Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish it was, but its not. Except for the stuff you don't recognize, i.e. the plot and the original characters which I won't name because there's just so many and you haven't even met all of them yet. But that's not the point. The point is that I do not own Stargate Atlantis, its places, people, or things.

A/N: HI! waves So. Not much I can say about this chapter except… hey the plot. There it is. Cool. Right so. This is where the plot starts. No idea now many chapters it'll go through but I'll be sure to let you know.

Thank you: To Bann and Chibi and all my other friends who read the little parts of this just so I would leave them alone. Also to my reviewers. You make my day.

Most importantly to my one constant reviewer, Akima Doll. Thanks. It really means a lot. gives virtual candy of choice

And now on with the story.

Glitch

It was five in the afternoon when we got the call. We'd flown to the village for lunch and then back to the beach. Del and my brothers were out on the waves. Rayne was giving Jet lessons on the spare board with help from my dad. They weren't actually the water right now, so Teyla and Ronon had momentarily given up their constant vigil over their children and gone for a walk.

Rodney was asleep on a towel a few feet down the beach from me. The rest of SGA-1 had laughed slightly at how someone who'd been complaining about the sun, the heat and the sand as much as Rodney had been, could possibly fall asleep on a beach towel, but they hadn't woken him up. To be honest, I think all of his complaining had just been to keep up appearances. Rodney is more relaxed now than he was even just a few years ago. He's certainly tanner and fitter. Although, this he blames on my dad dragging him out of his lab as often as possible, and on Ronon insisting that Rodney run with him once a week and learn at least some self-defense. After almost 25 years in the Pegasus Galaxy, Rodney has changed from what I'm told he used to be like. All the evidence of this change is right there, asleep on a towel on the mainland in the late afternoon sun.

Me? Well, I'm sprawled on my own towel, soaking up the rays and just enjoying watching my friends and family. All the surfing I'd done earlier had worn me out and the intoxicating combination of the sunshine and the sound of waves lapping at the shore and the smell of salt water had lulled me into a half-asleep daze. So it's really no surprise that I almost didn't hear the radio hail. Almost. I sighed and rolled over with a groan, digging through my pile of clothes for the radio earpiece that had become standard issue for anyone over the age of 15. This I assumed was in case of emergencies and important announcements. Finally, I found it in the bottom of my pocket.

"Uhn. Hello?" I managed to get out as I slipped the earpiece into my ear and activated it.

"Colonel Sheppard?" I recognized Lt. Colonel Lorne's voice.

"Wrong Sheppard, Marcus." I still sounded half-asleep and likely that's how he knew it was me when he realized it wasn't Dad. My brothers, well, they're a real pain to try to wake up, but they go from asleep the awake and cranky as hell in about ten seconds, unless, of course, they wake up of their own free will.

"Sorry, Ashlei. It's a little hectic over here, which is actually why I'm bothering your father on his day off. Is he nearby? Because I need to talk to him." He sounded so stressed that I decided not to play around.

"Yeah, sure. Just a second." I deactivated the radio and pulled it out of my ear. "Hey Dad!" I yelled. "Dad!" I tried again when he didn't seem to hear me the first time. "Dad!!" His head snapped up from where he was telling Jet something.

"What?!" he called back.

"Marcus needs to talk to you. I think that it's important." I paused as I remembered the stressed tone of his voice, before adding, "Really important." My dad didn't hesitate. He came sprinting up the slope of the beach. He skidded to a halt beside me and snatched the now reactivated radio out of my hand.

"Lorne?" I winced at the accusatory tone in Daddy's voice. My dad has a talent for asking exactly what he wants just by saying a person's name and, unfortunately, it usually comes out in that tone. I heard indistinct words as Lorne talked as quickly as possible. "What?!" Dad demanded in disbelief. His face was paling. Lorne's voice repeated the same pattern of indiscernible sounds. My dad was silent for a minute, then I saw his posture and look shift from fun and easy to full military. "We're on our way." He barked into the earpiece. He turned it off and tossed it to me. "McKay!" he yelled, walking over to where Rodney was sleeping. "McKay!"

"What? What?" Rodney yelped as he woke up.

"We have to go. Now! Kids! Let's move!" My dad stalked over to his stuff and quickly threw his shirt and cargoes on over the suit before throwing his stuff in his bag. Ronon and Teyla came dashing back up the path they'd been walking on.

"Sheppard, what are you yelling about?" Ronon snapped. I saw Rayne and Jet throwing their things together as quickly as they could. Del and my brothers, on the other hand, still hadn't heard my dad. I waited to hear what he would say to Ronon, and when I did, I wished I hadn't.

"The city is crashing."

"The city is WHAT?!" Rodney shrieked.

"Crashing. Power systems have shut down, computers have gone haywire. Crashing. We have to go." He turned his head toward the water and was about to yell for them again.

"I got 'em, Dad." I told him. He looked at me for a moment and nodded.

'(Alan, Aaron, get in here now. We have to go.)'

'(What? Why?)' I wasn't real sure which one had asked, but I didn't have time to find out. We didn't have time.

'(I'll explain on the way. Get Del and get in here.)' I saw Aaron move toward the beach. Alan yelled something to Del and then the two of them started back towards the shore. I dug through my stuff until I found my pants. I slipped them on over my suit bottom and tugged my shirt on. Ronon and Teyla helped their children get the four surfboards on shore loaded. My dad had separated my brothers' clothes out from the pile and was packing up the towels. I tossed him mine and Del's (she and my brothers were just going to have to go back wet) when he looked over at me. Rodney was trying to get better specifics out of Marcus over the radio.

I handed Del her clothes and an apologetic look when she got to me. She didn't say anything just put them on and then followed me to the Jumper. Rayne and I strapped down the last three boards. We kids sat in the back as my dad activated the Jumper's systems and we took off.

I'll be honest, the speed my dad was pushing the jumper to in order to get us back wasn't one I would willingly be flying at myself, and I inherited my dad's love for speed. From the cockpit I could hear Rodney barking orders to his team over the radio. But even though we managed to cut the trip in half, my brothers weren't willing to wait until we got back to find out what was going on.

'(Ash? What's wrong with the city?)' Aaron-it had to be Aaron-asked. Alan couldn't possibly sound that freaked and that calm at the same time because when Alan freaks, he really freaks.

'(It's crashing. According to dad, quote 'Power systems have shut down, computers have gone haywire. Crashing.' unquote.)'

'(This is bad. Really, really bad.)' There, you see? Alan freaks and there is no calm involved.

'(Alan, relax.)' Aaron ordered, using his 'I'm-the-oldest-so-do-as-I-say voice. '(We'll get back and then they will take care of it. We've got nothing to worry about.)' I doubted this but Alan had actually relaxed somewhat and I didn't want to freak him out again. We jolted slightly as my dad landed the Jumper in the bay after only just barely managing to get through the roof. '(Correction. We are back.)'

SGA-1, because that's what they were acting like now, were up and out the rear hatch in an instant. We followed. Dad noticed.

"You kids stay here." He ordered as he and the others three sprinted across the bay to the door.

"But—" I protested.

"No buts, Ashlei. Stay here." He'd shifted into full military mode and there was no arguing with him now. But by nature I had to try.

"I wanna help!" Dad stopped dead and spun to face me.

"You really want to help?" I nodded enthusiastically, having not heard the sarcastic and annoyed tone of his voice. "Then you can either stay here or you can go back to the tower!" I opened my mouth to protest, but he was already out the bay doors. I growled faintly in frustration before stomping back to where Alan and Aaron had been filling Del, Rayne and Jet in on the situation.

"They won't let me help." I hate to admit it but I was actually whining like a five-year-old being denied candy.

"Ash, you had to know they wouldn't." I made a face at Del. "We have more important things to worry about. Not to mention that what we actually know is a far cry compared to everything that's actually happened."

"Del," I snap in ever growing irritation. "Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Allow me to restate my earlier statement. They won't let us help!"

"Since when has what they will and will not let us do stopped you?" My irritation faded slightly as I grinned sheepishly. She had a point.

"How are we supposed to do anything? They don't want us to help and therefore are unlikely to tell us any information about the ongoing situation." Rayne asked.

The silence lasted for a minute before Del caught my eye, glanced meaningfully towards the three boys and then the door. I got the gist and glared pointedly at my brothers. They didn't get it.

"What?" Aaron demanded. Alan shifted from foot to foot nervously.

"Can't have you three around when I tell Ash and Rayne this lovely little bit of info." Del informed them. I looked at my brothers.

"Can you two take Jet back to the tower? Ah." I snapped the last quickly to cut off their protests. "There likely isn't anyone up there except the Beckett twins and the poor kids are probably terrified. Reassure them and if you run into Winter or Sean get them to go, too." There was complete silence. "Please." I added with a pleading look. They sighed resignedly.

"Fine. Come on Jet." Aaron grumbled. His reluctance was obvious but this was about more than keeping secrets. Terry and Trish Beckett were only seven. Winter Dex was twelve and Sean Hunt was nine. Somebody needed to take care of them. Jet looked from Aaron to Rayne and back again. He knew he should go, but he didn't want to leave Rayne anymore than Alan and Aaron wanted to leave me. Rayne knelt by him.

"Go, Jet. I'll be fine. I've got Ashlei and she knows her way around better than half the adults. Not to mention Del who knows more about the city than just about anyone save the senior staff. Go. Aaron and Alan will take care of you. Okay?" Jet nodded. "If you do see Winter, tell her I said to go with you. Tell her I said whatever you think will make her go with you. You can do that for me can't you?" Jet nodded again before moving to hang onto Aaron's hand.

"You guys may want to get going before the doors stop opening completely." The three boys smiled nervously, and then turned and head off across the bay and then down the hallway outside. We waited until we were sure they had gone. Then Rayne and I turned to face Del.

"So what's the plan, Del?"

"Well," she said as she pulled out her earpiece, "Caleb's been here the whole time right?"

"Yes. As I recall Carson was going to explain the retrovirus to him. He was extremely excited."

"Right. So that means he was here when stuff started going wonky. Sorry, one of Brit's words." She added when I gave her a confused look. Britney was another of our friends. She was actually Marcus's daughter. She had an odd vocabulary but I somehow always managed to figure out what she was getting at. Apparently, her words and phrases were beginning to rub off on Del.

"So Caleb is bound to know what's going on."

"Exactly." Del concluded happily, fiddling with the earpiece all the while.

"But, he isn't going to tell us anything over the radio." I groaned as realize it wasn't going to be that easy. "It'll get us all in trouble. I don't know about you two, but, personally, I'd really rather not have to be the ones fighting the system to get through the doors. Especially since we don't even know where he is."

"Ashlei is correct, Del. Much as Caleb may be willing to tell you—"

"And we don't even know if he is."

"He would not risk telling us anything where someone is bound to overhear."

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Excellent points. I have two more for you. One. Caleb will help us, if only because he knows we're going to try to help anyhow and we're better off, not to mention far safer, if we know what's going on. Two. As a contingency, Caleb and I always switch our radios over to a different frequency during crises so that we can talk, or at least that's what he says. In all honesty I think it's more for him to keep an eye on me, or an ear as it were. Anyhow, by now he'll have switched his and is probably waiting for me to let him know I'm alright." Del smiled in her 'you-see-I-do-know-what-I'm-doing' way. Rayne didn't say anything, just nodded.

"Oh." I would have been better off just nodding like Rayne. As it was I just sounded dumb.

"Switch your radios over to channel seven." We did so quickly, and Del tapped hers to activate it. "Caleb, this is Del. Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear." his response was almost instantaneous. "It's about damn time, too. Where are you?"

"Jumper bay, trying to figure out what we're gonna do. You?"

"Power room with Carson. Radek was down here trying to figure the problem out when the power spiked and he got zapped. Who's with you?"

"Ashlei and Rayne, naturally. Dad's on his way down there. Caleb, what happened?"

"God. Where do you want me to start? Everything was weird for awhile before anything serious actually started to happen."

"Oh, wonderful. Just start at the beginning. When things first went weird."

"Well, I was down in Carson's lab. He was just about to start showing me the sequencing for the retrovirus. It was right around one o'clock. Then the power went out. We were just about to call Radek and see what was up when they came back, so we decided to just let it go. It happened again an hour later and then again a half-hour after that.

"Carson called Radek who said he didn't know what was wrong but he thought it might be a power system thing and he was running diagnostics. Elizabeth and Lorne joined the conversation then and there was a small debate as to whether or not Dad needed to be called back from the mainland. Eventually, they agreed that it was only a miner problem, that Dad needed the break, and that if it got really serious they'd call him back then.

"So everyone went back to what they'd been doing and for awhile it seemed like Radek had managed to fix the problem. Then, right around four o'clock, everything went wrong. Lights went our and this time they didn't come back on. The internal comm system was sending through all kinds of nonsense and the infirmary data base crashed."

"Wait, wait, wait." Del interrupted her brother. "Why the heck didn't they call dad back then?"

"They tried. The signal wasn't going through. We still don't know why it finally did, or why the radios are working now. Anyway, Carson and I went to find Radek since the radios weren't working. It was rather weird actually. In some of the hallways the lights were flashing. The power systems were going crazy and every door got harder for Carson to open.

"Right around four thirty all the computers in the city started going nuts. They were scrolling some kind of text or something that no one can read. The internal comms finally stopped working altogether. Then everything went dark. The radios finally buzzed back to life and we all heard Lorne finally get through to you. Right as you were coming in, the power spiked. Carson and I raced here and then—" Caleb's voice cut off suddenly.

A/N: He he. Cliffhanger. Wonder what happens. Reviews make me happy. When I'm happy I'm less lazy. When I'm less lazy I have more incentive to update. Therefore, more reviews give me more incentive to update. So review. You know you want to.

Nimeria Out!!