy can travel both ways. Whenever we receive an incoming wormhole, we close the iris. SG teams returning to Earth send a coded signal before entering the Stargate. When we receive the signal we open the iris to allow them through. Anyone not providing an iris code won't reintegrate, they'll splat."
"Splat?" Emmett asked, feeling a little faint.
Walter looked embarrassed. "It's a…term… Colonel O'Neill likes to use."
"OK… So, describe for me your actual job."
"Essentially what I and other Gate technicians do is operate the dialing computer and iris control. We set the Gate to dial out and track its progress verbally, ah, saying 'chevron one encoded, chevron two encoded,' and so on," he explained.
"The iris works like this. The control is right here." He gestured to a flat panel with the outline of a hand on it. "I just put my hand on it and close the iris—" as he did, there was a hissing noise Emmett could hear even through the heavy glass, and dull gray metal rapidly appeared over the Stargate. Walter smiled at the open-mouthed reaction and finished—"and open the iris," as he lifted his hand and the iris twisted away again.
"Fantastic," Emmett breathed. "Could you do that a couple times? I want shots of the control and of the iris itself." He nodded to James and the cameraman seemed thrilled to be given authority of the shot.
"So that's… all you do?" he finally asked Walter.
Walter shrugged. "We run computer diagnostics, troubleshoot. Since I have access to the P.A. system, if we need someone in the Gateroom or need to announce something to the base, I'm often the one to do it. I know it probably seems boring to you, but around here, boring is good. We never know if an unscheduled activation means something simple like an ally checking in, or something worse like incoming injuries, or even an attempted invasion."
As Emmett was about to ask for some examples, suddenly there was a loud sound as a chevron on the Stargate moved and locked in place with a resounding clang.
"Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave," Walter said. Emmett reluctantly nodded to his crew and they turned off their equipment.
"I'll be right out," Rondell told them. Emmett had thought the man was stoic before, but he could almost see the ready-for-anything look hardening on the taciturn face.
As they hurried out of the room, Emmett could both hear Walter's actual voice and the same words echoing in the corridor: "Unscheduled offworld activation… unscheduled offworld activation…."
The door closed behind them and Emmett hesitated, not sure what to do. It was something of a relief to see the door open and Rondell exit a moment later, expression marginally less tense. "It's SG-7," he said. "They're a little early, nothing serious, but we have precautions for—"
Whatever Rondell was about to say was lost, swallowed by an enormous sound. Emmett didn't have time to figure out what it was, but for a fraction of a second he could see Rondell walking towards him, the door half-open. Then suddenly the other man was gone, and Emmett didn't know how or why, but the wall was rushing towards him. He ran away from it down the corridor, vaguely aware of James and Wickenhouse doing the same thing. The floor trembled and the lights abruptly went out, plunging them into inky darkness.
NB: Up until now I've mostly been adjusting little details or exapanding on what was in the episode. But that's because my issues with much of Heroes: Part 1 were nitpicky. I had a lot more issues with Part 2. We're about to spin way into AU territory, folks-just a heads up. : )