The morning came too soon for Sam's liking, slowly she got up heading to the bathroom to take care of her morning routine when the door opened to admit Karen who stripped off her clothes and joined Sam in the shower.
Alex had been woken by Karen who flung open their bedroom door and ran to the bathroom just as the shower started, shaking his head he got out of bed and went to find an open bathroom to take care of his morning needs.
Kira was exiting the room she used that shared a bathroom with Karen's bedroom her hair still damp from her shower, seeing him in only his boxers she blushed remembering her and Sam's conversation the day before.
"Good morning, um Karen ran through the bathroom, I'm not sure where she went," she said looking everywhere but at him.
"Yeah, it's her morning ritual, when Diana was staying with us in your home world, right now she's in the shower with Sam, I'm looking for an open bathroom," he said while noting her blush but not making a point in not saying anything about it.
"Oh, well the bathroom here is free, I was heading to the dining room to see what Misty put out for breakfast," Kira said while gesturing to the bathroom between the rooms she and Karen used.
Alex nodded turning to the door of Karen's room to use the bathroom, closing and locking the doors he took a shower.
Dressing in comfortable clothing he went to the dining room to find the others eating an Asian-style breakfast, sitting down he took a bowl of rice and picked a bit from each dish except the small fish.
"Misty for future reference I do not eat fish other than tuna, also I dislike tomatoes," Alex said while pouring himself some tea.
" Okay I'll remember that, please everyone let me know what foods you don't like," Misty answered as she took away the empty dishes.
With everyone finished eating they went to the living room and sat to watch the movie covering the world he wanted to visit next.
"I want to look at that system they used to tunnel through the rock and other things, it has the potential for other uses," Sam said when the credits ran.
Alex nodded, "Yeah that's fine, I'm not sure but I don't think we'll stay there long, other than that metal I didn't want anything from there," he said after a moment's thought.
"Okay how about we go in offer him some funding and get a scan of what we want then leave," Sam suggested.
Alex looked at Kira who shrugged, "I'm just along for the ride until we know if I can stay at home," she answered the unasked question.
Alex then looked at Karen who smiled at him sweetly, " I just want a pony," she said her eyes sparkling and seeming to grow rounder.
Alex had to look away quickly, "We'll see about that later."
Sam and Kira exchanged looks and smiles knowing that eventually, he would be getting her the pony sometime in the future especially if Karen could catch him with her puppy eyes.
Alex got up and went to the door, as he lay his hand on the frame he focused on the world they saw in the movie aiming for the Destiny project just after it was first used to cause the problem with the core.
Outside the window the world faded away into ribbons of light and colors, slowly the lights and ribbons stopped to be replaced by a large structure that looked like a humongous spark plug.
Archs of electricity were bouncing around the device and down into a large hole that faded out of sight.
Alex nodded as he looked through the window, "Alright let's see if we can find Dr Brazelton's lab," saying that he once again focused on something but this time it was a person not reality, this time when the view stopped changing it was to show a rusty almost abandoned looking airplane hanger.
From there he willed the door away from the building, when it was ten or so miles away, "Alright let's get this started, we'll take a car from here, Kira Karen you can stay here in the house or ride along with us."
"I'll stay here, I want to watch some of the Stargate stuff so I know what to expect," Kira said while looking at the TV and the endless selection of DVDs on a shelf not far away.
"Yeah I want to see what Mommy would be like wif out me and Daddy," Karen chirped as a bowl of popcorn appeared on the coffee table.
Sam nodded and joined Alex at the door, "Be good for Kira, we shouldn't be long."
Alex nodded as he opened the door, "Remember it won't be completely the same as the show when we get there but the people should be the same," he said as a car formed just outside the door.
Stepping out of the house he let the do close as Sam climbed into the passenger seat, he opened the driver door and slid in and started the car and took off leaving a cloud of dust flying up behind them as the tires hit the sandy ground.
"If I'm right we are about six months before the events of the movie, I think we may be able to get him to get a good head start on building the ship," Alex said while watching for rocks in their path.
Sam nodded as she pulled a computer from her hammerspace, "He had a great idea on the ship, I only saw one flaw and that was the release mechanism in case of emergencies, if we can get him to start making the framework up, um also more nuclear powe cells for the return trip," she said while typing so rapidly her fingers were a blur, on the screen lines of code and calculations flew by.
Alex hummed a bit, "Yeah that's one thing we could mention, but what are we going to tell him, I mean the identifications we have will pass any scrutiny but we don't have any assets here?"
"We'll just claim that we don't use banks and that our money came from your family hitting a gold vein and it's still producing but you've sold your shares to siblings and we're going to live off the grid for the foreseeable future, as for me I'm your wife and going around collecting ideas for me to experiment with and see if I can come up with green uses for the things they allow me to see," Sam said while changing the screen to be a graphic design format and began designing a few blueprints for cars and other things like a power plant that uses deep well drilling to reach the upper mantel.
Alex nodded as he glanced at the screen, "Alright let's go with that, make sure he sees that one I'll give him a plan on making money other than what the military offers him."
She smiled and nodded, "That's the plan, the others are just there to make my background look legitimate," she said closing the laptop just as they neared the building.
They were getting out of the car when the large center door opened partially to show a tall colored man in a slightly tattered lab coat stepping out to see who had come out here to the middle of nowhere.
Sam being the closest approached him, "Dr. Brazelton?" she asked as he scanned the two of them.
"Yeah that's me, what can I do for you?" he asked while noting that the two were dressed well and not suited for the heat.
"I'm Dr. Samantha Carter and this is my husband, Alex," she introduced them then gave their reasons for being out here to see him.
"We'll be living off the grid for some time and we are going to be going to a few places to see if I can gather information from scientists to experiment with you are our first stop, I've been following your work on a material that you claim to be usable in many ways along with a theoretical ship, I wish to speak with you about allowing me to study each and send you my results. "
"The last time I shared my work with someone they took all the credit," Brazelton said his features stiffening.
"Zimsky I know, we're not here for more money just a request to allow me to study and experiment with what you have already done," Sam said while looking at Alex who shrugged.
"Seventy billion in gold and gems," Alex said bluntly.
Brazelton was about to lose his temper when Alex spoke, "That's a lot for just looking at my work."
Sam pulled out her laptop and opened the schematics for the power plant, passing it over she spoke softly, "When I saw your work and theories on the material I added the equations for its energy production it seemed to be usable in my plan's for a deep geothermal power plant,"
Brazelton took the computer to read the information nearly dropping it as the output of electricity estimates ran across the three-dimensional display.
"You really think that my unobtanium can do this?" he asked them eyes darting from the screen to them.
"Yes, I believe that what you have created could be used for supplying the energy needs of many places and cutting down the need for nuclear power plants, " Sam pointed out as she stepped around him and opened a file for another blueprint showing a drilling platform.
"That's my ultrasonic laser platform," Brazelton pointed out as he read.
"That's my work, instead of using lasers for the impaler I used plasma but it will only reach a few feet in front of the drill head and while it works well on rocks it clogs the system if it encounters metals like iron or nickel," Sam pointed out as she directed Brazelton to read.
"And the ultrasonic laser platform doesn't have that problem because it has a reach of nearly a hundred feet and even the metals are turned to dust and pushed to the side of the tunnel from the pressure, " Brazelton said as he read the readout.
Alex watched as Sam and Brazelton went off on a debate on theories and then possible applications for the things he had made.
After ten minutes of talking and moving into the building to get out of the sun, Alex wandered around the place looking at the small ultrasonic laser platform, it was an interesting device, and touching it with just his fingertips he copied it into a file in his mind.
" You could build a small version of the ship you designed and tunnel down and then make a small power plant here to test out the application and power your lab here," Sam was saying as they joined him as he looked over a small cube of unobtanium that he had also copied.
"Yeah that's not a bad idea, it can also be used as a practical display if I ever speak to someone for grants or patents," Brazelton said his eyes wide as this young woman had given him many ideas for his experiments.
"Some military people may be interested in the power plant, you know they want to find ways to save money if they can and the biggest thing they spend on is electricity and waste management," Sam pointed out as she went to Alex's side and inspected the cube.
"Waste management?" Brazelton asked confused, he could understand the electricity.
"Yes use a larger version of this and dig down several hundred feet and then leave it there and throw trash and other things into the pit and when it reaches a certain level use the platform to destroy the stuff, " Sam said while moving to the small ultrasonic laser platform.
"You know that could also be used in the public sector, but lower the output so that the metals are left intact, with that, you could begin a worldwide clean-up," Alex said while walking to look at the skeletal framework for the ship.
Brazelton was writing their comments down for reminders to write up proposals for the military, "I've never thought about going in that direction with my inventions." he told them as he finished writing.
"Yeah that's one thing I've noticed about scientists, you guys come up with some great ideas but you all get tunnel vision and only see where you want to go with the things you work on and rarely see other possibilities," Alex pointed out as he set down the cube.
"Hey I'm not that bad," Sam called out as she finished inspecting the platform.
"Yeah you are, I went out on a business trip for a week and came home to find you in the lab building a fully electronic version of my car and the cleaners said you had been in there for a week without sleep and hardly even eating as you worked," Alex stated while he was speaking about how she used the replicator to make the parts as she tried to recreate one of the vehicles from the empty world.
"I got bored," Sam pouted as she remembered that time and how Alex had locked her out of the workshop for nearly two weeks for that stunt.
Brazelton watched the two silently for a second, "So your car is electronic now?" he asked trying to not sound astonished as building electrical vehicles was not cheap.
Alex looked at Sam who was hanging her head with a blush, "No it burned out after fifty miles, the electric storage couldn't handle the power supply from the alternator."
Brazelton looked from Sam to Alex who was nodding, "I'm just glad she didn't test it out in the house or I would have had to rebuild."
Sam looked to Alex her eyes narrowing, "I don't need a reminder about that but what about the time you spent a month trying to build a railgun, I seem to remember someone blew a hole in the side of the lab big enough for a person to step through," she said talking about the time he tried to tinker with a sniper rifle to increase its output to see if he could increase the bullets range.
"Hey that wasn't my fault, the capacitors were flawed," Alex stated holding his hands up in surrender.
"You're both inventors?" Brazelton asked looking for one to the other.
"No, I'm not an inventor just a rich guy with a lot of time on my hands and like to tinker with some things that could be dangerous, " Alex said shaking his head.
"I'm an all-rounder, I'll work on what catches my attention then move on to the next thing, those plans on that computer are a week's work after I found your published work," Sam said with a shrug.
"A week," Brazelton said his shoulders slumping.
"Yeah I got bored one day and read some articles and found your work and it gave me a few ideas and went with it and those blueprints are the results," she said with a shrug.
Alex smiled then tilted his head, "Like I said we are going to give you some funding for you to get more materials and possibly build your ship, if you can have some proof you'll get some proposals for work and possibly investors," Alex said while pulling a phone from his pocket and walking away to appear to be settling things up.
After ten minutes he returned with a stack of papers, he found Sam and Brazelton tinkering with the ultrasonic laser platform, after they stepped away from it Brazelton went to the control board and hit a few switches, after spinning up the Gatlin-like tubes flickered as the laser shot through them and a magnifying glass then converged into a tight beam then the cradle of the magnifying glass began to tilt up and down as the target metal moved from side to side.
"Huh that's not something I thought to use this for," Brazelton said as he shut down the machine to reveal his name written on the sheet of metal.
"Yeah I got the idea when looking at an inscription machine for jewelry but this is just an idea that you could build on in the future," Sam said while walking to look at the sheet with a nod.
Alex joined Brazelton holding out the papers, "She'll be sitting in her shop for weeks now seeing if she can get that to cut things down to the width of a hair," he said with a grin as the two looked ready to start doing the math and experiment on doing what he just said.
Alex shook his head, "You guys can work on that separately we've got to meet up with Karen and Kira in a little while and I've got to get these signed and delivered to the bank before it closes today."
Sam looked ready to pout until he mentioned Karen and Kira, but confused about the bank as she remembered he said he would use gold and gems to pay.
"Wait you said gold and gems earlier, what changed?" Brazelton asked as he took the papers and began to read them.
"Yeah I got a call from my cousin who works for a banking group they offered to buy the gold and gems on a trickle payments when he heard from my brother that I was selling my stocks in the family mining business," Alex said while watching Sam fiddle with the laser platform and Brazelton looked up from the papers.
" This is a straight account transfer into my name and a five percent net gain from s my patents to go into an account in the name of a charity for children's hospitals." Brazelton said as he finished reading.
"Yeah I don't need more money I have a few trillion in many forms of money so why not make a way for some help in the fight against child cancer, " Alex stated with a shrug.
Brazelton went over the paperwork again and then signed in all the places before passing them back to Alex.
"I'll have these filled, you'll get a confirmation in a few days, " Alex said as he looked over the papers then folded them, and put them in an envelope that he slipped into a pocket inside his jacket.
"Thank you for allowing me to study your stuff, I hope you can make great progress on everything," Sam said holding out a hand to shake.
"Yeah and thanks for the ideas and money to help out with the work, I should be able to have something to prove my work in just a few months and the ship fabrication ready as well," Brazelton said shaking her hand and then taking Alex's to shake as well.
They left the building to get in the car when they got inside and took off to a slightly stunned Dr. Brazelton at the door watching them leave with a grin on his face, it wasn't until he was sitting down with his aids for dinner that he realized that Alex had not left long enough to get to the nearest city and bank and back.
All through the week he was in a foul mood thinking that his work had been stolen again when a lawyer came to the lab.
"Good evening Dr Brazelton I am Stuart Richardson from Richardson and Aims law firm, our firm was put on a ten-year retainer to handle your patients." the lawyer said handing over a manilla envelope.
Brazelton took the envelope and opened it to find the bank information as well as the contract that stated that the retainer was paid in full.
"Umm I thought I was going to be screwed over again," he said as he read over the documents.
"Again?" Stuart asked.
"Twenty years ago I was working with Conrad Zimsky he took off with our work and claimed it as his work without sharing in the profits he has made from it," Brazelton said offhandedly.
"Do you have proof of your work with him?" Stuart asked a grin growing on his face as he saw a possible lawsuit against a well-known scientist.
"What oh yeah I kept it all in a sealed container in the city, I was going to go through it for study and possible papers for a few geological magazines but the one I sent some articles to sent them back saying Zimsky had already given them that and I had better be careful about the papers or he could have me charged for infringement," Brazelton said his emotions going all over the place.
"Do you think I could have a team go through those and see if we can prove you contributing to the work he has claimed to be his solo work?"
Brazelton stood there stunned for a few minutes until a grin grew on his face as well, "Sure have at it all of the stuff we worked on together is labeled with both our names in the far back of the container and my new stuff is near the front with my helper's names on what they have helped me with over the last few years, "
"Excellent and will you be compensating those people?"
"Umm yes, that would be reasonable as they've been helping me for little to no pay,"
"We can calculate what to offer these people and it can be taken from the account Mister Carter has set up for you,"
"That's great because some of them are great workers but I am or was running out of personal funds to pay them,"
" I'll have my team go through those things with a fine tooth comb," Stuart said while looking forward to the next few months.
By the time the government had been informed of the core of the Earth being stalled and needing some kind of mission to try and restart the rotation, Dr. Zimsky had lost nearly all of his claimed work as it was shown that he had stolen the work from others.
When Josh Keys and a few others went to Brazelton's lab he and his lab crew were halfway through building the ship, they were amazed at the ship and requested their help in getting the core rotating once more.
Alex and Sam made a few stops in the world and sent Brazelton new ideas and uses for unobtanium and ultrasonic lasers.
When the group showed up to request the help of Brazelton the only difference in the group was that Zimsky was not there and one of Brazelton's former helpers and geologists was the one that mentioned the ship.
With a reminder about that the possibility of finding hollow places in the depths of the planet allowed them to avoid the large geodes in the mantel.
With nearly six months of building the ship also allowed them to build it to be more maneuverable to avoid the coalition with the diamonds, and a segmented tail of the ship allowed them to set the nuclear bombs in their places.
It was the person who replaced Zimsky that brought up that the final bomb possibly needed to be larger than the others to push the rippling core along to get the rotation going before they launched.
While the mission was a little more than halfway through Zimsky falsified orders to fire Project Destiny again to prove he was smarter than the crew, Rat had been monitoring the world's power grid to follow E.M disturbances that found the build-up and preparations to fire it that proved that the government was responsible for the failing of the core, just like in the movie he hacked their systems and sent the power to Cony Island.
In the car driving away from the building Brazelton used as a lab and workplace, Sam was looking over at Alex.
"Okay, how did you pull that off?"
Alex looked at her from the corner of his eye, " Pull what off?"
"The money, how did you get that set up?"
"Oh that I stepped through the house to the bank and did some looking and found that I could use the coins to make a bank account in a way, each coin is the equivalent of half a million dollars so I just transferred the amount to the bank in this world and paid for it to have a history and then had it transferred to Brazelton," Alex said with a shrug.
"Okay but how much did you use to set that up ?"
Alex shrugged, "Cuple hundred to a thousand or so coins, it barely touched the several million coins in the vault."
"Okay, well we can get out of here, we've got the plans and unobtanium, but where are we going to go next?" Sam asked after a little thought.
"I was thinking about going ahead and going to find an SG1 world and working on getting situated, I am thinking we pick up O'Neill and your counterpart from the ice cavern in Antarctica and that woman in the ice, while I was at the vault
I bought a medical room and set it in the workshop next to the door leading to the spaceport," Alex told her while turning into a gulch to hide them storing the car, and opening the door to the house.
When they entered the house Misty popped in and snapped her fingers cleaning the two of the dust and sand from the desert.
"Thanks," they both said just before Misty popped away to prepare lunch.
Alex looked around the living room and found Kira and Karen on the couch but also with them was Eternity with Karen on her lap.
"Hey Gran if I knew you were going to stop by I would have come back sooner, " Alex said walking around the couch and taking a seat next to her.
"Granma just got here before you n mommy got here," Karen chirped as Eternity nodded.
"Yes I just arrived, poor Kira here almost attacked me before I was glomped by this little dear here," Eternity explained as she hugged Karen while Kira looked sheepish.
"I'm sorry I thought you were here to harm us, I didn't think anyone was able to get in here without Alex or Sam opening the door or with a lot of power," Kira said while blushing.
Alex and Sam looked at Kira, "Sorry I forgot to tell you that we may have some guests who can come here without us having to open the door, speaking of which," Alex stood and walked to stand behind Kira and lay a hand on her shoulder and gave her a temporary key to her.
Kira gasped as she felt the key settle in, "Are you sure you want to give me a way to get here like that?"
"Yeah this way you can get here in case we get separated you can come back here and close the door and then open it near one of us, " Alex said pointing to himself and Sam.
Eternity hugged Karen and smiled as the little girl giggled as she hugged back, "I must warn you that you will not be able to remain in your home reality, the method they used to clone you was part mythical, they tore a portion of Kara's soul from her and placed it in you before a soul could be chosen and sent to be you, you were a few days away from entering entropic cascade."
Kira was shocked, confused, and sad at hearing this, tears welled up in her eyes as her head dropped, and Sam got up and went to hug her to support her.
Alex went to sit down with Eternity again, "I knew they would experience each other's memories and dreams but I didn't think about entropic cascade," he said after thinking about what she told them.
Eternity nodded, "Yes it would have been a slow process and taken years to harm her, but your healing her fixed not only the physical problems but also her soul, and that will cause the cascade to happen faster."
Alex slumped back onto the couch, " I only wanted to help her live longer not take her home away from her. "
Kira looked up sharply almost hitting Sam in the face with the back of her head, "You didn't do anything wrong to me you had no way to know this would happen."
"She's right you know," Sam said still hugging Kira.
Karen wiggled out of Eternity's arm and jumped onto Kira's lap to hug her tightly, "It's okay Aunty you got me, mommy and daddy, " she said while looking at Kira with a smile.
Kira hugged her back and buried her face in the little girl's hair, "I know sweetie but I think I'll need a little time to get used to not being able to go home permanently."
Alex watched them for a bit then looked back to Eternity, "We're going to SG1 next to get in contact with the team there and throw them a few bones in terms of technology and possibly some missions or mess with the N.I.D, "
"I would recommend going to, the Marvel, specifically Xandar to copy the Milano when the NovaCorp rebuilds it, you can act like a technician examining one last time before the Guardian's leave" Eternity said before turning to look at the three hugging then getting up to join the hugging for a second.
"You may not be able to stay home for long periods but a few days here and there will harm neither you nor your sister, " she told Kira before stepping back and walking to the door, "I must return to my realm too much time away and some lesser beings try to reach beyond their mean."
After she was through the door Alex stepped up to the door, focused on her words, and moved to the Marvel universe when he saw the outside world reform to be a view of New York City, after a moment he focused on the Guardian's of the Galaxy and the time they were on Xandar.
Outside the window, the Milano was being looked over by many people working to fix it, opening the door he stepped through to stand under the ship, walking around he let his hand glide over the ship as he copied it into his mental folder for ships and vehicles.
"Hey, you we've finished the repairs on this section," one of the technicians called out as he finished reading the ship.
"Yeah I know but I was looking over the armor over here it seemed to be thin on this thruster arm but it was just an optical illusion from the color scheme, " Alex said while walking over to the man who called out to him.
"Yeah we've been seeing that too but that's what scanning devices are for," he told Alex as he stopped at his side.
Alex nodded, " Yeah I know but my scanner just blew a few circuits."
"What did you do to it those things are built to take a beating"
Alex pointed up to a partially fallen building, "I was up there trying to repair a personal conveyance just before the fighting started."
"Okay, that'll do it, well go get it replaced we're supposed to have this finished in time for the owner to get out of his meeting with the NovaPrime," the technician said before turning away to finish his work.
Alex nodded and walked away from the ship and went to open the door to the house once he was out of view when a golden ring formed in the air just in front of him.
Stepping back he watched as a bald woman in yellow and orange monk robes came through the portal, "You do not belong here."
"No, I don't but in a way neither do you, five hundred years and still looking like you are in your thirties," Alex replied with a grin as her eyes narrowed.
"I need to safeguard this reality until the right time, " she said while tilting her head to the side as if trying to see him better.
"And I am beyond the authority you assume," he told her as he reached out to open the door, only for the Ancient One to reach out to take his hand, and push it down.
"You tare holes in reality I cannot allow you to do this," she said only for her hand to pass through the air.
"Your time is coming; do not force me to hasten it," Alex told her from behind her just as he opened the door, stepped through it, and closed the door in her face, eyes wide.
"That woman is a good one but sometimes she doesn't know when to not interfere with things beyond her power," Alex said when he turned to face the room and the others who were watching through the window.