4: Experiments

One of the laboratory spaces that took up much of the 'Beta Site' had been converted into Doctor Rodney McKay's own personal workspace. This essentially meant that the place had been cluttered with all manner of scientific equipment, with multiple computers lining the walls, cables snaking along the floors and a host of clunky, cobbled-together machines taking up much of the remaining space. One large, turret-like machine was currently in use, and thick protective barriers had been erected around it to ensure that any mishap would be contained. The whole thing looked like a giant gun of some sort, mounted on a stationary platform with its business-end aimed towards a short dais a few metres ahead upon which a few otherwise innocuous items were placed.

The Beta Site was a hodgepodge of temporary structures erected around the stargate on a far-flung world, situated in a forested valley under a sky that, although as blue as Earth's during the day, was often taken up with the bulk of a neighbouring blue-green gas giant. At the moment, it was late afternoon, and the gas giant lingered in the eastern sky, currently out of the path of the young, yellow sun.

McKay paced around the otherwise drab grey laboratory interior, his SGC uniform draped over with a white lab-coat. He wore a set of glasses as he skimmed through readouts on the monitors spread around, making sure once again that the test parameters were as they should be. He was not alone within the laboratory, as the place was occupied by the man who had volunteered to be his lab assistant. Few others had wanted the job. Aside from these two men, the Beta Site was sparsely populated, with only a single squad of soldiers keeping guard. Communication between here and Earth was regular, courtesy of the stargate that lay within the centre of the compound. If need be, home was only a short walk away.

McKay was clean-shaven, his face somewhat lined as one would expect for a man in his fifties. For six months he had buried himself in his research, scrounging through every scrap of information about the enemy and the technology they used. It was the same power source he had once tapped into back in the Pegasus galaxy; at least, he suspected as much. And now he attempted to replicate that energy, albeit in a way that would not destroy the star system in which they were situated.

"All systems are in the green." Jonas Quinn, native of Langara and current lab assistant to Rodney McKay, looked up from his workstation a short distance from where McKay was pacing about. Jonas was of a similar age to McKay, yet his features still retained some of the youthful vibrance he had carried in his younger years. Despite his good looks, he had spent the intervening years living rough from time-to-time, most prominently when the Ori had occupied Langara. He had fought a guerrilla war against their occupiers, a fight that had at times seemed fruitless and had cost the lives of many good friends. And now, having once more been declared a fugitive by his own government, he found himself living in exile amongst the Earth people again. One day he would return to Langara and he would expose the evil he now knew had infiltrated the governments there; the same evil they had exposed on Earth, and the same conspiracy John and Aithris had gone to extraordinary lengths to put an end to. In the meantime, he assisted where he could, and at this present time that meant being a lab assistant for the somewhat eccentric Rodney McKay.

"Are you sure?" McKay stopped mid-pace and spun to face him. Jonas gave him a confident nod.

"Of course."

"But it didn't work the last time you were sure…"

"Because someone made a mistake on the power output of the dorsal caesium defragmenter…"

"So it was my fault?"

"It was an innocent mistake. Anyone could have done it." Jonas had long since learned to choose his words carefully where McKay was concerned. The man did not much take kindly to people questioning his abilities, or even so much as suggesting he may have made an error. Jonas had been thoroughly warned by John as to what to expect when working for him; so far, McKay had been just as the Colonel had described him. Perhaps more erratic in some ways, seeing as how McKay had spent several years living in hiding on Earth. All that time alone was not likely to do anyone any favours. And when they had already been as wired up and paranoid as McKay was, then it was certainly not going to improve their disposition.

"Right, right, whatever. Let's just run through it again." McKay stepped around the desk and came to a stop beside Jonas. From around his neck he pulled up a set of safety goggles and fitted them on. Jonas picked up his own pair off of the desk and followed suit.

"Start the charge sequence," McKay said, and Jonas tapped in the appropriate command at the terminal. The cannon-like setup behind the transparent safety screens began to audibly hum, its business end slowly developing a deep blue glow. The air about the laboratory became filled with a tingling, almost static-like charge, and Jonas could feel the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end. McKay rubbed at his chin in concentration, watching the setup with narrowed eyes. He seemed unbothered by the charge in the air. With one hand, he tapped Jonas on the shoulder.

"All right, get us up to a quarter power."

Jonas did as instructed, and the machine's low hum deepened and increased in volume. A slight vibration could be felt in the floor underfoot, the epicentre at the device itself. Upon the podium a few metres ahead of it was a simple block of wood, no more than a two-by-four cut to about half a foot in length. It was lined directly in the path of the currently invisible beam that Jonas knew to be emanating from the barrel of the device. Upon that timber was a simple stainless steel spoon, the sort one might use to eat soup. It was sticky taped to the timber to keep it from falling off from the vibrations. McKay, with this experiment, was hoping to test the unusual effects the so-called 'Arcuturus energy' could cause upon vastly different materials and, in turn, what those effects might do when the likes of metal and wood were forced to interact. It was, in terms of the project, beginner-level stuff. McKay had to start small, as any scientist would have to on such an undertaking. He had tried going big once before in the Pegasus galaxy, and all that had done was destroy most of a star system. And when he had done it again, years later, he had opened a portal into a realm the normally atheist McKay described as 'hell'. Jonas was fairly certain it was not 'Hell' in the religious sense, but rather a vastly different realm of existence that could very well have resembled classical depictions of that place.

McKay had been unable to replicate that experiment. He had tried more than once over the past six months, but each time had been met with failure. And so, with his trademark frustration and erratic mood, he had decided to start over with what he knew was more likely to work. As they made their way through more experiments, they would slowly discover the exact nature of the exotic energy that they were tapping into. McKay suspected it was being drawn directly from that 'hell' dimension; if that was indeed the case, then that might go some way of explaining its destructive, volatile nature. Jonas was happy to help, even a man like McKay who was not often grateful for such assistance.

"Now fifty percent power," McKay said, once the vibrations rattling the device and the items around it became all the more pronounced. Jonas adjusted the settings at the terminal, watching with a similar intensity as McKay was as the machine powered-up further. Now it began to visibly shake, and the transparent safety screens wobbled with the growing charge. A visible blue beam, little under an inch thick, was visible between the barrel of the device and the small dais it was aimed towards. The timber and the spoon were shrouded in orange-tinted light. Jonas had noticed, as the machine was charged, that the colour of the energy would often shift from blue to orange.

"Hold it there," McKay instructed. Jonas allowed the machine to sit for a minute, and as the pair watched on it became apparent that something was happening to the items on the table. Though they were shrouded in the orange light, Jonas could just make out the two disparate items. He could have sworn that the spoon was sinking into the timber, as if it were no longer solid.

Suddenly, red lights flashed about the machine and the computer display in front of Jonas began blinking warnings at him. Before he could react, there sounded a loud crash as something within the machine gave out, sparks erupting from its end. One panel on its side fell open, more sparks following it. The beam between it and the table disappeared, and instead a trail of fire burst from the barrel and travelled back down its length.

Jonas was on his feet right away, and he grabbed the fire extinguisher housed upon the wall at his right. McKay was swearing loudly, shaking his head and waving his arms about as he voiced his displeasure. Jonas approached the burning machine, the air thick with the stench of scorched metal. McKay, despite his anger, was still on the ball enough to go for the power switch. He yanked the lever hard, killing all current that was flowing into the machine from the naquadah generators within the camp. The humming died and a relative quiet fell upon the laboratory, broken then by the rush of the fire extinguisher as Jonas doused the burning device with non-conductive grey powder.

"Another overload," Jonas said, whilst the dust settled. He lowered the extinguisher, observing his handiwork. The machine lay dormant, parts of it scorched, some small amount of smoke still wafting off of it. McKay walked by him and towards the machine, looking over it with a scrutinising eye.

"Something in the trinium conductors," McKay said. He scratched at his chin. "Or maybe it was another one of your mistakes?" He turned to Jonas, his expression turning accusing. Jonas cocked an eyebrow but was otherwise unsurprised by this remark.

"My fault again, is it?"

"Well, it certainly wasn't mine." McKay emitted a long, drawn-out sigh. He ran a hand through his hair, flecked as it was with the odd grey strand. "We need something stronger. Something other than trinium." That particular metal was found off-world, and only turned up on a few planets that the SGC was aware of. It was a far better conductor than most Earth-based metals, yet apparently it could not cope with the kind of energy they were tapping into here.

"Could be a flaw in the conductors themselves?"

"I'll need to take a look inside." McKay turned around and walked by Jonas, headed for where the various tools necessary for the machine and the rest of the laboratory were kept. Jonas looked to the machine again, and then to the podium ahead of it. Walking over, he put a hand to the misshapen length of timber, half-expecting it to be hot to the touch. Instead, it was oddly cool, and so he picked up the piece and took a careful look at the spoon now fused against it. The spoon had seemingly fallen under the outer layer of the timber, essentially becoming one with the wood itself. Yet, neither item had taken any actual damage during the process.

"What do you make of this?" He turned to McKay again, who had stopped before the machine with a toolbox in hand. McKay glanced at the unusual result of the experiment, and with renewed interest he stepped over and snatched the timber piece from Jonas' grasp.

"I suspected as much," McKay said. "The very nature of the energy we're working with upsets the subatomic properties of organic matter. We're not talking simply burning or irradiating something; we're talking the ability to merge the inorganic with the organic."

"Well, if the reports about the enemy are true, it looks like they've got that down to a science." They had both read the most recent reports concerning the 'Void Demons', or rather the 'Scourge' as it had become known. "We've seen their ships and what they're made out of. Could this be a clue as to how they do it?"

"I think it's more than that," McKay suggested. "I think we're working on another dimensional wavelength. What we're seeing here are the side-effects." He frowned, his expression turning grim. "This energy source, it's inherently destructive. I would even go as far as to say it 'corrupts' the world around it."

"Corrupts?" Jonas was surprised to hear McKay say this, if only because of how unusual it sounded coming from him. Colonel Sheppard had described McKay to him as an often arrogant, overly self-assured and generally insufferable man who was very good at what he did and was, by all practical accounts, a genius in his field. However, the years had changed the man, and some of that scientific outlook had merged with something a little more metaphysical. McKay spoke of matter being 'corrupted' by an exotic alien energy source, just as he had spoken of that dimension he had glimpsed once before being 'hell' itself. Jonas could only suspect both claims went hand-in-hand.

"We should be careful, then," Jonas said, for lack of anything better.

McKay put the misshapen timber block aside, nodding his head in agreement.

"Careful, sure. But we need to find out all we can, and we haven't got the time…" His tone became more agitated as he spoke. He stomped over to the machine and gave it a swift kick in the base, only to flinch when his foot connected with the hardened metal.

"We haven't got the time," he said again, and he rounded on Jonas. Now his eyes had widened, carrying with them a look that Jonas pegged right away as 'unhinged'. "Can't you see, Jonas? We haven't got the means to tap into what these creatures use. And you know why?"

"I have a few theories…"

"It's because we're not them, Jonas. We're not like them, we're not from where they're from. They're in tune with it, we aren't. What we're doing is playing with fire, but with a kind of fire we can't even see, nor hope to understand." McKay sighed again, and he ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it up as if to make himself appear unkempt. "Every one of those Demons out there, their Heralds and whatever else, they're in tune with it. They carry a piece of it within them from where they came from."

"So, you're saying we can't truly harness it?"

"Maybe not 'harness' it. Maybe we could…" He trailed off then, for a loud knocking had cut in. Annoyed, McKay looked towards the door of the laboratory, watching as it swung open and a lone Marine walked in.

"Sorry to intrude, Doctor McKay, but the stargate's active and the SGC is on the line." He held up a transistor radio, indicating that McKay should take it. This had become standard practice here, since McKay rarely used the radio he had been issued. It usually took someone else to let him know there was a call coming through for him.

With some reluctance, McKay took the radio from the Marine and opened the channel.

"This is McKay."

"Doctor McKay, it's General Janssen. We've got something you should take a look at. Could be of some use for your research."

"Well, General, I was in the middle of an important experiment…"

"Don't you want to see a Herald up close?"

Jonas saw McKay's expression light up, and he knew then that the General had his full and undivided attention. McKay made sure to temper his excitement with something a little more level-headed, unwilling to make his eagerness too obvious.

"You got a live one, General?"

"Unfortunately, no. It's missing its head." Janssen sounded mildly apologetic. "Our medical staff have already done some work on it, but I think we could all do with your opinion on the thing."

"Sounds good, General. I'll be over right away." McKay glanced at Jonas. "You want Quinn there as well?"

"Yes, bring him along. I want as many different minds on this thing as I can get."

Jonas was somewhat relieved. There was far more to do on Earth than there was on this backwater, and it had been a while since he had seen his friends in SG-1. Outside of the time spent in the laboratory here in the Beta Site, things were otherwise quite dull. He knew better than to complain, however, as when things were not 'boring' they were otherwise taken up with life-threatening situations instead.

John Sheppard found the briefing room empty, which was a mild surprise to him. General Janssen had called him here, seemingly on important business, perhaps another briefing of some sort.

At this afternoon hour, even the embarkation room below was quiet. The stargate, as visible through the windows up here, stood stalwart. John, somewhat absently, wandered over to the windows and gazed out upon the space below, eyes drifting over the stargate itself.

Janssen appeared then, in the doorway of his office. John heard him approach, and he turned to greet the often weary-looking Brigadier General. Floyd Janssen had a lot on his mind and a serious weight on his shoulders. John did not envy his job whatsoever.

"Colonel, good to see you." Janssen sidled up alongside him and followed his gaze out the window and towards the stargate below.

"You called, sir?"

"I did. Not entirely sure why, but I did." Janssen let out a sigh, and he rubbed at his eyes with one hand. "Sorry if I pulled you away from anything."

"It's all right, sir. I was just watching TV."

"If you're not careful, Colonel, that nonsense will rot your brain." Janssen managed a small smile and John returned the gesture.

"Maybe, sir. I always thought I could have been an actor. Maybe in another life?" He could see that Janssen was tired, more so than usual. "Something the matter, sir?"

"Everything's the matter, Colonel. I've got two alien representatives here who don't get along, and they each cause our personnel problems with their own needs. You know how much steak that Major Voska's gone through?"

"Too much, General?"

"You could send him to a steakhouse and he'd put them out of business in a day, I reckon." He smiled again, if only slightly. "And that makalvari Captain? He takes his meat raw; can you believe that?"

"I can, sir. Those birds, they're, well…" John paused, as he searched for an appropriate descriptor. "They're birds, sir."

"And on top of all that, I've got one crisis after another. I've got a war eating up half the galaxy, and I've got ancient, winged demons trying to take the other half. I've even got the IOA wanting to interview Aithris, can you believe that?"

"Shouldn't be hard for him, sir."

"Maybe not." Janssen motioned towards the stargate with one hand. "Do you think Hammond had it easier, back when this place got started?"

"Probably not, General."

"You're right, of course. Sometimes, Colonel, I think I'm not cut out for this. And yet, I could never quit. I couldn't rely on someone else to take my position, not when I'm still alive." Janssen let out a resigned huff, before he turned fully to face John. "Sorry, Colonel, but sometimes I need a friend and not a colleague to talk to. For all the people I meet and boss around, this job can be very isolating. People are intimidated by the General's stars. But not you, Colonel. I can see that, saw it first time I met you."

"Thank you, sir?" John was not sure if he should be thanking him or not.

"I want your opinion, John. On what's going on out there. On what our chances are." Janssen sounded grim now. John was not sure how he might answer the man, or if even any response would be sufficient. There was far too much ground to cover with a request like that, and now Janssen was looking at him expectantly, awaiting a reply.

"Our chances against who? The Calsharans, or the others?"

"You've seen the Demons on the ground. You've seen what they're capable of first-hand. What do you think?"

"I think, sir, that we have our work cut out for us." A diplomatic response, and one Janssen saw for what it was straight away. His mouth tightened into a firm line and he turned again to gaze out of the window before them.

"They took out Atlantis and half our fleet," Janssen stated. "There's no coming back from that. It'll take years to build more ships, and there aren't too many other Atlantises floating around. The big wigs in Homeworld Command are putting together a scheme to construct an orbital defence grid, but that will take time. And it's time we don't have. Those creatures, those Demons or whatever you want to call them, they're working their way into the galaxy. They're spreading their influence and we still don't know what they want. Doctor Jackson doesn't think they're hell-bent on destruction. Yet so far, destruction is most of what they've done."

"There was the one Jonas found on Langara, sir," John said. "The Herald he saw working with the Kelownan Prime Minister. And the one on Atlantis, that was working with the conspirators."

"Divide and conquer, it's the oldest strategy in the book. Langara is a source of naquadria, and by controlling them that element falls under that control. They were trying to control the higher-ups here, to weaken us from within and to an extent it worked. Now that they're gone, I suspect they'll target us directly when they have a chance."

"You think these things will come for Earth again?"

Janssen nodded his head. His expression remained stern.

"I don't doubt it, Colonel. We're too big of a threat, even with most of our fleet gone. I tried telling the IOA and Homeworld Command we'd be better off building more ships, but they'd rather shore up our defences first. That's their priority. Instead of taking the fight to the enemy, they'd have us sit back and fortify like a turtle retreating into its shell. I can understand that approach, but I don't think it's the best one to take."

"The Calsharan rebels could supply us with ships, sir."

"When their war is over, and who knows when that will be?" Janssen shook his head. "No, John, I think we're going to be on our own, at least for a while. I'm not expecting the cavalry to ride in and save the day, not on this one." He scratched at his chin, feeling the slight stubble there. "The IOA will probably be in touch, about the interviews."

"Yeah, sure, they can ask whatever questions they want." John had done his share of those interviews, and he hated them each time. Having a bunch of pencil-pushing bureaucrats pry into your private life was about as irritating an experience as John could imagine. They had their reasons, although John did not feel he had to agree with those reasons.

Before either man could speak further, the familiar alarm sounded throughout the base indicating an incoming wormhole. The chevrons upon the stargate began to light up quickly in turn, and a technician's voice sounded through the PA system: "Incoming off-world activation." The iris slammed shut upon the stargate, seconds before the wormhole itself activated. Janssen looked up, alert, and he exchanged glances with John.

"See what I mean, Colonel? One crisis after another." He started for the stairwell in the corner of the conference room. John followed, if only out of curiosity. The pair descended into the control room below, and as they entered the technician manning the main terminals looked up.

"I'm getting an ID code, sir." He motioned for the display in front of him. "It's Teal'c."

"Open the iris." They watched on as the metal shield retreated into the ring, the shimmering puddle-like wormhole now apparent. Seconds after the technician had sent the go-ahead signal in response to the order, a very familiar, tall and broad-shouldered man stepped out of the pool of energy. John smiled then, always pleased to see the ageing Jaffa. He sensed some relief from Janssen, who appeared grateful that it was a visitor and not an invading force.