With a bit of a mind flip
You're into the time slip.
And nothing can ever be the same.
Time Warp - Rocky Horror Picture Show
"This was different!" John Sheppard states after what he would classify as his worst gate ride ever. His head was spinning, and he felt sick. After a couple of seconds regaining his sense and control of his stomach he turned to his resident know-it-all.
"What was that?" Ronan also voiced his concern.
Rodney was already furiously typing away on his tablet and prying open the DHD on their arrival planet. "If I had an answer, I would tell you. So now shush and let me work!" the physicist spat out.
As if on cue the Stargate starts to activate and 3 pairs of eyes turn to Rodney "That's not my doing! We should…" "Hide!" Ronon finishes his sentence for him. All of them scramble to grab all the gear and hide behind a couple of huge stone blocks.
They are all huddled together, and their eyes are fixated on the now glowing eye of the gate.
"Is that a …" Rodney starts confused and Teyla completes the thought for him "MALP? Why would Atlantis send a MALP after us?"
John takes the initiative and walks up to the robotic device to communicate through the com array there, since it seems their radios don't work.
The first thing he notices is that the video feed doesn't seem to work either.
"Atlantis? This is Sheppard. Come in!"
"Colonel, please dial Atlantis as soon as possible and come to the city." A voice none of them recognizes relays a message, an order. They all share confused glances and before anyone can ask anything the gate shuts down.
"Great! Which experiment did you forget to shut down at home, Rodney?" John glares at the scientist but starts dialing anyway. "Someone better has an explanation for me when we get home." the air force officer mumbles and sends his IDC. His anxiety over the strange voice from before gets calmed a little when he hears Chucks familiar "Iris is clear!" through his earpiece.
As soon as they have arrived in the gate room Ronon takes up a defensive stance, Rodney's mouth opens and closes like a fish, Teyla just looks confused and John is rather angry. Nothing looks as they remember. This is most certainly not their Atlantis. But how did they manage to copy Chucks voice and the IDC?!
They are greeted by a young officer, a lieutenant according to his uniform.
"The general wanted to greet you himself, but his wife was against it. I am bringing you to a briefing room where someone will explain all of this. But first I will need all your tablets, even your emergency tablet Dr. McKay."
The team knows now that something went horribly wrong with this trip through the gate and that somehow the people here knew about it. And a lot about them.
They follow the young man anyway, carefully taking in the way and John just hopes that Rodney has still some backup tablet to figure out what the heck is going on.
They end up in a conference room in an out of the way part. One they usually use for movie nights but here it seems it is really used as a meeting room.
The lieutenant excuses himself after also taking their earpieces and tells them to wait.
As soon as the doors have closed John and Ronon try reopening them, but it doesn't work. "Rodney, open the doors!" John demands and sure enough the sneaky scientist pulls out a tiny version of his tablet, he had in his vest pocket. Instead of the standard C4 brick!
"It looks like they disabled the door controls for this room. They can only be opened from the outside!" McKay offers after a little while and what sounded like a handful of unsuccessful tries.
Teyla seems not too worried. She sits down and silently observes the guys trying to get the doors to cooperate.
"I'd propose you take a break and eat something!" she says and grabs a bottle of water and a sandwich from the table in the corner. "I believe they will explain soon. Just as the young man told us." Her intermission does not completely work. Ronon and John still look like caged tigers but at least Rodney takes a seat and starts unwrapping a sandwich.
A little while later the doors actually open and in walks the lieutenant from before. "Let me guess, you drew the short straw?" John starts, trying to get some tension out of the situation. The young man in front of them doesn't seem to be too happy at having to be here again.
"Something like that, sir. But I actually have good news: we can send you back to where you belong in about 10 minutes. So, if you could please follow me." He leaves and occasionally checks if the group is following him.
They arrive in the empty gate room, just when the dialing sequence starts. Rodney notices the address being dialed as the one they just came from. "We are going back to where you picked us up?" "Yes, and unfortunately it will be the same bumpy ride as before I am afraid."
The thought alone lets the quartets stomachs roll. "If it has to be…" Teyla starts. "And also thank you for your hospitality, even if we couldn't learn anything about you."
"As it should be." The lieutenant gives back and glances at his watch. He visibly counts the seconds, then looks up at them and says: "You have to leave now!"
John looks at the young man one more time and nods his thanks, when something, someone in the command office catches his eye. He blinks to get a better look, but the figure has disappeared.
They step through the gate and yes, the ride is as bad as the first one was.
After a couple of minutes to get their bearings again, the team decides to dial Atlantis and scrub the original mission.
In the debrief Carter was most interested in their interactions with the "alternate" Atlantis and if they learned anything. What seemed to worry her the most had been, that they had sent an IDC and heard Chucks voice over the earpieces, which hadn't worked other wise.
"Did you notice anything that could tell us if this was the replicators or any other form of mind trick?" she asks them all. She fixes all of them shortly with a look but doesn't press them. John decides to speak up: "I don't know what I saw, but I could've sworn I saw myself, older and in uniform with stars on my shoulders."
This short little thing popped in my head after I read Joe's announcement that he is going to be a 4star on SEALS. I hope you enjoyed.
Happy holidays.
Oh and yes, Teyla noticed something in this other Atlantis and the Lieutenant has a name in my mind, but I might just leave it like this. What do you think?