Chapter 5

Weir looked around the unusually full conference room and forced a confident smile. The events of the past day had shaken her people more than most cared to show, but she knew them well enough to read the signs. They had all become too complacent, too comfortable with thinking of this alien city as a safe refuge; thinking of it as home. And now, it seemed, they were paying for their arrogance.

Her core group of advisors and experts had been joined by some of the specialists in the military contingent as well as representatives of the many scientific disciplines. All looked tired. Since the alarm had been triggered some twelve hours before, they had had little opportunity for sleep, but at last all her people, including those who had been offworld, were accounted for. Some sported bandages, and there were few there whose clothes were not darkened by dirt and soot. Captain Roberts hobbled in last under Beckett's disapproving gaze. Sheppard's renowned aversion to spending anything more than the absolute minimum of time in the infirmary seemed to be catching, mused the Scot. The plaster cast on Roberts' broken leg had barely set when the engineer insisted on attending Weir's briefing, but given that a broken leg and a mild concussion were the worst the British engineer had suffered, no one would dispute that under the circumstances he had got off lightly.

"Now that we're all here," she began, nodding greeting at the late arrivals, "I need to be sure that everyone knows where we all stand. Most of you know what happened, but to sum up: at 2043 hours yesterday the City's internal sensor net detected an energy signature that it identified as a threat and activated an automatic response. At that point any non-Atlantean technology that was interfaced with the City's mainframe was attacked and the connection severed. All external access points, including all access to the Puddle Jumper bay, were shut down and the defensive shield across the Stargate was activated. The automated announcement described this as a 'level two security' condition."

"However, since Doctor McKay and Captain Roberts were forced to destroy the power conduits leading to the Gate Shield as the only way to bring it down and allow the teams we had offworld to return safely, the security condition has now advanced to 'level four'."

"Do we have any information yet on what this level four security condition means in practical terms?" Sergeant Bates asked.

Weir sighed. "Under ordinary circumstances we could check the City's computer database, but obviously at the moment we're locked out so we can't be entirely sure. In addition to our current inability to access the Atlantis mainframe, it seems that a number of bulkheads have come down in some parts of the city and the internal transport system isn't working, but beyond that… Doctors Grodin and Baines have been trying to get into the main control system, but so far without success."

"We're not going to get far looking at symptoms," McKay announced peremptorily. "I happen to think the solution's much more straightforward than pulling computers apart and trying to rebuild them. If I'm right, the Ancient gene itself might be the key to bypassing the lockdown."

Grodin shook his head. "I'm not sure how you figure that, Rodney. Andrew here," he pointed at Baines, "he's had Beckett's gene therapy and it doesn't seem to have made any difference with trying to get the computer to respond."

"Yes, but that's the gene therapy. It may be possible that at higher degrees of sensitivity the scanners in Ancient technology may be able to distinguish between the ATA gene therapy and the original. Hasn't anyone else thought it odd that the infirmary is one of the few places where things are mostly still functioning?"

The shrugs and blank looks gave him his answer. McKay rolled his eyes in despair at the Scotsman's apparent lack of interest in scientific observation. Beckett looked from him to Weir in time to see the accusation in her gaze and he shrugged self-consciously. "We've been a wee bit busy these past few hours," he hedged. "To be honest, I've just been glad things were working."

The impatience ebbed from Weir's eyes as quickly as it had arisen as she saw the exhaustion in her Chief Medical Officer's face. With the injuries his staff had been handling since the crisis began, she knew he and his staff were managing on even less rest than she. Weir looked back at the physicist, following his line of reasoning through its logical conclusion. "Okay, Rodney, I'm assuming by this point you've talked Major Sheppard through what he needs to do to return computer access to us."

"Yes, well… uh… not exactly. I took the liberty of mentioning this to the Major a bit earlier and he's already tried to cancel the alert but it didn't quite seem to work out that way."

"Rodney…" Weir tried to hide her exasperation. She had learned early on in their acquaintance that when McKay had an idea, the niceties of team work – such as keeping the team leader informed of his intentions – had an irritating tendency to get omitted.

"Hey! The computer responded to him, allowed him access... of sorts," blurted McKay defensively. Success, he had long ago discovered, was a good way of smoothing over any perceived lapses in protocol. The only thing was, this time he had to admit that his plan had not been entirely successful. "There's just one problem, it just wouldn't let him actually alter anything. Consider it as our having discovered a 'read only' setting."

"If nothing else, at least that means we can figure out what the various security levels mean," Bates mused aloud.

Weir nodded her agreement. "Good idea. See if you can get Doctor Meidani to..."

"Already underway," Sheppard nodded.

McKay looked at him,insulted. "What? My translations aren't good enough?"

"I wouldn't exactly say that, but at least she usually translates into something resembling English…" the Major retorted.

"So, what are you saying my translations are… exactly?" McKay glowered.

"Gentlemen…" warned Weir, cutting off the argument even as she saw Sheppard about to reply, and reflecting that with those two she sometimes felt disturbingly like a Principal adjudicating a schoolyard argument.

The two looked at her, saw the tension and the weariness in her face, and mutely accepted the rebuke. "Okay," Sheppard said getting back down to business, "As I said,Doctor Meidani's already beengoing through what we've found on the database and this is what we've got so far. The computer's got a whole series of programmed responses in the way it reacts to certain events."

"Ah! Like what happened with the virus outbreak a couple of weeks back," Zelenka exclaimed.

"Exactly," Sheppard said quickly, forestalling McKay's interruption. "It's set up to react with different responses to different perceived threats."

"And in its infinite wisdom it seems it's decided to categorise Doctor Zelenka's most recent bit of duty free as an hostile incursion," McKay continued, taking over the explanation without a pause.

"Hang on!" said Roberts. "Since the ZPMs are all but depleted, the computer's drawing power from our own Naquada generators, so why can't we just disconnect them and shut down the computer's power supply? Wouldn't that stop whatever anti-intruder programme it's got running?"

"A typically inelegant engineer's solution," sniffed McKay desultorily, "and, as it happens, with just a couple of problems. First, bulkheads have closed blocking off all access to the sites where the Naquada generators are located which would make getting to all of them to shut them down a very time consuming procedure. And second, unless you're suggesting we're all going to permanently move to the mainland and take up a new and exciting career in agriculture and land management, we'll need to reconnect the generators at some point to provide power to the City."

"And considering it's supposed to be a security measure, I suppose it's unlikely that cutting the power is likely to convince it whatever threat it was reacting to has gone," Roberts admitted to himself.

"So as it's responding to Zelenka's generator as a threat, we need to get it out of the city," concluded Weir. "If the Puddle Jumpers are still working and we can cut a way through to them, we can try using their onboard dial up to activate the gate, then mount the generator on a cart and send it back to where it came from." She looked at the faces of her team, her gaze slipping from McKay to Sheppard, Zelenka, Meidani and back to McKay. The grim set to their faces told her more eloquently than any words that it was not going to be that simple.

"We do need to get rid of the generator somehow, but at the moment that's only removing the cause, not the problem," the Canadian said wearily. "Perhaps if we were still at 'level two', getting rid of the generator would have been good enough, but given how far it's progressed now, the whole system needs to be reset and according to the stuff that Doctor Meidani's been translating, it's beginning to look like that can only be done using the Control Chair. And of course the problem is that without a ZPM, we don't have a power supply substantial enough to initialise it, let alone bring it fully on line. But that's not the worst of it. According to the database, now we've managed to hit level four on this incursion-o-meter the City's idiot computer is running off, we're really in trouble. If the system isn't reset or updated during a certain time, it proceeds automatically to the highest security condition: level five. The whole thing is designed as a failsafe: a final response to invasion."

"What does that mean exactly? That level five's a self destruct? Surely without a ZPM it won't have enough power to destroy the city!" Weir argued.

"And the Naquada generators we brought with us have their own built in cut outs to prevent their overloading. I know that the automatic safety cut out can be deactivated, but it can only be done manually," added Ford. "It can't be done by remote."

McKay looked around at them pityingly at their apparent lack of comprehension. "It won't take ZPMs or Naquada generators. Atlantis is floating in the middle of the ocean. All it has to do to get rid of us is to re-submerge the city and let the sea do the job for it."

"And according to the computer, the clock has already started," Sheppard finished quietly. "In a little under twenty hours, Atlantis returns to the deep."

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