How is it usually written: "consciousness returned with a jolt"?
I never understood that phrase. Until now.
Because in that moment it was like someone flipped a main breaker in my head. My brain snapped on, registering the last image that had lodged in my mind.
The ZPM room filled with water, me, stiff with cold and suffocating without a breath of air. For some unknown reason, I jerked forward.
Already moving as I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw, and then felt, was a massive brown rectangular block emitting a greenish light onto my body. And the fact that it was sturdier than my forehead.
"God damn it!" I yelled, falling back… onto a bed.
I realized I could breathe without effort, drawing into myself unimaginably wonderful, completely tasteless air against my will. I could fill my lungs to the brim, hold it, release it...
And not worry that my head and body would be crushed by several atmospheres of pressure, if not more.
Above my head, continuing its devious work, the bar with the same rectangle of green light stopped. After shining on my head, it slowly floated down toward my legs, illuminating my body with a pattern of numerous tiny green cells.
"A medical scanner!" I muttered, realizing what was going on.
Atlantis had plenty of technological wonders that would appeal to any professional in their field.
Among them was a fully state-of-the-art infirmary. Though in the series they only ever really showcased the medical scanner. At least among Ancient-made equipment.
I don't remember exactly how useful this thing was in detail, but for members of the expedition it had no trouble detecting internal injuries, parasites, nanites in the blood, tumors, and so on. Something in between an MRI and a CT scan in one package. I wouldn't be surprised if, in time, I learned the device could scan me down to the molecular level.
All that was wonderful, no question.
The question was: how did I get here!?
The infirmary was somewhere in the Central Spire, I remembered that much. But during my time on Atlantis, I'd at best poked my head in here once, realized I didn't understand a damn thing going on, and promptly forgot the way.
Atlantis medical scanner. Frame from the series.
And I certainly couldn't have made it here under my own power. Not unconscious, for god's sake! At the very least, I'd have soaked everything around me with liters of seawater...
Speaking of which!
Realizing I was on a "hospital bed" in nothing but a pair of underwear not much like the ones I'd been wearing at the time of my unscheduled swim, I decided it was time to show some decorum.
Clearly I hadn't saved myself and dragged myself here. Someone was in the city. I doubted they were an enemy, since there would at least be a guard here if they were. At most, they simply wouldn't have saved me—if these unknowns could operate Atlantis's medical scanner, they had the Ancestors' Gene. And if that was the case then...
Goosebumps crawled down my back.
Could it be the Ancients had returned?
Interesting. The gate-builders, supposedly the most advanced of all human races across several galaxies, came home, and here I was prancing around in underwear, barefoot. Disgraceful.
Looking around, I didn't find anything to put on. Nor did I find my weapon. Everything was as sterile as in a hospital!
Which, in fact, is exactly where I was. In examining the nooks and crannies of the infirmary, I discovered a separate hall with an isolation room, operating rooms, and beds for recovering patients. Or, conversely, the sick... Not a gram of human tech—purely alien design.
The fleeting thought that the expedition might have arrived flickered and died—there would at least be a couple of people here. Again, guards.
But here there wasn't a soul.
In short, enough musing; time to act.
I needed to find out who was running the city and why they hadn't come to my aid while I was bathing in ice water. But first, I had to find something resembling a weapon.
For example, that narrow decorative panel would make a fine improvised stabbing implement.
"I have only one question," a voice spoke behind me. "What are you, for the sake of all scientific knowledge, doing?"
The panel came away from the floor easily. Gripping it, I turned, demonstrating my ability to hide objects behind my back with nothing more than sleight of hand.
"You won't believe it," I exhaled in relief when I saw who was in front of me. "My contact lens rolled away."
The young woman with a Latina appearance could not keep a ridiculous expression off her face.
"You lie just as atrociously as you plan," she said. "For your information, the medical scanner found no abnormalities in your health. Though now I'm not so sure of its accuracy."
"And why is that?"
"You most likely have brain trauma if you're saying things like that," she replied without a hint of a smile, folding her arms over a modestly displayed chest. "You can put the panel back and close the energy conduit to keep foreign objects out. I am not your enemy. I hope you are not mine either."
"That depends on what intentions brought you to my city," I said, returning the ill-fated panel to its place.
"Your city?" she arched a fine chestnut eyebrow.
"You can check the central computer—that's what it says," I nodded. "Melia promised."
"Oh," the brunette jerked her head. "Indeed. If Melia promised. However, I've no desire to argue or bicker. I'm here only because I wanted to help. My name is…"
"Chaya Sar, also known as Athar," I finished for her. "Don't bother, I know all about you."
A clearly visible shadow crossed the otherwise impassive woman's face. Her body tensed enough that I suddenly felt awkward standing half-naked in front of her. I noticed how her tiny hands clenched into fists and her knuckles went white with tension.
Wait a second... Can the Ascended even do that?
Chaya Sar.
"And what do you know about me?" she asked, steel in her voice.
"You're an Ancient, one of the Ascended," I recalled. "At some point, while living among local peasants, you decided to protect them from the Wraith and interfered. For that, you were sentenced to exile on this planet."
I didn't miss the way the Ancient exhaled in relief.
"It seems your memory is fine as well, Mikhail," she said, giving me a distrustful look.
"So we're acquainted by correspondence, but I don't remember us meeting in person," I shook my head.
"If you hadn't drowned, you would have met me where you swallowed water," the mulatta smiled slightly. "But you preferred to avoid that. And gulp seawater instead."
"I suppose I have you to thank for saving me?"
"Yes, but…"
"Thank you," I cut her off. "If not for you, my end would have been horrible. I hope the other Ascended took your interference with understanding?"
"Of course," she smiled sadly, looking off to the side. "They only erased most of my memories connected to the time when I was one of them, stripped me of all higher powers, memories, and knowledge of the Ascended. I think if I try to regain any of it, they'll stop me. This time for good."
"Excuse me, what?" I goggled. "You were Ascended... They... what do you even call this... cast you down?"
"I'm mortal again," the Ancient took pity on my attempts to find the right words.
"Punishment for breaking the non-interference rule," I nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry..."
"I don't need your pity," she flicked a bare shoulder. "It was my decision to interfere and save you. Otherwise, you'd have drowned, and Atlantis would have remained at the bottom of the ocean. At least that would have suited the Pegasus Ascended community just fine."
"Is that supposed to be a joke?" I asked. "They themselves asked me to help them... save the city."
I added the last part somewhat quieter.
Right. Tricksters, the lot of them.
They needed me to save the city. The city, not save myself along with it! Seemed like these folks had decided to correct Hippaforalkus's actions at my expense. Correct the violation of the rules without breaking them themselves.
Clever. I'd remember that trick. And find a way to pay them back—but first I'd have to check if that was really the case.
"If you don't mind, I would rather not discuss the actions of other Ascended," Chaya requested.
"No problem," I spread my hands. "But we need to talk."
"I think so too," the Ancient nodded. "But I have a request, Mikhail."
"I'll do whatever I can," I assured her.
"In that case, kindly get dressed," throwing me a sidelong but clearly not malicious glance, the Ancient, now returned to mortal life, turned on the low heels of her turquoise (to match her dress) shoes and left the infirmary. "Clothes are in the patient personal effects locker."
The clarification drifted in from the corridor.
"Excellent!" I shouted after her. "Don't worry, I'll find it myself! Wherever the thing is…"
* * *
I only managed to track down my savior, concurrently the only Ancient I knew who was not suffering from a shortage of biological components, half an hour later.
She was sitting in the conference room on the left side of the Gate Room.
The woman was at the table, performing some manipulations on a snow-white Ancient laptop, its color matched by the tabletop's backlight. I'd only seen such a device a couple of times in the series.
Frame from the series. In the lady's hands—that's the laptop in question.
"Sometimes I'm amazed by the Ancients' logic," I said as I entered the room and took a seat on the opposite side of the horseshoe-shaped table. So we could have a conversation while looking each other in the eye.
"Only sometimes?" she tore herself from her work and looked at me with a gaze full of restrained skepticism.
Chaya Sar and her skepticism.
"Exactly," I nodded. "Take this computer, for example. Why, instead of one large screen to make everything on it readable and see more details, did they make two tiny ones?"
"It's more convenient," she shrugged. "For us it is no trouble to distinguish even the smallest details at such a resolution. And at the same time, there is the ability to work on two parallel tasks."
"Someone needs to tell you about dual desktops," I smiled. "So... Our introduction was less than stellar."
"That's true," the woman said calmly. She seemed rather young now—no older than twenty-five. That very age when a hardened woman begins to emerge in a girl's features. "Still, I am already pleased you have the tact to show up for a meeting clothed."
"That sounds like you want to scold me, but we're not married yet, so you have to keep your claws in," I went on innocently smiling and getting on her nerves.
No, I was insanely grateful that she'd saved my hide. But that didn't kill the fact that, in what I knew of canon events, Chaya Sar didn't even think about becoming human to help the expedition. But for me, she'd made such an exception.
What I knew of this lady's past wasn't much.
The expedition encountered her on one of the less developed planets, where they were ambushed by Wraith. The latter were destroyed by some kind of energy weapon, so the Earth team decided to investigate. Chaya passed herself off as a priestess of a certain goddess Athar, whom the locals worshipped. Later it turned out that she was originally from that planet. Once, as an Ascended, she had stepped in for her people, preventing the Wraith from culling them. Clear violation of the rules. For that she was sentenced to be a guardian of her people. But only them.
From the show, I'd concluded she was compassionate, took others' grief to heart. And the Ancients made it so she could do nothing while other people, millions across the galaxy, died. Eventually, she told the expedition about herself, her background, and her punishment. But by the will of the Ascended, she could not help the Earthlings.
Now, though, she had decided to go against that. Strange, all this.
"Good joke," she didn't even try to smile. "I'll remember it."
"Seeing as I've shared something personal, I'd like to hear in return the circumstances under which one Ascended, already punished for interference, decided to step on the same rake."
"You want to know why I saved you," Chaya simplified.
"Exactly. There's no need to become human just for that."
"It's simple," she said. "I wasn't going to. My help was supposed to consist of starting the drainage process before your brain experienced biological death. You obtained the battery and restored the city's shield. From there, you could have managed on your own. Unfortunately, my interference was detected."
"Considering how much they hate me for being here and for what I am, it's unlikely they would have just scolded you for something like that."
"I thought the same thing when I realized there was no way out," the woman said. "So I took on a mortal form."
"If you can't win—flip the table," I proclaimed. "But they could have gone further. In the end, they have no superiors, and there are no neighbors to watchdog them."
"The Ascended are not certain the Ancients in the Milky Way have been wiped out," Sar said. "Therefore, breaking the rules is unacceptable to them."
"Because if the other Ascended are alive, they'll give them a proper dressing down," I reasoned.
"Most likely," Chaya said absently, looking aside.
"You know, there's something I don't understand," I admitted. "You said the Ascended erased your knowledge of the time you were one of them. Yet you're speaking so briskly about what they did and didn't do... I smell lies, my young padawan."
Sar, predictably, didn't appreciate the parody of a green Cheburashka.
She simply turned her computer's screens toward me.
"I'll admit I have hawk vision, but those letters are awfully small," I said.
"And you do not know the Lantean language well enough to understand what is written," a faint smile appeared on her face.
"Right on," I had to concede defeat.
"It seems that, as an Ascended, I foresaw such an outcome and left myself some notes," she said, pointing to the laptop's top screen. "Here it says you are from another universe and lack knowledge about many of our technologies. But you have information about the possible future. This is... an extremely unusual fact, because breaking the boundaries of reality and working in alternate realities is very dangerous and was forbidden by the Lantean Council. And before them, as chronicles say, by other Alteran governing bodies that preceded the Council."
In other words, what Hippaforalkus did was "haram" nearly from the time of the Alterans' appearance in the Milky Way millions of years ago. Hard to imagine what kind of mess they'd made in the past to guard such bans so zealously from generation to generation.
"I was told time travel is forbidden too. Allegedly it's one of the gravest crimes for the Ascended."
"I'm not ready to say that for certain, but in my time such transgressions were punished by exile or imprisonment in stasis-jails," Chaya said sadly. "At best, such things resulted in public condemnation. And that's a heavy burden, because society would turn away from you."
"They sulk and won't talk?"
"No. Usually no one crossed the line of meaningless casual conversation. But as soon as you needed help or advice, everyone would always have something urgent to do. Alone, in Ancient society, it was difficult to achieve anything. Resources were required, which an individual member of society could not have. Only together could we achieve significant successes."
That reminded me of something... Something not too utopian, but at the same time progressive, powerful, leaving a bold (and not always pleasant) mark on history.
"How about we switch to first names?" I broke into her thoughts.
"Excuse me?" she looked at me in puzzlement.
"Please don't say you didn't understand. Otherwise I'll be seriously disappointed in the Ancients' genius."
"I understood perfectly, Mikhail," she said. "But I cannot imagine how, given our difference in age, such a frivolous manner of address could be at all possible."
"It's possible, considering that there are only two of us in a city you couldn't walk in a lifetime!" I exclaimed. "Looks like we're in the same boat and so should stick together. They," I jabbed a finger at the ceiling, "don't like either of us. So…"
"I don't recall ever having trouble with shuttles," she replied calmly.
Was that a joke, or did the Ancient really not get it?
"I meant the Ascended."
"I know," she smiled, showing she'd just out-joked the joker. I didn't recall her acting this way as an Ascended in the series. It seemed Chaya-the-Ascended and Chaya-the-human were worlds apart.
"So," I looked into her eyes. "We working together?"
"That will be the most optimal option," she agreed.
"Excellent. Now... Tell me, you didn't raise the city to the surface, did you?"
"That would have deprived Atlantis of an advantage," Chaya said. "Containing the water costs much less energy than repelling an attack on the surface. The water dampens energy blasts from Wraith weapons. So the best option for us is to stay underwater. As long as possible."
"We're already thinking alike," I laughed.
Sar eyed me with curiosity. And a question was written on her face…
"It's just an expression," I explained. "Of course I and an Ancient, with an age of..." Now it was my turn to look at her imploringly for an answer. But Chaya had no intention of voicing specifics. "I meant I can't think like a more advanced version of a human."
"That is a fact," she said. "My species' brain is more developed than yours. But a million years of evolution, experiments, and improvements can put us on the same level."
"Or we'll create another variant of the Wraith," I suggested.
"I would not want that," Chaya said.
"Then I suggest we get busy with what we do best," I stood up, clapping my hands.
"Talking?" she clarified.
Why, when I hear something like that from her, does it feel like she's goading me with this seeming ingenuousness?
"I meant we need to figure out where we stand and how badly the city's been damaged," my clarification was met with a firm nod. "Then we'll try to find allies. Maybe some of the Ancients will agree to join us and…"
"That is unlikely," the woman said, pointing to her Lantean laptop. "At least, that's what it says here."
"What else does it say?" I was intrigued. "Coordinates for places with ZPMs? Battle group locations? Shipyards? Drone arsenals? Secrets of reviving Ancients who've aged in stasis? I imagine you, as a more advanced version of the human race, thought ahead about how we'd proceed, right?"
"Probably," Sar lowered her gaze, then gestured for me to come closer. "In reality, there isn't that much written here. I must have feared the Ascended would destroy the device if they saw obvious clues. Or stop us once we became familiar with what's written."
I didn't like the sound of that.
Moving behind her, I looked over her shoulder at the tiny screens.
"If you don't mind, then..."
"Yes, of course," she started, pointing at a series of lines written one under another. The first was the longest. "These are a series of theses that make no sense without context."
"I suppose this one," I pointed to the first line, "is what you wrote about me."
"I gave you a verbatim translation," the woman said. "Repeat it?"
"Oh, no need," I waved it off. "We primitive human types don't remember spoken words for long anyway."
"In part, that's why many Lanteans did not want to form personal relationships with members of less advanced civilizations," Chaya said. "It's difficult to remember faces and names when you get new ones every century."
"Not offended at all," I swallowed a lump in my throat and forced a smile. "So, what does it say here?"
"The entries aren't related," she said. "Or I don't see a connection. I think they were addressed to me, since the first mentioned you…"
I chuckled.
"Did I say something funny?"
"Usually the first notes are of things that are extremely important," I explained. "And, since you wrote about me... It means I'm important to you?"
"This text editor adds lines sequentially," Chaya said. "Each written one is moved below as a new one is added. But while I did indeed list you last, that means you are still important."
So she'd written about me last.
"What else is there?" I shifted the topic.
"Something personal," Chaya quickly said and deleted several lines. Far too quickly for me to memorize the symbols. "If you don't mind, I'd like to keep that to myself."
Curiosity might not be a sin, but... I suppose everyone has the right to their secrets.
"And the rest?"
"It sounds strange, but it says here: 'Everything has already happened,' 'The Jump,' and... something that makes me particularly worried."
She pointed to the last written line.
"What does it say?" I asked.
What could worry an Ancient who'd been Ascended for at least ten thousand years?
"'The Others lie,'" she whispered, as if someone might hear us. Though the Ascended certainly could if they were anywhere nearby. "I do not understand what that means..."
"But I do," Chaya looked at me. "In my universe, 'the Others' was what we called the Ascended."