Chapter 4 – Fiction or Fact?
They approach…
They are strong…
We are stronger…
We are safe. We are safe!
Until the next cycle…
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After the storm cleared, Atlantis and Tigan personnel moved in. From his sick-bed, John drew a map in reverse, taking the teams from the point at which they had rescued him, back through the tunnels and ending up at the mysterious facility.
Fortunately, as Zovel had said, the things that had attacked John were night predators and did not venture above ground during the day. Atlantis' astrobiologists requested that the animals not be killed or injured if possible. Soldiers were armed with both guns and very powerful tranquilizer darts. Major Lorne supervised the deployment of non-lethal force fields throughout the tunnels. They found the large cave chamber where Sheppard had detonated the grenade. The body of another Genii fugitive, not yet eaten, was discovered there, buried in a shallow pit as John had been.
For something that seemed quite old, how was it powered? By the simplest of energy sources – geothermal and solar working in tangent. The place might have been running for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, and could likely do so for thousands more.
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Carson gave up trying to keep his patient in the Infirmary; the Colonel was too eager to return to the planet to make him stay in bed. John hadn't had much of a chance to explore before he'd been forced to run for his life. Two days after his near-fatal adventure, he went back to the complex.
John wandered – well, limped – around slowly, now enjoying the luxury of taking his time and absorbing everything he saw. No one bothered him; they were too caught up in their own explorations to notice. He felt an odd sensation, one that he couldn't explain or resist, which pulled him towards the group of eight rooms. He entered one of them and carefully maneuvered through the dirt and debris that littered the floor. Everything was filthy. In a moment of juvenile silliness, John went to write "wash me" on the screen of the wall-mounted 'TV' – and jumped in surprise when it came to life.
"What the…?!"
A digital representation of an older man, clean-shaven and smiling, appeared on the screen. "Welcome. Please take your crystal interface from the cart and then sit or lay down comfortably." Huh? John looked around the room, wondering what the man was referring to. Then he remembered the wheeled, rolling cabinet full of medical equipment he had seen two days ago. In an open compartment were half a dozen or so green, crystal egg-shaped objects. Intrigued, John selected a crystal and sat on the bed. As he did, a panel on the nightstand opened. From it arose what looked like a pedestal, with a deep concave center. The man on the screen spoke again. "Place the crystal in the receptacle, and then put on the device." John followed instruction # 1 but was hesitant to don the weird contraption. The interactive digital 'man' on the screen must have been programmed to respond to hesitancy because he immediately said, "Take the device and put it on. Only good can come of it." John did as he was told, managing to get the cap, with its spaghetti-like bundle of cables, snugly on his head despite his broken arm. 'Jeez,' he thought. 'Nobody better walk in on me now, I must look ridiculous!' He swung his long legs up onto the bed, leaned back against the headboard, and waited to see what would happen.
The green crystal began to glow. And, though John couldn't see them, the bronze-colored, pea-sized spheres which studded the outside of the skullcap began to slowly blink in what appeared to be a random pattern.
The man on the 'TV' disappeared, replaced by images from…John's life.
But no, not exactly his life. "What the hell is this?" John thought as he stared in fascination at the screen. Flowing across it were images, some which he recognized as true elements of his past and present life. But other scenes were fictional and seemed to reflect…fantasy, desire – no, not dirty desire, naughty desire, but, as corny as it sounded…yearnings of the heart, of the soul, from deep within. Some scenes reflected simple dreams – John saw himself flying one of the Air Force's latest experimental supersonic planes. Other images were intense –fictional battles during which he obliterated enemies whose faces blurred from Wraith to Earth terrorists to Replicators. John also had a sense that this tech wasn't just making visible the things he wanted. It was reaching deep into his sub-conscious as well, guiding him to recognize, visualize, and understand what he needed in his life.
The images where he was making love to…oh, wow. This was going from fun exploration to scary self-discovery.
Whatever he had gotten himself into, he felt it asking him, encouraging him to yield to its influence because, as the virtual man had said, "Only good can come of it."
What the 'good' was, John didn't quite know. But for some reason he believed those words, and trusted the 'man' who had said them. He stayed connected to the device and followed where it led him.
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"Sheppard? Sheppard, what the heck are you doing? We haven't tested that equipment yet, it could be – hey, John, are you awake? Can you hear me…? Oh boy…(tap, tap) Carson, get over here…I'm in one of the rooms with the hospital beds. Sheppard's gone and touched something and I think he's in trouble…again!"
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The next day…
Sheppard caught up with Dr. McKay at one of the large data stations that were scattered throughout the facility, where he was giving Elizabeth and Commander Zovel an update. Even with his arm heavily casted, his skin red and raw under the thick bandage covering the claw wound, and his right ankle firmly ensconced in a walking boot, Sheppard still managed to keep up with a fast-talking, fast-moving Rodney McKay.
"So, what d'ya make of this place, McKay? Pretty cool, huh?" asked John.
"Uh, is that Sheppard-ese for 'what is my scientific evaluation of this fascinating, apparently long-lost facility created by a highly advanced but as yet unknown race?"
John stared at Rodney, a goofy grin on his face, just daring the scientist to say…
"Alright, yeah, this place is 'pretty cool,' yeah, I'll sink to your level!"
"…and it's so cool, the way each egg-thing in those bedrooms…" continued John…
"…crystalline ovoid interface…" corrected Rodney…
"…fits into a cup-holder on the nightstand…"
"…it's a psychic facilitator, it doesn't hold a giant Coke…"
"…in the rooms with all of those awesome high-def TVs…"
"…neuroimaging enhancers! Do you read any of my or Zelenka's reports? Do you get all of your vocabulary from cartoons and TV commercials?"
"Fine, take the fun out of it," said Sheppard. "But you gotta check it out, McKay. That whole experience was completely amazing."
"Well, no way would I feel comfortable letting some machine snake its way into my brain. And that's what those…hats…look like – some kind of techno-monsters," said McKay.
"C'mon, it's safe. Beckett checked me out, Zelenka checked out the equipment – everything's A-OK. Carson even hooked himself up; he said it was unbelievable! C'mon, give it a try, McKay, loosen up."
"Uh, a little dose of 'look before you leap' might be a good idea, John," cautioned Elizabeth.
"Well, yeah, usually, but when have you ever been one to sit on the sidelines, huh?"
"Sit on the side…what?" asked Zovel.
"It means be cautious, not take chances, watch other people do things," explained Elizabeth. "But that's not what I'm saying, John. The technology in those rooms aside…we just need to have all the information possible before we take any further steps."
Sheppard looked at Elizabeth. "Who are you and what have you done with the real Elizabeth Weir?" he joked.
"Now don't give me that 'where's your sense of adventure' look, Colonel. It's just…this place feels odd to me."
She neglected to say that, when most people had returned to Atlantis the previous evening, she had stayed behind and used the equipment. In addition to seeing herself as, oh, the ego of it all, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, she had also seen…
Now she was afraid to look John in the face. With her fair skin, the slightest blush could give her away. Did this place explain why she'd felt so anxious about Sheppard over the past few days? Had she somehow been influenced by it, even though her initial contact with the planet had only been from her side of the wormhole?
Now wasn't the time to get lost in daydreams. John was talking to her. "We know who they are, Elizabeth. You've seen those other green crystal eggs that Zelenka's team found yesterday in one of the labs. They've got holograms inside, of all those people saying, 'I am of the Eloran,' and inviting 'those of open and giving minds' to find them."
"What the heck does that mean, huh?" said McKay.
"Don't you read Zelenka's reports?" mocked John. "He thinks, and I agree, that those holographic crystals were distributed on other worlds, like they were recruiting people to come here."
"Yeah…OK, I admit that does sound plausible, Sheppard, but why did they want people to come here? Was it for a good reason? No, Elizabeth is still right," said Rodney. "Now, yeah, they're mentioned in the Ancient database as decent people, no red flags…"
"Yeah, so why not….?"
"…but knowing their name, Sheppard, and a few stray facts doesn't mean knowing them," added McKay. "Judging by what we've found so far in this place, that's gonna take a while."
"And, John," added Elizabeth, "If the Eloran were 'inviting' people here, if this was their home planet or maybe just an outpost for their work, then why does Commander Zovel say he's never heard of them?"
"I don't know," said John. "How long have the Tigans been on this planet, Zovel?"
"My ancestors settled this world nearly 2,000 years ago, Colonel. They fled our original home after a Wraith attack."
"So, the Eloran might have been here for hundreds or thousands of years, and then vanished long before you guys arrived. Jeez, I'm starting to regret ever finding this place."
John gave up, for the time being, on pleading his case. He looked over at Elizabeth; she didn't seem open to discussing it, either. "So, McKay," he asked, "do we know anything new about the Eloran? Other than the really skinny reports I've seen so far?"
"Well, Sheppard, 'ask and ye shall receive.' Thanks to the Ancient database, we already know that they were – are – who knows – a bunch of pacifists who believed in mind/body wellness – roughly, that means that the health of the body requires a strong, healthy mind, and vice versa. A lot of mumbo-jumbo to me, but hey, some hippie-types believe in it. Anyways, it looks like the Eloran were practicing, or, at least researching that here. But that's where the Ancient records end."
"Well, I thought we were at a dead-end, but then Dr. Lin, one of our anthropologists, had an idea. She cross-referenced what we know about the Eloran with other Ancient records, but left their name out of the query."
"And..?" asked Elizabeth.
"The Ancients have a lot of info on, I guess you would call it folk culture, myths, legends, whatever. A people that sound a bit like the Eloran are listed in this particular database. They go by a name that roughly translates as 'The Cloistered.' Ronon and Zovel never heard of them, but Teyla says that among some cultures, there are myths about a people from long ago who once defied the Wraith and escaped Cullings by using so-called 'magical powers,' not weapons."
"What happened to them? Are they still around?" asked John.
"The legends don't say."
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A blinding flash…
They are breaking through, they are breaking through….
Stay as one, stay as one, do not yield, we must not yield…
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The secret Wraith camp, not far from the Eloran base…
"Hey, you there! What are you doing here? Identify yourself!"
Arvil Trask looked up from where he'd been sitting by the fire, frying up a questionable-looking piece of meat. Camping out in the wilderness was starting to get really old.
He stood slowly, putting the pan down and extending his arms out to the side in that universally understood gesture of 'I'm not armed, everything's cool, OK?' In front of him was a young Tigan security officer who was heavily armed and who most likely believed he'd cornered the last Genii fugitive.
"Identify yourself!" Well, Trask didn't feel like doing that.
"Alright then, roll up both of your sleeves!" Trask didn't feel like doing that either; he knew the officer was hoping to see the small tattoo he bore on his inner arm.
The young Tigan wasn't about to give up. "Sit on the ground and place your hands on the back of your head, or I will shoot." Trask did as he was told; he wasn't stupid.
But the young officer was. He had failed to check for other campers. As he holstered his weapon and went to handcuff the prisoner – Zovel would definitely promote him now! – the Wraith appeared behind him and snapped his neck.
"Ooh, I'll never get used to that 'crack' sound, you know?" said Trask, idly poking his foot at the poor man who had never stood a chance. "Good timing, by the way, Commander. I should have been paying more attention."
"Yes, you certainly should have," growled the Wraith. He knelt down and, in a terrible display of strength, wrenched the man's head completely off of his body. "Feed the rest of him to one of those beasts, Trask, and leave his head for the humans to find. Hopefully, they will believe our deception and blame his death on a tragic accident."
Trask, psychopathic as he seemed, was speechless for a moment as he watched the blood drain from the dead man's neck. The arid soil of their camp drank it up thirstily.
"We need to know what is going on at the facility, Trask. They have been inside it for three days now. If they find what we think is there, then history will repeat itself. Eloran myth will be transformed into a painful – and deadly – reality for the Wraith."
"Don't worry, Commander. I have an idea that I think will solve all of our problems," said Trask, as he reached down to pat the corpse's pockets. He soon found what he was looking for – a small, thin leather case containing the young officer's credentials.
"Please give me the chimera device, Sir. Now, what was your name…?" Trask pawed through the Tigan's belongings. "Ah, there it is. Commander, if all goes well, 'Officer Selak Jep' will be visiting the facility tomorrow as part of a normal Tigan security detail."
"You are certain that no one will detect your subterfuge?" worried the Wraith.
"Sir, all of our 'test subjects' on Daros were suitably fooled, even when it was actually the feeding hand of a Wraith that shook their hand or caressed their face. But, if it would make you feel better…If I do not return after one day, feel free to summon your Hive and do things your way."
To be continued…