The already familiar, and even quite tiresome from the frequency of its appearances, panel to the side of the door glowed with an even white light. The same three vertically arranged crystals... Funny. In my previous life, door locks and handles didn't annoy me. But here and now... Probably just nerves. I think if in my previous life I had to open dozens of them, knowing that at any moment I could die in the least pleasant way, I'd be raging at the sight of those damned locks and handles too.
At least I don't have to carry a bunch of keys for them... The Ancients made it simpler—just wave your hand, and open sesame.
With a quiet melodic sound, the door panels slid apart, inviting me to proceed into the small room. Shaped like a prism with a truncated pyramid base, it somewhat resembled a well-known elevator.
With the sole exception that there was no elevator shaft at all. And it's not even that the floor underfoot is opaque to the eye, or that the wall around the cabin looks like monolithic stone.
This "elevator" has no shaft at all.
Because this, though a transportation system, is of a different order altogether.
The Atlantis Transporter.
In the center of the wall opposite the transporter entrance, there was a screen that lit up welcomingly at my appearance. My eye was drawn to a simple outline plan of the city-ship, on which red dots were already marked, scattered, it seemed, in chaotic order throughout the city.
In reality, it's not like that.
Tapping the one in the very center of the structure—the Central Spire—I heard the doors close behind me. Instinctively, I squeezed my eyes shut...
A flash of white light pierced through my eyelids, briefly making me "catch fireflies." A wave of barely perceptible cold ran through my body. But the disorientation passed quickly.
Stepping out of the transporter cabin, I smirked, seeing a completely different interior compared to the one I'd seen just a minute ago.
Logical, considering I'd moved hundreds of meters both "horizontally" and "vertically" in mere seconds. And instead of one of the piers on the outskirts, I was now in the very heart of the pride of the Ancients.
The Transporter is a local network of teleportation cabins scattered throughout the city. Thanks to them, you don't have to waste time walking through dozens of floors across the complex, but can arrive from "Point A" to "Point B" in the blink of an eye.
Yes, powering such a device requires energy, which is already in short supply. But, estimating how much time and energy I'd spend trudging through the empty corridors and floors of the city to get here on foot, I decided the savings would still be significant. At least in time.
A spacious hall with several comfortable-looking sofas. Funny... I thought the expedition members from the series brought their own furniture to the city. And the "local" stuff looks familiar. That armchair—I definitely saw it in the series!
It turns out that not only do the Ancients' cities withstand millennia practically without falling apart, but the leather upholstery of soft furniture doesn't crack at all. They knew how to build!
The numerous decorative columns, inside which were decorative reservoirs with water through which numerous bubbles rose from bottom to top, had a soothing effect. And I really wanted a drink. The temptation arose to smash the glass on the column and drink my fill... But something told me not to do that. At minimum, out of fear that in a city that had lain for ten thousand years at the bottom of an ocean in a dwarf galaxy of the local group of the Milky Way, it's unlikely to find fresh water. And drinking water rich in salts from another galaxy's sea somehow didn't appeal.
Never mind, I'll manage. I'll leave that decision for an extreme case.
I don't know exactly how much time I've been in the city, but the anxiety and excitement of the first minutes have passed. The rationalizer brain kicked into full gear. Half and half with the proverbial toad.
The idea of leaving the city and avoiding death by drowning pounded in my temple. The survival instinct is reliably hardwired into the subcortex; nothing to be done about that.
And in my chest ached the voice of nostalgia and pragmatism, assuring that I need to do everything to preserve this magnificent city from destruction. At minimum, for the reason that this, damn it, is a flying spaceship! With very advanced technologies! With its own device allowing travel to all corners of this and other galaxies.
I just need to apply my intellect correctly to find a way out of the situation. The city is given energy by three ZPMs—Zero Point Modules. But the team in the series usually managed with one "battery." And moreover, in this galaxy there are planets where nearly intact, charged ZPMs lie. Which could solve all my problems...
But I still need to find them.
There are no extra ZPMs in the city. It just so happened that in the series they weren't found. And I have a bit of a hang-up about searching Atlantis with sincere marauder feelings.
Lost in these thoughts, I finally reached the treasury of the Central Spire of Atlantis.
The red thread of storytelling through this universe is the Stargate technology. Essentially, it's a device created by the Ancients millions of years ago. It allows, upon entering the address of other gates, to cross thousands of parsecs in a short time. Travel from one point in the galaxy to another without spending on tickets, baggage, and so on.
The device is made in the form of a large ring through which a large number of people can pass simultaneously. Or special ships of suitable dimensions can fly through. And also, I think, equipment can pass— at least some types of robots or wheeled carriers handled that task "excellently."
If I remember correctly, at the moment of activation, the gate creates a wormhole connecting to the gate on the other side of the galaxy. High technologies and all that.
The energy allocated for the gate's operation is generated by them independently due to the features of the installation's design. And that's truly magnificent! Because assembling a system that consumes gigantic volumes of energy, which will generate that energy itself even millions of years after creation, regardless of whether it was used all that time or stood inactive, is worth a lot.
The key thing to remember about this technology is that, using it for its direct purpose, along with a dialing device resembling a giant mushroom, you can avoid a bunch of problems. Well, or at least dematerialize on one planet and materialize on another without harm to health.
In most worlds, the gates are installed on stepped pedestals along with the dialing device—a panel with which you need to specify the destination. In Atlantis, however, the gates are located in a special room—the aforementioned Gate Room, which is also the control center for the entire city.
Stargate in Atlantis. Their copies throughout the Pegasus galaxy have the same design.
Unlike most planets in the universe, where the dialing device "by default" is located next to the gate installation, in Atlantis it is placed in the city control center. And it has its own, unique design.
But I'll have time to figure that out later. Right now, I just allowed myself a few seconds to admire the Gate Room of Atlantis.
Gate Room. View from the "office" to the "left" half.
This room is a two-level space connected by a wide staircase. On the lower level are the gates themselves, as well as the platform for arriving beings and cargo. Directly opposite the gates is a staircase, on the end part of each step of which inscriptions in the language of the Ancients glow. What they say, I never even tried to find out.
From the first level, there are passages to other rooms in the Central Spire—and through one of those I just came.
On the second level, the room is divided into two halves: right and left, if standing with your back to the gates and facing the staircase.
To the left, behind massive doors rotating around their axis with square blue-tinted glass, is something like a conference room where you can discuss any issues. Actually, in the series that's how it was. What the room was used for by the Ancients themselves, I can't even imagine.
"Right" half of the Gate Room.
In the opposite part of the Gate Room on the second level, the builders placed the control station. Numerous consoles of the most varied purposes provide access both to dialing gate addresses and control over most of Atlantis's systems. I don't know why the Ancients placed a small balcony opposite the control station, but it looks quite organic.
To my surprise, I discovered another staircase between the lower and upper levels in the "right" half. Digging into my memory, I recalled that yes, there was one in the "series version." And the heroes often used it to get to the hangar with ships that fly through the gates. It's built above the Gate Room, but I wasn't planning to go there yet.
In the corner of the "right" half, flush against the outer wall of the Spire, was a small office with large windows—from floor to ceiling. I remember it was used as a working office for the expedition leader. And there was a personal transporter there too.
Strange that I couldn't appear from it... Well, what difference does it make now?
The tablet helpfully showed me the plan of this room. But it didn't distinguish between levels of the same room. I remember it can be reconfigured for such subtleties, but I'm not up to that now.
Gate Room plan from an English-language forum. "Carter's Office" is that very "office."
Looking around and finding no signs of anyone's presence (except for dried but not decayed over the years plants in massive pots), I headed through one of the side passages on the lower level of the Gate Room to the lower floors of the tower.
There was no slightest evidence anywhere of the expedition's arrival. No people, no equipment... You can't say right away if that's good or bad.
No more doubts—the city has no soul in it.
As is known, unknown land belongs to the one who discovered it. And since I ended up here first, and there's no smell of any expedition here—means Atlantis is mine. And even if earthlings arrive here—screw them in the face, not MY city. With compatriots I'd probably negotiate, but in the series it was traditionally all handled by Americans...
True, their "affairs" often went by the simple equation "find/create a problem—heroically solve the problem." Well, and who doesn't screw up? No one's without sin.
But anyway, that didn't change the complexity of what was happening. Passing by windows, I looked again at the dead city. And grimaced again, seeing the familiar picture of flashes and air bubbles.
I need to hurry. After all, the city is on its last breath. Energy runs out—and it's all over. It won't matter who rules the flooded city.
That flash and air bubbles I saw upon awakening are clear confirmation. The city sacrifices the periphery to save the central parts. Which means a huge number of rooms on the lower floors and in the outer part of the city are now flooded with ocean water.
And that's not good.
Atlantis is not just a city, a ship, the flying capital of the Ancients in the Pegasus galaxy. But it's also a laboratory—a testing ground for the single combat of human ancestors' scientific inquiry and the laws of the universe. The city hides very dangerous secrets: nanovirus, a creature that feeds on energy, a device that accelerates evolution, a device that turns people into living bombs, and so on.
The expedition, even possessing skills in handling Ancient technology and knowing their language, managed to make such a mess that they couldn't clean it up even in five years of the mission.
I have neither. No language knowledge, no team of specialists. All by myself, all by myself... Only I doubt the city will like my "English with a dictionary."
There are two places I wanted to see first. And in my plan, visiting them comes right after discovering the Gate Room.
***
If you wish to unlock full volumes of my crafts and read far ahead of public releases, support the Archive on Patreon—currently there are 20+ chapters in advance:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan
For those who seek fellowship—discussion, news, or the company of other readers—our Discord waits as a gathering place for every voice:
Discord: https://discord.gg/vEY7zMQG4H