Sabine Bauer - Mirror, mirror

Rodney felt himself shunted into the unenviable position of a pebble trying to slow down an avalanche and slanted a look at Elizabeth Weir who would have the last word on whether or not the possibilities were going to be explored. Here was hoping for reservations about recklessly boosting computer sciences into the twenty-fourth century.

"Alright," Elizabeth said and rose. "Rodney, Radek, look into it and keep me posted."

Damn.

Around the table, the others were getting up to leave. Rodney stayed nailed to his seat, wrestling down an impulse to order everybody back into their chairs. They had no idea of the ramifications, did they? HAL did exist. HAL was sitting in a lab down the hall.

When Weir passed, he cleared his throat. "Elizabeth? May I have word, please?"

It brought her up short. "Did I miss something? You've got permission to experiment with that computer to your heart's content."

"That, uh, would be the problem." He got to his feet, partly because he figured it would be polite, partly because having to look up at her had triggered an incoherent memory of his piano teacher, dripping disappointment as she told him his playing was `adept'. "Maybe we should… take it a little more slowly."

Stupid choice of words!

"Let me get this straight, Rodney. You are telling me we should hold back on exploring a new piece of technology?" Eventually her amusement faded, and she gave him a hard stare. "Is there anything you neglected to mention just now?"

"No! No… it's just… a hunch."

"A hunch?"

Was there an echo in here?

"It's not the hardware I'm worried about. It's the software. If Ikaros is a true A.I., we're dealing with an entity who can think several orders of magnitude better and faster than any of us. And while I understand and appreciate the possibilities of a breakthrough in quantum computing better than anyone, I also… Well, what if Ikaros does a HAL? Goes nuts? Or powercrazy? Or simply throws a tantrum? We'd be dealing with an unstoppable quantum-driven genius."

"Rodney, we've been dealing with you for two years."

Easy, Rodney. Just stay calm. Calm. Breathe… "Very funny. For all we know we might be handing Ikaros the proverbial loaded gun by tampering with that computer."

"Then I suggest you be ready to pull the plug before Ikaros pulls the trigger. But unless and until it comes to that, I'd like you follow up on every option that may improve our operational security."

"Look, Elizabeth, I've got one word for you: Arcturus." That one word just about stuck in his craw. But if humiliating himself was what it took, fine.

Her reaction wasn't what he'd expected, and maybe he should have expected that. The expression on her face softened. "Rodney, after Arcturus I was this close"-her thumb and forefinger pinched an eighth of an inch of air-"to sending you back to Earth. Accompanied by a comprehensive list of reasons why I was sending you back."

He swallowed. "It would have ruined my career."

"Hardly." Elizabeth flashed a brief smile. "But it might have made you think. I'm glad to hear it wasn't necessary. Having said that, I don't want to see you lose your… zeal, for want of a better word. We need it, which, coincidentally, is why you're still here. So, by all means, go ahead and… have fun!" Shooting him another smile, she left.

Fun? Rodney stared after her for a moment. Maybe she was right. Maybe he'd just lost his cool. His gut told him otherwise, but he chose to ignore it. For now.

Heaving a sigh, he packed up his conventional, non-quantum, non-entity-possessed laptop, stepped out into the hallway, and almost collided with Sheppard, who'd parked himself outside the conference room.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Of course I'm okay," snapped Rodney. "Your teenage double may be about to vent us into space, so why wouldn't I be okay?"

Whby that particular gate had worked when countless others had refused to cooperate countless times was beyond him. Some kind of reverse glitch maybe, but he wasn't going to question his luck. When he emerged from the gate he indulged in a brief, ecstatic moment of believing he'd finally made it home.

Home.

Just when had he started thinking of Atlantis as home?

Since first setting foot in it, quite possibly. It had felt right in a way nothing and nowhere else had in a long time. Each expedition member had been allowed to bring one personal item. He'd brought a second-hand copy of Tolstoy's WarAnd Peace, which probably said all there was to say about his emotional ties to Earth.

Atlantis had been a new start and a family.

John figured he should have known better than to care. He'd been quite content in that bubble where fate could only be decided by the flip of a unit coin, because he refused to care. His bad for allowing the bubble to pop. Payback was a — bitch.

The Atlantis he'd known was gone. In time-honored human tradition they'd got too curious, too cocky, too greedy. The upshot had been wholesale destruction. Not just of Atlantis, and he'd never understood why he had survived. Perhaps it was punishment. He could have stopped it. Rodney McKay, of all people, had urged caution…

And trips down memory lane never did anyone any good.

The jumper came to a halt, and he could hear the soft hum of the bay doors closing somewhere beneath. John sagged back into the pilot's seat, shut his eyes, and allowed himself two seconds rest. Given the chance he'd sleep a year, but right now that was out of the question. Because this, whatever it was-delusion, chimera, mirage-wasn't Atlantis, and he wasn't home, and he probably wouldn't be alone for long.

Don't fall asleep!

His eyes snapped open, and he launched himself from the seat as if it'd suddenly caught on fire. In the rear compartment he snatched his P90 from a bench, routinely checked that it was loaded, and opened the hatch. The jumper bay was empty, not that he'd expected anything else. Coming in, he'd caught a glimpse of the dust sheets covering most of the control center, and they'd been a dead giveaway. Still, he was convinced he'd seen movement from the corner of his eye, and as long as he couldn't be absolutely sure that it'd been a reflection or something of the sort, he'd be better off assuming that it'd been a Wraith.

No, wait…

The Wraith hadn't made it.

Then again, he shouldn't have either.

"So assume it is a Wraith," he ordered himself and cautiously moved down the ramp, P90 spot-welded to his cheek.

Try as you might, you can't walk noiselessly in combat boots, not on concrete anyway, and his footfalls sounded absurdly loud, highlighting the silence around him. Even if he didn't know full well what had happened, hadn't lived it, this thick hush alone would persuade him that this wasn't his Atlantis. His Atlantis had never been quiet, even at night. Too many people, too many people too busy, and it'd been his job to protect them. As far as failures went, his was a doozy.

Again he shoved the thought away. It was in the past. The whole notion of past had become strictly relative, of course, and John was sure Albert Einstein, while unconvinced by quantum physics, would have appreciated the irony. Time itself had flipped out of sequence, and what once was a stable fourth dimension had turned into a fractured, disjointed game of pinball-played on at least five different machines. Apparently he had the doubtful distinction of being the ball.

The door into the hallway door whooshed open, and he froze for a couple of seconds, listening. Not a sound, apart from his own breathing. He hadn't forgotten the blur of motion he'd seen on arrival, but whoever or whatever it was, it didn't lie in wait here. If it didn't come to him, he'd have to go to it, simple as that. He pulled the life-signs detector from his pocket, doubting it would work-in addition to time, Ancient technology too had been thrown out of whack. At least that was his best guess, based on the fascinating places he'd gotten to visit between a temperamental puddle jumper and an all but dysfunctional gate system.