Mathématique: Chapter 88

“Yup.” McKay appeared, a platter of miniature churros and melted chocolate in hand. “No one needs Wraith nightmares. But you will get them. We all do.”

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Grief. Physical injuries. Mental health challenges.

Text iteration: Noon.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 88

On a silver balcony near the Atlantis mess hall, Rush and James waited for Radek Zelenka and watched the sky. From their position halfway up the city’s Central Spire, the vista stretched for kilometers, limited only by the curvature of the planet. Early afternoon clouds cast cyclopean shadows that darkened swaths of sunlit water.

With a hint of surprise, James said, “You can see the clouds growing.”

Rush nodded. The sun fell warm and full of energy, and this world, like Earth, must rotate on its axis. From such things, storms were spun.

He’d begun to wonder about the lieutenant. Her stealth, her watchful eyes, the laconic gravitas, the way she’d spent days falling out of his thoughts. It seemed a deliberate strategy.

“Where are you from?” Rush asked.

“Pittsburgh.” She named the city as though she were digging in to defend it.

Rush knew fuck all about Pittsburgh. “Ah,” he said.

James softened. “It’s in Pennsylvania. An old steel town reinventing itself. Good sports teams. Lotta hills. Lotta bridges.”

“No clouds like this, I take it?” Rush kept his eyes on the towering cumulus.

“Couldn’t tell you,” James replied. “I didn’t spend much time looking at the sky.”

Rush’s own past was a closed book, but if his working-class Glaswegian accent was anything to go by, he and this careful young lieutenant might have a few things in common.

“Now it’s part of the job, I expect,” he offered.

James considered this. The brisk ocean breeze freed wisps of her bound hair. But all she said was, “That’s gotta be a storm on the make.”

From behind them, someone answered, “Yes!”

They turned to see a man a little taller than Rush. His hair was fine and wild, and the pockets of his khaki cargo pants were packed with tools. His blue cotton shirt had a smear of dust down one arm. “Convective storms.” He stepped to the rail next to Rush and gestured up at the clouds. “They come when surface heating is at its peak. Usually between 1400 and 1800. Warm air rises, cools, condenses. The clouds reach heights of 18,000 meters. This—” He shaded his eyes with one hand, squinting up at the forming clouds through silver-framed glasses. “This will be a good one, I think.”

The ocean breeze smelled of static and salt.

“Dr. Zelenka, I presume?” Rush asked.

“You’ve heard of me?” Astonished, Zelenka looked over at him.

“I understand you built the casing for these.” Rush tapped the cortical suppressor at his temple with a fingernail and the vibration propagated through the bone of his skull.

“Came up with the concept, too,” Zelenka added, “not that you’ll ever hear it from Rodney.” He dropped the hand shading his eyes and held it out to Rush. “Please,” he said. “Call me Radek.”

They shook. “Nick.”

“An honor to meet you,” the scientist said. “Truly. We’ve been discussing your papers for years. Your proof provided the inspiration for a novel compression algorithm we used on a portion of the Lantean database when we thought we’d need to leave Atlantis. We were looking for the optimal method and did a search over spaces of possible models. Once we proved that search was polynomial—” Zelenka made a fait accompli gesture.

“Ah,” Rush said.

“We have a weekly Computational Complexity Journal Club,” Zelenka continued, “aimed at making the Lantean database more tractable. We would love for you to join us.”

Rush wasn’t at all sure how a demanding technical discussion centered on the implications of a proof he didn’t remember constructing would go, but it was bloody difficult to say no to Dr. Zelenka’s good-natured enthusiasm. “I’m not opposed?”

“We’ve got a tight schedule this week,” James said, maybe picking up on the hesitancy in Rush’s tone.

Zelenka turned to James, hand extended. “And this must be Lieutenant Vanessa James. Our military protégé. I confess, I’ve always wanted a military protégé.”

“Hi,” James said guardedly.

Zelenka pumped her hand. “For years I’ve asked Colonel Sheppard: please, let me train your soldiers in basic competence with Lantean energetics! It’s always, ‘No, Radek, what if they fall into enemy hands,’ or ‘You can’t mandate math homework during downtime,’ or ‘I don’t want them taking risks with Ancient hardware’.”

James regarded Zelenka stoically.

Zelenka looked at Rush. “Lieutenant James is the reliable, silent type, yes?”

“That’s been my strong impression,” Rush confirmed.

“Good,” Zelenka said. “Lieutenant, may I call you Vanessa?”

“Sure,” James said.

“It’s a start.” Zelenka smiled at the pair of them. “Come. Today, for our tour, we follow the storm.”

Zelenka led them along the balcony and back into the hallways of the Central Spire. He moved like the empiricist he was, setting a pace that implied he was squeezing a city orientation between steps in a running experiment. “Transport alcoves,” he said, “you’ve used them, yes? To get to and from your quarters on Sanctuary Quay?”

“Yes.” Rush did his best to orient himself in a sunstone hall that looked like all the other sunstone halls he’d seen.

James strode crisply at his side. “How do the alcoves work?”

“Macro-scale quantum tunneling, we think,” Zelenka replied. “You have an interest in such things? Most military types are content with a—” he looped a hand, “—first-you’re-here/now-you’re-there quantum fairy tale.”

James shrugged.

“I bloody hate quantum mechanics,” Rush said.

Zelenka chuckled. “You’ll need to get over that. And quickly.” He looked at James. “Lieutenant. Have you heard of wave-particle duality?”

“For light? Yeah.” The afternoon sun put a warm glow on James’s skin and hair. “I didn’t grow up in a barn.”

“Ha. Um. All right.” Zelenka shot Rush a quick look of conspiratorial commiseration. “No need to alter your DEFCON status. Light isn’t the only thing with a dual nature. Physical matter has an infinitesimally short wavelength. The transport alcoves make use of it.”

“So—what,” James said. “We turn into waves to travel the distance?”

“No, actually.” Zelenka made an equivocal hand gesture. “Well—somewhat. There’s a wave function that governs every alcove and its contents. When closed and activated, alcove linings flux from material to energetic and back again,” he snapped his fingers, “like that. Shift the wave function governing where you find them, and transport yourself from one location to another.”

As they approached a transport alcove off the main corridor, Rush paused to study the material it was composed of. It had a dull coppery cast that matched the sunstone in the walls so well one would be forgiven for assuming the design resulted from aesthetic conceit alone.

“Orichalcum,” Zelenka said, noting Rush’s interest. “That’s the metal. The city’s superstructure is composed of a blend of naquadah alloy and orichalcum.”

“Orichalcum.” Rush stepped into the copper-toned alcove. “Sounds familiar.”

“If you’re a student of history, it would,” Zelenka said. “Stories of it made their way into myth. Are any of them true? How would I know. We haven’t started any materials science projects in earnest; defense and energetics are always prioritized. At least—until the alcoves malfunction and try to kill us.” He patted the wall of the alcove, addressing himself to the little compartment. “But don’t get any ideas, eh?”

A wall-mounted display glowed blue and white, pale yellow and lavender as it lit up with a gossamer schematic of the city.

“Today,” Zelenka said, “we will be on Breakwater Quay.” He gestured at the far end of the northwest tip of Atlantis’s snowflake structure.

At the word Breakwater, Atlantis slid an image into Rush’s mind. It came slowly but expanded into:

A man stands at sea level on a silver pier, his boots wet from the surf. His hair is streaked with gray and beaded with rain. His clothes are damp with sea spray. A threadbare cloak, laced with thin filaments of crystal, ripples in the wind.

Rush closed a hand around the rail of the transport alcove, grounding himself. It was the same man he’d seen in his vision in the Nautilus Suite, arguing with Morgan le Fay about the nature of intelligence. The nature of deceit.

Moros.

Even as he thought the name he felt the machine yearning of Atlantis itself.

“You okay, boss?” James asked.

Zelenka said nothing, his eyes watchful.

“The city asserts itself, at times,” Rush admitted.

“What does that mean?” Zelenka asked.

“I’m not sure,” Rush replied. “Images, occasionally. A man in a storm.”

“As a phenomenon, nonverbal communication from the city may be more common than certain military personnel who like to impersonate pillars of sanity will admit,” Zelenka said. “There’s an oceanographer on my team who’s a strong natural positive. She feels the city is aware of her. Tries to help. I wish it could see me; I could use help.” He looked wistfully at the alcove walls.

“Why doesn’t it see you?” James asked.

“I don’t have the gene. Tried the gene therapy; it didn’t take. Natural positives, like you two, are the lucky ones.”

“What?” James said, startled.

“Oh yes,” Zelenka said. “Didn’t you know? Sergeant Greer, too. Sorry—genetic status is impossible to hide in this city. Eli Wallace and Colonel Young are negative. Dr. Keller is already creating gene therapy vectors for them.” He pointed to a lavender-colored box on the alcove’s screen. “We’re going here. Furthest egress point along Breakwater Quay. It’ll put us close to the Acumen Fulmineum on the northwest pier.”

“The Sundering Spire?” Rush translated.

Zelenka made a rueful sound. “More poetic than what we call it.”

“Which is?” Rush prompted.

“The lightning rod.” Zelenka hit the lavender box.

The alcove doors closed, the room chimed softly, then the doors opened on a sunstone hall etched with stylized waves.

“No subjective sensation of transit,” Rush murmured and stepped into the hall.

“Eerie, no?” Zelenka patted the recessed doors of the alcove approvingly.

“This won’t be dangerous, will it?” James asked. “Dr. Rush is a Planetary Asset.”

“My god.” Zelenka studied him with a ghost of a smile. “Are you really?”

Rush sighed. “So I’m told.”

“Sounds terrible.” Zelenka turned to James. “No danger. We’ll be visiting a grounding station. There are four on Atlantis. They draw lightning from the storm and funnel it to ground, rather than allowing it to pass through the halls, which are laced with superconductive material.” He gave a wry chuckle. “That would kill everyone.”

“Um, okay,” James said.

“The entire city’s conductive?” Rush asked.

“Some theorize that the city was the heart of a larger floating complex,” Zelenka said, “configured like an elaborate battery, each pier supplying power to planet-bound sectors that extended well beyond its current diameter.”

With a mechanical pang the city—

A bridge shears along an engineered fault line that runs the perimeter of a pale pink geodesic shield. People on both sides scream as half the bridge lifts with the city’s stardrive.

He pulled in a breath. Kept walking. //Will you stop that,// he snarled at the city.

Atlantis replied with a faint wave of reproach.

They passed through windowed halls with more and more open paneling until the windows gave way and they walked along a covered colonnade a few stories above sea level. Below, flush with the ocean swells, Rush recognized the platform. He’d seen it in a vision from the city—it was the end of the broken bridge.

Now, John Sheppard stood there.

“You’ll often find Colonel Sheppard proximate to rivers of flowing charge,” Zelenka said in the same tone he’d used to point out architectural features of the city.

They left the shelter of the colonnade and approached the end of the pier. The needle-like tip of the Acumen Fulmineum pointed at the clouds. Rush traced the lines of naquadah cables that ran from the spire into the grounding station on the pier, then snaked down the side of the city to plunge below the waves.

The growing thunderheads overtook the high afternoon sun. The pier and sea fell into shadow.

Below, Sheppard turned to look up at them.

Zelenka muttered something in Czech, then raised his arm in a beckoning wave. A few English words peppered the annoyed monologue. “Cortical” and “this idiot” were the most notable.

Rush quirked an eyebrow at the scientist.

Zelenka collected himself, then said, “Someone who’s developed a reputation for trying to merge with Lantean sidewalks really should not stand on sea level piers during storms?”

(John Sheppard’s cognitive connection with Atlantis wasn’t as low a profile as he thought it was.)

Sheppard climbed a spiral stair, taking the steps two at a time. As he stepped through a gap in the grounding station railing, he met Rush’s gaze with eyes like sea-wet stone. He had new information. He wasn’t the only one.

Rush stepped up the voltage of their nonverbal communication with a significance transformer of his own. Because he knew now, for a fact, that Morgan le Fay was here. On Atlantis. He’d seen her twice: once when the energetic weight of his cortical suppressors had fluxed, once in Astria Porta. Twice, in Astria Porta, actually, if one counted her raven form. Was this something worth saying aloud? Certainly not.

What he really wanted to discuss was the emerging role of his own superpositioned aspect, whom Morgan seemed to view as an untrustworthy mastermind operating on a multiversal scale, imprisoning rivals and forging alliances and disrupting the ascended and recruiting a being famed for trickery and healing to his cause.

“Colonel Sheppard,” Zelenka said with the chivalry of a man rescuing someone from an embarrassingly long stare of wordless pining. “What are you doing here?”

“Thinking,” Sheppard replied. “This is my thinking pier.”

Zelenka did a shabby job concealing an eye roll. “This is not a good pier for you.”

Sheppard ignored this. “Still holding out hope for a lightning-charged ZPM?”

“Always,” Zelenka replied. “Have you met Vanessa James? She’s a star.” He elbowed her forward.

Sheppard studied James as though he were considering data inaccessible to the rest of humanity. “I believe it.”

James stood mute under the deepening cloud cover.

“Already mastering matter waves.” Zelenka blasted through an awkward silence before it formed. “She’ll be checking conduit integrity along a path between this grounding station and the central casing of our ZPM.” He pulled a handheld device from his belt and thrust it at James.

As she took it, the device’s hue changed from pale blue to a strong turquoise. The lieutenant’s demeanor shifted from stoicism to charmed as the color intensified.

“It likes you,” Sheppard said.

James schooled her expression. “Yes, sir.”

Zelenka blew out a theatrical breath. “Natural positives.”

“The real question, Lieutenant,” Sheppard said, “is: how’s your Astria Porta game coming along?”

“It’s not, really,” James confessed. “I’m not a gamer, sir.”

Rush felt unexpected sympathy for the lieutenant as Sheppard’s tone took on an edge of glee. “Might wanna put a few hours in before dinner. B-Team’s making its Expansion Pack Debut tonight.”

The device in James’s hand turned from turquoise to seasick green.

“Stop it,” Zelenka said flatly. “We aren’t. We’ve not even met to discuss strategy.”

Sheppard’s shrug was pure angelic innocence. “You can do that over dessert and Athosian wine. You guys are on tonight. Woolsey’s made a formal announcement.”

“A formal—” Zelenka sputtered. “I need more time! Do you have any idea how intractable Ronon Dex is?”

“Some,” Sheppard replied.

“Absolutely not,” Zelenka said. “This cannot happen. We’re nowhere near ready. Three new players? New new. Vanessa doesn’t game. She just said it!”

“Woolsey’s hooked each of them up with a coach,” Sheppard said. “The lieutenant here is paired with Teyla.”

“Oh thank god it’s not McKay,” Zelenka breathed.

“We wouldn’t do that to James.” Sheppard clapped the lieutenant’s arm. “We like James.”

A small flicker of surprise passed over James’s face.

“No one cares about Astria Porta,” Rush told her.

If Morgan le Fay was listening, Rush hoped she’d take no offense.

“Wrong,” Zelenka said. “Very wrong. Everyone cares.”

“Nick.” Sheppard angled his head at the colonnade.

“Don’t steal him!” Zelenka called as Rush followed Sheppard. “He’s mine until 1600!”

Sheppard led Rush toward the base of the Acumen Fulmineum. The wind picked up, whistling around naquadah curves and tugging at the fabric of Rush’s jacket.

Sheppard positioned himself with his back to the sea, his eyes on the long silver colonnade that led back toward the center of the city. “Everett,” he said, leaning in, “has decided it would be a good idea to dig into the history of a feud between Morgan le Fay and Merlin. He told Woolsey over lunch.”

“Did he say why?” Rush asked.

“He’s looking into the origin of the Wraith. Do you think there’s any possibility he’s—aware of—” Sheppard waved a hand, gesturing at nothingness, toward the athleisure-clad form of Morgan le Fay in superposition.

“He genuinely didn’t know what I meant by ‘superposition’ when I asked him about it in New York,” Rush said.

“I think he’s started to guess, and he’s definitely in play,” Sheppard said tightly. “I don’t like this. Someone’s gotta lock in on a better reference frame. Soon. This is a crap vantage point. We’re on the board. Being played.”

It was true.

As far as solutions went, Rush was underequipped. How was he meant to operate like this? Cut off from his past? From personal memories that might yield answers, principles to generalize from, or overarching strategy?

The idea of what he might have known gnawed like a physical ache.

He was surrounded by men and women driven to do the Right Thing. To fight entropic decay. To keep the light of civilization burning a little longer. Was that who he was, at his core? Was it what he was doing, in superposition? Or were there darker potentials he carried? Ones that hadn’t been elicited by his surroundings or that were suppressed by a Lucian Alliance psychotropic agent?

Rush opened his hands, desperate for anything that might lift the mnemonic veil separating him from his past. “I’ve nothing but nine weeks on the Eastern Seaboard to draw on.”

“I know,” Sheppard said, planted on Breakwater Quay like he’d been there for millennia.

The wind on his face felt familiar. It smelled of stone and sea mist and split light.

And he thought of genetic lineages.

Of deceit.

Of an old spirit dressed in a white track jacket.

“You were in Astria Porta,” Sheppard said. “By yourself. Last night. I check the logs.”

Rush nodded.

“So it’s probably you,” Sheppard said, “who’s gonna get a better frame. Am I right?”

“I think I’m particularly likely to get a ‘better frame’ because I’ve the least idea what to do with it,” Rush hissed.

“Yeah. Feels right.” Sheppard looked back at James and Zelenka, standing at a silver rail beneath the darkening sky. “Everett seems to think Jackson is our ticket to a better vantage point. But my bet—is on you. You know more than I do. Probably not enough. Yet.”

“Yes,” Rush agreed, thinking of his own superpositioned aspect and the half-explained tidbits Morgan le Fay had dangled in front of him to light the way.

Sheppard fixed Rush with a piercing look. “I’ll back you. If.”

“If?”

“If you promise you’ll take me with you when the time comes.”

“Done,” Rush said, then followed on with, “Play Astria Porta with me. Tonight. You and I. Something—may happen.”

“Tomorrow,” Sheppard promised. “Tonight, Woolsey’s hosting a party for the B-Team’s first outing. You got volunteered as caterer.”

“Excuse me, but I fuckin’ what?”

Sheppard snorted. “Take it up with Vala. She’s on the mainland with Teyla. Shopping. They’re bringing back a jumper’s worth of groceries.”

“In this weather?” Rush gestured up at the storm.

“They’ll be okay.” Sheppard grinned up at the clouds like they were old friends. “The sun juices up a convective current, a storm forms, rains itself out in hours, and clears in time for a spectacular sunset.” Sheppard glanced at his watch. “I gotta go. Briefing with Woolsey about an undercover Wraith op. Stay outta trouble.”

“Seems bloody unlikely.”

Sheppard curled a hand over Rush’s shoulder, squeezed, then turned and headed for the city center.

Rush walked into the wind and coming storm.

~~~

Administrator Woolsey’s Sea Mist Suite opened into an architectural grotto with a low fountain. Water burbled over uncut stone, mimicking the sound and aesthetic of a running brook. The misted glass of the walls funneled falling rain into fractal patterns that branched like trees. Beyond the entry was a small reception area with an attached kitchen, orders of magnitude more intimate than Moros’s grand ballroom. Cushioned benches and divans had been pushed into something like church pews, facing a viewscreen mounted on a sunstone and slate wall.

The kitchen was small and functional, packed with well-used equipment to the point one might call it clutter. The windows were plentiful, and their glass had been inlaid with prisms that would, on a sunny evening or under a bright moon, split light into decorative rainbows limning the cabinetry and stove.

Rush hadn’t needed to be told that these were Morgan’s rooms.

He suspected that the depths of this suite contained labyrinthine turns, secret rooms, concealed laboratories, optics-based artwork highlighting the interplay of water, light, and crystal.

Musical instruments, maybe.

Rush stood at a counter of ground glass, melting Athosian chocolate in a double boiler. Notes of cinnamon and roasted coffee carried on the air. Beside him, Vala cracked and hulled walnut-sized Athosian seeds. Teyla, across the counter, crushed small, dark berries between clean stones.

“Aren’t you three efficient,” Administrator Woolsey observed, strolling up with Teyla’s son in his arms. The man was dressed in a three-piece suit that wouldn’t have looked amiss in an Earth concert hall.

“Needs must,” Vala said. “Our catering company prefers a little more advance warning if we’re to do our best work.”

“Noted,” Woolsey said politely and shifted Torren to his hip.

Vala demurely fluttered her eyelashes. “Does this mean you’re considering our future services?”

“We’ll see,” Woolsey said, unable to fully hide the warmth in his tone.

As Rush stirred the chocolate, he found he missed the idea of the first time he’d met Vala. He felt the strong desire to recall the particularities of the bright charm with which she’d no doubt coaxed a friendship from him built on the fundamentals of calculus. By the same token, he wished he could recall the first time he’d seen Young. Wished he understood the arc of his neighbor’s year—from disability leave to transgalactic posting. The thousands of details of their initial acquaintance might inform Rush’s read on the quantum soldier who had pointed his way home. He needed to remember the ‘notable day’ he’d spent with John Sheppard—what had happened between them that had earned Sheppard’s unvarnished trust and romantic regard. Memories of Rodney McKay that weren’t backed by supernatural blues and John Sheppard’s longing would no doubt be useful.

Gently, Atlantis slid a wave of sympathy into his thoughts, along with the image of John Sheppard, alone on the west side of Breakwater Quay, cutting a dark silhouette as he lined up his golf swing with the sinking sun.

Rush wasn’t sure if the ache in his thoughts came from Atlantis or his own mind.

“Do we have any idea,” Woolsey said, swaying from foot to foot as he cradled Torren, “where your culinary abilities come from?”

(Another thing that would be nice to recall.)

“No,” Rush admitted.

Vala huffed. “Opinions on wine, opinions on clothes, opinions on food, on music, on math, on science, on literature presumably—he’s a connoisseur of Earth culture, of course. It’s what drew us together.”

Rush poured cream into the melting chocolate. “I wasn’t exactly quick to pick up on my own skills in the kitchen.”

“It must be strange not to recall your own abilities.” Teyla’s fingertips were stained red with the juice of macerated berries. “To be unsure of their depth.”

“I’d prefer not to live like this,” Rush agreed.

“I have every confidence in Dr. Keller.” Woolsey readjusted his grip on Torren as the child began to fuss. “She’s only recently begun to investigate the roots of the problem. It’s been one distraction after another, this year. Though, admittedly, some distractions are quite welcome.” His voice jumped in pitch. “Aren’t they, Torren? Aren’t they, little man?” Woolsey wandered back toward the sitting room where someone named Chuck was setting up five gaming stations beneath the wall-mounted display that took up an entire wall of the administrator’s living room.

“I told you,” Teyla said to Vala.

Vala sniffed. “I suppose the administrator has a few redeeming qualities.” She added another hulled nut to the tray in front of her.

“Y’can start layering berries into the bottoms of the shells,” Rush said. “Ganache is almost ready.”

“Then I start on the churros, you gorgeous thing?” Vala asked. When Rush nodded, she called, “Administrator! I need another mixing bowl!”

Teyla took Vala’s station and pressed berries into waiting shells that resembled hollowed-out acorns and tasted of hazelnuts. Rush coaxed melted chocolate into one of the plastic bags they’d liberated from the mess.

Though Rush looked for it, there was nothing of the raw and terrifying presence she’d revealed earlier in the day.

“If you are not Dr. McKay’s favorite person on Atlantis,” Teyla said, “you are about to become so. He is well known for his appreciation of a good meal. Ronon and I have heard tales of the party you hosted in the Milky Way.”

“Hmm.” Rush smiled faintly. “The time scale’s a bit compressed for anything so elaborate, but one does one’s best.”

“A wise policy,” Teyla agreed.

The rain pattering against the glass turned quieter.

“One of the village elders tried to teach me to prepare food as she did,” Teyla said. “I never mastered so much as a simple soup.”

“It’s never too late, I expect.” Rush piped chocolate into shells lined with crushed berry.

“Is it not? I’m worlds away from any future she imagined for me.”

“Oh, join our little club, you sweet thing.” Vala beat an egg into flour. “We’ll teach you to cook if you want to learn. We truly could start a catering empire. You can franchise our Pegasus operations. A few more little demos like this one and we’ll be the hottest culinary start-up in the city.”

Teyla smiled and pressed berries into shells.

Rush piped cinnamon-scented chocolate in her wake.

As the afternoon storm cleared, they finished the final touches on dessert. Woolsey put on a “party mix” of ponderous German opera, which, unless Rush missed his guess, was highlights from Fidelio. Vala not-so-subtly scoured his collection for something less dreary and offered Rush the whispered alternatives of chamber music by Mozart versus Liszt’s piano arrangement of Symphonie Fantastique.

Rush chose Mozart.

(Obviously. Programmatic music had no place backgrounding a dinner party.)

Dessert preparation complete, Rush’s impromptu catering team settled into Administrator Woolsey’s receiving room. Rush leaned into the counter that demarcated the border of the kitchen.

As the opening passage of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major filled the administrator’s quarters, the door chime sounded. Woolsey handed Torren off to Teyla and opened the door to reveal Zelenka and Ronon.

“How could you do this to us?” Zelenka demanded, still wearing his dust-streaked shirt from earlier in the day.

“Getting kicked off the A-Team’s bad enough.” Ronon glowered. “Now we’re babysitting three green players through an assault on the Temporal Shrine? Teyla said it’s hard.”

“Gentlemen!” Woolsey ushered them inside with congenial good humor. “Please. Allow me to soften the blow with an Athosian frost varietal. Similar in concept to a terrestrial ice wine but not as sweet. This one has a delightful note of cedar in the mid-palate.” He headed to a large decanter full of amber liquid beside an array of cut crystal glassware.

“Well,” Zelenka began.

“Don’t fall for it,” Ronon grumbled. “We’re pissed.”

“Yes,” Zelenka agreed, as he followed Woolsey to the wine. “Furious.”

“Give SG-68 a chance,” Woolsey said. “I’m sure you’ll find the dessert on offer to be worth every inconvenience. And think of how much more compelling the narrative will become when Dek the Gray and Sartorius, God of Axes, team up with a new and untrained trio of heroes!”

“The dessert is impressive,” Teyla said from the couch, her son tucked into a bassinet next to her.

“Teyla. Good. What do we have to fight?” Ronon asked.

Teyla only smiled mysteriously and sipped her small glass of frost wine.

“Nick,” Zelenka said. “We heard it’s a reptilian entity. Is that true?”

Before Rush could reply, Vala said, “Don’t you say a word, gorgeous.” She reclined on a divan, the ankle of her injured leg hooked over its armrest. She popped an improvised alien fruit and nut truffle into her mouth. “Not without negotiating for a fee.” Ostentatiously, she licked her fingers.

Ronon eyed Rush with interest. “What kinda fee? I’ll get you a fee.”

“He needs wearable gemstones,” Vala informed them. “Sapphire or better.”

Ronon looked Vala over from her tailored expedition jacket to her calf-high non-regulation boots. “Smart.”

Vala winked at Ronon. “See? He gets it.”

The door chimed again. Rush passed through the entryway, skirted the fountain, and swiped it open.

John Sheppard stood in the doorframe, backed by the post-storm sunset. He wore black cargo pants and a black form-fitting shirt. He had a sidearm strapped to his thigh and a sheathed knife in his belt. His hair looked particularly spiked.

Sheppard stared at him.

“Would you like to come in?” Rush asked. “Or shall we make an expeditious retreat?”

Sheppard smiled. “That bad already, huh?”

“Not sure I’m built for this degree of extroversion,” Rush said.

“You and me both. But Woolsey’d be crushed. He really wants to be your friend.”

“Oh, I suppose.”

“Plus,” Sheppard said, “you gotta hang around to absorb all the compliments your desserts’ll net you.”

“Do I?” Rush asked.

“Oh yeah.” Sheppard stepped past Rush into the smoked glass entryway.

“Colonel!” Woolsey called. “Come in! Try the wine.”

“Flyboyyyyyy,” Vala called, “once you have your wine, report to the couch. Someone needs to elevate my foot.”

The red-gold of the sunset faded to the color of a bruise as guests trickled in. The interior of Woolsey’s quarters began to glow with recycled moonlight. It caught in the crystal, in the misted glass, in the hair of the women, in the eyes of the men.

Young was the last to arrive. His midnight fatigues soaked up the light.

“How we doin’, hotshot?” he asked.

Rush’s body ached in the aftermath of his training with Teyla, after tracing the course of lightning from the tip of Breakwater Quay to the ZPM below the Central Spire. His mind ached, open to grief and to alien influence, constrained by the devices affixed to his temples. His heart, too, ached, though he’d rather not admit it. For the life he couldn’t recall. For the people in this star-bright room. For a city that spoke in image and sensation because he was blocked from hearing all it wanted to tell him.

“It’s been a day,” Rush said.

“I’ll bet,” Young replied, Athosian wine in his hand.

“I understand you spent the morning looking into the origins of the Wraith.”

Young caught and held his gaze, dark and serious. “Can’t hurt to be informed about threats in the Pegasus Galaxy. Besides. I like military history.”

“Learn anything interesting?”

Young sipped his wine. “Hotshot, you don’t need the nightmares.”

Before Rush could respond—

“Yup.” McKay appeared, a platter of miniature churros and melted chocolate in hand. “No one needs Wraith nightmares. But you will get them. We all do. Kinda like a Legolas/Shelob blended monster that hunts you down and sucks the life out of your chest with a creepy gill hand? It hurts really really badly. So I’m told. John, actually, told me that. He’s been fed on. Somehow got the Wraith in question to restore his vitality using his James T. Kirk Good Looks and Charm.” McKay rolled his eyes. “They’re friends now. Guy by the name of Todd, actually. Well, Wraith by the name of Todd, I guess I should say. Todd would be the first to admit he’s not so much a ‘guy’ as he is an apex predator.”

Rush and Young, equally speechless, stared at McKay.

McKay dunked a churro in chocolate sauce. “God, you gotta start giving our mess hall staff notes. Classes, even. A seminar?” He motioned to Young. “Colonel, try one.”

Young dipped the fried, cinnamon-and-sugared dough in a small bowl of melted chocolate. He took a bite, then closed his eyes, pained and appreciative.

“Right?” McKay looked at Rush. “Your culinary skills alone are a Planetary Asset. We won’t let the Wraith get you. You’re literally the last person on Atlantis we’d let them eat.”

“Thank you?” Rush said.

“No problem.” McKay, platter of churros in hand, approached Teyla and James, who were conferring at one of the gaming stations. “Ladies. Sustenance?”

“Okay, so, the only part of that I can get on board with,” Young began, “is the part where you’re the last person on Atlantis who’s gonna be dealing with any Wraith.”

“Thought you wanted a team that could rise to galactic-level challenges,” Rush said.

“I do. But that does not include you tangling with Wraith.”

“I’ve no objection.” Rush shot a lateral look at the colonel. “But you’ve been quite evasive as to what you do, eventually, see me ‘tangling with’?”

“Hopefully nothing,” Young growled.

“You aspire to build a hypercompetent team for a reason, one assumes? Not merely to amuse yourself?”

“We’re building a hypercompetent team.” Young’s gaze, hungry and speculative, lingered on John Sheppard, where he knelt beside Sergeant Greer at a gaming station across the room.

“Sheppard’s meant t’be involved with me, y’know.” Rush wished he had a writing implement to spin through his fingers.

Young coughed on rare Athosian wine.

“The entire population of the bloody city knows as much. Don’t start a scandal.”

Young grinned, confident and maddening. “Somebody’s gotta keep him in line for you until you get your memories back.”

“Someone ought to keep him in line, full stop.” Rush watched Sheppard watch Greer, the starshine of the overhead lights tangled in his dark hair.

“Already on it,” Young said. After a pause, he offered, “You should know—he and I spend most of our time together complaining about you, actually. Your blazers, your sandals. Every meal you cook is some kind of crime.”

“Hmm.” Rush sipped wine that tasted of winter fruit and sugared scallion, loam and cedar. “Acceptable,” he decided.

“The wine, or Shep and me?” Young asked.

“Both, I suppose,” Rush replied, “though I’m not convinced all your USAF forbearance is warranted. One might argue you’re wasting time with these displays of mnemonic chivalry.”

“You want to be invited in, you mean?” Young asked.

“I’ve yet to hear a viable plan for restoring my memory,” Rush said.

“Hotshot.” Young looked into his wine, his tone turning gentle. “We’ll make it happen. But when we do—it’ll be pretty rough, I think.”

Channeling the sweet chill of his ice wine, Rush said, “I’m willing to allow you t’make me wait. For now.”

Woolsey stepped to the center of the room and flicked the rim of his wineglass with a well-placed fingernail. Concentrated starlight lingered on his suit. “It’s eight o’clock! Showtime.”

The players settled into their stations. Eli hovered beside Ginn. Sheppard crouched next to Greer. Teyla perched on the lip of a divan at James’s shoulder, her son in her arms.

“Audio goes live in three,” Woolsey said, “two.” For the last count he held up a silent single finger, then pointed at McKay, who stood ready near the AV setup.

Young pushed away from the wall. “I gotta provide some moral support.” The colonel wove through the rows of chairs and divans and stood at the side of the room, near the screen, where the whole of SG-68 would be able to see him.

The lights in the room darkened. Onscreen, a raven soared through falling snow.

“Hi, Nick.” Daniel Jackson slid into Young’s spot at Rush’s side. The archeologist looked exhausted, like he’d spent a day in the depths of a Lantean library, reading well below sea level. “Nice dessert spread.”

“Thank you.”

“Since this is a new group of adventurers, we should, I think, give introductions?” Zelenka’s voice was doubled by the sound system in the room, and Rush flinched, along with half the audience. Zelenka muttered an exasperated phrase in Czech that ended with “Rodney.”

“Yeah yeah.” McKay adjusted the sound. “Cry me a river.”

“We fight first,” Ronon said. “Talk after.”

“You’re not in charge,” Zelenka informed him. “We need to coordinate our efforts.”

“You’re not in charge either,” Ronon said.

“Yes, I am in charge,” Zelenka fired back.

“Where’s the mage?” Ronon demanded.

“Here,” Ginn replied. “Vera Sar.”

“Vera,” Zelenka said, stripping most of the impatience from his tone, “wonderful to meet you; we are losing HP to poisoned snow?”

Rush watched Eli whisper a complicated series of commands to Ginn.

Lightning struck the Sidereal Spire.

“What else we got?” Ronon asked. “Quick. Greer. Who are you. What’s your best weapon.”

“Serpentis Shock Trooper, V’terrin Warcrest, reporting for duty,” Greer replied, cool and quick. “I’ve got a Sunspear of Threxos the Dawnlord. Does—” Sheppard leaned in and murmured something to Greer. “—deals 1d8 piercing with 2d6 radiant damage on hit.”

“Okay,” Zelenka said, impressed. “That’s something. Vanessa, who are you?”

“Vex Blackbriar,” James sounded off. “Human ranger. Dual wielder. Mainhand weapon is Voidpiercer. Rapier. Deals 1d6 with unerring strike.” Teyla pointed elegantly at something on the screen, and James added, “Confers Shadow Veil.”

“Shadow Veil is good,” Zelenka said as the doors to the shrine rattled. “Vera, quick, your weapon?”

“Voltcaster Pistol, 1d10 piercing,” Ginn called.

Next to Rush, Jackson sighed. “I always wanted to play D&D.”

“Can’t imagine what stopped you,” Rush replied.

“Believe it or not,” Jackson said, “I didn’t have a lot of friends as a kid.”

The doors to the Temporal Shrine ground open. Dr. Daryl Levant, fatigued and pursued, staggered into the snowfall.

Jackson grimaced.

“The resemblance is striking,” Rush said.

The silhouette of a doomed on-screen archeologist played over Jackson’s features. “I hate this guy.”

The Prismatic Drake bellowed and the wall at Rush’s back vibrated.

“Oh good.” Jackson hugged himself. “He’s gonna die.” His eyes, pale blue, caught the light of poisoned snow.

The room gasped as the Prismatic Drake roared again, arched high, and swallowed Dek the Gray whole.

Zelenka swore in Czech.

“Nice going!” Ronon swung his axe at the Drake’s neck. “Are you dead?”

The mirrored plates turned Sartorius’s axe, which did no damage.

“Ah—yes,” Zelenka said. “Yes, I believe I am very much dead.”

Vera Sar braced and fired the Voltcaster Pistol at the Drake’s eye. She missed.

The Drake spat a gout of poison at her, dousing her in black ichor. Her HP plunged to nothing.

“Warcrest!” Ronon shouted. “Throw your Sunspear. Try to hit its mouth!”

“Uh, sure.” Warcrest hefted his Day-glo lance.

The God of Axes nimbly evaded a jet of poison spewed his way.

James, at a whispered word from Teyla, activated her Shadow Veil ability, phased directly onto the Drake’s head, and slashed at its eyes. Enraged and blind, it writhed and spouted a river of poison that took out V’terrin Warcrest before he could hurl his Sunspear. Vex was thrown from its head and took lethal damage as she hit the stone wall of the Temporal Shrine. As she died, Sartorius, God of Axes, fell beneath the mirrored scales of the pain-mad Drake.

The room was silent.

“Well, that was awful,” Sheppard said.

“Nonsense!” Woolsey popped a chocolate-stuffed nut in his mouth. “Try again! And let’s keep it in character this time, eh?”

“Why would anyone play this game?” Jackson muttered, as the buzz of conversation resumed in the bright space.

“I believe it’s in pursuit of something called ‘fun’,” Rush said.

Jackson leaned into the back wall of the room like he’d been contracted to test its structural integrity.

Rush contemplated asking Jackson about Morgan le Fay, but decided to wait. The man looked particularly miserable, and if he was going to fish for information, best to do it with Sheppard in tow. Maybe Young as well. Would that attract too much attention from higher planes?

“If you’ll excuse me.” Rush stepped away from the wall. “I’m going to get some air.”

Jackson narrowed his eyes. “I get suspicious when you get polite.”

“I’m always fuckin’ polite,” Rush informed him politely.

“I know,” Jackson said, still studying him with narrowed eyes. “It’s the most troubling thing about this version of you.”

Rush sketched a mockery of a formal bow, then left the archeologist leaning against the wall. He threaded past McKay and Keller, stationed near the dessert table, then waved a hand at the door controls leading to the administrator’s terrace.

The glass slid open, and Rush left the bright warmth of the room behind.

The night air smelled sharp after the afternoon rain. He passed planters overgrown with Athosian flowers and cooking herbs. At the silver rail overlooking the dark sea, he knelt to study the new growth twined around the naquadah grating. He straightened a tendril. Pale green. Bent by the storm and backlit by star-spectrum grow-lights.

He looked up. Andromeda’s spiral swirled across the dark, foregrounded by brighter stars. The moon had yet to rise.

He stood.

Beyond the door to the terrace, the Astria Porta theme began again.

Forearms braced against the rail, Rush surveyed the dark water.

A hills-of-mist quality ebbed into the night, laced with the scent of loam and pine and fresh water. The tropical air chilled, as though temperate climes and old stone were bleeding in from somewhere Rush couldn’t see. A plane above. A superpositioned wave function.

So when Everett Young’s superpositioned alter ego said, “Hey, genius,” Rush didn’t so much as flinch.

The faded black of the quantum soldier’s uniform looked gray under strong starlight.

All around them, Rush felt the waterfall energy of a white-clad fairy queen raining down.

“It’s ‘hotshot,’ actually.”

“Tried that one out a time or two,” the soldier admitted. “Never stuck.” The wild curl of his hair caught the light of a thousand stars.

“John Sheppard,” Rush said, “would like an invite to this conversation.”

The soldier smiled, wistful and fond. “I miss that guy.”

“I’ll just wave him over, shall I?” Rush asked.

“No can do, ‘hotshot.’ Not today.”

“Hmm.” Rush forced a calm he didn’t truly feel. He made a show of examining his nail beds, dark against the track lights at the base of the terrace. “Are you a version of my own Everett Young?”

The soldier drove his hip into the silver rail, crossed his arms, and tried not to smile.

“What’s your relationship to time?” Rush tried. “Is it linear? Continuous?”

“You got your questions locked and loaded.”

“Yes well.” Rush dropped his faux fingernail inspection. “I’m in no mood to be played like a piece on a three-dimensional chessboard.”

“Can’t imagine I’d be too excited about it either.” The soldier shifted, self-conscious. “I don’t wanna get dramatic and say all of reality’s on the line, but—” He opened a hand. Shrugged. “All reality’s kinda on the line.”

“All reality?”

“Origen’s more than a local problem.” The quantum soldier looked over starlit water.

“And what am I meant to do about it?” Rush asked.

“One step at a time.” Young’s eyes were exactly the same. Worlds different. Full of grief and wisdom, patience and good humor. “You familiar with the concept?”

“No, I’m fuckin’ not,” Rush said. “Last time we spoke you multiversal-signposted me into joining the Air Force.”

“Picked up on that did you?” The soldier smiled. “Nice work.”

“Fuck right off,” Rush shot back. “Don’t compliment me. Don’t compare me to Salzburg’s most irritating son, all right? The only advantage he has is of position.”

Young’s brow furrowed as he worked that one out. “Mozart, you mean?”

“Yes.” Rush drew out the word, droll and dry. “‘Mozart’.”

The quantum soldier huffed a laugh.

“When we met,” Rush began, artfully casual, “on that New York rooftop, you told me that we’re wrapped up in each other. Across space and time.”

Young’s face stayed friendly, but his gaze sharpened.

Rush’s nerves sang with electric anticipation. There was something real here. A stray thread. A true gift from Morgan le Fay. “Wrapped,” he repeated, “is an interesting word. Simultaneously topological and domestic. Connotes a bit of a tangle. I assumed,” he shook back the fringe of his hair, “y’meant t’suggest we were lovers.”

Young tucked his chin and let his gaze bore into Rush from beneath lowered brows.

Rush smiled, casual and hostile. “But ‘wrapped’ might also describe—” he paused, then bit into the word Morgan had given him, “—rivals.”

The word startled the quantum soldier, and, for an instant, Rush felt something indescribable—something of stone and soil and garden walls and volcanic calderas. Then Young looked into the dark like he could see the Fairy Queen’s electrostatic rain falling all around them. Maybe he could. Maybe he was watching the blur of infinitely branching fates. “Not sure what I expected,” he muttered, rueful and amused, his eyes lifted above the horizon, as though addressing incorporeal observers. “You go too far, and I call this whole thing off. You know I can do it.”

“Talking to Mozart?” Rush enquired with solicitous venom.

“No,” Young growled. “I’m talking to Morgan le Fay. She’s trying to get information out of me by seeding you with knowledge you shouldn’t have.”

“Did I trap you?” Rush pressed. “Did he, rather?”

Young scowled at the sky. “What does that even mean?”

Stories below, small swells chimed against Sanctuary Quay.

“So—yes,” Rush decided, studying Young. “I did trap you.”

“We’re all trapped,” the quantum soldier replied. “You heard of DNA? It’s basically a prison.”

“That’s feeling like a semantic point,” Rush began.

Young gripped the silver rail, jaw clenched. “Let’s get something straight,” he said, addressing a wind that carried the smell of moss, of peat, of the aerosolized mist at the base of a waterfall. “I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. And this shit? Knock it off.”

Rush waited, but Morgan didn’t seem inclined to appear. “Nascent alliance off to a rocky start, I see,” he said.

“And you,” Young growled. “You side against yourself every goddamn time. It’s exhausting.”

Rush’s desire to leave his past self for dead would seem to bear the colonel out. “Yes well. Surely you came here for something? The next step in your plan?”

Young looked down at his hands. “I was gonna be tactful about it, but—long story short, you gotta get yourself in front of a Wraith Queen.”

The suggestion was so ludicrous it was easy to hold his ground, cool and neutral. “Sounds like a good way to die.”

Starlight scattered itself in ripples over the sea.

After a long silence, the soldier said, “It’s gotta be done, hotshot.”

Rush pressed two fingertips to the space between his eyebrows. “Why me? Out of an infinite cosmos.”

Young smiled faintly. “There’s always gonna be a lucky winner. But the real reason is that it was your Daniel Jackson who wandered into our Graveyard.”

“Am I supposed to understand that?”

“No,” Young admitted. “I get it’s a lot to ask. I wouldn’t ask at all, if there were any other choice.”

Already gripped by shadows, Rush’s blood flowed cold. Like river water in a dark culvert.

“Say, for the sake of argument, I agree,” Rush said, the strength gone from his voice. “Even if I wanted to do it, I don’t see how it would work, logistically. That lot,” he gestured toward the receiving room of the Sea Mist Suite, flickering with the projected light of poisoned snow and mirrored monsters, “would never allow it.”

The soldier looked out over dark water. “You’ll get an opportunity.”

Rush fought the jaws of the closing trap. “What happens if I tell Colonel Sheppard about the contents of this conversation beyond Morgan’s shielding?”

Young leaned into the rail, his gaze on the empty sea. “There’s a place called the Folia Sepulcri. The Leaves of Graves. Branes culled from the Living Cosmos. Compressed. Preserved. Like flowers between book pages. That’s where you end up if you tell anyone what we’ve asked you to do. Everything you know. Everything you love. Time-stopped. Dead.”

Rush took an unsteady breath. “Is that a threat?”

“C’mon,” Young said. “No. Of course not.”

“It sounds like a threat.”

“It’s information.” The soldier was a blend of starlight and shadow. “You want a chance at survival? A chance to make a play when it’s time? You gotta take a little direction. We get you hate that idea. It’s what a sitting Council member is leveraging for intel.” Young glared at the invisible veil of electrostatic concealment that surrounded them, then turned back to Rush. “It’s why I’m here. You like me best.”

Rush did. On this brane of the quantum multiverse. On this brane, Everett Young worked to defend his planet brick by brick. On this brane, John Sheppard fired himself like a well-placed shot off the peak of all the risk maxima he could engineer. On this brane, Teyla had spent a lifetime battling an eldritch horror that farmed her people like cattle and seeded her blood, while Vala sifted the river silt life gave her for metaphorical gold and cosmic shells, alert to the smallest of treasures. On this brane.

When considered in its totality and across its many worlds, life was a tree of branching paths, bright at its center, fading to scatter and trace at its infinite quantum edge. Even if he saw other branes, other worlds, this was the place that he’d come from. The place that had made him. The place where he’d buried a wife he didn’t remember and where he’d learned the intricacies of music and mathematics. It was worth saving from Origen and from the Leaves of Graves.

So, “All right,” Rush said.

The soldier released a shuddery breath. He gave Rush a soulful look, complicated and long, brimming with pride and regret and deeper, warmer things that Rush wouldn’t put a name to, not under this spread of foreign stars.

“All you gotta do is get there,” Young said. “Put yourself in front of her.”

In one blink of an eye, the silver and midnight quantum double of Everett Young was gone.

Atlantis pressed against Rush’s thoughts, dense and comforting.

The wind turned warmer. Softer.

And Rush was, again, alone on a Lantean terrace.