A/N: Sorry this took so long…it's been a struggle to find any time and I've rewritten this chapter like three times. Not abandoned, no matter how long it takes.
Points of clarification
1. Thoughtform: the more people that are aware of and believe in a concept, the more power it has.
2. Floo: No elemental magic or plane here.
3. Divination: No Akashic records. Thoughtform shapes the local esoteric environment, from which local magic draws. So—yes, collective belief power falls off with distance squared, because it expands as a spherical shell from its source. That's how it works here. It doesn't prevent other things from happening if people don't happen to believe in them. Physical objects, yes including the Sun, still exist and do things. Belief is just another layer on top of the fabric of the universe.
4. Magic is not supposed to be forever mystical, immune to the power of science. It's just another quantum field in the fabric of the spacetime like the sorts of "powers" the Alteran and the Nox have.
5. I wrote that Chudley's plants had developed enzymes to transport out toxic metals, not that metals are literally enzymes. Ion transporters are enzymes that move ions around, including metal ions like calcium, sodium etc. Metals also participate in enzyme catalysed reactions (cofactors, metalloproteins). Metals in isolation are inorganic, but when involved in carbon chemistry it's literally organometallic chemistry. Metal cofactors are critical for the catalytic behaviour of loads of enzymes.
6. The Goa'uld is brain-dead. Now it's just a gland around Harry's brainstem that he can partially consciously control. Adding computing clusters is to add capabilities to Goa'uld/human mentalities that biological brains are just not good at. They have genetic memory, so their memories are encoded into DNA not just stored in their brains. DNA is a stupidly dense storage medium—a quick google tells me you can fit 215 petabytes in a gram, enough to store the entire world's data in a room. Yeah, the Goa'uld are notoriously bad at getting stuff done, mostly because they're arrogant. But that's independent of their intelligence. They were capable of reverse engineering Ancient tech, which kinda implies you understand it to a reasonable extent. Nirrti not doing anything in 10k years doesn't mean she's an idiot or incapable. It just means she's stagnant.
7. Secret Keepers can live under the Fidelius. It happened in canon. Four times.
8. I don't claim that Dumbledore was an idiot. People aren't two-dimensional. People can also have multifaceted, conflicting feelings about him. Harry likes the man in some ways, hates him in others. It's not that simple, because real life ain't simple. His downfall was hubris and keeping secrets. Literally no one other than Harry was told about the Horcruxes. Even Snape didn't know. Dumbledore is a demonstration of what not delegating and not entrusting people with critical knowledge leads to. It's poor management and poor judgment.
9. Harry's new ship design – why bother with planets? The same reason any spacefaring civilisations still has planets. Or why the Ancients settled on planets even with their city ships. They serve complementary purposes rather than being a replacement. The ships only have a carrying capacity of a couple thousand at most, no resources beyond what you bring with you, and no one really wants to live on them full time. It's basically just a simulated biome. Planets are full of resources, interesting undiscovered shit, aliens, artifacts, and have plenty of space.
Thank you for reading and reviewing! Or reading and not reviewing, too. If you have enjoyed it thus far, well, I'm glad and that means a lot to me.
.o.
Gradients
Chapter 5
Hermione didn't show up to Shell Cottage the following day. Ron tried pinging her via his nanoantenna, only to receive a message saying 'Sorry, I'm busy. Will be in touch soon.'
Harry and Ron shrugged it off, figuring that maybe she did actually have to deal with her parents' old house. Or more likely, she was deep in her hyperfocused research mode and didn't want to be interrupted.
Ron popped away to update his parents. Sort of. With him and three of his brothers now involved, he didn't want to keep them in the dark forever, but he also didn't want to stress his mum out with the knowledge that he was going into the galaxy to fight powerful aliens.
Harry would have joined him, but he genuinely felt unwell. Not physically—the Goa'uld parasite fixed most things right up. But his mind felt…mushy, and he kept feeling detached from his surroundings, as though everything was very distant and muddled. He kept thinking of things Nehebkau had experienced as events that he'd personally experienced, and he kept almost talking in ancient Egyptian. When he showered that morning, he spent five solid minutes staring at the mirror trying to recognise his reflection.
He rubbed his eyes. Gold floaters burst into his peripheral vision like fireworks exploding in his eyeballs. Where's my damned Lo'taur with my drink? He shook that thought out of his aching head in dismay, wondering if the Goa'uld was still alive and knowingly secreting specific memory proteins to influence him. He struck down that thought too, but the seed of paranoia stayed with him.
Narcissa walked in on him blinking his eyes rapidly as he tried to clear the floaters away. It was an exercise in futility—they glimmered like a cluster of stars, not going anywhere. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Something the matter?" she asked quietly.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut once more then looked at her. Even after a month of Narcissa's company, it was still odd to see the mother of his former rival in her dressing gown and devoid of any cosmetic adjustments.
"Your eyes are glowing yellow again," she said.
"Parasite might be influencing me more than I thought," he said, clamping down on the foreign impulses.
"You said it was braindead."
"It is, but I hadn't considered that braindead doesn't mean the genetic memory is gone."
"Genetics is the Muggle science of inheritance, isn't it? How does that relate?" she asked, sitting opposite him and crossing her legs.
"Well, the Muggles discovered that everything that determines who we are is encoded in strands of DNA. There are sections of the DNA that are genes, and variations in the genes leads to different characteristics, like hair colour, for example. The Goa'uld evolved to store memories and personality in their own DNA. So, as they live, they add to their own DNA; it's how they manage to remember such long lives. When they reproduce, they can then transfer that memory and personality traits to their offspring."
"You mentioned that was responsible for their megalomania," Narcissa said.
"Right. They reverse engineered this healing device; they call it a Sarcophagus. It's truly remarkable in its capacity to heal, but it causes some neural degradation, and its use is addictive. It made them even more deranged and power-hungry than they already were, and this got passed down to their offspring via the genetic memory," he explained.
"So, they truly are congenital lunatics," she said. "And Nehebkau's genetic memory is affecting you?"
He nodded. "Might be self-inflicted. I pushed deep into Nehebkau's memories. He's twenty thousand years old; most of his being—his memories, his personality—are encoded in his DNA. Only the most recent or his most prominent memories are actually in his brain. I think using all his learned knowledge, which is mostly stored genetically, might be unravelling associated strands of personality and identity. Or they might be inextricably combined with aspects of identity and personality. Not sure."
"Ah, I see. Twenty thousand years of memory and the most egotistical identity imaginable is overwhelming your puny seventeen years of memory and flimsy human identity," she said.
She almost looked worried.
"If I'm careless and keep accessing Nehebkau's knowledge, it seems fair to say it'll be futile to preserve my own sense of self," he said. "On the other hand, I'm quite sure I can't figure out a way to fix this without using his knowledge. I've already figured out that a Pensieve won't help; that's only designed for episodic memory removed from the brain. Occlumency is out too; one, I'm rubbish at it, and two, there's no way I can sort through that much memory before I die of old age. Also, if the emotional content is really entangled with the knowledge, then I don't know if I'd be able to dissect that."
It didn't help that it felt natural to dip into Nehebkau's memory, as though he was bringing up his own.
"I would guess that it the emotions and knowledge are entwined. It makes sense to be—it's obvious that this is their final defence," Narcissa said. "A way to ensure their legacy continues even if the parasite succumbs to the host. Perhaps even going so far as to be passed down to your own children."
Harry blanched at that. "Even if it's contrary to their current personality to give anything to the host, it does make sense from the evolutionary perspective of a parasite," he said.
"I'll think on magical solutions. A lot of blood magic relates to inborn traits, which must mean it operates somehow on this DNA," she said. "As distasteful as my upbringing was, my exposure to blood magic was extensive. I will go to Grimmauld Place to collect some books from the Black Library, if you don't mind."
"Oh, of course," Harry said. "Watch out, though, I'm not sure we completely disabled all the traps Moody set up."
"I'll be careful," she said. "Delphi's napping, but I will show you the milk conjuring and nappy changing spells if she wakes while I'm gone. In the meantime, please exercise caution in developing any technological solutions."
Oh, he'd thought of a technological solution. Sequence the parasite's DNA, extract the memories, excise the personality, reload them into his cellular clusters. Memory recall would be faster, but semantic knowledge would be less instinctual. The auxiliary thought routines in his clusters would even be able to make use of the genetic knowledge—something that was currently impossible because no Goa'uld had ever translated the memory proteins that the parasite secreted directly into the host's hippocampus into anything that one could watch or read or download into any form of computing device, including his cellular clusters, biological as they were. The cellular clusters he'd added to his brain hijacked biosynthetic processes to assemble nanoscopic cavity lasers and silica microcrystals, which amounted to a very efficient holographic data storage system. So, he could convert that holographic data into neuronal impulses that his brain understood. How a memory protein achieved the same effect was a mystery, but it had to be possible to predict how they interacted with the brain's memory centre.
Somehow.
Harry clenched his teeth; using Nehebkau's knowledge really did strain his mind.
.o.
He woke to the sound of a crying baby.
He blinked. He was lying down on the big, worn leather sofa in Shell Cottage. Ron's face was hovering over him, brow furrowed.
"Alright, mate?" he asked.
"Yeah," Harry rasped, rolling off the sofa into a pile of uncoordinated limbs on the floor, before heaving himself to his feet. His shirt and trousers were drenched and glued uncomfortably to his skin.
"Been out for a dip?"
"It's sweat," he said.
Ron frowned and hit him with a drying charm.
"Cheers mate," he said, walking past him and up to the staircase. "I don't remember falling asleep."
"Don't you only need a couple of hours a night?" Ron asked, following as Harry lumbered up the stairs.
"Yeah," Harry said. "I should do. There's a…complication. Bits of Nehebkau are seeping through into my mind."
"Sounds bad," Ron said. "But you'll be alright, eh mate? Had old Voldemort kicking around in yer noggin' for sixteen years, didn't you?"
"I think this a bit more problematic than Voldemort, honestly. I'll need to limit myself to just Harry-knowledge until I can get it sorted out. And you might need to smack me over the head if I start sounding like an evil overlord," Harry said. He pushed open the door to the room Narcissa had been using.
"Somehow, I don't think evil overlords get put on nappy changing duty," Ron said, craning over Harry's shoulder to look at Delphi wriggling and crying in her cot.
Harry shot him a dry grin, then whipped his wand out to do just that before taking Delphi over to the rocking chair to feed her. Ron pulled a soft brown leatherbound bundle of warped parchment from his coat as he dropped into the seat by the writing desk.
"Wanna see what Mum lent me?" He leaned over the back of the chair and continued without waiting for Harry to respond. "Some magic that's been passed down the Prewett family for a few centuries. Check this out," he said, spreading the book—although book was being generous—open and tossed it onto Narcissa's bedspread.
Harry leaned forward over Delphi. The page depicted a cauldron. An inscription resembling what Harry vaguely recalled Hermione describing as ogham around the cauldron's sharp lip—that inscription was written out linearly on the page as well. The top of the parchment proudly proclaimed 'Prewett Potlwc Parhaol'.
"What is it?"
"Well, the Prewetts were Welsh originally, but Mum said it's a magical perpetual potluck. Turns out a lot of the Prewett family magic is oriented around food."
"I would never have guessed," Harry said dryly.
Ron made a rude hand gesture at him. "Anyway, apparently perpetual stew was a common thing back when Mum's great-something-grandfather Carwyn Prewett came up with this. Normally with perpetual stew, all you do is keep the stew cooking, never completely empty it, and replenish it with fresh ingredients, so it accumulates flavours and whatnot. And then as a potluck, anyone who comes to eat out of it brings something to add to it—and that's where the magic happens. That inscription on the pot—see—it's supposed to draw a little magic out of the ingredient thrower to infuse into the stew."
"What does that do?"
Ron shrugged. "No idea, but it sounds neat."
"Doesn't it say?" Harry asked.
"Something vague about communal spirit and a blessing from partaking in the stew," Ron said, waving his hand. "I just liked the perpetual stew idea, really."
"And you want to set up a giant cauldron in The Cannon, don't you," Harry said.
"Yeah, obviously. Adds to the vibe of the place, you know."
"Well, why not?" Harry said. "We'll pick up a cauldron when we fetch Ollivander and Ne…Ne'kiki'pwi for the trip back to Chudley."
"Awesome," Ron said. "A gold one? Y'know, since we're getting Gringotts."
Harry snorted, remembering Hagrid stopping him from buying a gold cauldron before his First Year. "A gold one, huh?"
"It's more magically conductive," Ron tried.
"I'm sure that's why," Harry said. "Yeah, alright then."
Ron grinned. "Still nothing from Hermione?" he asked.
"Haven't tried again. I'm sure she'll fill us in when she's ready," Harry said.
"Guess so," Ron said.
.o.
As May dawned, Hermione still wasn't ready. Harry knew he could probably locate her by tracing her messages, but she did at least respond them to insist that she was fine and busy, so he let her be.
Ron busied himself with learning bits of Prewett magic. It was the most self-directed learning Harry had ever seen the boy do, but magic related to food was evidently enough of an incentive. Harry, meanwhile, had to put all of his endeavours on hold while he puzzled out his Nehebkau issue and refining his ship design—purely from a human perspective—when accessing the Goa'uld knowledge to develop the solution grew too tiring. Harry's mind was continuing to deteriorate as it tried to cope with the onslaught of memories. By mid-May, he was passing out from mental strain every few hours; he was managing to stay awake for only eight to ten hours a day, and any potion meant to improve his energy or mental clarity merely gave him an awful headache.
He was beginning to lose sense of the days passing.
It was dark. Then—a couple of hours working on it. Then it was day, and Neville was reading in the corner of the room while Luna went through a stack of bizarre-looking spectacles, examining Harry curiously with each pair. Then another few hours passed with no real progress. Then he woke to find a frowning Astoria feeling his damp, burning forehead with the back of her hand, while Tracey paced back and forth in front of the window, making the shafts of light from the sunset flicker.
"Hi Harry," Astoria said. "Not going so well, huh?"
His tongue flicked out to wet his cracked lips and he swallowed. "I'm fine," he said. "I already copied all the stored memories. All I need to do now is figure out how to prevent the memory proteins that the parasite's pumping out from affecting me."
She bit her lip. He stared. It was stupidly attractive when she did that for some reason; definitely the bloody parasite's memories of debauchery influencing him.
"We're worried," she said. "All of us. I know we've only really known you for a little, but you've already become one of the most important people in my life. I know Trace feels that way too. We're both so grateful for saving Daphne and the group of friends we now have because of you."
"For what it's worth, you both mean a lot to me too. I never had friends growing up, so I treasure the ones I have now."
Tracey paused her pacing. Gold spots persistently radiated into his peripheral vision, reminiscent of travelling through hyperspace, and Goa'uld-like impulses and thoughts grew more intrusive, closely followed by Harry's guilt at the overly amorous thoughts about his friends.
"You can identify the genetic memories in the parasite's DNA, yes?"
"Yeah, that's how I copied them. Their DNA is a little more complex, but memories occupy most of one of the largest chromosomes. It's easy enough to identify; every memory gene starts with the same distinctive sequence."
"Harry, you idiot," Tracey said with a sigh. "You can modify our DNA. If you've already copied the memories, go excise those memories from the parasite. Problem solved."
Harry looked at her dumbly. "Fuck," he said, slapping a hand on his face.
.o.
It was at dawn the next day when Harry felt like he was being completely submerged in magic. He woke up, gasping, flinging his hands up and clawing at the air instinctively, as though he could pull himself through the cloying aether. He was filled with a sense of intense conviction, but about what he couldn't ascertain. It felt familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on how. As fast as the feeling came, it evaporated. The sudden vacuum made him lurch upwards. He followed the momentum, slinging his arm over the back of the couch and sitting up.
The acute disorientation faded as stimulants from the parasite soothed his erratic neurons. Moments later, the other inhabitants of Shell Cottage burst into the lounge in their pyjamas.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Bill said breathlessly.
"You all felt it too?" Harry asked.
"You'd have to be dead to not have felt it," Bill replied. "I bet even the Muggles noticed."
Ron stumbled in. "Bloody hell! The sky's on fire," he bellowed, pointing wildly back up to his room.
As one, they flocked to the window and stared up. Though the sky wasn't even really dark yet, it was pierced by vivid, ethereal purple and green ribbons of light, dancing and swaying.
"An aurora," Harry muttered. "How?" They watched, entranced by the lightshow shimmering above them until, in his augmented vision, he received a call from Astoria. He accepted it, and a ghostly form of her head appeared in his view.
"Harry? Harry? Is this working?" she asked, a frantic edge to her voice. It came through twice.
"Hi Astoria, I can hear you fine, although you don't need to physically speak. The clusters pick up mental speech," he said—mentally only.
"Thank Merlin!" she said. "I'm guessing you felt that wave of magic?"
Harry nodded mentally. "Not sure what it was, but it's lit up the sky," he replied.
"Yeah, well, when it hit us here, Daphne woke up screaming and completely out of her mind. The Healers are trying to calm her down, but she's shrugged off all their sedation and calming spells. If you've got any ideas, please help," she said.
"Out of her mind? Is she saying anything?"
"A pair of eyes looking at her. Something about burning up. It doesn't make much sense to me," she said, gnawing on her lip.
"I'm on my way," Harry said. "Give me a couple of minutes."
.o.
"You see them! You see them! The eyes! They're coming!" she screamed.
Daphne, clad in only a hospital gown, stared at him with a terrifying intensity. Her voice was hoarse, and her own ice blue eyes were alight with inscrutable, luminous geometries that seemed to extend into her irises forever. That was peculiar. The grip she had on his forearms would have been painfully tight if it weren't for his Goa'uld enhancements.
"Tell me! Just now, the eyes turned and saw us! They're so angry. Tell me you see! I know you do! You've touched the patterns! I burned up and touched the patterns too!" she continued.
Tears poured down her face, her frothing magic sizzling them into steam. Her blonde hair was lank from sweat and humidity, sticking to her face all the way down to her chin. She was clearly magically unstable, but at least she was much less emaciated than when she'd been brought in. A glance at Astoria over her shoulder told him she hadn't heard Daphne say these bits before.
"What do you mean when you say I've touched the patterns?" he asked.
"Yes! Yes! I see it in you! You've touched them! You know the eyes see us now!" she rasped, shaking his arms. "Your essence vibrates in the interstices of higher space. Not like the others."
Harry quirked an eyebrow. "My essence? As in, my soul?"
"The unique excitation in the fabric of the universe that makes up your living mind. Your soul. Your being. Your living energy. It oscillates synchronously within and between higher space. All others are only within."
"And you say your soul does this as well?"
"I touched the patterns and elevated into the interstices too! I exist there and here. As you do. I saw the cosmos in its true glory, and I knew it. I became it," she said. Her expression fell, and the glow in her eyes subsided slightly. "Then I unbecame it. But I still know it and I see it—just—beyond my reach."
"Interesting. Would you mind if I brought a friend in to cast a diagnostic spell on you?"
"Spell? Spell? Spell…I suppose. Don't make me sleep," she mumbled, frowning. "I won't be able to hide in physical space and I have no wish to see if the eyes are there waiting for my essence to return."
"No sleeping, got it," Harry said. "Shall we sit until he arrives?"
"Yes. Sit," she said. Daphne didn't move an inch until Astoria slid a chair behind her, using it to nudge the back of her knees. She collapsed into it instantly, neglecting to release her clasp on his arms and dragging an unsuspecting Harry into an awkward lean over her. He squatted in front of her.
It took a while for Bill to arrive. He walked in to find Daphne muttering to a bemused Harry. Astoria, standing off in the corner, looked more upset than puzzled.
"Sorry, Harry—I was meeting with some of the Order about whatever the hell that was," he said.
Harry beckoned him over. "It's no problem, Bill. I've been having the most fascinating yet confusing conversation with Daphne," he said.
"Hello, I'm Bill Weasley," Bill said to Daphne.
Daphne turned her swirling, glowing eyes to Bill but said nothing. Bill blinked.
"Right…," Bill said, eyes flicking over to Harry briefly, "I'm going to cast a harmless diagnostic spell, if that's alright with you?"
She nodded silently. Bill glanced at Harry uncertainly, but continued.
"Animam revelio."
The expected truncated dodecahedron of Daphne's soul appeared…but it, like Harry's, was encased in a twinkling lattice.
"Bloody hell, another one?" Bill said.
"The logical conclusion is that the lattice has some relation to these interstitial spaces Daphne has been talking about…although, her lattice is a lot brighter than I remember mine being," Harry said.
"Agreed," Bill said. "This is more substantial too, see here—," he pointed out some fine structure between the elements of the lattice, "—if you look closely there are some visible patterns that I've never seen before."
"This representation is…adequate for physical space but cannot show the reality of higher space or the interstices. One must have touched the patterns to see essence as it truly is. You have the patterns. You have touched them," Daphne insisted to Harry, squeezing his arms.
"I can't see the true nature of essence or anything," Harry said.
"You…don't see the eyes?" Daphne asked, crestfallen.
"Afraid not, but I believe you," Harry said. "Can you tell me anything else about them?"
She shook her head, then tilted it. "Well…actually, I think they're incredibly distant in physical space. It's difficult to determine up there," she said.
Astoria stepped closer. "What I want to know is what in Merlin's name was that blast of magic? And how did it catch the attention of this…entity with the eyes? And, I suppose, is that attention good or bad?" she asked, biting her lip.
Daphne pursed her lips for a moment. "They were…infuriated. I could tell," she said. "There was a feeling emanating from them. Like…an oppressive aura. They stared towards us with a coldness so stark I can't put it into words."
"I feel like you're saying it's bad," Astoria said.
"Bad or not, I'm not sure we have the resources to do anything about it right now," Harry said. "I say we—" he was interrupted by a message from Hermione: 'SOS'.
.o.
The ship shot into the sky at 40g, stirring up a fountain of sand and displacing so much air so quickly that a furious shockwave buffeted Shell Cottage. Within seconds, he was lobbing through space over the Atlantic Ocean at over 20 kilometres per second, homing in on the origination coordinates of Hermione's message.
Another couple of minutes later, Harry shed his velocity into gravitational waves at the full 153g and found himself hovering with stealth functions active above the Mojave Desert. His sensors were reporting a dozen aerial contacts—an odd helicopter–plane hybrid zipped across his viewscreen—and he could see a swarm of vehicles and people on the ground.
'Hermione, what on Earth is going on? I'm above the location you sent your message from and there's Muggle military everywhere. Can you Apparate?' he sent.
She called him back.
"Harry! Can't Apparate. I haven't moved much, just to the other side of the hill. Can you use the ring transporter?"
"Yeah, hold on."
As he descended, his sensors picked her up and once he was about twenty metres directly above her, he activated the rings.
The rings whooshed back and Hermione appeared with a stumble, bulging tan rucksack on her back and dressed in a white linen blouse and khaki shorts. She fell to her knees, panting and covered in perspiration. Tearing his eyes away from her, Harry pulled up at a steady 10g, then once the atmosphere thinned out a little more the ship shrieked into space at full bore. He got up, leaving the ship station-keeping 180 kilometres above California, and hurried over to Hermione.
"Merlin, Hermione, what did you do?" he asked, putting his hands under her sweaty armpits and hefting her up. She was lighter than he remembered.
She looked exhausted, but otherwise unharmed.
"I stirred up the US Air Force and MACUSA's Aurors," she said. "Who knew America has an emergency country wide Anti-Apparition ward? Luckily, I managed to get out before it went up, but I bounced off it on my second jump."
"Hermione. It's okay. I've got you, you're safe," he said. "Breathe for a sec, hey?"
She exhaled heavily and swallowed. "A whole horde of Aurors showed up almost immediately after I finished my spell.
"I wasn't expecting the Muggles to notice anything either—but apparently they did, and apparently there's an Air Force base right next to where I was. Ugh, I didn't even have time to pack everything up. Thanks for coming, Harry. I honestly don't know what I would have done without you," she said. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
"Anytime," Harry said, patting her back awkwardly, "you know that. I offer extraction services anywhere on any planet. Fastest response time in the galaxy, guaranteed."
"Harry!" she laughed, smacking his chest lightly. "I'm sorry, though. It was reckless of me," she said, her smile fading completely.
"Maybe you should start from the beginning, Hermione," he said. "Why were you in America anyway?"
"Right, well…you know how we leveraged the power of belief to find those children? It got me thinking: if you could briefly and simultaneously incept belief in a concept in millions of people at precisely the same time, could it manifest into a physical object?"
"Oh…oh no, Hermione," Harry said, running a hand through his hair. "That was the wave of magic we all felt? There was an aurora at dusk! At dusk, Hermione!"
She grimaced. "Well, I couldn't quantify how much belief I'd need for it to crystallise into an object. And my research into past occurrences didn't really help. You know there was one Event in nineteen sixty-one that wiped a motel room from existence in New Mexico? I was at the motel two days ago. I couldn't determine what or how the Event had happened, or how much power it required…but it felt…warped there. Then I saw a man appear out of nowhere, like he'd Portkeyed in! Except he was a perfectly ordinary Muggle who'd picked up a bus ticket that apparently teleports people to the road outside the motel," she said, rolling her eyes like she should have expected it. "There's a whole network of Muggles that know about this Event who've slipped under MACUSA's radar, but he told me—after a little…um…convincing—that the bus ticket is one of dozens of Objects that were created when that Event occurred, including, legend has it, the person inside the room. That motel room is fascinating, you know. All the other crystallising Events that I could piece together don't wipe the progenitor objects from this reality; that and the lack of any trace of magic makes me wonder if it was a technological event. It's like the room and supposedly, the person who was in the room, never existed in the first place. That's some very complex reality manipulation. I bet there's an alien artifact involved."
"You don't think that the occupant of the room was involved?" Harry asked.
"I think it's more likely the person was a Muggle who had no hand in the Event itself. The bus ticket was theirs, after all; what magical person would ride a bus? Anyway, this is all rather beside the point—what I discovered is that all Objects of crystallised belief seem to have a few traits in common. They're indestructible, have some kind of power, and have a sort of…higher awareness. Harry—the Deathly Hallows, they're exactly like that. I mean your cloak is pristine, isn't it? And it's supposedly been in your family since Ignotus Peverell—that's centuries of use and wear and it still looks new. And the Stone. You told me the Horcrux was only in the band holding it; the nature of the Stone itself cannot be subverted by any means. And I bet it's impossible to snap the Elder Wand."
"That makes a surprising amount of sense," Harry said. "The Peverells must have figured out their own way of crystallising belief into physical objects. I guess it was either a very taxing ritual or they couldn't source material for it again if they only did it once each."
"A ritual is probably right, although it was probably a three-person tandem ritual since the three Hallows are related and three people doing a ritual together can amplify its power."
"Wait, so there could be something to uniting the Hallows and becoming the Master of Death?" Harry asked.
"Maybe. If the concept of death was in any way involved in the creation of the Hallows, it would depend on whether it was the central figure or an auxiliary concept they used to tie their separate beliefs into a single ritual," Hermione said. "I'm leaning towards it being the latter, which unfortunately would mean, as Bill suggested, that the Master of Death is total rubbish."
"Well, we can test that pretty easily. The Elder Wand is still at Malfoy Manor, somewhere on Voldemort's corpse…but don't distract me, Hermione!" Harry said, poking her shoulder lightly. "What did you do?"
"Ah…well, I might have had a teensy bit of a breakdown," she said, holding her fingers a hair's breadth apart. "It's just…I've been trying so hard to keep up with your knowledge and be useful—"
"Hermione—"
"—and then because I'm crippled by self-doubt and have no self-esteem—thanks, Mum—I spiralled into feeling worthless et cetera. Then I had that idea, and I just couldn't let go of it—especially with what we're up against out there," she continued, waving her hand at the ceiling. "So, I thought, what if I can turn a concept into crystallised belief using the coherent conviction of six billion minds?"
"So, did it work? What did you create?" Harry asked, looking her up and down to try and find anything out of place.
"Ah…well, since my Muggle education stopped before Hogwarts..." she said, looking away.
"Hermione…," Harry said with a growl. "You don't need to push yourself so hard, you know? Honestly, even with all my knowledge, your ingenuity is miles ahead of me, but you don't need to keep up with me to stay my best friend. You only need to be you."
"I know, Harry. It's just—sometimes, I convince myself that I'm that same friendless, annoying, frumpy kid I used to be and it's only a matter of time before everyone else realises that and abandons me," she said.
"I never thought you were annoying or frumpy."
"Ron did," she grumbled, "and my parents, and all the other kids in primary. But I know you know what it's like, Harry. You turned out far too kind, you know, given how you spent your childhood."
Harry snorted. "I can be a surly git, as you well know," he said.
"Anyone can…but I mean generally, you're the most considerate, selfless person I've ever met."
"Thank you, Hermione. I think you're pretty, too…er—I mean, pretty great…but obviously you're also not ugly."
"Hermione Granger, the not-ugly girl?"
Harry's face grew warm, but even though he was refraining from touching Nehebkau's memories, just knowing the sordid nature of them spurred him on unflinchingly. "We spent the better part of a year in a tent together, so yes, I have noticed that you are a very hot girl," he said.
Hermione actually blushed. "I was only teasing," she said, "but it does feel nice to be called hot for once."
"Well, very hot girl Hermione Granger, what superpower did you acquire? And why don't I remember what beliefs you incepted?"
"I built in a Notice-Me-Not effect, which made it a subconscious belief. The belief should dissipate by the time it wears off, but for a brief instant, if it worked, everyone believed that there's an earring that grants its wearer superhuman mathematical ability."
Harry stared at her.
"I panicked," she said, a blush erupting on her cheeks. "Honestly, Harry, I thought it made the most sense. I mean, all science and engineering is really applied maths."
"You made a maths earring. You made a maths earring? Of course you did."
She pulled her hair away from her left ear to show him a small black helix hugging her upper ear lobe, piercing twice through the cartilage.
"Actually, I think that'll be really useful," Harry said. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and he could feel his mind starting to get muddled. His own voice sounded distant and distorted, like he was hearing it underwater. He felt warm. He felt his nerve-endings fizz in his hands and feet, and pressure build around his head.
Hermione's worried face swam in front of him, and his last thought before darkness claimed him was to wonder how she was going to fly the ship.
.o.
When he came to, it was to Hermione sitting in the pilot seat, scribbling in her notebook.
Sensation rushed into him, of steel ropes digging into his skin.
He groaned. She turned, her chocolate brown eyes searching his.
"Harry? Are you you?"
"Oh fuck...don't tell me—"
"It's alright, you're fine. You fell into a sort of...fugue state, I suppose. It's been about three hours. I tried putting you to sleep and stunning you at first, but you're remarkably resistant to that now. You also broke out of the regular incarcerous ropes, so I had to go for something a little stronger—sorry if they hurt...oh, Harry, I should have known it would be a struggle for your identity to assert itself under that mountain of memories," she said, coming over and touching his face gently.
"Did I do anything...?"
She shook her head. "You only tried to intimidate me with tales of galactic conquest and your supposed godliness, threatened to dominate me, offered a reward in the form of being your most treasured bed slave if I untied you—you know, typical megalomaniac rubbish."
"What, you mean you weren't tempted to be my most treasured bed slave?" Harry asked with a cheeky smile.
She smirked back at him. "Well, I couldn't get your other self to elaborate on whether your most treasured bed slave gets a book allowance."
"Good call."
"Anyway, I talked to the others to get a rundown of what's been going on with you."
"Did Tracey tell you she solved it for me?"
Hermione's mouth thinned. "Yes. Honestly, Harry, if you'd sent me a message about this, I would've dropped everything and come back."
Harry scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, uh, the resequencer will do the job," he said. "In my defence, I only just got all the memories copied. And—I won't be able to use most of Nehebkau's knowledge until I can translate the information in the memory genes into something that can be stored in the clusters without his identity, which means I won't have the knowledge to translate them if I sequence them out."
"So it's an issue of translation more than anything?"
"Now it is, yes. I can't even cut out parts of it I wouldn't need to translate them because I can't tell what's what. Either way, if it's taking too long, then I need a stopgap solution."
Hermione frowned. "Well, you focus on translation. I'll think about stopgaps," she said, rubbing her forehead.
.o.
Pansy Parkinson felt out of place in amongst the happy colourful patrons of Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Clad in a deep V-necked black dress, with short, lacy sleeves, her raven black hair cut into a short messy bob, and her eyes surrounded by dramatic winged eyeliner and smoky eyeshadow, she was every bit the stereotypical gothic teen. She shifted in her seat uneasily, squashing herself deeper into the booth she'd claimed, and scratched at a scar on the back of her left hand—a nervous habit.
In all honesty, she'd never even been in the ice cream shop. She asked her mother once, when she was seven. The lashing from that kept her away for the next ten years. But now—now they were dead. The sudden freedom left her flailing for purpose. Her whole life was structured around accommodating her family's choices; without that, she genuinely didn't know what to do with herself.
Narcissa Malfoy stepped through the doorway with the same effortless grace she always carried. She wore a casual, flowing, white linen dress and a radiant smile. Pansy barely recognised her.
"Pansy," she said, taking a seat across from her. "Thank you for coming."
Pansy shrugged. "I was curious," she said. She felt the tingle of a privacy ward wash over her. Narcissa tucked her wand back into her sleeve.
"I'll keep this brief. I'm here on behalf of a group of…researchers, shall we say. We're offering you a job of sorts. You'd be developing astronomical equipment—"
"I'll take it," Pansy said immediately.
Narcissa raised an eyebrow at her.
"Do you see any other astronomy jobs? There aren't any. I've checked. Every single day for the last eight years. I'm shit out of luck unless Sinistra dies or retires, and she's barely thirty, and even then my name has closed a lot of doors."
"Very well," Narcissa said, pursing her lips, "accommodation, food, and whatever you need will be provided. Money is almost meaningless to us, but it is available should you need to purchase anything. You will likely be away from Britain for extended periods."
"When can I start?"
"Right now, if you wish."
Pansy nodded and slid her empty ice cream bowl to the centre of the table. "I'm ready."
.o.
She sat in the plush armchair in the corner of his room. She sighed and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. The room wasn't cold, but ever since her return to a fragile lucidity she'd been beset by an inability to get warm. Six weeks of it had grown tiresome.
The door swung open silently.
"Again, Daph?"
Her eyes took a moment to focus, her mind a moment more to clear.
"Trace," she acknowledged.
"Shove over," Tracey said, squeezing into the seat next to her.
"Trace—!" she said, squawking indignantly.
Tracey put an arm around her waist.
"I'm fine, I promise," Daphne said. She tilted her head and rested it on her friend's shoulder.
"This is the fifth day in a row, Daph."
"I just—I don't understand. The lattice. Why he has one," she said, "why I have one. What do they even mean?"
"Well, you're not going to get any answers watching Harry sleep," Tracey said.
Daphne just fidgeted. "The lattice, Tracey. It's a projection of how life essence manifests through the substructure of the universe. I-I-I can't really explain properly. I don't even really remember it. But for an instant, my conscious mind left my body, and I saw everything from behind the veil of-of our physical reality."
Tracey raised an eyebrow at her. "Daph—"
"And there were others there! Thousands of them, millions even. Actually centred around Earth. Just…there, watching, like a bunch of creepy voyeurs. Not dead, just somehow beyond the physical world. And I felt my thoughts change. Grow. Elevate. Then, I was being unified with the fabric. It felt so…fucking good, Tracey. Indescribably good. I wish I could be there again…feel it again," she said. She cringed at the concerned expression Tracey was giving her, knowing how she sounded.
She couldn't help it. Her entire body—every fibre of her being, her soul—was crying out to feel the elevation again. She craved it. She needed it. She had to get there again.
And she knew that Harry Potter was the key. He had to be.
Then she realised Tracey was talking.
"—wants your help again."
Daphne shifted in the seat. "Hermione?" She guessed. "She's a bit…intense."
"She's just worried about him. I am too, you know. A lot. He's…interesting, that one."
"It feels like I've woken up in a different world sometimes."
Tracey snorted. "This is the one you want to be in, I promise you. I wish we could show you everything already, but, well…we need Harry."
Daphne exhaled heavily and extricated herself from Tracey's arm and the chair's squishy confines. "Come on then," she said, holding her hand out. "Let's go see what she wants."
Daphne glanced back at Harry as she pulled the door shut behind her, frowning. He only woke for an hour or so a day, interspersed with fitful unconsciousness and a few minutes of garbled attempts at conversation here and there. Pepper Up could keep him conscious for two or three hours. Though, he was convinced it accelerated his mental decline and refused to take it more than once every few weeks.
She followed Tracey to the ship—still parked within the confines of Bill and Fleur's Fidelius. She hadn't quite gotten used to the whole concept of it being an alien vessel.
Hermione didn't look up when they entered the ship's lab. She hunched over her workbench, peering through a magnifier and conducting her peculiar geometric wand.
"Come on over," she said. "I'm almost done… and there we go." She set her wand on the bench, looked up and beckoned them closer.
Daphne put her face against the viewport. The scene was dominated by a blob adorned with assorted knobs, pores, spikes and tangles. She spotted what Hermione had been working on immediately. A dark, dull grey perfectly smooth hemisphere jutted proud of the surface of the blob.
"You got it embedded?" she asked, looking up and tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear.
This was attempt sixteen.
"Would you mind inscribing your array again?" Hermione asked. "Sorry, I know it's awfully finicky, but I'm sure it'll stay in this time…and I know I said that last time, but this time I have a good feeling."
Daphne waved her hand dismissively. "It's really not a problem. Takes my mind off things."
An hour later, she pulled away from the viewport and stretched, cracking her neck. Hermione, who was working on something at another bench, looked over eagerly.
"It's done."
Hermione pressed in beside her and peered through the viewport. The hemisphere was inscribed by five interlocking circles of runes.
Hermione rotated some dials on the magnifier. Daphne knew by now that she was positioning a fine iron filament just by the hemisphere. Iron had a poor magical conductance, so would moderate the flow of magic. That was something they all learned in runes.
Daphne watched as the girl took a shaky breath, steadied herself, screwed her eyes shut and then tapped the iron pad that connected to the filament.
The slumping of her shoulders a few seconds later told Daphne all she needed to know. Hesitantly, she rested her palm lightly on Hermione's back and rubbed it a couple of times.
"Innovation requires failure," she said. "What happened this time?"
"Cell got too hot again. I think the scaffolding around the hemisphere conducts too much energy to it," she said gloomily.
"We're not going to be able to do this in time for Harry, Hermione."
"I know," Hermione murmured, "I know. I need to come at this from a different angle. Or help him with translation. I don't know."
.o.
"Reports coming out of this year's Farnborough Air Show over in England are hinting at some kind of technological breakthrough. For those unfamiliar, the Farnborough International Air Show is the second largest aerospace trade show in the world. This year, it attracted over a thousand exhibitors, but a three-person startup has been stealing the show. Arkane Technologies, headquartered in Leeds, England, revealed on Tuesday their Blackmagic G1 Drive. Arkane has claimed that this Blackmagic Drive is a form of gravity manipulation and has the potential to make accessible space travel a reality, as well as a whole array of groundbreaking applications. I have to say, Martha, this claim was met with almost universal scepticism until Arkane's live demonstrator just an hour ago. Alongside some smaller demo displays, Airshow attendees were invited to ride a hoverboard—you heard that right, folks—an actual board hovering 2 inches above the ground. Arkane spokeswoman and chief scientist, Jasmine Turner, welcomed independent review of their product and said, 'stay tuned for tomorrow'. This development is sending shockwaves through scientific and defence communities around the world, and some are touting it as the biggest breakthrough this century. Given how far science has come in the last hundred years, that's an impressive feat. This is Ollie Barron, here in Farnborough, England. Back to you, Martha."
"Incredible stuff, Ollie. Why has everyone been caught so off guard by this?"
"Well, Arkane really came out of nowhere about a month ago. Dr Turner informed me that they'd been operating in stealth mode until they ironed out all the kinks. Added to achieving something long thought impossible, their technology supposedly proves that gravity is quantum. I can't speak to the ramifications of that, but I'm told that it's Nobel prize-worthy and physicists all over the world have spent the last half century trying to show as much."
"Any hints about tomorrow?"
"Dr Turner's keeping that under wraps for now. We'll just have to wait and see."
"Thanks Ollie. Well, I'm looking forward to what you'll have for us tomorrow, that's for sure. Now, still no word from any government officials as to the nature of the May 4th auroras, aside from astronomers indicating it had nothing to do with the Sun, but Mauricio Villegas, a self-described amateur sleuth has used reports from around the world to come to a surprising conclusion—"
The TV screen image flattened to a single line and disappeared.
"Did that man just tell me the Brits can build spaceships now?" Colonel Jack O'Neill said, putting down the remote.
"I do believe so, Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c said from beside him.
"Captain, do you believe this is legitimate?" General Hammond asked.
"Hard to know, sir. I would be highly doubtful, normally, but this doesn't have the usual hallmarks of a scam. I read the whitepaper they published a few hours ago—the physics looks surprisingly sound. This Dr Turner holds a doctorate in theoretical physics from University College London, so her background is solid. We might be looking at a genuine reactionless impulse drive."
Hammond looked around at the members of SG-1.
"I think you all know what it could mean for us if we have our own ships, faster-than-light or not, so I'm going to call in a favor to get SG-1 access to the Airshow for tomorrow. I want the four of you ready to head out to Peterson by 0900. In addition, I am provisionally authorizing you to negotiate access to this technology—I'll update you on the scope once I've spoken to the President."
"Understood, sir," Carter said.
"Sir—permission to make an additional visit while we're over there," Daniel said. "I've been in contact with the curator of Ancient Egyptian artefacts at the British Museum. I think they might be in possession of some gate addresses."
"Granted. You've got until Friday, Dr Jackson. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed."
.o.
They touched down at RAF Upper Heyford the next morning at 0400 Zulu. A very serious RAF Wing Commander Barnes welcomed them and had Teal'c and Daniel ushered into one black Land Rover, and Sam and Jack into another.
"Wish I could show Teal'c around London," Jack said, sliding across the seat to let Sam in.
"Have you been, sir?"
"Oh yeah. Long time ago. Spent some leave en route there in '81."
"I have to admit to being a little jealous of Daniel and Teal'c—I've always wanted to visit the British Museum."
"This isn't going to take 3 days, Carter."
The Land Rover slipped onto the M40 and picked up speed on the almost-deserted road. By the time they reached Farnborough, a little over an hour later, the Sun was in full bloom on the horizon.
Farnborough Airport was already buzzing with exhibitors preparing for the day. The Land Rover pulled up by the convention halls and a man in RAF service dress opened the car's door for them.
"Good morning, sir, ma'am. If you'll follow me, please," he said. He led them through a small side door, which opened into an expansive lounge. A few people were milling about—helping themselves to assorted breakfast foods, reading newspapers, chatting quietly.
They walked up to a young woman. Her ash brown hair hung loosely tied in front of her left shoulder, and she was tearing apart a croissant and reading an aerospace industry magazine.
Their escort cleared his throat. "Dr Turner. This is Colonel Jack O'Neill and Captain Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force."
She dusted croissant flakes off her fingers and looked up. Sharp grey eyes peered at them through a pair of practical wire-rimmed glasses, which she pushed back up her button nose.
"Good morning, Colonel, Captain. Please, sit," she said, waving at the empty chairs around her table. "I got a call from your President at home last night. Please understand I also received calls from the British, French, German, Japanese governments requesting access to our technology, but none with quite the urgency you seem to have. That, plus Captain Carter's astrophysics doctorate—one might think there's something going on up there." She tipped her head up at the ceiling. "So, what can I do for you?"
"Dr Turner, I'd like to discuss the underlying technology and its capability with you," Sam said. "I read your whitepaper—the principle is shockingly obvious in hindsight, but I'd love to know how you came to it and how you translated it into a working device."
"Actually, it wasn't me. Winston Davis, our chief engineer, stumbled on the effect. I developed the theory after the fact. Frankly, I was fortunate that the first hundred physicists he contacted dismissed him out of hand. You'll be seeing him later today if you stick around. As far as the theory itself, well, let me just say: when I figured it out, I thought for sure it was wrong and that there was no way it could be that simple. Turns out it is—science just went down the wrong rabbit hole. Having a working example helped, of course. Actually, the real coup is the necessary consequences—emergent spacetime from a more fundamental substructure that incorporates quantum gravity, and ultralight axionic dark matter. They'll both be in Physical Review D soon if you're interested."
"Apart from enabling effortless space travel, you mean," Jack said. She looked at him curiously.
"Of course. And I suppose that's what you're interested in, Colonel?" she asked, stuffing a piece of the croissant into her mouth.
"We're cleared to tell you that much," he replied.
"You'll be pleased to know that lifting capability is mostly limited by power input. You need about 10 kilowatts per metric tonne per g."
"Not bad. So a 100 tonne ship needs what, a megawatt for 1 g? There are container ships with 50 megawatt engines."
Jasmine shook her head. "Oh, you're not limited like you might think, though. When I said 10 kilowatts, that included internal compensation. We can manipulate gravity, Colonel, so we can perfectly maintain the internal environment regardless of your acceleration, which means we can accelerate at 30 g and you wouldn't feel a thing. Granted, establishing such a steep gravity well comes at a cost—the power consumption goes exponential. All of this is design dependent, as well. A 1 tonne vehicle might need 5 megawatts to do 30 g, but the extra surface area on a 100 tonne vehicle might mean you only need 2 or 3 megawatts per tonne."
"What's the deepest gravity well you've managed?" Sam asked eagerly.
Jasmine smirked. "That would be telling," she said.
.o.
"Don't forget the backstory, Dad. And be careful," Tracey said, handing him his brown leather jacket.
"I will, mija. I just wish your Mum were here," Winston Davis said, slipping the jacket on.
Tracey gave him a sad smile. "She's always with us, papi."
He looked at the framed family photo by the door.
"Blow their minds, Dad," Tracey said.
He tore his gaze away from his late wife holding a seven-year-old Tracey to grin at her and patted the top of her head.
Half an hour later, a cigar-shaped stainless steel object descended, quite literally, on Farnborough. A stylised A in emerald green covered the back quarter of either side, and the large circular windows embedded all around its nose gave it an odd sort of bug-eyed look. The four stubby legs didn't help. Between the two rear legs was a large air scoop, which was feeding some kind of combustion engine if the trio of exhaust pipes sticking out just below each A was any indication.
It drifted down almost casually, stopping completely when it was hovering a foot off the ground directly in front of Jasmine and two military personnel. Winston opened the hatch and let the gas pistons swing it aside before hopping out. A crowd several thousand strong began whooping and clapping. He was sure they would have started running towards him if it weren't for the veneer of professionalism many of them had to maintain.
"Lovely morning, innit?" he said. He knew he had a shit-eating grin on his face. He held his hand out. "The name's Winston Davis."
The two military officers introduced themselves. He relaxed at the slight nod from Jasmine behind them—so these were the President's ones. He stuck a hand into his breast pocket and brought out a small stack of Polaroids.
"Gotta say, it's a nice view up there."
Colonel O'Neill's eyebrows just about disappeared as he flipped through the photos. "This was just now?" he asked, holding up the last one. In the foreground of the image was the digital Casio watch Winston wore, with the time and date—twenty minutes prior. In the background was the entire globe of the Earth shining through the circular windows.
"Yep. Want to go for a spin?" he asked. Captain Carter looked at the Colonel, who shrugged and ducked into the strange vehicle. Carter, looking a bit more dubious about the whole thing, followed suit.
Jasmine leaned in. "They're almost too eager. I don't get it," she said quietly.
"You know the Americans and their military," he said, hoping that didn't sound too dismissive. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots—Tracey had warned him that some countries might have gotten their hands on an alien wormhole generator and were possibly exploring the galaxy. Unfortunately, she hadn't given him the go ahead to bring Jasmine into the general loop yet—something about Harry being unwell and them yet to figure out how to handle the magic side of things. Fending off Jasmine's enthusiastic queries when he'd first brought her on had been difficult enough, and he didn't like keeping secrets from her—not when she'd been so helpful in pulling Arkane together, and especially not now that they'd become good friends. "I'll sort them out."
She nodded. He liked that about her—she handled uncertainty well.
"Back in ten. Thanks, Jasmine."
He climbed into the vehicle, pulling the hatch closed behind him. The Colonel and Captain had taken their seats and were tightening their restraints as he shuffled past them into the pilot's seat.
"There's really not much to this. The outer shell is a simple skin and stringer construction with four Blackmagic emitters on each axis. The aft drive section has a further sixteen emitters, and there's two up front to provide reverse impulse—although we can actually shape the field of the side emitters to contribute to a braking impulse if necessary, or just flip around and use the aft drive section.
"It's powered by a Lycoming O-540 six-cylinder engine. Air breathing below sixteen thousand feet, then I have a liquid oxygen tank that holds enough for about 45 minutes going full tilt. The LOX runs through the Lycoming's radiator fins to preheat and keep the engine cool. Anyhow, you ready?"
"Ready," O'Neill said. Carter echoed him. Both appeared utterly calm. Winston grinned. He grasped the control stick, which controlled roll, pitch and yaw, with his left hand and rested his right above the keypad, which controlled all lateral movement and had a key in the centre to zero out all acceleration. Vertical movement he controlled with two keys below that.
The engine roared for a couple of seconds and the ground vanished from view. There was a gentle force pressing them down into their seats, but otherwise it felt unremarkable inside. "Don't want a completely still environment inside—trust me, I learned the hard way," Winston said. "Really makes you ill. I've got it set to nullify about ninety percent of the external force. I've found any less makes it difficult to keep my bearings.
"The effect is highly configurable. We've also made gravity bottles. Ever needed to store anything in a point-like region without letting it touch the walls? Material strength isn't even a factor—the gravity well cuts off at the plating. We've achieved 70 g in our test apparatus, although not likely that will be real-world achievable anytime soon. We've also gravitationally confined a hot plasma—Jasmine thinks we might be able to combine it with ultrafast laser pulses to do useful nuclear fusion."
A minute later the azure day glow faded into a deep royal blue, then another minute later it was an inky black. Winston killed their motion.
"We're at one fifty kilometres—not orbiting, mind you. We're co-moving with Earth, so we're precisely above Farnborough. No orbit means Earth is pulling down at us at about point nine g, but even if it weren't, the internal compensation can simulate that environment too."
"If it works as well as I'm seeing, I think we're going to want as much as you can make," O'Neill said.
"We won't do exclusivity, but I am willing to contract for a variable percentage of our yearly manufacturing output, with commitments each quarter. Arkane also reserves the right to make its own determinations about who to sell to."
"Reasonable enough—"
"Uh, sir—"
"Hold on a sec, Carter. I can't personally agree to any specifics—"
"Sir! We've got a problem!"
Winston squinted against the glare through the window Carter was pointing at. He couldn't hold in the gasp and flutter of anxiety at the sight—they were barely more than shimmering shards of gold, at least a few hundred kilometres away, maybe a couple thousand if they were especially reflective, but he knew what they were. Apparently, so did O'Neill and Carter.
One of the gold shards brightened considerably as it rotated to bounce more sunlight towards them. Then—two flashes of incandescent orange in quick succession. For a few seconds before the understanding hit him, Winston watched as two orange bolts grew larger.
"Move!" O'Neill barked.
"Shit!" he fumbled with the controls for a moment. His hands were tingling with painful anticipation. Then, the Arkane demo vehicle shot down at over 15 g. The noise of the Lycoming engine, conducted through the rear bulkhead, deafened them as fuel and pure oxygen poured into its cylinders and spun up the generator. Three seconds later, two sizzling bolts of plasma sailed clear over them. The engine throttled down from its bone-rattling 3000 rpm to a more comfortable 1800 as they zipped down and across the upper atmosphere.
"Got a radio on this thing?" O'Neill asked, his hand gripping a frame rail above his head.
"Left side of my seat," Winston replied quickly, glancing up at the pair of Ha'tak through one of the ceiling windows. Four more flashes. He strafed his little ship hard to starboard. For a moment, the internal compensation faltered as the gravity manipulator plates' power demand exceeded the Lycoming's power output. The frame creaked disturbingly at suddenly experiencing 3 g, and all three of them were thrown sideways.
Once the gravity settled, Carter unclipped the handheld radio from the seat and passed it to O'Neill. "Davis, can you get us to US airspace? Stay above thirty klicks until we get above Colorado Springs. Carter can guide you in."
"Can do," Winston said. He thought about Tracey, wondering if her and her friends had already picked up on the Goa'uld, and wondering if they would be okay.
A few minutes of accelerating at 10 g had them flying at 20 kilometres per second, which Winston maintained for a few more minutes before he spun around and brought their relative velocity down to zero above the Rocky Mountains.
Carter leaned over his shoulder, pointing at some foothills to the southwest of urban sprawl that must have been Colorado Springs. O'Neill was twiddling the knobs on the radio, trying to reach someone.
"Colonel?"
"Sergeant Harriman? Contact General Hammond. Over."
"Wilco, standby."
A moment later, "Colonel? Report location and status, over."
"General, we are in Arkane Technologies' demonstrator ship station keeping thirty klicks above SGC. Two bandits incoming. I say again, two bandits incoming. Contact NASA. Request clearance to land, over."
"Roger, you are cleared to land, Colonel. Set down outside the North Portal. Acknowledge. Over."
"Roger, ETA two minutes. Out," O'Neill said. "Take us down, Davis."
.o.
"He should have been back by now. He was only going to take them up and then straight back down."
Tracey chewed on her lip and absently tugged on the coiled phone cord. "You're sure these Air Force guys were legit?"
"Absolutely. I mean, they were representing the bloody President. I'm worried he miscalculated and they ran out of oxygen or something."
"I doubt it, Jas. Dad isn't careless like that."
"You're probably right, but—hold on, something's happening."
"What's going on?"
"I'm not sure. There's some kind of news spreading around. People seem worried. Shocked, maybe. Check the telly, would you? Must be big."
Tracey turned on the big bulky box and flicked it over to the BBC. Her jaw dropped.
"Fuck me," she whispered.
"Trace? What is it?"
"Alien spaceships. Two of them. They've been firing some kind of weapon at Earth. They've already hit parts of Asia and Eastern Europe. Power stations, some industry, and city centres, it sounds like. Trajectory puts them on course for Britain."
"What?! Are you serious?"
"No joke, I promise," she said. "What if—?"
"No, Trace, I'm sure he's fine. He probably landed somewhere else."
"Jas, you need to get out of there. No, wait—I'll come get you."
"What do you mean?"
"Just-just hang on a sec."
Tracey burst out of the toilet cubicle she Apparated to and ran as fast as she could to the Arkane booth she had helped set up the week prior. Jasmine was sitting there, biting her nails.
"Tracey? What the hell? How?"
Tracey gulped lungfuls of air and reached a hand out. "No time, come on," she gasped, tugging on Jasmine's hand.
Jasmine got up, obviously confused and sceptical, and let her lead her back to the bathroom. It was still empty, thankfully. She didn't hesitate to pop them away.
Jasmine stumbled to her hands and knees onto the sand. Her stomach churned. Tracey was patting her back.
"Sorry. It's always rough the first time."
She looked up at Tracey. She looked genuinely apologetic, squatting down next to her as the cool ocean breeze blew her hair across her face. "What. The. Actual. Fuck? Did you just fucking teleport me?"
"Apparently, it's a wormhole not teleportation, but I'm no expert. Anyway, here's Fleur. Focus on what she's about to tell you."
Jasmine tilted her head to see who she was talking about. Fleur turned out to be a breathtakingly gorgeous blonde who said something about a cottage, and just like that a house appeared in front of her. A house with a huge spaceship parked next to it. Once again, she let Tracey pull her up and along into the house, too shocked to protest. Fleur ducked aside and headed towards the ship.
Tracey gave a piercing whistle when she entered Shell Cottage. "Everyone down here now. We've got a giant fucking problem," she yelled.
There were over a dozen people in the living room when Tracey clapped her hands together to get their attention. "Two Goa'uld spaceships have just obliterated parts of Asia and Europe. And they're coming this way."
The colour collectively drained out of their faces.
"We're not ready! Nowhere near," one of the twins said.
"Hermione, how far did you get in learning to fly?"
Hermione wrung her hands. "I can't do more than takeoff," she said. "But we can't just leave! Earth's defenceless."
"What do we do?" Neville asked.
"We need Harry," Astoria said. "Can we give him a Pepper Up?"
"I think he could tolerate a Pepper Up. It's been a week since his last. Hi, by the way. I'm Hermione," she said, shaking Jasmine's hand. "I know you might be a bit lost. We can explain everything later."
Jasmine nodded absently, still looking around the obviously magical room.
"I'll go rouse him," Narcissa said. To Tracey's disbelief, she actually ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
"Hermione? Can you prep the ship for takeoff just in case?" she asked. The poor girl looked like she was on the verge of having a panic attack, but she nodded shakily and left through the patio door.
"How long do we have until they're over Britain?" Daphne asked.
"'Ow long until they're over France?" Fleur interjected.
"Reports were slow to come in because of power outages, but it's been three hours since they appeared. So, I'd guess…an hour, best case?" Tracey said, trying to recall what the news reporter had said.
"I will be back. I must get my family," Fleur said. She grabbed a light coat off a hook, gave Bill a hug and kiss, and Apparated away.
"What can we do?" Ron asked. "We have one ship and Harry's barely keeping it together."
"Ron, maybe you should talk to the Goblins and see if they've got any ideas," Bill said. "I should probably stay here."
"Good point," Ron said. "I think they did say they only had minor pieces of technology, but who knows what that means. I'll Floo."
"We finished the first Floo portal test article last week," Luna said. She had an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face. "It's not very big, and it only has a range of thirty-five light-minutes, or so Hermione says. But perhaps it could be useful?"
"Luna—you can already put things through to the other side? And it doesn't need a gateway at the other end to tether it?" Astoria asked.
Luna tilted her head. "Yes, and no. But the untethered terminus is not very stable or easy to steer."
Astoria deflated. "So we can't just establish a wormhole into the ships and chuck something through," she said.
"I don't think so. They're small, unpredictable targets. With untethered wormholes, we can't just dial a stored fixed address like the Stargate. Even with the Floo arithmancy being reparameterised into hyperspatial geometry, the calculation takes a few minutes to run in the ship's computer for each new coordinate."
"What if the tethered end is the one by the ships?" Daphne asked.
Luna bit her lip. "I think…the reference frame of the tethered end is immaterial. That is, it doesn't matter how it's moving relative to the other end. Actually, the tethered end would be more useful. The untethered end is a spherical hole in space, so it opens out in every direction. On the tethered end, the portal projects a hologram of the wormhole, so it's a flat surface, which means things come out of it directionally."
"Stick it to the ship."
Everyone turned to see Harry in his dressing gown and fuzzy slippers at the foot of the stairs. His hair was more dishevelled than usual, but otherwise it was impossible to tell that his mind was on the verge of disintegrating.
"What?" Tracey voiced their general confusion.
"Just trust me. No time to explain," he said. He walked through them and out to the beach.
By the time they reacted to his passage and followed him, he was coming back down the loading ramp. Behind him, a dolly bearing the small experimental Floo portal floated along.
"Would you mind? Don't forget to put it the right way around," he said with a dry chuckle. "Put it just below the hyperspace window emitter. Luna knows where that is. I've got to takeover flight prep from Hermione."
He turned and jogged back up the ramp.
In under three minutes, the ship was powering up and lifting into the air. Streamers of sand eddied up in its wake.
"Uh. Okay, now can someone please explain what the fuck is going on?" Jasmine asked.
The rest of them looked at each other, waiting to see if anyone was going to volunteer. Tracey gave her a guilty grin. "Let's go inside. It's a long story."
Ron emerged from the cottage, soot smudged on his nose. "What? What'd I miss?" he asked. Then he looked behind them. "Where's the ship?"
.o.
Anakhtokwil watched, her face an impassive mask. Six Goblins merged their esoteric energy to levitate a heavy sled into the chamber. The sled carried one of the very few intact pieces of hardware leftover from their ancestors' crash—a ship-to-ship plasma cannon.
Once the sled settled, they lifted the cannon itself onto a hastily erected cradle. The cannon stuck straight up at an opening in the dome above.
Technicians wheeled in a dozen innocuous canisters. These contained the ultra-pure xenon used by the cannon. They were hooked up to the cannon, and one was opened to begin the gas purging cycle. Cables were plugged in, snaking away from the cannon and connecting to seven gold tiles resting on the floor.
Three diviners joined hands and started chanting in guttural High Ghab'led'hegok. Liquid mercury flowed from a basin between them, rising up into a shimmering Calabi-Yau manifold. The twisting surface rippled and thinned until it was paper-thin, the excess mercury sloughing off into the basin to leave the manifold by itself. Then, the manifold's surface froze, capturing a specific collection of ripples. The diviners stepped back.
Twenty-one wardmasters advanced in a circle around the manifold and the cannon, each holding a disc of silver. As one, they broke out into their own chant. Twenty-one filaments of indigo energy leapt out of the manifold to connect with the discs, which were then raised above their respective heads. A film, like an enormous moiré soap bubble, emerged from the discs and fused into a ring. Slowly, they converged on the cannon and three at a time, placed their discs into slots around the cradle, the edge of each disc a hair's breadth from its neighbours. The film ring lengthened into a transparent tube and shot rapidly into the sky through the hole in the dome.
All through the tube's length, air molecules were allowed to diffuse out but not back in, resulting in a reasonable vacuum.
Then, seven Goblins stepped forward. Each took a cup from a cupbearer by their side, drank down the seething purple concoction they contained. Within seconds, the skin all over their bodies fractured like a sun-baked lakebed, purple light leaking through each crack. They stepped onto the gold tiles, drew their ceremonial daggers, bellowed a few words in High Ghab'led'hegok and sunk their blades into their own hearts.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, their clothes evaporated along with the remaining skin on their bodies, leaving spheres of roiling purple light. The gold tiles pulled streams of purple greedily away from the spheres, and the cannon began to thrum with power, fuelled by the life energy of the seven sacrifices.
A technician threw open the gas feed as the thrum rose in pitch. A whine joined the thrum as the cannon spooled up. Every Goblin present took a nervous step away. Kribk alone knew if the cannon would actually hold together after so long.
It started vibrating, a low rumble that prompted another step away. The vibrations grew so strong Anakhtokwil could feel them through the floor over fifty feet away. Her grip on the railing beside her tightened.
Then it fired.
For the briefest fraction, the chamber was filled with the blinding light of 120 kg of xenon plasma heated to several billion degrees, compressed and confined into a fist-sized ball. Then it was gone, racing away at 90 percent of the speed of light through the ward tube, which both directed the bolt and shielded them from the hard radiation spilling off it.
A sharp crack echoed around the dome, and smoke hissed out of the cannon's casing. "Kribk fuck it," Anakhtokwil said, slamming a fist on the railing. "Did we get one of them at least?"