Chapter 34: I don't know what the hell I'm doing!
With the usual military precision and organisation, John had a site picked out for my wraith Dart and a list of volunteers for my telepathy trials within a day. I'd used the time to review all the information I'd copied over on how to actually use TED ... it was all theory though which would only make sense once I actually tried to do something. So far I hadn't even activated TED and I didn't know what to expect. For that reason it made sense to try the technology control angle first, even though TED hadn't actually been designed specifically for that purpose.
"I know you assigned Major Lorne and the team to work with me on the mainland," I told John the next morning when I was ready to proceed, "but for this first trial could you take me over to the mainland instead?"
"Worried about your image?" John teased me.
"No," I protested. "I'm worried about only getting partial control and crashing the Dart into someone."
"So you'd rather put me at risk?" John pretended to be offended. When I opened my mouth to make some kind of response John held his hand up. "Relax, I was just joking. I can take you over if you prefer."
"Thanks," I said gratefully.
"Let's go," John led the way to the Jumper bay, with a brief stop off in my lab to pick up TED, my laptop and some necessary supplies.
Colonel Caldwell had beamed the Wraith Dart down in a wide clearing a safe distance away from the Athosian settlement. John landed the Jumper about a ten minute hike from there – just in case I did actually stuff this up.
I set TED up on the small dais we'd brought with us, connected the laptop and powered up some monitoring programs Rodney had designed. I stepped back, glancing across at John.
"Go on then," he waved a hand in the air like I was about to perform some kind of magic trick. With his dark sunglasses on I couldn't see his eyes to tell what he was thinking.
"Just ... be ready to get out of the way," I advised nervously.
Taking a couple of deep breaths I slowly lowered my hand onto the device ... TED lit up immediately with a faint hum. As with all Ancient technology the mental connection presented me with a range of actions I could perform. With a Jumper you got all the functions available to do with flying and instrumentation – but that connection wasn't going to make you instantly a qualified pilot. You had to understand what was being offered to you before you could control it and make use of it.
TED was the same – I was being presented with a whole host of information, most of which made no sense to me at all. I closed my eyes and concentrated harder, trying to find something, anything, that was familiar.
"Ah ... Sabina?" I heard John's voice as if from a great distance ... it was surprisingly difficult to pull my mind away from TED and back to my surroundings.
"What?" I turned back to John and found him holding a hand to his head as though in pain. "What's wrong?" I ran over and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm okay," John grumbled, "it's better now."
"What happened?" I asked with dread in my voice.
"Instant headache," John admitted. "I don't know what you were trying to do but the longer you were connected to that thing the worse it got."
"Oh God," I muttered sickly, "I'm so sorry ... I didn't mean to do anything – I wasn't even thinking about you."
"It's okay," John excused. "It wasn't that bad."
"Define 'that bad'?" I demanded, pacing in front of him. "On the pain scale where was it?"
"I think you're overreacting Sabina," John grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. "On my pain scale it barely even registered."
"This was a bad idea," I looked down at the ground, tugging at my arm until John reluctantly let me go. I went back to TED and started packing up.
"You're not gonna try again?" John asked, walking over to my position.
"I don't know what the hell I'm doing!" I pointed out heatedly. "I mean, who do I think I am ... trying to remote control a Wraith Dart when I can barely even control-"
"Stop it!" John interrupted me harshly. "You are brilliant at what you do, with the Ancient technology and now with all this Wraith stuff," John looked at me intently. "So your first attempt had an unexpected side effect – let's deal with it and use it."
"Are you sure you're all right?" I asked softly.
"Yes," John said impatiently. "I think you should try again."
"You know how when you connect to the Jumper you get access to the whole Jumper all at once?" I asked. When John nodded, I continued. "If you didn't know anything at all about flying or navigation or instrumentation would you know what it was you had access to?"
"I guess not," John admitted. "Is that what it was like?"
"Yeah, except I couldn't even tell you that much about what I was getting," I said in disappointed. "All I was doing when you got the headache was looking for something familiar. I don't think there's any point in trying again today – I need to think about what sorts of information an Ancient would consider necessary to expand someone's telepathic ability."
"Talk to Doctor Heightmeyer," John suggested.
"Good idea," I said. "Let's get out of here – I want Doctor Beckett to check you out."
John rolled his eyes in frustration. "That's not –".
"It'll make me feel better," I interrupted.
"Then I guess it'll be worth it," John grumbled, helping me put all the gear back in my pack.
Of course John was right – he was fine and Doctor Beckett didn't think there could possibly be any hidden damage that we didn't know about yet.
I called Doctor Heighmeyer for an appointment as soon as we were done with Doctor Beckett. To be honest I was a bit apprehensive about talking to a psychiatrist, even in a non professional capacity ... all that 'what do you think it means?' stuff really annoyed me. So when it was time to head down to Doctor Heightmeyer's office I had to forcibly suppress my nervousness.
"Thanks for seeing me Doctor Heightmeyer," I said in greeting.
"Kate, please," she replied, gesturing for me to take a seat. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm working on the telepathic expansion device we found on Taranis," I told her. "I can activate it but the mass of information I get presented with is just incomprehensible to me. I need to understand more about how telepathic ability works so I can determine what information the Ancients would have thought useful to expand it."
"Telepathy is an interesting dilemma," Kate admitted. "Scientifically using classic methods like card guessing games, there's really been nothing conclusive to prove it even exists."
"But clearly it does exist," I pointed out. "I'm pretty sure if we could get two Wraith to participate in the card game they'd get a perfect score."
"Certainly what we've seen here in the Pegasus galaxy defies what we know from research back on Earth," Kate agreed. "Although to be fair we don't know how different the Wraith brain is from a human brain – perhaps we should instead be saying human telepathy doesn't exist."
"I've experienced it myself," I said quietly. "Admittedly that's because of the Wraith gene I possess – are you saying that makes my brain less human?"
"Of course not," Kate replied earnestly. "I do know there are a lot of theories to explain telepathy in the non classic sense – via reference to quantum physics actually. I don't know more than that – perhaps Doctor McKay would be able to help you from that side."
"If I wanted to quantify my brain activity in some way," I asked, moving away from the specific topic of telepathy, "how would I do that?"
"The major neuroimaging techniques used back on Earth are PET scans, MRI's and EEGs," Kate said. "The first two even produce pictures of the brain at work so we can understand how the brain processes information or reacts to stimuli."
"Can you link me to something on the database to explain how they all work?" I asked.
"Of course," Kate agreed. "Although you should check with Doctor Beckett too – the Ancients probably had different techniques to ours." She turned to her laptop and after a few moments searching found some useful links to send me.
"Thanks Doctor Heightmeyer," I said, keen to finish off the conversation so I could pursue the avenues she'd suggested.
"I heard about your capture by the Wraith – how are you feeling now that some time has passed?" Kate asked curiously.
"I'm good," I replied, frowning in confusion at why she'd ask the question.
"I ask because it wouldn't be unusual to have lingering effects from such an experience," Kate offered.
"No lingering effects," I said lightly. "I had heard a lot about Wraith captures from Colonel Sheppard before it happened ... maybe that helped."
"Ah yes ... Colonel Sheppard does have a knack for putting himself through difficult experiences," Kate looked at me as if judging my reaction to that.
"He does," I agreed, offering nothing further.
"Does that bother you?" Kate asked. "If I were in that kind of relationship I'd find it hard to continually be faced with the threat of loss."
"It wouldn't say much for my feelings if it didn't bother me," I pointed out in a slightly annoyed tone. "Look I don't know where you're going with all these questions, but if you've got something to say just spit it out instead of dancing around it."
"I'm sorry," Kate said, surprised at my response. "Of course it would bother you ... I really just wanted to offer you a sympathetic ear if you ever feel the need for help in handling those situations."
"I appreciate the offer," I said, rising to my feet, "but I don't think I'll be taking you up on it. If I want to talk about something I talk to John – which is only fair since it's usually something he did that gave me the need. We work it out together."
"That's good," Kate rose to her feet to escort me from the room. "I hope you find what you need from the material I sent you."
"I hope so too," I replied. "Thanks again." Giving a casual wave I headed in the direction of the infirmary.
I had a similar conversation with Doctor Beckett, without the annoying psychological questioning of course. The Ancient techniques were similar to ours but using different processes and displays to deliver the information. With what Kate had given me I thought I had enough to recognise anything in TED that had to do with brain measurement in general but I was still lacking information about telepathy. Kate had mentioned quantum physics – the only place to go on Atlantis for that was Rodney but unfortunately he was on the Orion. In fact anyone who'd know about quantum physics was on the Orion.
Rodney and a large contingent of Atlantis scientists were trying to get her flight worthy before the Hive ship arrived. The first hurdle had been to get the sub light engines on line so they could bring the ship back to Atlantis. The good news for me was that Rodney was now only a short Jumper trip away ... if I could convince John to take me out there.
"Colonel Sheppard," I tapped my headset, "what's your position?"
"I'm about five steps away from a turkey sandwich," John drawled. "Want one?"
"Of course," I laughed. "I'll be there in a few ... don't even think about touching my sandwich!"
"How'd it go?" John asked once we'd finished off our late lunch. I leant back in my chair and looked across at him.
"Have you ever spoken with Doctor Heightmeyer?" I asked curiously.
"Not in a professional capacity," John replied, "why?"
"She said you had a knack for getting yourself into trouble," I told him, "and offered to help me during those 'difficult times'."
"Is she still in one piece?" John joked.
"Hey, I was nice," I protested, "even when I said there was no way I'd be talking to her about you."
"She was just trying to help," John pointed out. "It is her job and the people who need that aren't always the ones who voluntarily seek it."
"I guess," I frowned. "I just don't see how it helps talking to some stranger about situations they haven't been in and couldn't possibly understand. I'd much rather just talk to you ... it's usually your fault anyway so you should be the one to cop the flack!"
"Yeah well not everyone is as free with expressing their frustrations as you are," John pointed out. "Did you get anything useful from Kate?"
"Yeah – general stuff about how to measure brain activity," I replied, "which brings me to the reason I called you when I did."
"You mean it wasn't just to enjoy my charming personality?" John put on a disgruntled look.
"That was just a bonus," I laughed. "I wanted to ask you if I could go up to the Orion – apparently quantum physics might explain Wraith telepathy. There's no one who isn't on the Orion who can explain that to me."
"Quantum physics?" John asked. "Isn't that Rodney's favourite subject?"
"One of them," I agreed. "So can we go?"
"I was gonna check in with them later anyway," John said. "You can come along."
"Cool," I smiled happily. "Give me a yell when it's time."