For starters, not finding anything freely lying on the floor or devices, I came to the conclusion that there are something like cabinets with small windows in the walls. Something is inside them. But better not climb in yet—suddenly some alarm goes off?
Scanning the room with a glance, I stopped opposite one of the monitors, which, unlike the others, continued to remain deactivated. Black screen, without the slightest signs of text, diagrams, desktop screensavers... Non-working equipment?
But... Something wrong with this monitor. Or rather, the opposite. It's perfectly regular in shape—a rectangle elongated vertically. And if you look at the other screens, they are in the form of hypertrophied broken parallelepipeds, rhombuses, squares, with beveled angles...
And this one of familiar shape... Hm... This is no accident.
Calmly black nothing, in whose reflection I could make out my own face. Without a doubt—this is my face. And my body. If the Voice created me like this here, then... I suppose he's one of the Ancients. And more precisely, from that part of them that Ascended—rejected human bodies and became pure energy.
But there are doubts—Ascended don't meddle with humans. They have a code of rules on their plane of existence about what can and can't be done. And such twists... I doubt they are among the permitted.
Fine, that's all later. But the thought that I chatted with an Ancient and he arranged this tour into the unknown for me doesn't add joy. As far as I remember, direct interventions in human affairs, Ascended pull off only when there's no other way out except the arrival of total Armageddon.
Shivers ran down my spine.
Something is definitely happening here! Not that I'm too upset, I agreed myself after all, but still! An "intro word" wouldn't hurt! It really wouldn't!
Looking at my reflection, I noticed that meanwhile something was happening on the screen. Some flash of light in the cluster of darkness to the right of where I was illuminated a small area around it for an instant and immediately disappeared, giving birth to a huge air bubble rising upward. Through the thickness of water.
In that instant that the light flashed, I managed to make out in the distance, hundreds of meters from me, many tall buildings of the most various shapes and configurations. Round towers, square, polygonal, inclined... located on a platform in the shape of a "snowflake." And I... I seem to be in the adjacent part to the flooding one... part... part... Atlantis.
And right here I broke into a sweat. This is no monitor at all!
This is a window! A porthole, if you will. Considering that Atlantis is still a ship. And it doesn't matter—space or sea. This city has been in both qualities. And that didn't make it better—I had to accept on faith that I really, somehow, ended up on Atlantis.
And right now, what I saw is clearly air escaping from a flooding compartment! The city is underwater! And it's sinking!
***
So, the answer to one question is already obtained by elimination—most likely I'm on Atlantis. When it was slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean on an oceanic planet in the Pegasus galaxy.
And... There are two pieces of news here. I won't say either is unambiguously positive.
From memory, I could recall only one episode in the series when expedition members saw something like this—a flash of light beyond the window-porthole and bubbles of escaping air.
The fucking first one! The very beginning of the Atlantis story! The arrival of the expedition to the city!
Flash of light, air bubble—the aftermath of the shield holding back millions of tons of water failing. Because there's no energy—the city's "batteries" discharged over the time it was here.
There are two probabilities of event development.
Probability one, which happened before time jump interventions and the aid of one irrepressible Ancient. The city exhausted its energy reserves and sank. All expedition participants drowned. End of comedy.
Probability two. All the same, but at the last moment the heroes used the conveniently provided "crutch" in the form of a time machine, returned to the past, found a helper among the still living Ancients in the city, and that one helped save the city. And at the moment when the expedition arrived, the shield discharged and everyone was preparing to die, the engines worked, pushing the city to the surface. Without energy, without protection, Atlantis survived. And barely suffered damage.
And I don't like either option. Stupid to die, having gotten a chance at a new life in a city built by people who developed hundreds of millions of years before the appearance of Homo sapiens. Though, those very first people, the Ancients, are the creators of Homo...
Pressing to the window, I tried to make out in the darkness of the buildings at least some hints of human presence in the city. After all, in the first impulses, expedition members occupied a fairly large space inside the central spire, which led to the automatic activation of many systems—including in the central spire. I seemed to be on one of the piers, since I managed to make out the huge bulk of the city's main building in the darkness to the side of me. And in the huge structure there wasn't a single glowing window—which is physically impossible if someone was there. If there was anyone in the city at all.
I have a suspicion that the absence of even minimal lighting throughout the city is proof that the energy sources powering Atlantis are on the verge of depletion. If the energy counter reaches zero... Honest word, I don't want to check that.
Need to get out. If everything is as grim as I think, then I should get to the central spire—the tallest building in the city—as quickly as possible and use a Puddle Jumper. The latter is such a small ship designed for... For a lot of things. But mainly, it can fly through Stargates. And those are such a big thing that...
To hell with it!
All in order!
The inevitable has happened—I'm in deep shit. And the faster I find a way out of it, the better.
For some reason, the Voice's words came to mind about how the "others" weren't as accommodating as me. Maybe there are others like me here. Annoying everyone to bloody snot "isekai." But from the silence and darkness in the city, I doubt it...
Fine, head works, hands do.
Turning to the previously discovered cabinets, I began looting. Even if there's an alarm here, I frankly won't mind if someone comes to help me. In such a situation, I just don't care who it is.
There were three in total. And without tormenting myself with pangs of conscience that I might be rummaging through the dead's things, I proceeded to inspect the shelves.
The search lasted about ten minutes, and everything found I piled on the surface of the lab table where I woke up.
My first catch was clothes and shoes. Comfortable half-boots with high shafts on... Not laces, not zipper, not "Velcro"... Something like self-tightening regulators. Smelled like "Back to the Future." Fine, not my choice.
Uniform of milky color with gray and brown inserts, resembling a military tunic—pants, underwear, jacket, short-sleeved T-shirt. If the Ancients have the same approaches to button placement on clothes, then I got the male version. Lack of tailoring inspires optimism.
Seems there's justice in the universe after all.
Good, clothes and shoes available. Hm, even sock-like things. Though they resemble worn soccer shin guards, but like with the underwear, worth putting on—they hug the figure.
Comfortable.
Bonus was a belt with a thigh holster and straps for attachment. Fits, taking it. Would be nice to test luck to the end and find a weapon too.
About this male, of course, uniform, that's what we're talking about. Screenshot from the series "Stargate: Atlantis"
Another acquisition was a capacious backpack made of soft but extremely dense material. Really resembles a backpack—two straps, handle for vertical carrying... Only instead of the usual zipper—magnetic.
The outer side, shiny in the light, felt like plastic to the touch, but I bet my hand it's harder than it seems. Memory helpfully suggested that such backpacks flashed in the series—during the evacuation from the city, some Ancients left with them through the gate. And surely, there should be something interesting in it. Like an experienced looter, I didn't make myself wait long, immediately studying the contents of the find.
Examining almost a hundred small bricks the size of a small chocolate bar, wrapped in transparent packaging like polyethylene, I didn't guess long about the purpose of these appetizing-looking items. Quickly tearing the packaging off one, I bit off a small piece. In small doses I won't poison myself, and if it's crap—I'll get rid of it.
Of course, it's like the Ancients to store rat poison like that... But I doubt something like that.
N-da, something between children's plasticine and hematogen. Not tasty, but it satisfied hunger. Waiting a few minutes—will the swallowed cause vomiting reflexes or some other body reaction—I sent three more into my mouth almost without chewing. The Ancients built ships and devices that lasted at least tens of thousands of years. Let's hope their food has a similar shelf life. The stomach graciously accepted the product, and feeling satiated, I proceeded to search the last cabinet.
Unlike the other two, this one was divided into two parts by a horizontal shelf. On the upper one, I found what instilled confidence in me for tomorrow. Though, who of us knows what that tomorrow's bottom will be.
However, a futuristic-looking energy pistol can't help but please. I remember, such were with the humanoid Replicators...
God, I watched that series twenty years ago! Yes, I rewatched a couple of the most interesting episodes, but I can't remember such details after so much time⁈ I had more important things in life to focus on... Marina, family, work, friends... Achievements and failures...
But them I remember quite vaguely, as if it was so long ago... Something about this doesn't sit right with me. But right now there's no time to dig into myself—I'll sort it out when I'm safe.
If, of course, I will be.
Energy pistol.
Some... unusual weapon configuration, and all these crystals instead of the usual barrel... Fine, details and habit matter. Most important is that on the weapon, in the area where a firearm pistol has the slide frame and chamber, there's a scale with square indicators. And this scale, like the crystal-barrel, isn't lit. Whether you take it in hand or not.
Broken? Discharged?
The pistol fit comfortably in the hand, and the soft trigger literally urged the finger to press it. But I had no plans to shoot in a closed room. So the weapon went into the thigh holster and settled comfortably there.
I'm not complaining, but this is starting to scare. It all fits too well. Or am I just, from shock, looking for a black cat in a black room?
The question that flashed—where does this thing get energy from—resolved itself. The holster had several pockets in which a pair of small—finger phalanx sized—blue crystals in the form of tiny octagonal prisms rested.
And in the butt end of the pistol, I saw just such a slot... Coincidence? I don't think so.
Inserting the crystal as intended, I grunted in satisfaction—the weapon made a pleasant sound and the due elements lit up. Once again overcame the desire to test-fire. Stopped myself only with the thought that the consequences might definitely not please me.
My last find was a device that in the series was nicknamed the "life detector." A small device in a semi-transparent white case resembling silicone, and a touch screen from frame to frame, with several buttons in the lower part of the case. Resembling a grotesque PDA due to its shape and size. But actually, it's a quite advanced compact computer. I remember with it they searched for life signs, radiation, energy sources... Useful thing.
And also, it has one unstated function. Though, rather "this isn't a feature, it's a bug." The thing is, the "life detector" is one of those very complex Ancient devices that worked...
Another barely visible to the eye beep, and the black screen came alive, drawing in front of me several schematic lines, partitions, and... a blinking white dot in the center.
One life sign.
Mine.
Unknowingly, I sighed with relief.
The scanner worked in the hands of those who had the ATA Gene. Yes, human ancestors protected their best devices from use by enemies and other clumsy monkeys, setting them so that only those with a certain genetic sequence, the ATA Gene, could work with them. For the rest, such jokes are no more than a monument to another, more advanced civilization.
Though, this didn't always save from the mischievous hands of series heroes.
This is what the "life detector" looks like, aka Ancient Scanner, aka Ancient PDA. Picture from the series.
So, the gene dilemma resolved in minutes.
Either I have the ATA Gene, or specifically this device works without it. Which I strongly doubt.
They say in the universe there's a principle of balance—somewhere troubles await you, somewhere pleasant surprises.
I hope my white streak hasn't ended. And I really don't want a black one to follow it, and then the end of the zebra...
So, without losing a minute, I dressed in the found uniform, secured the holster on my right thigh, slung the backpack over my back, and, holding the "detector" in my left hand and the weapon in my right, headed for the exit.
A light movement over the three vertically arranged crystals in the panel to the right of the door panel—and here I was, already out in the corridor.
It stretched for many meters to the right and left of me, but, estimating that the outlines of the central spire I saw were still to the right of my current location, I resolutely headed in the chosen direction.
Despite the clothes, which turned out to be quite light but sufficiently warm, the cold in the other rooms still made itself known. Leaving a decent distance behind, wandering through corridors and floors, I felt that, contrary to the city mechanisms hidden in the depths of walls, floor, and ceiling awakening at my approach, my ears, fingers, and nose were still freezing. Surely, the city was still "swaying," reacting to my appearance.
No point sitting on my ass waiting for rescue. I think the Voice didn't send me here for nothing—obviously there are some serious problems in the lost city of the Ancients. Doubts that I'm on Atlantis? None. Doubts that I'm alone in the city? None either.
The convenient interface of the "detector," intuitively understandable, after several trials and errors, helped me navigate the space. Besides detailed plan-schemes of a small space around me, with nimble and characteristic movements of two fingers on the screen, I managed to change the display scale. And reaching the maximum distance, I confirmed my theory that I woke up on one of the outer piers. And more precisely—on one of the "small" ones. They are "narrower" at the base than the "large" ones.
Atlantis city plan.
The PDA dutifully gave me the city plan. But it's just a map, like a device blueprint on whatman paper. No interactivity. Or I don't know how to launch such a function.
Right now it's not important—need to get to the central spire to get answers to my other questions.
Covering a considerable distance through corridors and stairs, I stopped to catch my breath at a large window. Strangely enough, but outside the window it got "brighter." With the naked eye, I could see the outlines of dozens of buildings. Some—even in detail. Those closer, quite clearly.
View of Atlantis buildings underwater. Approximately like this.
Straining, I looked through the window from bottom to top. As assumed—through the thickness of water, and considerable at that, dim rays of the local sun fell on the city... M-m-m, no, still not the Sun, not sun, but star. That would be more accurate.
Practically indistinguishable against the background of the darkness of oceanic depths, somewhere there, over the city's highest point, was a transparent film of the energy shield. The only thing separating the structure from thousands of tons of water and destructive force before which even the Ancients and their construction wonders can't hold out. At least in the series they didn't.
After all, the city is several million years old. And even though it's essentially a hermetic spaceship, for complete flooding it's enough a few breaches in one part, failed sensors of blocking flooding compartments in another, loose door seals in the third...
Don't want to test luck to the very bottom on my own skin.
Thousands of questions in my head, but they'll all wait.
I'm on Atlantis.
In the Pegasus galaxy.
Something is happening here.
And the Voice decided I could help fix it. Well, or don't flatter myself— they just "tasked" me as the most accommodating. Though, I didn't play innocent for long myself. I had a chance to save my beloved—and I took it.
Do I regret it?
Not a drop.
If needed—I'd do it again. And again, and again, and again.
Approximately how Atlantis looks underwater. Beautiful art, but not quite accurate—there's no shield here.
Damn, nerves are no good. Need to be calmer. Or I won't last longer than I want.
Finishing the breather, I checked the PDA and trotted toward the city's transport pod.
Time to get to the central spire as quickly as possible.
There is something there... someone... who can give answers to my questions. At least I should try to ask them and shine with erudition and meta-knowledge. Or, in the end, just start threatening.
***
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