Chapter 2
Finch Freaks Out

Reese searched for any—any—indication that what he was seeing out the window in front of him was fake and found none. Incredible as it was, he was in space. On a spaceship. Looking down on his home planet. He could just barely make out Manhattan and Long Island off the coast of North America as the cloud cover shifted. Overcome, he put a hand on Finch's shoulder—and was immediately jolted out of his reverie.

Finch was shaking.

"You okay there, Mr. Finch?" Sheppard asked before Reese could.

"I-I-I... I'm sorry, Col. Sheppard," Finch replied. "I just... I'm not... accustomed t-t-to being... to being..." The words in outer space didn't seem to want to come out.

"We gotta get him back down there," Reese insisted. Finch wasn't outright acrophobic, but he had admitted to not liking heights much, and compared to piloting a small private plane and being in control of the situation, being on a spaceship wasn't just a whole other ballgame, it was a completely different sport.*

Sheppard considered quickly. "All right, phones on the bench. We can't risk a GPS hack."

Finch quickly dug out his new cell phone with his free hand and handed it to Reese, who set it on the nearby bench before putting his own next to it. Neither phone had incriminating evidence on it, since they'd been used only to call each other and only in the last twelve hours or so, so giving them up was less a hardship than a minor expense. Producing his phone also gave Reese the chance to check his weapons surreptitiously and discover that he'd been disarmed while he was out. Annoying as that was, Reese couldn't blame Sheppard—he'd have done the same if their roles were reversed.

As Reese came back to Finch's side, Sheppard tapped his own earwig. "Marks, this is Sheppard," he said. "Three to beam down." He paused. "No, SGC."

A second later, there was a chime and a bright white flash, and when the flash and the retinal afterimage faded, they were standing in a different corridor with concrete walls painted bunker grey.

"Wait a minute," Reese murmured as he looked around and something clicked. "This is Cheyenne Mountain." Granted, they weren't in an area that looked any different from any other underground base he'd ever seen, but Sheppard and McKay had both been linked with Cheyenne Mountain, so it only made sense. (How the hell they'd get back to New York from Colorado Springs was a question he decided to worry about later.)

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Been here before, Reese?"

"No, but I've seen pictures."

"Not of this part." Sheppard ushered them forward, toward a pair of doors on either side of the corridor.

Reese put a steadying hand between Finch's shoulder blades as they walked, a silent promise to have his back in however literal a sense the situation required.

As they approached the doors, the one to the right opened, and a blonde woman, about Finch's height, with bright, intelligent blue eyes and one star on the collar of her Air Force uniform came out. "Col. Sheppard," she called. "I hear you're having a little trouble with your guests."

"Nah, Mr. Finch here just had a little panic attack," Sheppard drawled. "Thought he'd do better down here. This is Mr. Finch, Mr. Reese. Gen. Samantha Carter, Stargate Command."

"Ma'am," Reese acknowledged out of habit.

Gen. Carter shook hands with both Reese and Finch. "Need me to sit in on this?" she asked Sheppard then.

Sheppard shrugged. "Can if you want to, but it's probably gonna be a while before we get around to anything actionable."

"All right. Give me a call. Gentlemen," she added and strode past them down the hall.

"Competent lady," Finch observed mildly as she turned the corner.

"Best CO I've ever had," Sheppard replied and pointed to the door on the opposite side of the hall, which opened into a conference room. "In here."

"But I can't help noticing that you don't speak to her as your superior," Finch added as they filed into the conference room. This room also had a large window, but its blinds were closed.

"Bad habit I formed a while back. Expedition leader was a civilian; kinda got used to talkin' to her as an equal. Guess that carried over with Carter. Discipline's a lot more relaxed out where we are. Sit down, please," Sheppard added, gesturing to the chairs around the conference table and picking up a remote control. "Need a refill?"

"No, thank you," Finch answered and sat down stiffly.

At Sheppard's questioning glance, Reese shook his head and sat down next to Finch.

Sheppard conceded the refusals with a tilt of his head and turned on a monitor that hung on the wall at the far end of the table. "Before we talk about what's happening in New York, I've got a series of orientation videos that should answer a lot of your questions. Because time is against us, I can't fill you in on all the details of the last sixteen years, but most of it doesn't directly relate to the problem at hand anyway. This part should take about an hour; if you need to get up, move around, let me know."

Finch eyed Sheppard skeptically but nodded. Sheppard punched some buttons on his remote, and the first video started, showing a room that looked like the inside of a missile silo, a large stone ring with intricate decorations, and a brown-haired, bespectacled man in green BDUs standing on a ramp in front of the ring.

"Hello, I am Dr. Daniel Jackson," said the man, "and behind me is the Stargate..."

What followed was five minutes of what Reese would have called science fiction if he hadn't just gone from High Earth Orbit to Colorado Springs in a literal flash. A long-dead humanoid race called Ancients who'd built a network of gates that connected via wormholes through space-time... exotic metals not found on Earth, especially naquadah, the substance used to make the gates... instant travel between planets, near-instant travel between galaxies... alien parasites called Goa'uld who'd stolen the identities of most of Earth's major pantheons and set themselves up as lords of the Milky Way... incredible technologies, incredible dangers. Reese's head was spinning by the end of the first video. He could only imagine what Finch was thinking.

As the video ended, Finch said in a very pained voice, "Excuse me, Col. Sheppard. I do need to move around a bit."

Sheppard nodded. "Sure, no problem. Had a few friends with similar injuries, so I get it."

Finch had just pushed himself to his feet when Sheppard's statement registered. "How do you know—"

"Besides recognizing the way you move? You recall that when you first arrived on the Daedalus, there was someone in the room who waved a wand over you, a wand connected to a tablet."

"Yes..."

"That was a medical scanner, adapted from tech we discovered offworld. Showed us the effects of the spinal fusion surgery."

"What? Why did you perform a medical scan without my consent?!"

Sheppard shrugged. "Had to make sure you were human and weren't infected with anything you shouldn't be. We've had a lot of nasty surprises, even on Earth, cases where people didn't even know they'd been injected with nanites or parasites or been cloned. Call it paranoia if you like, but I'm sure you can appreciate the danger of bringing someone into a facility like this only to find out he was unwittingly being used by our enemies. And for the record, we scanned Reese, too, for the same reason. You're both clean."

Finch opened his mouth to protest, but given that he himself lived by the motto Only the paranoid survive, he settled for a huff and paced jerkily around the other end of the room for a moment. Then he turned back to Sheppard. "I would like some assurance that you are in fact telling us the truth about this program."

"See for yourself," Sheppard returned and opened the blinds on the big window.

Beyond it stood the space they'd just seen in the video, complete with the so-called Stargate. As Finch, with Reese behind him, limped toward the window to get a closer look, there was a whirring noise, and then a klaxon sounded as the inner ring of the Stargate began to turn.

"Offworld activation!" a male voice announced through the PA system.

As had been shown in the video, the inner ring stopped as one of its thirty-nine symbols slid into an opening on the outer ring, whereupon the outer chevron-shaped decoration slid into the opening, lit up orange, and slid out again, releasing the inner ring. The same happened at six of the other eight chevrons, which triggered a massive horizontal plume of turbulence that shot out and then settled back into what looked like the rippling surface of a glowing pool of water, except for the fact that it was vertical. Seconds later, a group of armed people in BDUs and tac vests emerged from the pool and made their way down the ramp. They all looked relaxed, with their weapons slung for easy carry rather than in hand; two of them were carrying a cooler between them, and they seemed to be chatting amiably.

"That's SG-17," Sheppard explained and checked his watch. "Right on time. They've been on a trade mission to a planet with a primarily agrarian economy, offering medications in return for crop samples. What they've got in that container could potentially help poor agrarian societies on other planets—including our own."

"If it was a peaceful mission," Finch asked, "why are they armed?"

The last members of the group suddenly sprinted through the pool, shouting something Reese couldn't make out, followed by a burst of orange light that shot through about ten feet over their heads and punched into the concrete wall. He heard orders being shouted, and the lights on the Stargate suddenly went out, causing the pool to vanish.

"That kind of thing tends to happen," said Sheppard in answer to Finch.

The klaxon went off a moment or two later as the Stargate began to move again. "Unscheduled offworld activation!" was the announcement this time. "Security to the Gateroom!"

Reese watched as the first three chevrons lit up. "Those look like the same symbols as last time," he finally observed.

"Probably Lucian Alliance," said Sheppard. "The Goa'uld are all but gone, so the Lucian Alliance stole as many of their ships as they could get their hands on and stepped into the power vacuum. They're like a paramilitary street gang, except their territory isn't limited to one planet. Even had agents on Earth for a while. My guess is they're tryin' to claim P5M-644, got there too late to stop the deal but dropped a team to get our 'Gate address out of the locals."

The Stargate connected with another kawhoosh, but this time, a split second after the pool settled, the protective iris described in the video spun shut to entirely block the pool. There were distant zapping noises and a few orange arcs that danced over the metal—and then the whole room shook as something rammed into the iris from the other side.

"Huh," said Sheppard calmly. "Wouldn'ta thought they'd try to wedge a tel'tak through the 'Gate, or even a death glider. Things are too big to fit through. Somebody musta been real desperate to take us out."

"Must have been?" Finch echoed.

"You don't survive a crash with that sort of impact, Finch," Reese noted.

"Not only that," Sheppard added, "but you get stuck in the 'Gate, you get cut in half when it shuts down. Found that out the hard way on one of my first missions. Luckily, the 'Gate will stay active for thirty-eight minutes max, and that was just enough time for McKay to get us unstuck." He rubbed absently at a scar on his neck, and his eyes narrowed. "Wonder if these guys were supposed to create a foothold situation, tie up men and materiel and distract us from what's happening in New York. If so, they got lousy intel."

"Or a smaller ship?" Reese suggested.

Sheppard made a skeptical face. "Guess it's possible, but somebody still shoulda told 'em about the iris—if that was their mission and if they're in bed with the guys we're after in New York, who woulda found out about the iris fifteen years ago." He paused, then turned to Reese and Finch. "Speakin' of intel—you guys want anything before we start the next part? Refill? Popcorn?"

Reese looked over at Finch, who wasn't shaking but still looked rather nonplussed about this whole situation. "Just give us a moment?" Reese asked Sheppard.

Sheppard nodded. "Sure." And he left through the still-open door, although his footsteps didn't go far down the hall.

Reese returned his attention to Finch. "Finch?" he asked quietly.

Finch turned to him. "Is any of this real?"

"We're both in too much pain to be hallucinating or dreaming."

The alarm in Finch's eyes grew. "You—"

Reese held up a hand. "I'm okay. Old injuries acting up." And that was strictly true; he'd mostly recovered from the stunning, but his peripheral nerves were still registering their displeasure, though at a level he could ignore. "Point is, they didn't dose us with anything. This"—he knocked a knuckle against the window—"is standard bulletproof glass, no liquid crystals embedded in it. The depth of field of what we're seeing isn't that of even a 3D image, and computer graphics haven't achieved this level of photorealism yet and may not ever. The building is real; the room we're looking at is real; the people are real; the Stargate as an object is real. And there isn't enough space between the back of the Stargate and the wall to hide SG-17 and their equipment from someone looking down at this angle."

The klaxon shut off, as did the lights on the Stargate, although the iris remained shut. Someone must have managed to shut down the wormhole.

"It just seems too incredible to believe," Finch murmured. "Alien parasites and cloning—that's the stuff of fringe conspiracy websites run by the sort of person who swears his dog is a CIA agent."

Reese shrugged his eyebrows. "We did bug a few dog collars in my day."

Finch stared at him.

Reese lowered his voice further. "I know Sheppard. He's not lying to us. Plus, did you see the scar on his neck, the one he touched when he talked about getting stuck in the Stargate and how McKay saved his life?"

"Yes, I did."

"There was more to that story than just getting stuck. The scar is over his jugular. Something tried to kill him, and McKay made sure he got back here in time to be saved."

Finch shook his head. "I just wish I could be sure."

Reese grimaced. "There's no part of this you can't explain away if you're determined to. But there's no reason for the government to create a hoax this elaborate just to trap us."

Finch didn't respond.

"Finch, we need to know why they're in New York, and this is the only way we'll get the information. You're having trouble believing it—fine. Just play along until we get the details we need to keep Sheppard and McKay alive."

Finch sighed heavily, and his shoulders slumped as much as they were able to. "All right."

Reese patted his shoulder and stayed at his elbow as he hobbled back to the table. At the same time, Sheppard came back in and, at a nod from Reese, started the next video. This one was set in a different space, a room with stained glass windows and copper decorations that looked like it was created by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Stargate behind Jackson was of a different design.

"I'm standing in the Gateroom of Atlantis, the lost city of the Ancients," Jackson announced. "In 2004, a chance discovery helped us calculate the location of Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy, and then-Col. Jack O'Neill was able to create a power source that would allow us to dial the eighth chevron and send an expedition to explore the city..."

To Reese's shock, Jackson went on to explain that Atlantis was actually capable of space flight and had served briefly as a base on Earth's own moon before returning to the Pegasus Galaxy. He then introduced some of the leading members of the Atlantis expedition, including Sheppard, the military commander; McKay, the head of the science division; and Dex and Emmagan, who were said to be Pegasus natives. If true, that explained why they'd had no online presence. From what Jackson was saying, the four of them had been the premier away team for Atlantis until Sheppard's latest promotion, at which point Stargate Command had put him on desk duty. Logically, therefore, Dex and Emmagan were in just as much danger as Sheppard and McKay, but if Homeworld Command hadn't given them Social Security numbers or had done so under some kind of cover identities to keep their status secret from the rest of the government, that could explain why the Machine hadn't given their numbers to Finch.

From there, the videos covered the subjects of Wraith, a sort of alien vampire that lived on humans' life force; the NID, a branch of the intelligence community created to deal with problems that were under Homeworld Command's purview, such as humans stealing alien tech from Stargate Command or its civilian contractors; and the Trust, formed from a rogue element purged from the NID for stealing alien tech and assorted other dirty dealing. The Trust hated aliens in principle, apparently, yet after being infiltrated by the Goa'uld, they'd collaborated both with a System Lord called Baal and with the Lucian Alliance, all in the name of personal gain. After each video, Finch got up and paced in evident pain and increasing agitation.

Finally, Sheppard noticed. "You holdin' up over there, Mr. Finch?"

"It is a great deal to digest all at once, Colonel," Finch replied, and Reese wasn't sure whether Sheppard could hear the tremor in his voice. "So much advanced technology—so many threats—so much corruption—I—it—" He stopped, sat down suddenly, took off his glasses, and buried his face in his hands.

Fearing that Finch was on the brink of hyperventilation, Reese put a hand on his shoulder. "Finch? What do you need?"

Finch didn't respond for a moment. When he did, he said the last thing Reese expected:

"Chloe Armstrong."

Sheppard frowned. "What about her?"

"Three years ago, I stumbled upon information that Chloe and her father, Sen. Alan Armstrong, were about to be involved in a violent crime. At the time, I didn't trust my source, and I did nothing about it."

Reese understood what he wasn't saying. Finch had created the Machine to process all the surveillance data the government had begun collecting pursuant to the Patriot Act, from wiretaps to traffic cameras to social media. Its purpose was to detect terrorist threats, but it also detected violent crimes against average citizens that weren't relevant to national security. He'd been aware of the "irrelevant" list from the first, but it had taken until late 2010 for him to decide to do something to prevent those crimes. He had a whole wall at the library covered with information about the lives he'd failed to save; since Reese had been working for him, they'd managed to get justice for one of them, but the others continued to haunt him. That still didn't explain why he'd be asking Sheppard about Sen. Armstrong and his daughter, who'd supposedly been killed in a plane crash—Chloe had been part of her father's staff and accompanied him on the trip as his aide—or why Sheppard reacted as if he knew her name. For that matter, it didn't explain why the Machine would have given Finch the Armstrongs' numbers.

"Chloe's social media accounts were deleted within hours of the reports of her death," Finch continued, dropping his hands and putting his glasses on again. "But I did see her last tweet, stating that she was going somewhere, quote, 'out of this world.'"

"Icarus Base," said Gen. Carter from the doorway.

Finch straightened and turned to her. "I'm sorry?"

"Icarus Base was an offworld research station," she explained, coming in and sitting at the head of the table. "The planet on which it was located had an unusual core composed of an element called naquadria, which is an extremely powerful but unstable radioactive energy source. The purpose of the base was to harness the energy from the core to dial a nine-chevron address and send an expedition to find out what was on the other end. Unfortunately, the intended commander of the expedition had previously been working undercover to gain information on the Lucian Alliance, had been brainwashed by them, and had revealed the top-secret mission to their agents on Earth."

"Would that be… Col. David Telford? My information said he'd be involved somehow."

"Yes, he was the mole. We didn't find out until a couple of months after Icarus was destroyed. We managed to break the conditioning, and he was reinstated, but by then the damage was done."

"And the Armstrongs? Was it sabotage, or…."

"Hardly that straightforward." Gen. Carter sighed. "At the time, I was commander of the George Hammond, the ship that took Sen. Armstrong and his entourage to the Icarus planet to witness the dialing of the ninth chevron. When the Lucian Alliance attacked, we engaged, but we couldn't stop them from inflicting severe damage on the base. The lead scientist on the project dialed the ninth chevron without authorization to evacuate the survivors, which did save their lives in the short term, but they became stranded on an unmanned Ancient ship on the far side of the universe—and between the strain of powering the 'Gate and the concussive force of the attack on the base, the core of the planet was destabilized and went critical. We barely got the Hammond away in time to avoid the explosion. When the survivors managed to contact us, they reported that both Sen. Armstrong and his daughter had come with them, but Sen. Armstrong suffered a heart attack and shortly thereafter sacrificed himself to plug a leak in the ship's damaged life support system. He saved everyone else on board."

Something approaching hope bloomed on Finch's face. "Then Chloe is alive?"

"So far as we know. Unfortunately, the ship encountered hostile aliens in the last galaxy it entered and was prevented from refueling before it had to enter faster-than-light travel to escape. The crew is in stasis and will be out of contact with Earth for another year. We hope to have found a way to bring them home by then, but… there are no guarantees."

Finch let out a shuddering sigh, and his eyes slipped closed.

"Finch, you couldn't have saved them," Reese whispered.

"No," Finch replied. "My information was correct. They were the victims of a violent crime, perpetrated in part by Col. Telford, and it's only a fluke that they survived to escape. It also seems there's nothing I can do to help Chloe now. But… she's alive, Mr. Reese." He opened his eyes, tears threatening to spill down his cheeks, and looked at Reese, as if willing him to understand everything he couldn't say.

And Reese, who did understand, rubbed Finch's shoulder. "Yeah. She's alive."

Finch swallowed hard and took a deep ragged breath, clearly trying to regain his composure. Then he exhaled, cleared his throat, and looked at Sheppard and Gen. Carter again. "So, General, Colonel… what can we help you with?"

Gen. Carter looked at Sheppard, who sighed and explained, "We've gone a long way toward eliminating the Wraith as a threat to the Pegasus Galaxy and to Atlantis, but the ones that are left are still desperate to find a way to reach Earth. I think now it's as much about revenge against us as it is the need for the feeding ground, although the feeding ground's definitely part of it—hell, there are more people on the East Coast than in the whole of Pegasus. We managed to thwart two separate attempts in '08, but one of 'em came too damn close to succeeding. They made a kamikaze run on Area 51, took out some of our best defenses. McKay broke about a dozen laws of physics to get Atlantis here in time to stop 'em. We thought all of the Wraith had been killed... but now it looks like at least one survived."

"We thought the same about the Trust," Gen. Carter continued. "After we mopped up the last of Baal's mess, it looked like we'd arrested all the humans who were in league with him and rescued the ones who'd been forced to become Goa'uld hosts. But we've never found Robert Kinsey, and it's possible that he's restarted the Trust or that there's a new rogue element within the NID."

"Whichever it is, our information is that these people have found a Wraith hiding out here on Earth and struck a deal with it: full access to Wraith tech, especially weapons, in exchange for enough Earth tech to send a signal to Pegasus. We've also heard they're moving it to New York City. Why they waited over three years before moving it to New York, or why New York specifically when Las Vegas would be less conspicuous..."

"Elias," Reese and Finch chorused.

Gen. Carter frowned in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Public Enemy No. 1," Finch replied. "Carl Elias is the illegitimate son of Don Gianni Moretti, and for decades, he's held a grudge against Moretti for having his mother murdered. Now he intends to kill not only his father but also all the other dons, take sole control of organized crime in New York, and eliminate anyone who stands in his way."

"He's ruthless and resourceful," Reese added. "He would kill—or worse—for weapons and technology that would give him the edge he needs against the Russians. If these rogue agents, whatever they call themselves, are bringing the Wraith to New York, there's a very good chance they're making a deal with Elias."

"We also believe they already know about you and your team, Colonel. We have information that you and Dr. McKay, at least, are in mortal danger."

Sheppard nodded. "Yeah, well, we think they already know about you guys, too. That's why I had you leave your phones on the Daedalus. They blue-jacked Reese once; they coulda done it again."

Finch frowned. "They shouldn't have been able—wait, how did you—"

"They have alien technology. We have alien technology, brilliant scientists, and experience in tracking signals without cell company data. That's also how we found you without GPS."

Finch sagged backward with a groan. "I believed I'd taken every precaution."

"You had, against the threats you knew about. You just hadn't expected McKay. Last tech problem that gave him that much trouble was one he caused himself."

Finch looked slightly mollified.

"Here." Sheppard slid two cell phones across the table to Reese and Finch. "These are the most secure phones you'll ever have, developed in Atlantis and tested by a Wraith hacker who defected to us. Bulletproof in the literal and figurative sense. They operate on subspace, not terrestrial wireless, and they don't have Bluetooth, so you can't be blue-jacked. I'll get you a couple of earwigs, too, if you need 'em. We'll even let you keep 'em—for a price."

"Which is?" Reese asked before Finch could.

"I call the shots on this mission, and Mr. Finch gives us all the intel he can find on the Trust and the NID, whether it's relevant to the mission or not. We're also gonna need everything you have on Elias."

Finch looked at Reese—an odd role reversal, since Finch was Reese's boss, but Reese was also the only person in the room Finch knew he could trust even slightly.

Reese considered. "One condition."

"What?" Sheppard asked.

"With Elias in the picture, I need to alert my contacts at NYPD Homicide in case something goes wrong. I won't reveal anything classified; in fact, I'd be willing to call from a speakerphone here before we go back so you can hear every word on both sides. But they need to know about this move he's making."

Sheppard looked at Gen. Carter and Finch, who nodded in approval. Then Sheppard got up, closed the door, and retrieved a conferencing speakerphone from a cabinet. Once that was set up, Reese gave Sheppard the number for Fusco's spare phone, and Sheppard dialed.

"Where the hell have you been?!" Fusco's raspy voice demanded quietly without preamble.

Reese permitted himself a small smile. "Hello to you, too, Lionel."

"Thought you and your friend were supposed to be preventing homicides."

"We can't stop all of them."

Fusco lowered his voice further. "Yeah, well, this one's so weird, I can't believe you didn't catch it."

Reese sobered. "What happened?"

"Guy found a body in his back alley, totally mummified with a gash in his chest. CSU managed to get prints, hell if I know how. Vic was homeless, did some time for petty theft a couple years ago. And the weirdest part is, he was 37 years old. ME said it looked like something just sucked the life out of him."

Reese exchanged a horrified look with Sheppard.

"And now we got Feds crawlin' all over the scene," Fusco continued. "As if Carter didn't have enough Feds askin' her questions about you."

"Who are the Feds in this case?" Reese asked.

"NID. Never heard of 'em before. Lead investigator's a guy called Malcolm Barrett."

At a nod from Sheppard, Reese said, "Okay, listen, Lionel. Cooperate with Barrett."

"What?!"

"You can trust him, and you can trust Carter, but trust no one else until you hear from me. Got that?"

"Yeah, but why?"

"Short answer, this could lead us to Elias."

"I take it that means there's a long answer."

"Later, Lionel. I'll be in touch." Reese nodded at Sheppard, who hung up. Reese then rattled off Det. Carter's number, which Sheppard dialed.

It took several rings for Det. Carter to answer, but her harsh whisper was just as abrupt as Fusco's. "Where the hell are you?"

"It doesn't matter," Reese replied. "I heard about your case, and I'm on my way back with help. Who do you trust in Organized Crime?"

"Szymanski," she answered without hesitation. "Elias behind this?"

"We think he's involved, Detective," Finch chimed in. "We'll give you more information as soon as we can. In the meantime, trust Det. Fusco, Det. Szymanski, and Agent Barrett and no one else, is that clear?"

"Crystal." She paused. "You better hurry up, John. This case is already makin' my skin crawl."

"I don't blame you," Reese said. "I'll be in touch before dark."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," she returned and hung up.

Reese made eye contact with Sheppard again. "Did that description mean what I think it meant?"

Sheppard nodded. "Yeah. The Wraith's already in New York—and it's hungry."

.

* Admittedly, we the audience don't learn about Finch's dislike of heights or his pilot's license until after "Blue Code," but there's no reason Reese couldn't have learned about them off-screen before then.