Sorry it took me so long to update this, after rewatching a few of the SG episodes, I came to be my own voice of reason, but then I realized that this is just a story, and it being just that, I'd let it play out with a bit of fun. So to anyone who is reading this, a huge thank you goes to you. :)
As always, I'm just borrowing the characters, kinda like taking books out of the library. Oh, and sorry this chapter is a bit slow, I promise the next one will be a lot more fun! Enjoy :)
Chapter 2 : Weighing the Options
So many times had the senior staff members of Atlantis found themselves sitting face to face around the horseshoe shaped table in the conference room. Today being no exception, it had been two hours since Elizabeth had dragged both Rodney and John out of the room that held the new technology they'd found, sealing the door behind them. She even took the precaution of posting two guards, just so that no one got any ideas of trying to use the machine before they figured out exactly what course of action to take.
"Look I'm just saying that I think we need to access this further." Weir folded her hands in front of her, and let her elbows slide a bit on the table. "So let's lay it out one more time."
"We've already been through this how many times," Rodney scoffed as he leaned back in his chair. "How many more times can we go over the same thing, I mean I understand that you like to be cautious, but this is just ridiculous ."
"The last time you rushed into something--"
"Yes I know, two-thirds of a solar system." Rodney shifted once again defending himself to Weir. "In my defense, not that I should have to have one, but that was some time ago now, and if you've noticed, all the things that I've done since then have really been beneficial...not to mention the fact that whenever something goes wrong, you all look to me to fix it. I mean I'm all for my expertice, but I'm beginning to lose track of how many times I've--"
"Oh, come on, just admit it," John let a half-cocked smile appear on his face. "You let your ego get the best of you."
"Can we focus here, please?" Weir always let McKay go on a bit with his tangent, just enough so that he'd talk rapidly and then get to the point sooner. It was a tactic she had learned early on, and she used it quite frequently. "Look, I've been thinking about this, and I don't exactly know that we should go playing with a time travel device. The last time that one was used, look at how much the future, our future for that matter was altered. We don't know what consequences we could be having on ourselves, or the lives of others."
"Just a thought, but couldn't we go back and do something good, say make sure that we never wake up the Wraith?" It was John's turn to shift in his chair as he glanced from Weir to McKay. He suddenly noticed that they were missing Teyla and Ronan, only to remember that they were scheduled to return from the mainland today.
"No." Elizabeth looked at him firmly, leaning back in her chair as she looked at both men, making sure they understood her. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. If we go back and change that, we never know what the consequences might be, for all we know we could make it a lot worse."
"First off, we don't even know one hundred percent that this device could send us forward or back into time, and second, it may not operate the same as the other one did. Heck, it might not even work the way that we are thinking at all. Without further analysis we can only conclude that this may be a prototype for the other one, we have to remember that it couldn't be a later 'model' because they banned him--"
"Janis." Weir corrected to pay respect to the man who had saved them thousands of years before they had traveled to Atlantis the second time.
"Whatever, the point is that he couldn't have built this after the other one, so we don't really know exactly how this one works." Rodney finished.
Sheppard watched Weir leaned forward in her chair once more, her face telling him that she was trying to find the best course of action for any possible experiments or tests that they may be able to run to learn more.
She took a deep breath, then "What are our options for running tests?"
"Well, you'd have to remove the guards in the room, and let me near the device for one."
"That was sort of a given, Rodney," Sheppard was getting a bit restless, he had to admit that this new find was a big one, and he was a bit anxious to go see what it could do, as he imagined McKay was as well. Hell even Elizabeth had to be a little anxious to test it out.
"I don't want the chance that we could lose anyone while running tests. We can't forget that the other Weir said that it was as if the other John just thought about being somewhere else and then they were just transported. " Weir once again was the voice of reason.
"Well this one has to interface directly with the mind as well, only it appears that the user has to be in close proximity to the device--"
"Why do you think that?" John leaned forward.
"Because, just as I was looking for the on switch, I was thinking about how to turn it on, and oh, surprise, the device just turned on." Sheppard narrowed his eyes at McKay's condescending words. "Look, I still say that they only way to learn more about this device is to be around it. Otherwise we may as just quarantine the room and never let anyone near it again. Which would be stupid because think of all of the positive things that we could learn from the device."
Elizabeth took one more deep breath, letting her eyes shift from one man to the other, her mind clearly weighing out the options, pros and cons of experimentation, "Alright. I'll give you the go to run some more tests. But be careful."
Before the words were out of her mouth both men were on their feet, like two little kids told that they could go outside for recess.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" John said as they both briskly walked towards the transporter.
"Of course I do, don't I always?"