"It would explain why my gene therapy isn't nearly as effective as it should be." Carson said.
"And why Rodney still can't fly the jumper in a straight line." Sheppard said.
"Haha, very funny." From Rodney.
"I thought so." Sheppard shot back.
"Yeah, yeah. This is all very fascinating, but can we get back to finding out what my son has discovered? Entertainment area could mean quite a few different things. Every culture has their own idea of what constitutes entertainment after all." Cordelia said.
"True." Elizabeth said. "We should check this out."
McKay, still annoyed at having information withheld from him, led the charge. The transport tubes could only handle a few people at a time, so McKay, Sheppard and Elizabeth took the first one and waited as the second one deposited Xander, Cordelia and Teyla. The six of them, then set out following the blinking light on McKay's handheld scanner. What they found shocked them more than anything they had yet found in Atlantis. A park. But not just any park. The local sequoia trees grew in this park. An entire environment maintained this park. The trees reached from the lowest floor of Atlantis to skylights made of a transparent material. Small robots tended to the trees, as well as the grass. The were only four of them, but they were larger around than any sequoia known on Earth. They may well have come from Earth originally, at least the seeds. If they'd grown on the mainland and managed to survive for 10,000 years, they might well have been even bigger. But then, they might not have survived on the mainland, between storms and animals.
Everyone stood in awe, gaping at this astonishing sight. The sky could be seen high above them. Soft grass was under their feet. They found Jesse and Toran running around barefoot. Who could blame them? Xander and Cordelia pulled off their own boots and let the soft grass caress their feet. The others were tempted to do so, as well.
"Jesse, how did you find this place?" Xander asked, awed.
"I just asked the Lady, dad. She's real nice and answers all my questions."
This upset McKay even more.
"You didn't think to tell anyone?" Between one breathe and the next, he was berating little Jesse. Xander and Cordelia's response was...painful.
Xander grabbed McKay by the back of his neck, careful of his strength, but not wanting to be. He leaned close to McKay's face.
"Doc, I get that you're mad, but if you ever talk to my son like that again, I will cause you a great deal of pain." Xander squeezed the back of McKay's neck so he got the idea, Xander was serious. Cordelia went a step further. Her knee connected with his crotch.
"Rodney." Elizabeth said. "They're right. Jesse didn't know that you didn't know, and just because you're mad about other things, doesn't mean you can take it out on a child. Get ahold of yourself." As she called Carson, so he could check that Rodney was okay. He was bent over gasping.
When Carson arrived, he too, took a moment to gape at the awesomeness around him, before taking Rodney for a quick scan. Better safe then sorry, after all. Especially since Rodney would endlessly complain anyway.
Something occured to Elizabeth. She had a sudden suspicion who the person pranking Rodney had been.
"Jesse, I'd like to ask you something. Have you been playing pranks on Rodney?"
"Oh, boy." Said Xander.
"Jesse." Said Cordelia.
"What? He was mean to you, mom."
"Your mom dealt with McKay's attitude herself, Jesse. You know better than to play pranks on unsuspecting people. It's one thing if you and I prank each other, we know about it. Doing it to McKay, means you're in trouble. We'll talk about this in our quarters. There'll have to be a punishment, Jesse." Xander told him.
"How did you get into his quarters, Jesse?" Elizabeth asked.
"I just asked the Lady to show me a way in. There are tunnels behind the walls."
"Maintenance tunnels? I thought we'd found all of them." Sheppard exclaimed.
"I guess not. First Jesse finds a previously unknown lab, then a park and now more tunnels. And he hasn't even been here two weeks. I wonder what else he'll find before the summer's over?" Elizabeth said. "Jesse, can you show us these tunnels?"
"Sure." He put his shoes and socks back on and led them to their quarters. In the main area, he pressed a section of the wall and it slid aside. There it was indeed, a tunnel. Little robots were sitting by the wall. Some were tapping into panels. All this time, and they hadn't known, that Atlantis had maintenance 'bots doing behind the scenes work. What exactly were they working on?
Elizabeth called Radak in to check out the little robots and what they were doing. Eventually he found that they were apart of the automatic systems of Atlantis. Maintaining the equipment, helping with repairs. Atlantis would send them out in response to a request to repair this or check on that. They found that there were separate scanners in the tunnels as well. This was how Jesse had gotten around McKay's alerts. He'd managed to avoid them altogether.