"Elizabeth?" Sheppard stood near the door to the Gate Room, watching the shimmering light of the event horizon. He glanced at Rodney, who was busily tapping on his laptop keyboard.
"Go ahead, Colonel." She responded.
He checked his watch. "We're going to be here a while. You may as well shut down the Gate."
"Are you sure?" Her disembodied voice came back.
"Yeah. It's oh-nine hundred hours. How about we check in at eleven hundred? We should know something by then."
"Okay, John. We'll talk to you later." She paused. "Be careful."
The Gate shut down as Sheppard turned back and walked towards McKay. He half smiled at Teyla and Ronon, who had taken up residence on the floor near the console, leaning back against the wall. She was showing him how to use the recorder.
"Find anything interesting, Rodney?" Sheppard stopped in front of the screen and put his hands on his hips.
McKay fixed him with a long-suffering expression. "I might if you would stop interrupting."
"Okay." The Colonel said cheerily.
He started to examine the chamber. Teyla and Ronon watched as he slowly made his way around the walls. He wasn't really searching visually, though. The Colonel had pocketed his flashlight earlier. It was as if he was feeling for something, like he had done when he found the doors earlier. He would stop occasionally and touch the wall.
He disappeared into the Gate Room for a few minutes. When he returned, Sheppard approached McKay. Something on the screen caught his eye. He studied the readout. "Is that a manifest?"
"Hmm?" McKay straightened and looked at the Colonel. "I think so. It looks like one of the last shipments, but I can't see that actually left here."
"How many?" Sheppard leaned closer.
"Looks like…" McKay frowned at the readout for a minute. "Wow. Looks like twenty-thousand. But, like I said, I can't tell if they've been shipped out of here."
Sheppard whistled and smiled happily. The image on the screen changed. "Let's find out."
Ronon and Teyla joined them as they watched. Sheppard glanced at McKay. "It was the most recent entry?"
"I think so." McKay waved at the screen. "But, it's going to take some time to translate everything.
"Okay. Pack up your stuff." Sheppard wet his lips and walked to the center of the chamber. He stopped and turned around to look at the console. The screen went blank and the whole thing shut down. "I want to see if they're here."
"What? What do you mean?" McKay followed him.
"Look, that thing is nothing more than a database. We can't actually use it to do anything. All the work must be done from the chair, so I'm going to see if that last shipment is still here."
McKay stared at him. "Is that wise? We don't know…"
"Are you sure you want to do this, Colonel?" Teyla asked.
Sheppard looked at Teyla. "Yes. That's why I want you all to go back to Atlantis."
"That is not what I meant." Teyla approached him. "I wish to stay."
Ronon also came forward. "I'll stay, too."
McKay sighed and hung his head for a second. "I guess I'd better stay as well. You may need me."
"No, I want you all out of here." He went back to the console and started to disconnect the computer.
McKay pushed the Colonel aside and began to pack up his gear. "Fine, I'll pack up, but I'm not going back."
"Nor I." Teyla approached. Ronon shrugged and folded his arms over his chest in silent defiance.
"Look, I don't know if this is going to work. I could blow up the place." Sheppard saw their determination. He thought for a moment then pointed to the abbreviated corridor. "Okay, I want you in there. If something happens, get back to the Gate Room and Atlantis. These doors will close pretty fast."
"Fine." McKay closed the case and stood up. He pulled the case through the corridor and stopped. "We should dial Atlantis. In case something happens, we won't have time to stop and do it."
"Good idea, Rodney. Dial it." Sheppard stood in the doorway.
The wormhole opened and McKay tapped in his IDC.
"Dr. McKay, this is Atlantis." Zelenka sounded concerned. "Is everything alright?"
"Yes, it is, Doctor." Sheppard replied.
McKay looked askance at him. "At least for the moment."
"What do you mean?" This time, it was Elizabeth's voice.
Sheppard rolled his eyes. "We're fine, Elizabeth. We've come into a dead end, so to speak, on the computer here. It seems to be purely a database. So, I'm going to…"
"He's going to use the chair to see if he can find a shipment of drones." McKay interrupted.
"John, is that safe?"
Now Sheppard glared at McKay. "It'll be fine. I just want to see if the drones are here. There might be thousands of them, Elizabeth. We could sure use them if they are."
"Okay, if you're sure." She sounded hesitant, even through the comms.
"We're going to leave the Gate open." McKay pulled his computer case to the Gate. "I'm sending my laptop through, Radek. It has everything I've downloaded so far."
"I'll take care of it, Rodney." Zelenka replied. "Perhaps you should bring it yourself."
"No, everything will be fine." He didn't see Sheppard approach as he pushed the case through.
"Sorry, Rodney." Sheppard shoved the physicist hard and he disappeared through the event horizon with a yelp.
"Col. Sheppard!" McKay's voice in their transceivers a handful of seconds later made Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon wince. "How could you?"
"Take it easy, McKay." Sheppard turned to Teyla and Ronon. "You two decide. One can stay, the other goes back."
When they realized he was not going to move until one of them walked through the Gate, Teyla and Ronon looked at each other. Ronon folded his arms over his chest again and just smiled at his diminutive friend. She bowed her head a fraction in defeat, handed him the recorder and walked through the Gate without a word.
Sheppard turned to the DHD. "Atlantis?"
"Yes, John?" Elizabeth responded.
"I'm shutting down the Gate."
"Why?" McKay demanded.
"If anything goes wrong, and I'm not saying it will, I don't want an outbound wormhole to Atlantis open."
"We can raise the shield."
"I don't want to risk it." Sheppard's tone did not welcome argument.
"No, Rodney." Elizabeth shushed McKay. "Okay, John, but dial in as soon as you know something."
"This'll only take a couple of minutes." Sheppard pressed the activation control on the DHD and the wormhole closed. He headed for the other room.
Ronon followed Sheppard to the corridor, but did not cross the threshold to the chair room. He turned the camera on and carefully followed the Colonel's movements with it.
Sheppard quickly positioned the MALP's camera to film the open area between the chair and the console. Then he crossed to the chair, which activated as he sat down. His eyes focused somewhere not in that room and his fingers gently pressed the gel pads under them. When nothing happened for more than a minute, Ronon took a step forward.
"Stay there." Sheppard said quietly.
"Is something wrong?" Ronon glanced from the recorder screen to Sheppard and back.
"No." The Colonel took a deep breath. "I'm just…Ah…Cool."
The ceiling above the middle of the room opened just long enough for a large container filled with drones to descend from it then closed again. The whole process took less than a second. Sheppard was immediately on his feet, going to it. He grinned at Ronon and waved him over. They walked around the container, which was full of tightly packed projectiles. It appeared as if the transparent case held about a hundred of them, arranged like sardines in a can.
"How do we get it to the Gate?" Ronon asked.
Sheppard reached out to touch it. As soon as his fingers made contact, the pallet moved. They both bent over to look at the base.
"It has wheels or rollers of some kind." Sheppard straightened and gently pushed the container toward the doorway to the Gate room. Ronon quickly moved to help guide it.
A crowd began to gather around the Gate Room floor. Five containers of drones had just come through, followed closely by Ronon and Sheppard. The Atlantis grapevine was efficient and very fast. Scientists and Marines alike circled the containers like vultures, wanting to get their hands on the peculiar weapons. Ronon stood next one of the containers, talking to McKay, who was tip-toeing to look inside.
"Well, you were right, it didn't take long." Elizabeth stood next to Sheppard and Teyla, who had stopped half way up the stairs leading up to Gate Ops. "I take it you didn't have any trouble."
They watched Lt. Jenkins and Gunnery Sgt. Blake, the ordnance specialists, supervise the movement of the containers through a corridor on the other side of the floor. The Marines made short work of pushing back the knots of onlookers and rolling the drones away. McKay and Ronon followed them.
"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Sheppard asked them.
Both women looked at him and spoke as one. "Bad news?"
Elizabeth continued. "Bad news first."
"It's only a storage facility. The drones weren't made there." He paused for a moment. "I suppose it is safer that way. That would be a lot of firepower to have sitting around a manufacturing plant, even with all of the security."
"And, the good news?" Elizabeth continued to watch the removal of the containers.
"Rodney told you how many?" He saw her nod. "He was right. Twenty-thousand. We'll be able to send enough back to Earth to supply the outpost in Antarctica."
She smiled. "I bet they'll be happy. When do you want to go back for them?"
"I need to check out a couple of them first." He started down the stairs
"Check them out?" Teyla was puzzled.
"With the chair. I want to launch a couple to make sure they're armed." He turned and looked at them. "You can watch from the balcony if you want to."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow in mild alarm. "Really?"
"Don't worry, it'll be perfectly safe." Sheppard walked across the floor, following the path taken by the drones.
The digital recording played to a silent audience in conference room. Elizabeth, McKay, Zelenka, Beckett, Teyla and Ronon watched the footage from the moment Teyla returned to Atlantis until Ronon leaned over the receptacle to record its contents. When it finished, they all stared at Sheppard.
He glanced around at the others. "What?"
"What were you doing?" Elizabeth asked him.
"Doing?" He seemed lost for a moment. "Oh, I was looking for the drones."
McKay sat forward. "Looking for them? What do you mean?"
"I was looking for them. You can't just whistle." He saw their confusion. "You know. It's kind of interactive."
"Interactive?" Elizabeth leaned forward.
"Yeah, kind of like…" Sheppard paused, searching for the right words. "You get a kind of feedback from the chair, and some of the other Ancient technology."
Beckett was dubious. "Feedback?"
"Well, not really feedback. I can't think of a better…" Sheppard looked from Beckett to McKay. "You haven't felt it?"
They shook their heads silently.
"Not ever?" Sheppard exhaled heavily. "Oh, great."
"I've never felt any such thing, Colonel. Rodney?" Beckett looked at McKay, who shook his head. "No-one with the ATA gene has reported anything like this, and the people who have received gene therapy have been monitored closely. You've never mentioned it before. Is it a recent phenomenon?"
"No, but it doesn't always happen. It depends on what I'm doing. I usually need to be in contact with the sensor. It's mostly with the chair and the hologram room." He was looking down, his face clouded in thought. "When we didn't have the ZPM, I couldn't use them at all. We really haven't used the hologram room much anyway."
McKay observed. "And, without drones, we don't use the chair."
Ronon and Teyla sat quietly, watching the exchange. McKay had inched away a little and continued to stare at Sheppard. His expression was one of incredulity.
"What does it feel like?" Elizabeth watched Sheppard closely.
Zelenka leaned forward. "Do you see anything?"
"No, I don't see anything." He paused, thinking, then raised his hands slightly. "There's no feeling, per se. Look, I can't describe it. It just puts the information in my head."
Late that night, Elizabeth stepped out onto the tiny deck near the water. She smiled uncertainly when she saw him.
"Hey, I was hoping I'd find you here. Do you mind some company?"
Sheppard moved to an empty chair next to him and pointed to the one he just vacated. "No, have a seat."
"Thank you. Were you expecting me?"
He just nodded sideways and shrugged.
"Well, it's been quite a day." She sat down and looked out at the ocean and stars.
"Mmm."
"You must be tired." She tried to engage him.
"No, not really." He looked straight ahead at the water, but he wasn't watching the setting mass of stars tonight.
Elizabeth sat quietly for a few minutes, but it was not quite the comfortable silence they normally shared. There were questions she wanted to ask. She just wasn't sure how. It was rare for her to be at a loss for words.
Today changed a more than a few things. John had found and brought enough firepower back to defend Atlantis against a large-scale Wraith attack. Today, she saw flashes of real fear in some eyes when they looked at this man. She knew about the whispers that he was some kind of freak.
John had arrived at the outpost in Antarctica a total stranger to the Stargate and used the Ancient technology with startling ease and dexterity. He had charmed an ascended Ancient enough to bring her to Atlantis and reveal her true nature. Wild rumors had circulated for weeks after he came back from the Cloister. And, now, he "heard" the Ancient technology talking.
"Elizabeth?" She jumped even though he spoke quietly. "You wanted to ask me something?"
"Why didn't you say anything about the feedback effect before?"
"I didn't think anything of it. At first, I didn't know what it was then I just assumed everyone using the technology felt it to some degree or another." He seemed to be at a loss as well. "Besides, I can't describe it, Elizabeth. It's not an picture or words or anything. It's kind of freaky."
Elizabeth froze momentarily at his choice of words. "This happened in Antarctica, too?"
He looked up at the sky. "Yeah. It was really weird at first. I just thought it was supposed to be part of it."
"Does it help?" She gently prompted.
"Oh, sure it does." He glanced sideways at her. "Don't ask how. It just puts things in my head. I knew the drones were there and how to get them. That's it."
"But, not always?" She tried to see his expression in the darkness.
"No. Like I said yesterday, I need to have some idea of what I'm after. Look, Elizabeth, I'm sorry I didn't mention it before. To be honest, though, I don't think it would have changed anything."
"I know." Elizabeth spoke quietly. She thought for a moment then asked one more question. "John, is there anything else I should know?"
"No." He answered quickly. Then he looked back out at the ocean and said nothing for a long time. When he spoke again, she could hear uncertainty. "I don't know."
The End