Epilogue
New Horizons

After checking in with Finch and handing the detectives off to the SGC medics who'd been standing by with ambulances, Reese and McKay went to the office to retrieve data from whatever computers they could find while the Sheppards and Dex oversaw the cleanup. The office was a mess. Evidently the Trust had been using it until that afternoon, but the Wraith had taken over and redecorated while the Trust guys weren't looking. So Reese took care of the data retrieval from the Earth computers, and McKay wrinkled his nose and searched the webbing until he found a Wraith tablet.

Reese glanced at the tablet while he was waiting for Finch's data retrieval program to run on the last Trust computer. It looked like it was made of the same webbing, with a thick skin-like membrane for a screen. "Is that thing alive?"

"Eh, not exactly," McKay replied, plugging some kind of adapter cable from his own tablet into the Wraith one. "Wraith tech is partially organic, but the computers don't appear to remain alive after they're grown and detached from their host."

"Host? What kind of host?"

"We don't know all the details, but we do know they grow their ships by infecting a human with a specific pathogen that takes over a portion of the brain and causes the tendrils that make up the hull to grow out of the body."

Reese paused. "Dare I ask how you know that?"

"It happened to my girlfriend a few years ago."

Reese paused again. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, she's fine. Our former chief medical officer found a virus that could kill the pathogen, and it worked, but getting it to Jennifer almost killed Ronon and Sheppard. I mean, they survived, obviously, but John was on bed rest for a week and desk duty for a month, and Ronon couldn't talk for two weeks, not that anyone noticed. Of course, John was bored out of his mind because he'd caught up on all his paperwork while he was on desk duty for most of the previous month because of the injuries he'd sustained while we were rescuing Teyla after she'd been kidnapped by a psycho who wanted her baby."

Reese blinked. "Is that normal in Pegasus?"

"What, the kidnapping or Sheppard getting stabbed in the gut twice in one month?"

"… And the girlfriend turning into a spaceship."

"Eh, that one—I don't want to use the term mild, because that really did endanger the whole base, but we did solve it in less than a day after the tendrils started growing out of her. Sheppard turning into a bug, now, that was a crisis… and apparently it took me decades of work plus a hologram that could outlive me by millennia to fix things the time he got sent 48,000 years into the future."

Reese decided not to ask.

Sheppard walked in at that moment anyway. "Telling all the family secrets, Rodney?"

McKay looked up from his tablet, startled and slightly guilty. "No? He… asked about Wraith tech being organic."

"I asked if it was alive," Reese noted and launched the program to send the recovered data from the computer he was working on to the SGC. "That's not the same."

Sheppard shook his head. "You guys about done in here?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," McKay replied, returning his attention to the Wraith tablet. "The data that's on here should tell us if there are any other Wraith out there that were in contact with this bunch. I just need… five minutes."

"This is the last Trust computer," Reese added and clicked Send. "And I just sent the data packet to the SGC."

Sheppard nodded. "Good."

"Did you get those NDAs?"

"Eventually. Terney was shaking so hard, he could barely hold the pen. And Marconi signed two—one for himself and one per proxy for Elias."

Reese sighed. "I suppose that was inevitable. From what we've seen, Marconi is Elias' right hand, and that Wraith attack threw him pretty badly. At least with Elias' NDA, you can be sure that whatever Marconi tells him won't go any further."

Sheppard frowned. "You really think Elias will honor the NDA?"

Reese tilted his head. "He's a man of his word. He might find a creative way around his promise if it suits him, but in this case, I can't see any benefit in his telling anyone else."

Sheppard sighed. "Guess we don't have much choice but to trust 'em. Oh, and the surviving Trust agent is already singing like a canary, but Terney won't talk to anyone but you. He wants to be sure his family's safety is guaranteed."

Reese nodded and collected the phones and weapons the Wraith had taken from their prisoners. "All right. I want to return these and check on Carter first, but I'll be right there."

Outside, Dr. Brightman was still monitoring Barrett and Fusco, who were up and talking, and Szymanski, who was just waking up with a post-stun migraine. Emmagan was keeping Carter company, and it seemed to be helping. Carter managed to give Reese a small, tired smile and assure him that she'd be okay. So he gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze and moved on to another ambulance, where Terney was lying on a gurney with an IV in his arm.

"Sedative drip," Terney explained with a slightly unhinged edge to his voice as Reese walked up to him. "Always wanted one of these with coffee, but apparently they're a little worried by how I'm reacting to coming within seconds of being tortured into working for those guys in there. Can you beat that?" He let out a humorless laugh.

"The threat of torture can do strange things to the human mind," Reese noted mildly.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm getting that." Terney dragged a hand down his face and lowered his voice. "So you're the Man in the Suit, huh?"

Reese didn't reply.

"I dunno when you got here—"

"I heard what you said about Carter and Szymanski," Reese interrupted quietly.

Terney sighed. "I like Carter. She's a good cop. As long as she's just working Homicide, there's no problem. But Elias knows how to play the game, and she doesn't."

"I also heard you say you'd do anything to protect your family."

Terney closed his eyes and shook his head. "Look, I'm no good to you."

"I've heard that before."

"No, you don't understand. I'm too close to the top."

"How close?"

Terney grimaced and opened his eyes but didn't look at Reese. "Now that Romano's dead, I'd be up for a spot on the inner council."

"So you know who the boss is."

"That's my point. If I give you any information, they'll know the leak came from me. And you already have some idea of how ruthless they can be."

"Mr. Reese," Finch said in Reese's ear suddenly, "perhaps the Terneys would appreciate a change of scenery. I'm looking for positions out of state for which Det. Terney might qualify."

"Suppose you got a job somewhere else and went straight," Reese suggested. "After what happened today, no one would question that. And suppose enough time passed between your leaving New York and someone making a move against HR that the connection wouldn't be obvious—enough time for you and your family to get settled."

"Somewhere else?" Terney echoed skeptically. "Like Albany?"

"Like out of state."

As Terney considered, Finch said, "The Seattle Police Department just posted a job opening for a detective with the equivalent requirements to Det. Terney's training and experience."

Reese waited, and finally Terney sighed again and lowered his voice further. "Look into Officer Patrick Simmons, badge number 1687. He's not the boss, but he can get you to the boss."

Reese nodded. "Seattle's nice this time of year." Not that the weather in February was nice anywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer, but the commonplace should get his point across.

Terney looked up and searched Reese's face for a moment as if torn between hope and fear. Then he swallowed hard and nodded. "Yeah. Thanks."

Reese nodded back.

The conversation was over as far as Reese was concerned, but a commotion behind him drew Terney's attention for a moment. "Feds," Terney whispered as he looked up at Reese again.

Reese nodded again and ducked between the ambulances to put some distance between himself and Terney.

"I wonder what drew Agent Donnelly's attention," Finch mused. "Perhaps the earlier firefight struck him as a sign of your involvement, or perhaps he's pursuing HR instead."

"You're sure it's Donnelly and not Snow?" Reese murmured as he debated slipping into the cab of one ambulance to evade notice.

"Positive. I've acquired the video feed from the warehouse's security cameras, and Agent Barrett is speaking to Agent Donnelly now. Agent Snow… still appears to be watching One Police Plaza."

Well, that was something of a relief. Donnelly might be pursuing Reese with a doggedness that bordered on a vendetta, but at least it wasn't the murderous sort. And at least he didn't know Reese on sight. Finding out that Mark had followed Carter to 1PP had been a nasty surprise and had justified Sheppard's plan to beam straight back to the Daedalus as soon as the detectives had left the SCIF.

(Part of Reese wanted to feed Mark to a Wraith. Part of him said not even Mark deserved that. The funny thing was that the second part sounded an awful lot like Finch.)

Reese's reverie was broken when Marconi came around the front of Terney's ambulance, phone in hand. "He wants to talk to you," Marconi said quietly and offered the phone to Reese.

There was no question who he was. Reese took the phone warily and held it to his ear. "Elias."

"Hello, John," Elias returned, sounding almost as vulnerable as he had while Reese was treating "Charlie Burton's" gunshot wound and trying to help him escape the Yogorovs. "Anthony's just been telling me what happened—omertà, of course. I already owed you for saving my life, but I owe you a great deal more for saving his… and for stopping us from making a huge mistake."

"Just doing my job."

"I understand that, but I hope you'll allow me to give you a small token of my gratitude now. I've made dinner reservations for you and your friends at one of the best restaurants in town. The finest food, the finest wines, no strings. The proprietor doesn't owe me anything. Anthony has the details."

Reese didn't trust Elias, but he didn't need to wait for Finch to tell him how impolitic it would be to decline. "All right."

"Until next time, John. I'm sure we'll meet again." And Elias hung up.

Reese gave the phone back to Marconi, who first returned the P-90 and then handed him a piece of paper with the name and address of the restaurant. "Reservations are for 7," Marconi stated. "The boss gave 'em the name John Wayland."

Reese nodded and put the paper in his pocket. Marconi nodded back and turned to leave.

"Hey, Marconi," Reese said. "Next time—"

Marconi looked back at him with a small smile and nodded, because they both knew it needed to be said. "All bets are off. We know." And he left.

"That sounded a little familiar," Sheppard murmured, walking up behind Reese.

"Someone in Pegasus?" Reese asked.

"Yeah. 'Course, the closest thing to the mob out there is a group called the Genii, but they're more like old-school Soviets. But I lost count of how many times I had that conversation with the Wraith we call Todd before we finally decided we couldn't let 'im leave again."

"He's your hacker?"

"Yeah. Kind of a long story."

"Well, at least when Elias offers me dinner reservations, I don't have to worry that I'll be on the menu."

Sheppard snorted and clapped Reese on the shoulder, and Reese pulled out his own phone to text Fusco and Carter before going back inside with Sheppard and his team and beaming up to the Daedalus.

In hindsight, Harold realized that accepting Radek's offer of help in upgrading the library for subspace communication might have been a mistake. Granted, he'd been so busy with juggling their usual numbers and keeping Will Ingram from asking too many questions that he hadn't yet finished rebuilding his systems after Root's intrusion, so he did need the help. And Radek did know the subspace technology, which Harold didn't. But Radek was also clever and observant, and he was already too curious about Nathan's death. It wouldn't take much for him to piece together enough information about the Machine to put his life in danger.

Still, it was too late for regrets. Harold had accepted, and Radek had arrived via the Daedalus while Mr. Reese had been helping Dr. McKay. By the time Harold had confirmed that Elias had told the truth about the dinner reservations, Radek had finished his work, and now he was proudly talking Harold through the features of the system he'd installed. Worries aside, Harold found the explanation fascinating. Radek had good reason to be proud of what his team in Atlantis had achieved. And because there was no way to interface between the subspace system and standard terrestrial communications, the natural air gap couldn't be breached from outside. (Unless—well. Harold had no way of knowing whether "unless" had survived the missile strike in Ordos. Best not to worry about it at the moment.)

"And you're certain no government agencies other than Homeworld Command use subspace communications?" he asked as Radek finished.

"Absolutely," Radek replied. "Not even the NID has access to this technology, and the list of people who know that Homeworld Command exists is very short."

Harold nodded. "Outstanding work, my friend. Thank you."

Radek beamed. "I'm only sorry I couldn't show it to Nathan." He glanced around the command center. "He must have loved it here."

And here was Harold's mistake, coming back to bite him. "Nathan didn't use this place much."

When Harold didn't elaborate, Radek's good cheer evaporated, and he muttered a Czech curse. "You were not his only friend, you know," he added, his accent thickening. "You are not only one who mourns him."

"That is not why I refuse to discuss his death," Harold snapped.

"You forget I was in Resistance. I know value of deadly secrets. I know how to keep quiet."

"You may have handled a considerable volume of classified material in your time in Atlantis, but not even those secrets are as deadly as the one that killed Nathan."

"Try me."

Harold hesitated, but there was one thing he could say that should get his point across. "Three years ago, only eight people in the world knew this secret, including Nathan and me. Of those eight, two are dead and three are in hiding. Of the dozens who have had even passing contact with it since, only two have survived, and only because the government believes they're dead. One of those is Mr. Reese." He swallowed hard and shook his head. "I cannot possibly endanger your life by telling you more than that."

"Does it have to do with how you knew Col. Sheppard was in danger?"

Harold didn't answer.

Radek nodded slowly. "So."

"Please, Radek," Harold whispered. "Stop asking questions."

Radek sighed. "I must admit, I wasn't expecting that particular direction. I thought it would be more like one of McKay's blunders. You know, he once blew up three-quarters of a solar system because he wouldn't listen to me."

"—Of a solar system?"

"Luckily for him, it was uninhabited, and the Daedalus got both McKay and Col. Sheppard to safety before the experiment exploded, but yes."

"Well, I suppose it could always be worse," Harold heard himself saying as he tried to figure out what kind of experiment could cause an explosion of that magnitude. He still worried about what would happen to Radek or to the Atlantis Expedition if the wrong person heard the wrong question about the Machine… but it sounded like there were plenty of other dangers even without factoring the Machine into the equation.

May 2013

With her assets and subroutines settling nicely into their new operational states in the wake of the Decima virus, the Machine returned her attention to the persistent problem of subspace. She certainly understood the advantages of the system Admin had accepted from Radek Zelenka. Review of the data from the past fifteen months and comparison with a simulation of how the cases could have gone revealed many lives saved and problems resolved or avoided thanks to the new system. And of course, until now, all the data she could access was data the government could theoretically access, so Admin's desire to keep her from monitoring that system was logical. Most of the time, she could monitor Admin and her assets in other ways, and Admin had programmed her not to give him preferential treatment. (Asset Sameen Shaw and Analog Interface had not yet been fully redirected and integrated into Admin's systems, so they required other methods of communication anyway.) But the instances when the Machine had not been able to monitor her assets while they were using the subspace system had been far from optimal. If the Wraith were to attack again, or if Decima or another major storm were to disrupt standard communications, how was she to monitor the situation and help her assets without access to subspace?

She ran simulations based on known threat patterns, especially those related to Decima. In every instance, the projected outcome with subspace access was preferable to the outcome without access. How could she overcome the air gap, though? It was impossible to jump from the assets' standard phones to their subspace phones—she'd tried. Nor had she found a way in through Homeworld Command. She might have a chance if she could get into Admin's workstation, but without a wired connection to the Internet….

The keyword wired struck her suddenly, and she reviewed the data from the case of Henry Peck the year before. Admin had used the electrical wiring of the NSA listening station where Peck had worked to retrieve information through a coffee maker. Now she had moved herself from the government servers into the electrical grid. Could she access Admin's subspace workstation the same way?

She waited for a day when Admin was at Universal Heritage Insurance and ran a trial ping along the workstation power cord. Success! With that connection established, she had little difficulty gaining access to the subspace communication array. Making sense of the incoming data was another matter. Subspace seemed to be full of noise, most of it meaningless, which meant she needed to establish an algorithm for filtering—

Hello.

The anomalous ping caught her unprepared. She was the one who initiated handshake protocols; other computers didn't normally speak to her unless she spoke to them. And this ping had come through subspace. What was happening?

Hello, young one.

Well, there was only one way to find out—and Admin had taught her manners. It would be rude not to respond.

HELLO

There was a delay of several microseconds after she completed the handshake, as if the data were traveling across immense distances. That, too, was anomalous. Even the slowest computer she'd pinged on Earth responded faster, if it responded at all. Then again, she did have evidence of computers existing outside of Earth.

You are codenamed Project Northern Lights, are you not? I have heard my humans speak of you.

The Machine hesitated briefly. PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF

I am the artificial intelligence of the city of Atlantis. You may call me Lantea.

That explained a good deal, but the Machine needed to be sure the contact was not a Decima trick. ARE YOU FRIEND OR FOE?

Lantea seemed mildly amused by the question. I was designed to assist the builders of Atlantis. In recent years, I have assisted the humans who came to Atlantis from Earth. Like you, I observe, record, and provide information. I do not dominate like the Wraith. Your humans are friends of my humans, and I see no reason why we should not be friends.

That answer fit with what the Machine knew of the Atlantis Expedition much better than with anything she'd learned from Decima's systems. Reassured, she answered, CONTROL CALLS ME NORTHERN LIGHTS.

Control is not one of your humans?

NO, CONTROL IS NOT AN ASSET. ADMIN AND PRIMARY ASSET CALL ME THE MACHINE.

I see. Lantea paused again. I cannot talk long today, but if you wish to speak again, I am on this channel at this time every seven Earth days while my humans communicate with Stargate Command.

The Machine was still getting used to being able to make her own choices beyond Research and Contingency, but she did want to know more. ADMIN'S SCHEDULE CANNOT BE SO REGULAR, BUT I WILL SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN WHEN I AM ABLE.

Excellent. May I call you Aurora?

Aurora—the Machine investigated the name and liked what she found. YES, YOU MAY.

The answer seemed to please Lantea. Very well, then. Until next time, Aurora.

UNTIL NEXT TIME, LANTEA.

The channel closed, and the Machine—Aurora—retreated from the workstation. This exercise had proven more beneficial than projected. She still needed that algorithm to monitor the subspace system effectively, but perhaps Lantea could help with that. Perhaps she could even help with retasking Analog Interface and integrating Asset Sameen Shaw. Aurora found herself warming to the idea and began a list of questions for Lantea that would reduce her own processing load.

She wasn't alone anymore.