As it happened, Sheppard ended up going first, yet McKay remained the only one complaining. Cooper dropped down into the hole, as the ladder ended a good foot above the floor, then switched on her flashlight and looked around.

"Oh, my god!" Rodney said in a hushed voice, his flashlight beam flitting from station to station. "Look at this! This is massive! It's incredible!"

It was huge, like an underground airplane hanger full of things Cooper couldn't have imagined if she wanted to. Equipment lined the walls, and only a few tech stations were in the middle, leaving plenty of room for scientists or soldiers, depending on what the room was used for. Passages led off to either side, meaning there could be an entire network under the surface of the planet.

"This explains why there was nothing up top," Ronon said, sounding mildly impressed.

"And why the Faloans tried to hide it," Teyla agreed.

"They must have had their entire city down here, hidden away so no one could find it. The Genii thought they were so clever, but it looks like they were just copycats," McKay said smugly, beginning to stutter with excitement. "I mean, look at all this! There - there must hundreds of devices in here, so well preserved, things we can use-"

"Dr. McKay!" Cooper interrupted, looking around. "Check for security programs first."

"Yeah, if they went to all the trouble of keeping this such a secret, we need to make sure they didn't want to blow up any intruders," Sheppard said.

Rodney seemed to deflate, looking annoyed. "Yes, fine, be a wet blanket before I even get started, way to go, Colonel."

Cooper stared at him, shaking her head. "How do you stand this, sir?" she asked quietly.

"Like I said, you get used to it."

"Lieutenant Cooper," Teyla called from one of the wall stations. "The writing seems to be echoed throughout this place. Perhaps more instructions for utilizing the equipment?"

Cooper walked over and shined her own flashlight on the words. After hours of translation, she could at least make out a few familiar words. "It does look like it." She made a face, looking around at the rest of the room. "Now I'm not even positive that this is actually a language."

"And the plot thickens," Sheppard said dryly.

"What else could it be?" Ronon asked.

"Not a language for communication, anyway," she said. "More like a... like a code. A user language. You have to know it to have the technology function correctly."

"Doesn't seem so hard to crack, though, as long as you know the base language," Sheppard said doubtfully. "If you could just read it, what's so hard about it? You opened the lock to the city easily enough."

Then the lieutenant smiled sheepishly. "Well, from what I could understand of the writing, it was pretty vague and... I may or may not have made a lot of lucky guesses when I was pushing buttons. Sir."

He gave her a look. "And what would have happened if you'd been wrong?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I thought it would just reset itself, but now I'm thinking the consequences might have been a little more... explodey."

"Explodey?"

"Colonel, I think you should come look at this," Rodney called from where he stood looking at his tablet.

Sheppard shook his head. "We'll talk about this later," he said, walking over to the scientist. "What is it?"

"Well, the city looks like it was powered by something, but not a ZPM," he said, tilting the tablet so the colonel could see.

"An alternative power source?"

"Looks like it, but I'm not sure if it would be compatible with Atlantis. From what I can tell, the energy is largely external, probably coming in from the atmosphere, if it's not actually solar power."

"How green of them," Sheppard observed. "Why do I care?"

"Well if you'd be patient - I already told you that I wasn't getting any energy readings, so we figured the batteries in here must be dead. Why are they dead if the power source is external and renewable?"

The colonel frowned. "Are there access points?" he asked. "Like rechargeable batteries, where you have to plug them into a wall first, you can't just hold them up to the sun."

"That's the problem," Rodney said, tapping the screen to show a recently uploaded schematic of the city's layout. "I'm not seeing anywhere to recharge."

Sheppard stared at him, then shrugged. "I don't know what that means."

"Well, then cherish this moment, Colonel, because I don't know what it means, either."

Over in another corner, Ronon looked away from the two men and down at the lieutenant. She was examining a piece of equipment, though she looked as nonplussed as he did. "Hey," he said quietly, causing her to look up. "You have the gene, right? The Ancient one?"

She straightened up and nodded. "Yeah, they had me test it on some stuff back on Atlantis."

He gestured to something on the panel in front of him, where it seemed to him a hand would go. "Touch that."

She frowned. "There's no power. Even if it would work for me, there's nothing to make it go."

He blinked. "Humor me."

Not one to argue with the gargantuan Satedan, she placed her palm on the round surface. With an embarrassingly loud whirring sound, that panel and all the others lining the wall came to life.

"Why do you keep touching things?" Rodney shouted, sounding furious. "Colonel, I told you, this was a mistake! You can't bring green recruits onto our missions, the objectives are too important and the findings too delicate-"

"McKay!" Sheppard barked, staring around the room. "Didn't you just say there wasn't any power?"

The scientist froze mid-rant. "Yes."

"So why did all that stuff turn on?"

His jaw worked for a moment, then he babbled something incoherent, then the fingers started snapping. "Wait, wait, maybe it wasn't off, maybe it was asleep."

"Like a laptop?" Sheppard asked.

"This is hardly a laptop, Colonel, which is why the sleep function doesn't work the same. It must be another security measure. We didn't get any energy readings, so we assumed nothing was here, which would lead most people to just pass by, and I'm guessing that the Faloans thought their little lock disguise would have fooled everyone else, so the only likely people to come down here would be themselves. They had to have descended from the Ancients, which is why it wakes up to the touch of the familiar gene."

Lieutenant Cooper hadn't moved, simply staring at the two and feeling jittery. She swallowed. "Um... are you going to send me back to Earth, sir?" she asked.

"It was my idea that she touch it," Ronon supplied.

Rodney gave her an irritated look. "Well, I'm certainly thinking about it now, well done-"

"No," Sheppard interrupted. "We're not gonna send you back, Lieutenant, you can relax.

"Might I suggest that we return home with this new information?" Teyla said. "We have been gone long enough, and we now have substantial reason to send research teams."

"Good idea. Let's head back up to the surface and-" He never finished his sentence. The rumbling sound of the panels outside seemed amplified by the cavernous underground space, and then the exit closed. He sighed heavily. "Why did I know this was gonna happen?"

"Are we trapped here?" Cooper asked.

"Rodney..."

"I don't understand," the scientist said, tapping madly at his tablet. "If the city thought it was the Faloans, why did it-"

"I thought we told you to check the security protocols," Sheppard ground out, shining his flashlight in Rodney's face.

"I did check them, Colonel, and I thought I turned them off," he snapped, hitting the light away. "This shouldn't have happened, there's no reason for the system to react this way."

"Well, you've got plenty of time to figure it out, because we'll be stuck down here until you do."