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: Witchingest hour possible.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 88

Rush and James stood on a silver balcony near the mess, waiting for Radek Zelenka and watching 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 towered over the sea. They formed giant shadow architectures that crisscrossed miles of sunlit water, irregular and vast.

James said, “I’ve never seen clouds grow so fast. You can track it.”

Lacking personal memory, Rush couldn’t find any point of comparison for the explosive expansion of cloud in the upper atmosphere, but 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 that had to front for something. He, himself, might have appeared like this when masquerading as a man with a past, constructing a wall of competence from a handful of discovered skills.

“Where are you from?” Rush asked.

“Pittsburgh.” There was a fierce undertone to the name, as though she were digging in to defend it.

“Ah.”

(Rush knew fuck all about Pittsburgh.)

As though she could tell, James softened. “Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh’s 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 white towers condensing above them.

“Doubt it,” James replied, “but 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, “Think we’re in for a storm?”

From behind, someone said, “Yes.”

They turned to see a man a little taller than Rush, with flyaway hair and glasses with delicate silver frames. He wore khaki cargo pants, their pockets weighed down by instruments. His blue cotton shirt had a smear of dust down one arm. “Convective storms.” He stepped to the rail next to Rush, looking up at the towering 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 “—this will be a good one, I think.” He muttered something in Czech.

The ocean breeze smelled of static and salt.

“Dr. Zelenka, I preume?” Rush asked.

“You’ve heard of me?” Astonished, Zelenka looked over at him, hand still shielding his eyes.

“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 hear as much from Rodney.” He dropped the hand shading his eyes and held it out to Rush. “Please,” he said. “Call me Radek.”

They shook. “Nick,” Rush said.

“An honor to meet you,” the scientist said. “Truly. We have 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. “Quite right.”

“We have a weekly Computational Complexity Journal Club,” Zelenka said, “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 of the implications of his proof would go in the absence of any personal context, but it was bloody difficult to say no to Dr. Zelenka’s good natured enthusiasm. “I’m not opposed.”

“We’ve got a pretty tight schedule this week,” James said, subtly backing him.

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

“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.

The wind picked up, singing around wrought-naquadah filigree.

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, 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 so clearly was, as though 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? I hear they’re nice.”

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

James was a tense and watchful presence at Rush’s shoulder. “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 in the air, “—first-you’re-here/now-you’re-there quantum fairy tale.”

James shrugged.

“Ugh,” Rush muttered. “I bloody hate quantum mechanics.”

Zelenka chuckled. “You’ll need to get over that. And quickly.” He looked back over his shoulder, catching James’s eye. “Lieutenant. Have you heard of wave-particle duality?”

“For light? Yeah.” The afternoon sun, filtered through misted panels, put a warm glow on her skin and hair. “I didn’t grow up in a barn.”

“Ha. Um. All right.” Zelenka shot Rush a quick look of conspiratorial commiseration, presumably in response to James’s USAF defensiveness. “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?”

“Ah, 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 Zelenka led them into an 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 is composed of a blend of naquadah alloy and orichalcum.”

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

“Yes,” Zelenka said. “If you’re a student of history, it would. Stories of it made their way into myth. We haven’t started any materials science projects in earnest. Defense and energetics get 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, displaying a beautiful 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, his boots wet with the coming and going of the choppy surf.. His dark hair and clothes are damp with sea spray. A threadbare cloak, laced with thin filaments of crystal ripples in the wind. He looks up, into the crackling heart of a dark storm riding the western wind.

Rush closed a hand around the rail of the transport alcove, grounding himself.

“You okay, boss?” James asked.

Zelenka studied him, head cocked, eyes watchful.

“The city asserts itself, at times,” Rush admitted. “I’m fine.”

“What does that mean?” Zelenka asked.

“I’m not sure,” Rush confessed. “Images, occasionally. A storm.”

“Hm. I think, as a phenomenon, non-verbal communication from the city itself may be more common than is admitted by certain military personnel who like to impersonate pillars of sanity,” Zelenka muttered. “There’s an oceanographer on my team who’s a strong natural positive. She’s always staring into space like that. We’ve known from day one that the city’s aware of us. Tries to help.” He sighed. “I wish it could see me.”

“Why doesn’t it?” James asked.

“I don’t have the gene.” There was a wistful note in Zelenka’s his voice. “You two are natural positives, I hear.”

“What?” James said, startled.

“Oh yes,” Zelenka said. “You and Sergeant Greer. Sorry. Genetic status is impossible to hide in this city. Eli Wallace and Colonel Young are negative. I hear Dr. Keller is already working on 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.

“Lightning rod.” Zelenka hit the lavender box.

The alcove doors closed and opened, revealing a sunstone hall etched with stylized waves.

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

(And Rush found he quite liked Zelenka.)

“Um, okay,” James said.

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

“Oh yes,” Zelenka replied. “Some theorize that in its heyday it was the heart of a much larger complex, configured like an elaborate battery, each pier supplying power to massive planet-bound sectors that extended beyond the current diameter.”

With a mechanical pang, the city—

A bridge shears along a line of pale pink geodesic shielding. People on both sizes scream as half the bridge rises, powered from beneath by massive engines.

He pulled in a breath. Kept walking.

//Will you stop that,// he snarled at the city.

//.// Atlantis replied with a faint sense of reproach.

Zelenka led them through windowed halls with more and more open paneling until the windows gave way entirely and they walked along a covered colonnade that ran a few stories above sea level and stretched to the far end of the pier overlooking the sea. Below them, flush with the ocean swells, Rush recognized the platform where the man from the city’s visual had stood. The end of the broken bridge.

And, now, John Sheppard stood there.

“Ah,” Zelenka said, spotting him at the same time. “You’ll often find Colonel Sheppard in proximity to massive rivers of flowing charge,” he said, like pointing out an interesting architectural feature of the city.

They stepped from the shelter of the open-sided colonnade onto the tip of the pier. The Acumen Fulmen towered above them, its tip to the clouds. Massive nauqadah cables ran from the tip of the spire into the grounding station on the pier, then snaked down the side of the city to plunge into the ocean.

Overhead, the towering clouds blocked the sun, turning dark at their bases and bright at their tips. The wind, warm and strong, buffeted their clothes. The shadowed sea took on a gray cast, and the soft echoes of their footsteps were lost beneath the sound of the surf.

As though he could hear them over the sound of sea and storm, Sheppard turned, looking up to the grounding station, levels above.

Zelenka sighed, muttered something in Czech, then raised his arm in a beckoning wave. A few English words peppered the annoyed monologue. “Cortical” and “this idiot” being 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 a sea level pier during a storm.”

(Rush was beginning to understand that John Sheppard didn’t keep as low a profile as he thought he did.)

Sheppard climbed a narrow spiral stair that spanned the vertical distance between sea level and their position. As he stepped through a narrow gap in the grounding station railing, he caught and held Rush’s gaze.

“Colonel Sheppard,” Zelenka said over the sound of the wind singing around naquadah edges. “What are you doing here?”

“Thinking,” Sheppard replied. “You here for the storm?”

“Yes.” Zelenka nodded. “We’re tracing power flows.”

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

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

James stared mutely at him.

Zelenka elbowed her forward.

Sheppard studied James with eyes the color of sea-wet stone, his expression speculative, like he was considering data inaccessible to the rest of humanity. “I believe it,” he decided.

James stood silent under the deepening cloud cover. 

“Already mastering matter waves,” Zelenka said, blasting through awkward silence before it could form. “She’ll be checking conduit integrity along a path between this grounding station and the central casing of our ZPM.” With this, Zelenka 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 expression flickered from stoic into something charmed and charming as the color intensified.

“It likes you,” Sheppard said.

James schooled her expression back to something approximating neutral. “Yes, sir.”

Zelenka gave a long-suffering sigh and muttered, “Natural positives.”

Sheppard smirked and swept his eyes over Rush before refocusing on James. “The real question is, lieutenant: how’s your Astria Porta skillset coming along?”

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

“Wellllll,” Sheppard drew out the word, “might wanna put a few hours in before dinner. B Team’s makin’ it’s Expansion Pack Debut tonight.”

“What.” The device in James’s hand took on a deeper, greener cast.

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

Sheppard smirked. “You can do that over dessert and Athosian wine. You guys are on tonight. The whole city already knows.”

“Do you have any idea,” Zelenka began breathlessly, “how intractable Ronon Dex is?”

“Some,” Sheppard replied mildly.

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

“Woolsey’s hooked each of them up with a coach,” Sheppard said mildly. “I think the lieutenant here is gonna get paired with Teyla.”

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

“We wouldn’t do that to James.” Sheppard clapped the lieutenant on the shoulder. “We like her.”

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

Zelenka muttered something under his breath. 

“Nick.” Sheppard angled his head back toward the colonnade. “C’mere a minute.”

“Don’t steal him!” Zelenka called as they walked back toward the shelter of the colonnade. “He’s mine until 1600!”

Sheppard ignored the scientist, leading Rush back toward the base of the Acumen Fulmineum. The wind picked up, singing through the columns, tugging at the loose edges of Rush’s expedition uniform. Sheppard positioned himself with his back to the sea, his eyes on the long silver colonnade that lead back along Breakwater Quay.

Rush quirked an inquisitorial eyebrow.

“Everett,” Sheppard said, leaning in, “is digging 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, presumably. 

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

“Doesn’t mean he’s not in play,” Sheppard said tightly. “I don’t like this. Someone’s gotta lock in on a better reference frame. This is a crap vantage point. We’re on the board. Being played.”

It was true, Rush was sure, but as far as solutions went, he felt especially unequipped to come up with a solution. How was he meant to operate like this? Cut off from his past, from personal memories from which examples, or generalization, or strategy might arise? He was profoundly disadvantaged. The idea of what he might have known gnawed at him like a physical ache. Especially surrounded, as he was, by men and women desperate to do the right thing. To fight entropic decay. To keep the light of civilization burning a little longer.

“I have nothing but nine weeks on the Eastern Seaboard to draw on.” Rush opened his hands, desperate for anything that might lift the mnemonic veil separating him from his past. “I’ve no bloody idea how to get off the board.”

Sheppard looked at him solemnly, planted on Breakwater Quay like he’d been there for millenia. “I know. Even so, you’re our best bet, I’m guessing. If you see any opportunity to get a foot in the door, put my name in the ring. I’m game. For anything.”

And he was, Rush realized. From the moment he’d seen John Sheppard moving through a dining room that didn’t have a place for him, the man had carried threshold quality. Brink-like and liminal. It was in his eyes, in his words, in the idea of spanned gaps that formed the core of Atlantis’s perception of the man.

//…// the city agreed, concerned, subdued, sliding midair bridges of spun naquadah into Rush’s thoughts.

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.

“Any suggestions that don’t involve pitching you to the quantum wolves?” Rush asked.

“We need to play another round of Astria Porta,” Sheppard said. “Go after that second questline. Pass through the anathemic gauntlet. We’re looking for edge pieces to a very dangerous puzzle. Astria Porta: edge piece. Everett dipping into the Ancient database and coming up with a Merlin/Morgan feud: edge piece. Our athleisure encounter: edge piece. A home team player in superposition: edge piece. Jackson on Atlantis after a brush with ascension: edge piece.” He held up five fingers. “We’re rackin’ em up. The game, right now, is the most accessible of those pieces.”

Rush nodded. “When do you want to play again? Tonight?”

“Not workable. Woolsey’s having a party and the B-team’s making their debut. Half the city knows about it. You’re catering it, by the way.”

“I’m fuckin’ what?”

Sheppard snorted. “Vala’s on the mainland with Teyla. Shopping. They’re gonna bring back a jumper full of produce.”

Rush sighed, two fingers pressed to the space between his eyebrows. “In this weather?” He gestured up at the storm.

“This is nothing’.” 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.”

“If you say so,” Rush said skeptically.

“Tonight,” Sheppard said, “we’ll see if we can’t corner Everett and Jackson at the party. Get them to give us the history on the Merlin/Morgan feud.”

“It’s something,” Rush replied.

Sheppard glanced at his watch. “I gotta go. Briefing with Woolsey about an upcoming undercover op.” His eyes on Zelenka and James, he said, “Stay outta trouble.”

“I’ll consider it,” Rush muttered, and headed back to the grounding station. Into the wind and coming storm.

After an afternoon of orientation to the city’s power grid by way of grounded lightning, Dr. Zelenka was proven correct. The storm rained itself out in a matter of hours and the sun sank in a vertical path toward the horizon, redder wavelengths predominating in an increasingly spectacular equatorial sunset, swift and color saturated.

The frosted glass of Administrator Woolsey’s Sea Mist Suite caught the late afternoon light, turned it pastel. Rush stood at a counter of ground glass, melting dark Athosian chocolate in a double boiler over a heating element built into the flat surface. A faint smell of cinnamon carried on the air.

Next to him, Vala cracked and hulled walnut-sized Athosian seeds. Teyla, next to her, crushed small, dark berries with a clean stone.

“Aren’t you three efficient,” Administrator Woolsey observed from behind them, 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, musical and bright. “Our catering company prefers a little more advance warning?”

“Noted,” Woolsey replied.

Rush found a strange edge of emotion forming in his mind.

He liked these people.

He missed the idea of the first time he’d met Vala. The terrestrial BFF he couldn’t recall. The bright charm with which she’d no doubt coaxed a friendship from him built on the fundamentals of calculus. The first time he’d seen Young. The arc of his neighbor’s career from disability leave to transgalactic posting. The thousand little details of initial acquaintance that might inform Rush’s read on the Quantum Soldier that had pointed his way home when he’d been tangled in a net of he couldn’t see. He wanted to remember the ‘notable day’ he’d spent with John Sheppard, all the things that the man was leaving unspoken until such a time that Rush could intuit or recall them. He wanted memories of Rodney McKay that weren’t backed by supernatural blues and the longing Sheppard couldn’t quite hide.

Colonel Sheppard was angling for a better vantage point on a quantum board.

Rush would settle for a better vantage point on his own mind.

Because it was everywhere, touching everything—this idea that fates were narrowing, that curtains were falling, that storms were coming—and it hurt to be blind to the shape of it. To be blind, even, to the topography of intersection with his own life. His own mind.

Gently, Atlantis slid a wave of sympathetic agreement into his thoughts.

With a dark silhouette against the blaze of the fading day, he understood that Sheppard was on the west side of Breakwater Quay, lining up his golf swing with the sinking sun.

He was alone.

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

“Do we have any idea,” Woolsey said, coming to stand at Rush’s shoulder, swaying from foot to foot as he cradled Teyla’s son, “where your culinary abilities come from?”

“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.”

“Maybe.” 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 offered, her hands stained with the juice of macerated berries. “To be unsure of their depth.”

“It strikes one as more of a puzzle than anything,” Rush said. “Though I’d prefer not to live like this, given the choice.”

“I have every confidence in Dr. Keller,” Woolsey said, readjusting 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 as he focused on Teyla’s son. “Aren’t they, Torren? Aren’t they, little man?” Woolsey wandered away, back toward the sitting room where someone named Chuck was setting up five gaming stations beneath a display that took up an entire wall of the administrator’s living room.

“I told you,” Teyla said quietly 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.

“Start adding the berries to the bottom of the shells,” Rush said. “The ganache is almost ready.”

“Shall I start on the churros, you gorgeous thing?” Vala asked. “Administrator! I need another mixing bowl!”

Teyla stepped laterally to take Vala’s station and began lining the hulled Athosian shells with berry as 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 he’d discerned within her earlier in the day.

“If you are not Dr. McKay’s favorite person on Atlantis,” Teyla said, “you are about to become so. He’s well known for his appreciation of a good meal.” She pressed berries into waiting cups that resembled hollowed out acorns and tasted of hazelnuts. “We have heard many tales of the party you hosted in the Milky Way. Even Ronon is curious.”

“Hmm,” Rush said, smiling faintly. “The time scale is a bit too compressed for anything so elaborate. One does one’s best.”

“One of the village elders tried to teach me to prepare food as she did.” In an alien kitchen lit with the hues of a sinking sun, Teyla’s hair picked up broad streaks of gold. “I never mastered so much as a simple soup.”

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

“Is it not?” There was a note of sadness in her voice. “I’m worlds away from any future she imagined.”

“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 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 small business in the city.”

Teyla smiled at Vala and pressed more berries into shells.

Rush followed her down the row, piping cinnamon-scented chocolate in a sea mist themed kitchen.

As the sun slipped toward the horizon, they finished the final touches on dessert. Woolsey put on a “party mix” of ponderous German opera, which, unless Rush missed his guess, 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.

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, not inclined to trap himself into any seating arrangement, 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?” was the first thing Zelenka demanded, still in his dust streaked shirt from earlier in the day.

“Getting kicked off the A Team was bad enough,” Ronon glowered. “Now we’re babysitting three green players though an assault on the Temporal Shrine?”

“Gentlemen,” Woolsey said, ushering them inside with congenial good humor, “allow me to soften the blow with an Athosian Frost Varietal. Similar in concept to a terrestrial ice wine; not quite as sweet. This one has a delightful note of cedar in the mid palate.” He headed to a large decanter next to an array of cut crystal glassware.

“Well,” Zelenka began.

“Don’t fall for it,” Ronon growled. “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 is 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 very impressive.” Teyla said from the couch, her son ensconced in a bassinet next to her.

“Teyla. Good. What do we have to fight,” Ronon demanded.

Teyla only smiled mysteriously and sipped her small glass of Frost Wine.

“Nick,” Zelenka said. “We heard it’s some kind of reptilian entity, is that true?”

Before Rush could reply, Vala said, “Don’t you say a word, gorgeous.” She reclined on the couch like it was a divan, with her injured ankle elevated on 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 we talking about?”

“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, then twisted to shoot Rush a pointed look. “See? He gets it.”

The door chimed again. Rush, closest to it, stepped into the sea glass entryway and swiped it open to reveal John Sheppard, dressed in 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.

“Uh, hi,” Sheppard said.

“Hello,” Rush replied. “Would you like to come in, or shall we make an expeditious retreat?”

Sheppard snorted. “That bad already, huh?”

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

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

Rush sighed. “Oh I suppose.”

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

“Do I?” Rush asked weakly.

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

“Colonel!” Woolsey said, delighted. “Come in! Try the wine.”

“Flyboyyyyyy,” Vala called, “Once you have your wine, report to the couch. I need someone to hold my foot.”

The red gold of the sunset faded to the color of a bruise as guests continued to arrive. The interior of Woolsey’s quarters began to glow with recycled starlight. It caught in the crystal, in the sea mist 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 lighting from the tip of Breakwater Quay back to the heart of Atlantis. 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 something of a day,” Rush confessed.

“I’ll bet,” Young said, 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.”

Rush arched a brow, but before he 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. “What. God, you gotta start giving our mess hall staff notes. Classes, even. A seminar.” He motioned to Young. “Colonel, c’mon. Try one.”

Obligingly, Young dipped the cinnamon and sugar dusted fried dough in a small bowl of melted chocolate and took a bite. He closed his eyes, his expression pained.

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

“Thank you?” Rush said, wholly at a loss as to how to respond.

“No problem,” McKay said, and, carrying a tray of churros, made his way over to Teyla and James, who were conferring over one of the gaming stations. “Ladies. Sustenance?”

Rush and Young stood in silence.

“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 archly.

“Yeah. I do. But you are not tangling with Wraith.”

“I’ve no objection to that,” Rush replied, looking speculatively at the colonel, “but you’ve been quite evasive as to what you do, eventually, see me ‘tangling with’?”

“Hopefully nothing,” Young growled.

Rush rolled his eyes. “You’re building a hypercompetent team for a reason, I assume. Not just to amuse yourself.”

“We’re building a hypercompetent team,” Young said, low and amused. His gaze, hungry and speculative lingered on John Sheppard, kneeling next to Sergeant Greer at one of the gaming station across the room. The colonel sipped his wine.

“Sheppard’s meant to be involved with me, y’know,” Rush said, half silk, half sulk, wishing 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,” Rush continued.

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

“Someone’s got to keep him in line, full stop.” Rush watched Sheppard watch Greer, the starshine of the overhead lights tangled in his dark hair. “You’re all so fuckin’ high-minded, aren't you?”

Young snorted. “Not sure about that. He and I spend most of our time complaining about you, actually. Your illegal blazers and your damn sandals. Every meal you cook is some kind of crime.”

“Hmm.” Rush sipped the Athosian Frost wine, tasting crushed fruit and sugared scallion, loam and cedar. “Acceptable,” he decided.

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

“Both, I suppose,” Rush replied. “Though I’m not convinced all this USAF chivalry is warranted.”

“Hotshot.” Young looked into his wine, his tone turning gentle. “Getting your memories back is gonna be pretty rough, I think.”

Rush sighed, swirled the wine in his glass, and said, “So maybe it never happens. Anyone consider that?”

“Doesn’t seem right,” Young rasped.

Woolsey stepped to the center of the room, flicking the rim of his own wineglass with a well-placed fingernail. The concentrated starlight lingered on his suit, it’s white/dark contrasts, and gleamed in the glass he held aloft. “It’s eight o’clock,” was all he said. “Showtime.”

The players settled into their stations. Eli hovered next to Ginn. Sheppard crouched next to Greer. Teyla sat on the edge of the couch overlooking 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 finger, then pointed meaningfully at McKay, who stood ready near the AV setup.

“I gotta provide some moral support, I think,” Young said.

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

“Hi Nick,” Daniel Jackson said, sliding into the place Young had been. The archeologist looked exhausted, like he’d spent a day in the deepest reaches of the deepest Lantean library, reading below sea level. “Nice dessert spread.”

“Thank you.”

“Since this a new group of adventurers, we should, I think, give a few introductions?” Zelenka’s voice was doubled by the sound system in the room. Half the audience flinched including Zelenka, who muttered something in Czech.

“We fight first,” Ronon growled.

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

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

“Oh boy,” Jackson said with a small smile.

“Where’s our the mage?” Ronon growled.

“Here,” Ginn replied. “Vera Sar.”

“Vera,” Zelenka said, trying to file the impatient edge off his tone, “wonderful to meet you; we are losing HP to the poisoned snow?”

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

Lightning struck the Sidereal Spire.

“What else we got,” Ronon growled. “Quick. Greer. Who are you and best weapon.”

“Serpentis Shock Trooper,” Greer replied, cool and quick. “V’terrin Warcrest. I’ve got a Sunspear of Threxos the Dawnlord. Does—” Sheppard leaned in and murmured something to Greer. “—deals 1d8 piercing with a 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: Voidpiercer. Finesse weapon. 1d6 with unerring strike.” Teyla pointed elegantly at something on James’s screen. “Confers Shadow Veil.”

“Shadow veil is good,” Zelenka said as the doors to the shrine rattled. “Vera, quick, any weapons?”

“Voltcaster Pistol, 1d10 piercing.” Ginn called, her eyes on her screen.

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

“I can’t imagine what’s stopped you,” Rush replied.

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

The doors to the temporal shrine grind open and Dr. Daryl Levant staggers across the threshold.

“Ugh,” Jackson muttered.

“The resemblance is striking,” Rush said.

“I hate this guy,” Jackson breathed, the light of the flickering screen, the poisoned snow and the dying on-screen archeologist playing over his features.

Prismatic Drake roared. The wall at Rush’s back vibrated.

“Oh good,” Jackson said. “He’s gonna die.”

Rush looked over at the man and found Jackson frowning at the screen, arms crossed over his chest in a self-hug. His eyes, pale blue, caught the light of poisoned snow, falling across the room.

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 head. “Are you dead?” The axe was turned away by the mirrored plates and did no damage.

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

Vera Sar braced herself and fired her Voltcaster Pistol at the eye of the Drake. She missed. The Drake retaliated by spitting a gout of poison in her direction. Without time to defend herself, she was doused in black ichor and her HP plunged to nothing.

“We’re all gonna die!” Ronon shouted. “Warcrest! Throw your Sunspear. Try to hit its mouth!”

“Uh, sure.” Greer hefted the glowing weapon.

Ronon narrowly evaded a gout of poison spewed his way.

James, with a whispered word from Teyla, activated her Shadow Veil ability, phased directly onto the Drake’s head, and slashed both its eyes. Enraged and blind, it writhed and roared and spouted a gout of poison that took out V’terrin Warcrest before he could hurl his Sunspear. Vex was thrown from its head, her back broken as she hit the snow-covered stone. Sartorius, God of Axes was, in short order, crushed beneath the mirrored scales of the pain-mad Drake.

The room was silent.

“Well, that was terrible,” Sheppard said.

“Nonsense!” Woolsey, delighted popped a chocolate stuffed nut in his mouth. “Try again!”

“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.

“Sounds terrible,” Jackson said, hugging himself, leaning into the back wall of the room like he’d been contracted to test its structural integrity.

“Doesn’t it?” Rush quirked a brow at the other man. “If you’ll excuse me I’m going to get some air.”

He threaded his way past McKay and Keller, who’d stationed themselves near the dessert table, then waved a hand at the door controls leading to the administrator’s terrace. The glass slid open, and he stepped left the bright warmth of the room behind.

The night air smelled sharp after the afternoon rain. At the balcony’s silver rail, he knelt to study the greenery twined around the naquadah grating. He straightened a tendril. Pale green. Bent by the storm. Backlit by star-spectrum track lights.

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

He stood.

Beyond the balcony door, the Astria Porta theme restarted.

Forearms braced against the rail, he 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 a few degrees, as though possessed by temperate climes and old stone.

When the quantum alterego of Everett Young said, “Hey, genius,” it was like Rush had been waiting for it.

“It’s ‘hotshot,’ actually.” He spoke into the waterfall energy of a white-clad fairy queen, dead but not gone.

“Tried that one out a time or two,” the soldier admitted. “Never stuck.” The faded black of the man’s uniform and the wild curls of his hair caught the light of a thousand stars.

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

“No can do, hotshot.”

“Why are you here?” Rush demanded. “Why now? Are you a version of my own Everett Young? Or something else entirely?”

The soldier didn’t reply.

“What’s your relationship to time?” Rush tried.

The soldier looked down at his hands, his face shadowed. “You got your questions locked and loaded.”

“I’m in possession of considerably more context than the last time we spoke,” Rush hissed, “and 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 replied. “But, hotshot, we need to make a play on your brane.” He shifted, self-conscious. “I don’t wanna get dramatic and say all of reality’s on the line, but—” he opened a hand. Shrugged.

“Why me? I don’t even know who I am.”

“Yup.” Young stared over starlit water. “Builds a layer of protection in. Between your genetic status and your lack of memory, you are, by far, the safest guy on this brane to talk to. I’m trying to thread more than one needle here.”

“Yes well. Heaven forbid you show up when I need help.”

The soldier smiled faintly. “Arranging a conversation takes work.”

Rush sighed. “Yes. I can sense your—” he waved a hand, “—metaphysical shield. And its likely wielder.” He scanned the night, but no one else appeared. “What are y’here for? Multiversal signposting? Or do you have a cosmic assignment you’d like to drop in my lap?”

Young’s jaw tightened.

“Wonderful,” Rush said.

Stories below, small swells chimed against Sanctuary Quay.

“Let’s have it.” The wind lifted Rush’s hair, carrying a hint of moss, of peat, of the aerosolized mist at the base of a waterfall.

The soldier looked down at his hands. “You gotta get yourself in front of a Wraith Queen.”

Rush held his ground, cool and neutral. “Sounds like a good way to die.”

Starlight scattered itself in ripples over the endless sea.

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

Rush pressed two fingertips to the space between his eyebrows.

“I get it’s a lot to ask. I wouldn’t ask at all, if there were any other choice. If I wasn’t sure you had it in you.”

Already gripped by shadows, his 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 this, I don’t see how it could work, logistically. That lot,” he gestured over his shoulder 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, his expression dark and unhappy. “You’ll get an opportunity.”

Rush fought the jaws of the closing trap. “What happens if I take this conversation to Colonel Sheppard? What will you do?”

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 take this to Sheppard. Everything you know. Everything you love. Time-stopped. Dead.”

Rush took an unsteady breath.

“You want a chance at survival?” The soldier was a blend of starlight and shadow. “A chance to make a play when it’s time? You gotta take a little direction.”

Rush looked down at his hands, his nail beds stained with the juice of Athosian berries.

He thought of Teyla; a young mother with a kind smile and an eldritch horror in her blood. The cyclical nature of Scindarin Flow.

He thought of Sheppard: firing himself like a well-placed shot off the peak of every risk maximum he could plot. The way he’d stood at the end of a broken Lantean bridge like he could see the echo of the past on the other side.

He thought of Vala: eking and wringing joy from life as though it were a thing she’d learned to harvest.

He thought of Young, working to defend his planet brick by manufactured brick, unaware of his quantum alter ego, who, maybe, guarded the cosmos with the same methodical determination.

Life was an open gate. A path, bright at its center, fading to scatter and trace at its infinite quantum edges.

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 have to do is get there,” Young said. “We’ll do the rest.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

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

Shadow.

Starlight.

Nothing.

Atlantis pressed against his thoughts, dense and curious.

The wind turned warmer. Softer.

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